Deanna Raybourn - Silent on the Moor

“Brisbane!” I darted forward. “You are hurt.”

He shied, stepping aside sharply. I did not touch him. “It is not mine.” His voice was hoarse and strange, and for the space of a heartbeat he seemed utterly unknown to me, a stranger in a familiar person. We were inches apart, yet we did not touch, did not speak for a long moment. He was struggling to say something, or perhaps not to say it. His lips parted, but he held his silence. He snapped his mouth closed again, grinding his teeth hard against each other. Unlike the Brisbane of old, whose emotions had been so carefully in check, this man’s face wore a thousand of them, warring with each other until I could not tell if he wished to kiss me or throttle me.

“Will you not bid me welcome?” I asked quietly, lightly, forcing a smile. I put out my hand.

He looked down at it, then at my face, and I saw that the mask had settled into place again. The emotions I had seen, or thought I had seen, were mastered once more.

“Welcome,” he said coolly, shaking my hand as a stranger might, barely touching my fingertips. “I hope you enjoy your stay at Grimsgrave.”

He nodded formally at Portia and Valerius, but said nothing. He brushed past me, stalking toward the staircase. He did not ascend. There was a door underneath it I had not seen in the dim light. He slammed it behind him as he left me standing in the hall, unwanted as a discarded toy.

I smoothed my skirts and turned to follow Portia, averting my eyes from Valerius’. They had heard, of course, as had Miss Allenby. Our hostess did not look at me as we moved into the kitchen, but I knew from the pained expression of her lovely features she pitied me, and in spite of her elegant manner and her beauty, I decided then, quite deliberately, to dislike her.

Two women placed together makes cold weather .

—William Shakespeare

Henry VIII

To her credit, Miss Allenby said nothing and schooled her expression to serenity by the time we were seated round the fire. She helped Mrs. Butters in cutting and buttering bread and pouring tea, never hurrying, never moving with anything less than perfect composure. It was oddly soothing to watch her, every gesture carefully chosen. I could not imagine her untidy or rushed. And thinking of Miss Allenby prevented me from thinking of Brisbane. My thoughts were so disordered I could not even manage polite conversation. I signed to Portia behind Miss Allenby’s back, and nibbled at my lip.

“You must forgive my confusion, Miss Allenby,” Portia said with forced politeness. “I thought there were no more Allenbys at Grimsgrave.”

Miss Allenby smiled serenely. “The Allenbys built Grimsgrave. We have lived on this land since the days of the Saxon kings. Now, only my mother and sister and I are left. And Cousin Godwin, although he is not of the family proper.”

A thousand questions tumbled in my mind, and doubtless Portia’s as well, but she kept her queries courteous.

“Ah, a mother, too?” Portia remarked. “And a sister? When will we have the pleasure of making their acquaintance?”

Miss Allenby laid the slices of bread and butter onto a thick brown plate and placed it on the table. There was no cloth, only smooth, scrubbed wood. “My sister, Hilda, is not yet returned from a walk on the moor.”

Portia blinked at her. “She must be a very singular sort of person to walk the moors at night.”

Miss Allenby’s smile deepened. “We were reared on Grimsgrave Moor. It holds few terrors for us, even in darkness. She is often wakeful, my sister. Walking helps to order her thoughts.”

A slight shadow passed over the lovely features, and she hurried to leave off the subject of her sister. “My mother is upstairs, abed with a rheumatism. She will be sorry to have missed your arrival, but we did not expect guests. I am afraid Mr. Brisbane did not mention you.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. It worked—almost. “I am quite certain my mother will be better tomorrow. Perhaps you will meet her then.” I heard the hesitation in her voice, and I knew precisely what it meant. She had her doubts whether Portia and I would even last the night under a roof where we were so clearly unwelcome. This last thorn-prick was too much.

I rose and yanked at the strings of my cloak, jerked off my hat and tossed them both at Morag. “See to these.”

“But your tea, Lady Julia,” Miss Allenby began.

“Tea would be very nice, Miss Allenby, but I have a bit of unfinished business to which I must attend first. Do excuse me.”

Valerius rose as if to remonstrate with me, but I gave him a silencing look. He lapsed back into his chair and shrugged. His role had been to offer his sisters protection during the journey. What we did once we arrived in Yorkshire was our affair, and he knew he was powerless to interfere.

I made my way to the door Brisbane had used and knocked soundly, not even pausing to gather my courage. There was no reply, and after a moment, I tried the knob, rather surprised to find that it turned easily in my hand. I had half-expected a barricade.

I pushed through and found myself in a large chamber, crowded with indistinct shapes. The light was poor, and it took a moment for me to realise everything in the room was covered in dustsheets. Packed nearly to the ceiling, the shapes left only a narrow path leading to a door in the wall opposite. This door was slightly ajar, flickering light spilling over the threshold. I threaded my way through the dustsheets, careful to disturb nothing. I hesitated at the door, then pushed it open. I had not troubled to disguise my footsteps; he would have known I was coming.

The door gave onto a smaller room furnished simply with a bed, a small writing table, and a single chair. A second table, tucked into a corner, had been carefully draped with a piece of linen to cover something, but I did not stop then to wonder what. A little fire burned in the hearth, scarcely large enough to drive the chill from the room.

Brisbane was busy at a basin set upon the deep windowsill. He had stripped off his blood-streaked shirt and was naked to the waist, scrubbing at his hands and forearms until the water went quite red. I had first seen him partially undraped in a boxing match on Hampstead Heath. The effect was still rather striking, and I cleared my throat.

“I am glad you are not hurt,” I said, motioning to the impressive breadth of his chest. He was muscular as any statue I had seen in my travels in Italy, and yet there was a sleekness to his flesh that no cold marble could hope to match. Black hair spread from his collarbones to his hips, and I put my hands behind my back lest I be tempted to touch it. High on one shoulder there was a round scar, still fresh, from a bullet he had taken quite deliberately to save another. A different man might have worn the scar as a badge of honour. To Brisbane it was simply a mark of his travels, a souvenir of his buccaneer ways.

He reached for a thin linen towel and wiped at his face. “I might have known it would take more than a closed door to keep you out.”

“Yes, you might have.” I closed the door behind me and moved to the chair. I did not sit, but the back of it was sturdy and gave me something solid to hold.

I waved at him. “Do carry on. Nothing I have not seen before,” I said brightly.

“Do not remind me,” he returned with a touch of asperity. “My conduct toward you has been ungentlemanly in every possible respect,” he added, turning away.

I blinked rapidly. “Surely you do not reproach yourself? Brisbane, whatever has happened between us has been as much my doing as yours.”

“Has it?” he asked, curling his thin upper lip. He moved to the travelling trunk that sat at the foot of his narrow bed. He threw back the lid and reached for a clean shirt. It was a mark of his fastidious ways that he knew precisely where to find one.