Moon Dreams
Moon Dreams
Patricia Rice
Book View Café Edition
February 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-459-8
Copyright © 1991 Patricia Rice
I apologize to the Maclean family for inventing their
family history. Like the Macleans of whom I write, the real Macleans were
Jacobites nearly annihilated in the Uprising, their lands and castle demolished
and taken from them. The sole heir eventually reclaimed and rebuilt the family
home just as in my story. I’m certain his history was every bit as romantic as
the one I have created. However, for the purposes of this story, all the
characters are fictional with the exception of well-known historical figures
such as Samuel Johnson.
Cornwall, Fall 1759
Alyson Hampton clung to the masculine hand holding hers as
she gazed over the choppy sea. Standing on the bluff, she let the wind off the
water blow her black cloud of hair over her shoulders. Her eyes reflected the
silver gleam of overcast skies.
A vague smile tugged at her lips under the familiar
admiration of the man watching her. The desire that had caught them both by
surprise a few months ago blossomed into a strong urge that was difficult to
fight.
Alyson loved the natural cowlick that normally cascaded
golden hair upon Alan’s noble brow. She wished he had not bothered with the
formality of his powdered wig today. She had not yet developed the temerity to
mention her distaste for his wig, however, so she merely smiled as he drew his
hand through her hair.
“You are so lovely, you shame the skies for not smiling upon
you,” he murmured.
Her lips parted at this nonsensical statement, and she
turned her attention back again to the choppy sea. Watching her long-legged
spaniel puppy dancing after some creature at the cliff’s edge, she abruptly frowned.
“Peabody! Heel!” She spoke sharply, urgently, so unlike her
usual tones that both man and beast stared in astonishment.
The puppy bounded happily toward her, and Alyson relaxed. Returning
to her normal absent-minded state, she scratched the dog’s head before allowing
Alan to lead her away from the windy bluff.
As they walked away, a cascade of pebbles fell from the
ridge where the puppy had been standing. The soggy mud slid after the falling
pebbles, and a moment later the tuft of grass where the dog had been
disappeared in a rumble of mud and stone to the sea below.
Alan caught his breath in shock. Alyson serenely picked a late
wildflower. He expelled his breath and grinned. “Is that an example of that
Scots second sight the servants claim you possess?”
Alyson glanced at him with surprise; then, noting his
mocking grin, she laughed. Picking up the skirts of her apron and gown, she
raced him down the hill to the sanctuary of a rolling valley where they were
hidden from all sight of the house.
Alan caught up with her in a few long strides, pulling her
into his arms as soon as the shadow of the hill hid them. His lips found hers,
and in a few brief seconds their laughter melted into whispered sighs.
***
Remembering that day with a happy flush, Alyson leaned
over the upstairs balustrade to scan the majestic hall below. Boughs of
evergreen and ropes of holly looped and spiraled down the polished wood of the
staircase and throughout the hall. Tantalizing smells wafted up from the
kitchen, and whispered conversations and giggles echoed from the far corners of
the house. Excitement raced through her as she noted the footman opening the door.
He was here! Heart pumping, she stepped back into the
shadows of the upper hall. She knew Alan’s formidable parents would precede
him, and they would not approve of her forwardness in racing to greet their
son.
She curled up on the backless sofa at the top of the stairs
and listened to the deep male voices carrying up to her. That one was Alan’s,
and she smiled as she imagined him swinging off his heavy greatcoat and handing
it to the footman. He would be wearing his formal wig, a short, dignified one
unlike his father’s old-fashioned full-bottomed one. He would have on his new
green frock coat with the buff cuffs turned back and held with gold buttons.
She couldn’t decide what vest he would wear, but it would look dashing against
the starched lace of his shirt and the gold chain of his watch. When she tried
to imagine the rest of his attire, her cheeks grew warm.
She was eighteen-years old and had never been out of
Cornwall in her life. Alan Tremaine was the only young gentleman of her
acquaintance. She had no business knowing about a man’s breeches and what was
under them, but she had heard enough from hushed conversations in the kitchen
to know there was some marvelous secret to it. She felt every confidence that
Alan would be the one to teach her all his secrets. Perhaps this very night he
would seek her out. It had been so long since she had seen him. She had never
known time could go so slowly until he went to London.
Her grandfather’s greeting rose from the drafty magnificence
of the hall, and Alyson leapt to her feet to find occupation in the
second-floor salon. The earl would be accompanying his guests up the stairs
shortly. He would not like to find her hovering in the dark like a common
maidservant.
Alyson knew Lady Tremaine considered her no better than the
earl’s bastard granddaughter, but Alyson shrugged off her foolishness. She was
aware her father had never married her mother in the church, but the romantic
tragedy of their lives overshadowed the whispered labels people applied behind
her back. In Scotland, formal vows weren’t necessary.
Besides that, her father’s father had married her mother’s
mother, and it seemed to her that made everything perfectly legitimate,
particularly since she had never known her parents. An only son, her father had
perished at sea, and her mother had died of consumption within a year of her
birth. Her grandparents were the only parents she had ever known.
Sadness crept into her heart as she watched her grandfather
enter the salon. Since her grandmother’s death two years ago, the earl had
grown old. He moved slowly, and the tired lines in his aristocratic face grew
deeper with each passing day. But he carried his tall, lanky frame proudly
erect, and his smile of pride upon seeing Alyson warmed her all the way to the
bone.
She rose and curtsied, blithely casting a laughing gaze to Alan
and ignoring Lady Tremaine’s frown. He looked harassed as his mother launched
into a monologue of the tribulations of their sojourn in the city, and his
father headed for the brandy decanter. Alyson drifted back to the settee and
dreamed of Alan’s kisses while she waited for him to find an excuse to leave
the room with her. Surely he must be as eager as she to renew their sweet
exchanges.
Accustomed to allowing the conversation to flow unheeded
around her, it took some time before Alyson grasped the subject under
discussion. She caught it then only because Alan suddenly looked guilty and
turned to pour a drink from the decanter for himself. Frowning, Alyson tried to
tune in to Lady Tremaine’s incessant chatter.
“It should be an excellent match. She has impeccable
breeding, and her dowry is every bit as significant as her older sister’s. They
seem well-suited. Alan scarcely left her side during the entire visit. They’ve
not decided on a wedding date yet. Of course, they’ll reside here most of the
year, where dear Alan will help his father in the management . . .”
Alyson didn’t hear the rest. A hammer seemed to be battering
at her heart, chipping it into little pieces. Surely she had not heard aright.
Her grandfather was always accusing her of not hearing one word in two, and he
was quite likely right. She had misheard Lady Tremaine’s lengthy monologue.
Alan could not be marrying another. His kisses had promised her.
With great dignity Alyson rose from the settee, murmured a
vague excuse, and drifted from the salon. She felt Lady Tremaine’s malicious
look, but she seldom took notice of the thoughts of small minds. Only Alan
mattered, and she held that thought close while she waited for him to follow
her. She had half-hoped it would be this night that he would pledge his vows to
her. That was the only Christmas gift she craved. He would come and make
everything right.
Skirts lifted by fashionable side hoops, she swept down the
darkened corridor lined with portraits of her English ancestors. She knew the
name and history of each one of them, but her portrait would never hang here.
Her illegitimacy barred her from the family tree. This had never truly bothered
her, but waiting for Alan raised the specters of all life’s uncertainties.
As long as Alan stood at her side, she had not cared that
she couldn’t be introduced to London society. She enjoyed the vast loneliness
of her grandfather’s Cornish estate. She kept her own company well, and
although she might wish for friends with whom to share secrets, she couldn’t
miss what she had never had.
She heard footsteps hurrying down the echoing stone
corridor. She stepped into the moonlight of an arched window, where he could
see her silhouette. She had known he would follow. Now he would explain, and
everything would be right again.
Alan’s arms slid around her waist, and Alyson raised her
mouth to the ecstasy of his kiss. Her heart beat against a cage of whalebone as
he pulled her close. Her hands rested against the smooth satin covering his
chest, and as his kisses drifted across her cheek and down her throat, she
sighed. Everything would be fine.
“Tell me about London,” she murmured, turning from his
embrace when his caresses became too bold. “Who is this heiress your mother has
found?”
“You need not worry about heiresses, my love. Lucinda
prefers London, whatever my mother might think. I’ll ensure the family name and
fortune by wedding her, but you’re the one I will come home to. It will work, I
promise you. Come, give me a kiss, and I will show you what I brought for you.”
She could see the outline of his neat bagwig in the
moonlight, but in his eyes she could see only shadows. Alan’s head descended to
find her lips, but Alyson twisted in his grasp. Perhaps she did not know a
great deal about the world, but the effects of marriage, or lack of it, she had
learned at a painfully early age.
“I don’t understand, Alan. I thought you loved me. How can
you wed another? Please explain,” she asked patiently, waiting for the
understanding that sometimes came so slowly to her. She knew she was not
stupid, but she had insufficient knowledge of people to always understand what
they tried to tell her behind their words.
Alan pressed a kiss to her hair and daringly slid his hand to
the curve of her breast. She inhaled sharply as he stroked the edge of her
bodice, and he smiled.
“You know I love you, little turtle. And I’ve made plans for
us. We’ll be together as often as we want. I’ll provide for you. You need never
worry about that. Did you think my love so shallow as to forget how you feel in
my arms, how your kisses torment my soul? Look, see what I’ve brought for you.”
He released her breast to reach into the deep pocket of his
coat to produce a small box, which he opened with a flick of his thumb. He held
it up to the moonbeam from the window, and the magnificent garnet winked
against the intricate gold of its setting.
Alyson stared at the lovely ring with incredulity. This was
what she had planned and dreamed and hoped, a sign for all the world to know
that he claimed her as his. The words of love and kisses were there too, just
as she had imagined them. So why, then, was everything so wrong? Perhaps she
still misunderstood. She scanned the handsome curve of his jaw.
“The ring is very lovely, Alan, but only a wife can accept
such extravagant gifts. Forgive me if I am too overwrought to understand. Did
you not say you were to wed this Lucinda?”