Читать книгу: «Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch», страница 3

“Jeremiah, wait.” Jack’s expression was troubled as he, too, rose to his feet, the heavy damask napkin in his fist. “She didn’t ask you, did she?”

“To come to call? Nay, she didn’t, not in so many words, but I’d think her tossing her diamonds at me was invitation enough.”

“Not that, Jeremiah. She means to ask you about Hamil Al-Ameer.”

Jeremiah stopped, frozen with his hands gripping the back of his chair. She meant to ask him about Hamil. Hamil Al-Ameer: the man who’d robbed him of his ship, his crew, his friends. The heathen bastard who’d destroyed his peace, made him a shaking coward, kicked him bleeding from his own deck to die in the black waters of the night.

Blindly he stared past Jack and his sister, struggling to find something, anything, to make himself forget. Outside the window, Johnny and Charlotte were playing with a small, fat dog with pointed ears that jumped into the air for the ball they tossed. Desperately Jeremiah tried to focus on them: the two laughing children dressed in white, the green lawn still glittering with dew, the fat little dog jumping and twisting again and again for the red ball, innocence and sunshine and laughter.

But not for him. God help him, never again for him.

Chapter Three

Blackstone House, home to the last six earls of Byfield, was much as Jeremiah expected. Larger than his sister’s house, surrounded by far more land, Blackstone House was an elegant jumble of architectural fashions, from the oldest, sprawling wing of Elizabethan brick to the front facade of pale green limestone, a model of Palladian order, and arches with Doric pilasters that rose the full three stories high to the roof.

But nary a black stone in sight, thought Jeremiah wryly as he walked his horse down the long gravel drive. He didn’t like these ancient, overgrown English houses, reeking of endless capital and family histories so much older than his own country. As Desire explained it, Lord Byfield was only a middling sort of nobleman, yet his home was more grand than any to be found in New England, and Jeremiah thought of what a fool he’d been to babble on to Caro about his grandfather’s plantation house on Aquidneck Island. Crescent Hill would fit into the stables of Blackstone House and not be missed, but at least Caro Byfield would never have to know that. No, once he returned her jewelry, she wouldn’t learn another word about him.

As he climbed from his horse, a groom came running to take the reins, and slowly Jeremiah began up the long flight of steps to the door. He took his time, telling himself he wouldn’t wish to be winded before the countess, but reluctance slowed his steps far more than any exertion. If the diamonds hadn’t been so valuable, he could have sent them back with a messenger and been done with it, and with her.

His jaw tightened as he remembered what Jack had told him. Why would any lady want to speak of Hamil? Damn her, he wouldn’t talk of what he’d been through for her cheap amusement! Jack and Desire had pieced together the barest details from what the men who’d rescued him had said and from his own delirious ravings, but he’d refused to tell them anything more. Even if he could, what was the use of it? Better to forget. It was done, finished, and all the yammering in the world wouldn’t bring back the men who’d been slaughtered. Men who would still be alive if he hadn’t been so—

“Good day, sir.” The eight-paneled door swung open and a butler nearly as tall as Jeremiah himself gravely met his eye. “Your name, sir?”

“Captain Sparhawk, but it doesn’t signify since I’m not staying.” Still on the step, he held out the small flannel bag—Desire’s contribution—that held Caro’s jewelry. “Give this to your mistress, and be quick about it. Go on, man, take it, don’t keep her waiting!”

“Why Captain Sparhawk, how splendid to see you again so soon!” Caro poked her head around the butler’s arm, crowding him in the doorway. “Do show him in, Weldon. He’s quite an agreeable man, for all he’s glowering fit to burst at present.”

Stiffly Weldon stepped aside, bowing his powdered head as slightly as he could.

But Jeremiah chose not to enter. “Thank you, ma’am, but no,” he said as he handed her the little bag. “I’ve only come to return your property, and that done, I’ll wish you good day.”

“Oh, fah, don’t be so pompous!” Impulsively Caro seized him by the sleeve and tugged. “Why else did you dress yourself so handsomely if you didn’t mean to call on me?”

“I cannot, ma’am.” Jeremiah tried to disentangle his arm while she laughed and clung to him and Weldon’s disapproval grew more and more apparent. The devil take the woman for making him feel like such a fool! “My sister expects me to return shortly.”

“I’ll vow a man like you has never answered to a woman in his life, let alone his sister,” said Caro, her tone shrewd as she released his arm. She smiled gleefully. “But then I should remember that myself, shouldn’t I?”

“Aye, ma’am, perhaps you should.” Jeremiah tried to look stern. Here in the morning sun he could see she wore no paint nor powder on her face, and little gold freckles that matched her lashes were scattered beguilingly across the bridge of her nose. Her cropped hair was simply dressed with a white ribbon across the brow, and only a narrow band of white work decorated the hem of her muslin dress.

She drew herself straight, folding her hands neatly before her as she carefully composed her expression. To Jeremiah’s surprise, she succeeded, for though nothing else had changed she suddenly looked every inch an imperious, aristocratic countess. Frederick, wherever he was, would be proud.

“If you would be so kind as to favor me with your company, Captain,” she said, her smile now no more than the merest genteel curve, “I would be quite honored. For a moment, that is all I beg of you. Only long enough so that I might thank you properly for your—your services last night.”

The butler sniffed, and inwardly Jeremiah groaned, guessing too well what services the man was imagining. At least if they went indoors they’d be free from Weldon. “Very well, then. But mind, not long.”

Jeremiah followed her down a long hall with a marble floor like a checkerboard. Lining the hallway on either side were life-size statues raised up on half-column pedestals. Some of the statues were men, some women, and all were mostly naked, and worldly though he considered himself, Jeremiah’s pace slowed as he passed beneath the line of sightless marble eyes. He’d been in his twenties before he’d seen a statue like these, in an expensive Jamaican fancy house, and he and his mates had marveled over the ancient goddess’s marble breasts and bottom for days afterward. What must it be like, especially for a lady, to live with such things every day?

As if she read his thoughts, Caro turned to face him, running her fingers lightly along the knee of young man with a kind of shawl draped over one shoulder and not a stitch more.

“He looks rather bashful, don’t you think? Almost shy,” she said. “Not very good for a warrior, which is what Frederick says he’s supposed to be. I never remember his true name, something ancient and foreign, so I call him Bartholomew instead. Bart’s one of my favorites.”

Jeremiah made a noncommittal sound between a grunt and a cough. “He doesn’t look like any Bart I’ve ever known.”

“Ah well, he’ll always be Bart to me.” She patted the statue’s muscular thigh with a fond familiarity that unsettled Jeremiah. She glanced up at him archly. “But then, of course, you’d prefer the ladies. Gentlemen do.”

She laughed merrily as she walked away from him. At the end of the hallway was a tall arched window, and the sunlight filtered through the sheer muslin of her gown, silhouetting the curves of her body as plainly as the statues that flanked her. Jeremiah swallowed, unable to draw his eyes away though he knew he must. For her to be ignorant of how much the sunlight revealed was bad enough, but what if she knew the effect, what if she’d planned it to entice him?

“Ma’am.” He looked down, away from her and away from the statues, and was surprised to see his hands clenched in tight fists at his sides. “Ma’am, I told you before I didn’t have much time.”

“Then it’s just as well we’re here,” she said as she reached the end of the hallway and threw open the double doors to the right. “This is the Yellow Room. My sitting room. Not even Frederick can enter without knocking. He calls it my—oh, what was it?—my ‘sanctuary.”

He would have known this place was hers even if she’d said nothing. Unlike the chilly formality of the rest of the house, this room was warm with color and cheerfully cluttered. The paneled walls were white with gilded trim, each centered with a painting of overblown roses spilling from baskets. More flowers formed the design of the soft wool carpet underfoot, and real ones—daffodils, hyacinths, Dutch tulips that filled the air with their scent—in Chinese porcelain vases clustered along the mantelpiece and table-tops among figurines of commedia dell’arte characters and sly-faced cats. The hangings and upholstery were all of yellow silk damask, and piled in the chairs and sofa were plump down-filled cushions with gold tassels.

Caro dropped into one of these, propped her feet up on a gilded stool as she carelessly tossed the bag with her bracelets and earrings onto the table beside her. She waved her hand airily for him to sit in the chair opposite hers. As if, thought Jeremiah, they were the oldest of friends; as if he hadn’t come here intending never to see her again.

“I really must thank you for saving me last night, Captain Sparhawk. Not that George would have done me any genuine harm, but your arrival was quite fortuitous. And, oh my, to see how he squirmed before you as a highwayman!” She clapped her hands with the fingers spread so only the palms touched. “I trust you won’t return his purse and ring to him, too. He’d only squander it on gaming, and besides, if he learned to do without then he might stop badgering me for more.”

Still standing, Jeremiah frowned, not liking the sound of a man who badgered a woman for money. “I dropped them both in the poor box at the seamen’s chapel in Portsmouth.”

“How perfect! Most likely it’s the first time he’s ever given a farthing to anyone other than his tailor.” She tugged on one of the ringlets held back by the ribbon, twisting the hair around her finger, and though she smiled, it seemed to Jeremiah that some of her merriment had slipped away. “You were very good to come to my rescue, especially since you’d just sent me on my way for trespassing. You were quite right, of course. I’d no business being there in your room that way without any reason, good or bad.”

He didn’t answer at first, and beneath the weight of his silence her cheeks slowly flushed. “You had a reason,” he said, wishing she’d told him the truth. “At least that’s what Jack told me.”

“I thought he might.” She pulled a daffodil from the vase beside her, pretending to study it to avoid meeting Jeremiah’s gaze. “He’s been so good to me through this, you know, always telling me whatever he could from the admiralty, but even he can’t perform miracles.”

She looked at him wistfully, her eyes bright with tears. “I thought you might be like that, too, for no other reason than that I wished it so. More likely you judge me as great a fool as the rest of the world, but I won’t believe that Frederick’s truly gone. I can’t believe it. That’s why I couldn’t let you kiss me, you see. You’re a very nice man, and a handsome one, too, but I love Frederick, and he’s my husband. If I’d kissed you, that would be as much as admitting that he wasn’t coming back. And God help me, I can’t do that.”

Jeremiah watched her unconsciously tear apart the flower in her hands, her thoughts turned inward to the husband she’d lost. Once again he was faced by the power of love, a locked room that he’d never enter. Widow or not, Caro was one woman who wouldn’t need the kind of consolation he could offer.

With a sigh he headed toward the door, pausing by her chair to lay his hand briefly on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Caro,” he said gently. “Sorry for everything.”

She bowed her head, staring down at the torn yellow petals scattered across her lap, and he walked past her to the door.

“Your friend David Kerr is still alive,” she said softly, so softly he almost didn’t hear her as his hand turned the latch.

But he’d heard enough to disbelieve it. “What did you say?”

“I said that David Kerr is still alive.”

“How the hell would you know about Davy?” In two steps he was back before her chair. Roughly he seized her by the shoulders, his fingers crumpling the fragile muslin as he dragged her unwillingly to her feet. “David Kerr is dead, along with all the others. I saw their bodies with my own eyes, their blood black on the deck at my feet. Can you do better than that, Countess? Can you? Because by God, if you’re trifling with me—”

“I wouldn’t trifle with you. Not about this or anything else. Believe what I say. Your friend Mr. Kerr is alive, and I know where he is.”

Jeremiah’s fingers tightened into her shoulders as he clung to her as desperately as he was clinging to this last, insane hope she was offering him. “Then tell me where. Tell me now.”

Caro lifted her chin defiantly, trying to hide her fear. It wasn’t him that she was afraid of, despite his size and strength and the anger and pain she saw in his eyes. No: what she feared was that she’d once again lose the courage to say what she must, or worse yet, to speak but choose the wrong words. This American was her last hope of saving Frederick’s life. There wouldn’t be another.

She swallowed hard, searching for the right plea, the perfect bargain, that would make him help her. And dear Lord, all she’d done so far was make him so angry he probably wouldn’t hear a word she said.

“I’m waiting, ma’am,” he said, and she heard in his voice the same velvety threat he’d used last night with George. “And I don’t like waiting for anyone.”

“You won’t force it from me,” she whispered hoarsely. She was too aware of how close he stood to her, of the warmth of his hands as they covered her shoulders, of how his mouth had felt on hers last night. Jack Herendon had told her of his brother-in-law’s temper, but why hadn’t he warned her of the raw power of his physical presence, the animal power that made her pulse quicken and her limbs turn to butter when he touched her? “If that’s your intention, it won’t work.”

Instantly he released her, swearing to himself in frustration. “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to hurt you. Now tell me.”

She shook her head and backed away, rubbing one shoulder where he’d held her before she self-consciously began to smooth the crease from her sleeve instead. “I won’t tell you a word about your friend until you tell me everything you can about Hamil Al-Ameer.”

There, she’d done it, and there’d be no taking back the words now. She’d expected him to rail more at her before he answered, even call her names, the way Jack had warned her. But she wasn’t prepared for what she saw now.

“Hamil,” he said, his voice as hollow as his eyes. He seemed to age before her, his broad shoulders bowing down beneath the weight of his grief and pain. “What would a fine lady like you want to know about a thieving bastard like him?”

She remembered how he’d been last night when he’d jerked awake from the nightmare, the wild, haunted look that had followed the anguished cry of pain and terror. What could have happened to reduce a man like Jeremiah Sparhawk to that?

“Pray forgive me, Captain,” she began, “for I didn’t mean to upset—”

He drew himself up sharply. “No pity, ma’am. I’d rather be scorned than pitied.”

“I don’t intend to do either. I wouldn’t ask you of this man Hamil if my reasons weren’t most urgent.”

“Then you’ll understand if I prefer to keep my past to myself,” he said wearily. He wasn’t angry anymore, just tired. “David Kerr is dead, and so is every other man who served with me on the Chanticleer. I don’t know what Herendon told you, but I won’t dishonor the memories of Davy and the rest by speaking their names in the same breath as that heathen bastard Hamil.”

“You would rather retain your stubborn sense of honor and propriety than hear in return what I have to say of Mr. Kerr?”

He sighed. “Honor or no, ma’am, I’m not in the habit of making bargains with ladies. Good day, Lady Byfield.”

“No, wait, I beg you!” she cried, rushing after him. “This isn’t a bargain that I ask of you, only an exchange of information, a way we might help each other!”

Though her desperation was unmistakable, he refused to be swayed. “If you’re like every other woman on this earth, you’d merely tell me what you believed I wished to hear, whether it was true or not.”

“No!” Frantically she rushed back to the little table beside her chair, yanking the drawer in it out so forcefully that the vase of yellow flowers toppled over. She pawed through the papers until she found the one she sought, then held it up to read, her fingers trembling and her voice shaking.

‘’ ‘Kerr, David, mariner, first mate, surviving of the brig Chanticleer, of the city of Providence of Rhode Island in the United American States. Of medium height, not above five and one-half feet, in age thirty-seven years, fair complected with brown hair, both ears pierced for the wearing of rings. Marked by a crooked left arm, broke long ago and ill-set, a star-shaped powder burn on the upper right back shoulder—”

“Let me see that!” Jeremiah lunged to tear the paper from her hands but she darted clear.

“You didn’t believe me, did you?” she said breathlessly, dancing just beyond his reach. “You wouldn’t trust me because I’m only a silly, ignorant woman, because I couldn’t possibly feel the same loyalty as a man for those I love!”

His green eyes were as wild as a madman’s as he shoved a chair aside to try to reach her. “What the devil is it, anyway? God help you if you lie!”

“The messengers of the Pasha of Tripoli do not lie, Captain Sparhawk, not when there is ransom to be earned from prisoners!” she cried, bunching her skirts in her fist as she ran from him. “From Naples this comes, from King Ferdinand’s own secretary, but I won’t read another word unless—”

She hadn’t heard the knock at the door, and turned with a hiss when Weldon entered the room himself. She froze beneath the butler’s scrutiny, as did Jeremiah, both panting and flushed amid the overturned furniture. The only other sound was the slow drip of water from the upset vase onto the carpet.

Weldon’s expression remained unperturbed. “My lady needs assistance?”

Caro pressed her palm to her forehead. “No, Weldon, I do not, nor do I appreciate your entering this room unannounced!”

“My apologies, my lady, but I did knock. I did not realize you were engaged.” He looked pointedly at Jeremiah. “But Mr. Stanhope has arrived, and demands a word with you at once.”

“Damn Mr. Stanhope! Tell him I’ve no wish to see him, that I’m not at home, or better yet, tell him to go—to go straight to Hades!”

Weldon nodded. “Very well, my lady.”

“Oh, Weldon, stop being so provokingly literal! Of course I’ll come and speak with him, but only as far as the door. I won’t have the wretched man in my house, acting like it’s already his.”

“Nay, ma’am, you’ll do no such thing,” ordered Jeremiah. “I won’t have you running off like a frightened chicken until we’ve settled this between us!”

“I’m not running, Captain, you can be sure of that, not until you reconsider your own position.” Her face still flushed, she glared at him, folded into quarters the paper she’d read from and shoved it down the front of her gown. “You wait here. I shall return directly.”

As the door shut behind her and the butler, Jeremiah struggled to control his frustration, and failed. Over went another chair, followed by the needlepoint-covered footstool he heaved across the room. Damn the woman! Either she did have news, real news, of Davy, or else she was the most convincing liar he’d ever met. He thought of how she’d toyed with him, teasing him along with stolen kisses and contrived robberies and statues of naked women, when here she’d been keeping a secret he’d kill to have. Davy alive, Davy a prisoner. Sweet Jesus, could it really be true?

With an oath he jerked the drawer from the table where she’d taken the first paper and dumped the contents onto the sofa. Receipts from dressmakers, half-finished letters dated months ago, a sheet of music to a love ballad. He scanned them all and found nothing more from Naples.

Double damn the woman! Jeremiah sank heavily into an armchair, his head in his hands. He’d known David Kerr since they’d been boys, one of only a handful of men he’d call friend. They’d sailed together, sought whores together, fought together. He’d stood up with Davy when his friend had wed Sarah Wright, and he was godfather to their oldest boy. Of course he intended to call on all the widows and orphans left by his crew as soon as he returned to Providence, a grim, heartbreaking responsibility for a captain, but telling Sarah would have been the hardest of all. And now, perhaps, he wouldn’t have to do it. But what did Caro Moncrief expect from him in return, and what did it have to do with Hamil?

The ormolu clock on the mantel chimed three times. Jeremiah sighed impatiently. The countess had been gone nearly an hour, far longer than she’d indicated. He rose and walked to the window, pushing back the heavy curtains with two fingers as he looked toward the driveway.

Before a hired carriage parked at the base of the steps stood Caro and a man. Though Jeremiah was too far away to hear them, it was obvious they were arguing, Caro waving her hands in short, angry motions to emphasize her words. Abruptly the man turned to speak to the driver on the box, and Jeremiah recognized him as George from the night before, the man he’d guessed was the countess’ lover. So much, thought Jeremiah cynically, for all her careful pledges of devotion to her husband.

As Jeremiah watched, Caro twitched her skirts away from George and, with her head high and the last word, began up the stairs. But before she’d taken three steps, George had thrown his arm around her neck, and pressed a handkerchief over her mouth. She fought against him, tearing at his hands as he dragged her down the steps to the carriage, until her struggles became weaker and by the time George lifted her into the carriage she was limp and still in his arms.

Though he knew he’d be too late, Jeremiah raced from the room and down the hall, reaching the front door in time to see the carriage disappear behind the first stand of beeches on the way to the road.

“Lady Byfield regrets that she will no longer be able to continue your interview,” said Weldon behind him. “She has been unexpectedly called away.”

Jeremiah swung round to face the butler. “Damn your impudence! Where are your eyes? She wasn’t called away, she was kidnapped! That man drugged her and hauled her off without so much as a by-your-leave!”

“Mr. Stanhope is his lordship’s nephew and heir,” said Weldon with infuriating calm. “I do not believe he would wish her ladyship any harm.”

“That bastard’s the old earl’s heir?” How neatly the pieces now fell together! No wonder George Stanhope wanted her money, and no wonder, too, that she didn’t want to give it to him. Besides, he was relieved she had better taste in men than to choose such a sorry specimen, and mentally he apologized for doubting her loyalty to her husband.

“Yes, sir. That is, he is not a bastard, but the son of my lord’s sister Lady Stanhope.” Weldon let a gleam of smug contempt flicker briefly in his eyes, and Jeremiah remembered how the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute had become a countess. Trust a servant—an English servant—never to forget the scandalous details. “Mr. Stanhope is a fine gentleman. It will be an honor to serve him in time.”

“No time soon, if I have anything to say about it.” Jeremiah stared out into the direction the carriage had gone, already making plans. They wouldn’t get far before he found them, for though Stanhope was impulsive, he wasn’t particularly clever. He’d find them and rescue her, for Davy’s sake, as well as her own.

“And Weldon.”

“Yes, sir?”

“As the lady said, Weldon, you go to Hades, too.”