Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

Caro held her breath as the officer scanned the paper, his lips moving slightly as he read to himself. If what Jeremiah said was true, then the man must be satisfied and leave them alone.

But instead he tossed the paper scornfully onto the floor at his feet. “A Yankee forgery, and an amateurish one at that. Were I in Boston, I’ll wager I could buy another like it for half a crown. But I don’t even believe you are American. Sparhawk, that would be a Scottish name, wouldn’t it?”

Caro could see Jeremiah tense, how he consciously flexed his hands at his sides to keep them from making fists.

“In Cromwell’s time, it was English,” he said, his voice unnaturally calm, “but it’s American now, and has been since we tossed your kind off our shores twenty years ago.”

“He lies, sir,” spoke up one of the marines, his role obviously rehearsed. “The rascal’s from Greenock, sir. I knew his people there.”

The lieutenant smiled with triumph. “Then he shall do his duty in the maintop of the Narcissus, or be flogged for the lying, sneaking Scotsman he is. Seize him, before he makes off!”

But outnumbered though he was, the fury in Jeremiah’s green eyes kept the Englishmen at bay. “If you do not choose to believe me, then perhaps you’ll believe the word of Vice Admiral Lord John Herendon—your captain’s superior, aye? Herendon will vouch for me, for he is married to my sister.”

“A rogue like you married into Lord Jack’s family?” The lieutenant sneered, and now it was his men’s turn to laugh. “Next you’ll be telling me that this little strumpet is lady-in-waiting to the queen!”

The tension that had been building in Jeremiah suddenly exploded. He pulled Caro to his side and tipped the heavy oak table over with a clatter of pewter and breaking crockery, scattering the Englishmen on the far side of the makeshift barricade. With a grunt he lifted the bench and swung it like a club, knocking the first marine senseless to the floor. The second one had his rifle lifted clear from his hands, and while he stared openmouthed after it, Jeremiah struck his chest so hard that the man folded in two and fell gasping for breath on top of the other marine.

But then came the unmistakable snap of flintlocks being cocked. Jeremiah froze, staring at the lieutenant’s pistol aimed at his heart and two seamen’s rifles pointed at him, as well. Behind Jeremiah, Caro stared at the guns with her knuckles pressed to her mouth, sick with dread over what would, inevitably, come next. The hatred between the American and the Englishmen was palpable, and the only sound in the room came from the groaning marines on the floor.

“That will earn you an extra twenty lashes, you filthy liar,” said the lieutenant. “Now drop it.”

With an oath Jeremiah tossed the bench over the table and at once the English sailors were on him, shoving Caro aside as they roughly jerked Jeremiah’s arms behind his back to tie his wrists with tarred cords. They found and claimed his pistols and long knife, and a second blade hidden in the sleeve of his coat, and struck him with a cudgel when he tried again to protest. Blood trickled from his mouth and stained his shirtfront, and when they prodded him toward the door he stumbled, and they laughed again with a cruelty that tore at Caro’s heart.

She couldn’t let them do this to him. He deserved better from them, but even more from her. Three times this night alone Jeremiah Sparhawk had come unbidden to her defense, and though she didn’t have his experience or his strength, there had to be a way to save him now.

For Frederick’s sake, she told herself as she rushed after them. She was doing all of this for Frederick, not for Captain Sparhawk, and never for a moment for herself.

“Jeremiah, love!” she cried as she flung her arms around his neck. “They cannot take you like this, my darling husband!”

Confusion, then irritation, showed in Jeremiah’s eyes. “Hush, Caro, this is none of your affair. They won’t make any of this stick. I’ll be out and free tomorrow, and I don’t want you in the middle of it.”

“No, love, no!” she wailed, fervently kissing his cheek before she turned to the lieutenant, wringing her hands with despair that was only partially feigned. “Please, oh, please, kind, dear, just sir! We are newly wed, only this very night! Could you be so cruel as to rob a bride of her heart’s one true love on this day of all others?”

Behind her Jeremiah groaned. “For God’s sake, Caro—”

“No!” She clutched at the lieutenant’s sleeve, pleased that her histrionics had made him look so uncomfortable. The other men in the gang were hesitating, too, looking to him for reassurance, and around them the tavern’s patrons were muttering and grumbling among themselves. She had him, she thought triumphantly; he’d have to let Jeremiah go now.

But instead of agreeing, the officer shoved her away. “Where would his majesty look for his navy if every wife wished to bind her husband with her apron strings?” he said curtly as he motioned for the others to continue. “It’s your misfortune, not mine. My duty is to fill the company of the Narcissus, and I mean to do it no matter how many dubious brides weep at my feet.”

“No, wait!” She rushed back to Jeremiah, her arms flung across his chest to protect him. She wasn’t as certain as he that they’d set him free tomorrow. She’d heard too many stories from Frederick about the abuses of the navy’s pressgangs in Portsmouth, and it was all too easy for her to imagine Jeremiah shipped out on a British frigate, beyond her reach for years and years. They’d already mocked his nationality, his rank and his protection papers, and laughed at her new bride’s ploy, but there was one last, desperate gamble she still could try.

“You speak of your duty, and what his majesty expects,” she said breathlessly, “but not even the king himself would expect my husband to serve as a mariner after what he has suffered at the hands of the Turks!”

With Jeremiah’s hands pinioned behind his back, his coat was open over his shirtfront. Her hands trembling from her own audacity, Caro yanked his shirt clear of the waistband of his breeches and lifted the linen high over his bare chest. Gasps of horror filled the room as the light from the fire danced over the long, livid scar that sliced across Jeremiah’s body. It was worse than Caro remembered, far worse, but it was also testimony that no one would ever question.

“God’s shame on you if you take that poor lad!” called a woman near the back, and her cry was echoed over and over by the others. Caro let the shirt slip from her fingers, but left her hand resting lightly on Jeremiah’s chest. She could only guess what her dramatic gesture had cost him, and she prayed he’d understand.

The lieutenant stiffened with displeasure and defeat. He waved curtly to the others, who jerked the ties from Jeremiah’s wrists and tossed his guns and knives onto the table beside him. They pulled the two marines to their unsteady feet and, without another word among them, retreated out the door and into the street, followed by jeers and catcalls and a thrown heel of bread.

The tavern owner rushed over to Jeremiah. “God keep you, Cap’n, and whatever you wish tonight is my gift to you.” He winked broadly and cocked his thumb toward Caro. “‘Tis not every night a man outwits the press and gains a clever bride like this one, eh? Whatever you wish, Cap’n, but name your fancy and it’s yours.”

“Thank you, no.” His expression grim, Jeremiah stepped clear of Caro, leaving her to stand with her hand awkwardly in midair. She swallowed hard and tucked her hand beneath her other arm. He hadn’t understood what she’d done; he couldn’t make it any more apparent, not to her or anyone else in the room.

He shoved his shirttail back into his breeches and hooked the pistols back on his belt. “Though I appreciate your hospitality, sir, I must needs have a word with my wife in private.”

He grabbed Caro by the elbow and ushered her roughly out the door. She tried to pull free but he held her fast, half-dragging her across the courtyard and past a curious stable boy at the pump. To her surprise the sky was beginning to pale with dawn. Was it really only last evening that he’d come for her at George’s?

“You shouldn’t be angry with me,” she began, breathless at the pace he’d set. Her hat slipped from her head and though she grabbed for it he jerked her relentlessly onward, leaving the crumpled rose facedown in the dust. “If you’d only stop and consider—”

“Nay, ma’am, I shall not. Not here, not now. You’ve entertained the world enough tonight.”

He pulled her into the open door of the tavern’s small stable and back among the stalls. Beneath the single lantern the space was warm with the heat of the close-packed horses’ bodies, the air thick with their smell.

“At least these beasts won’t repeat what they hear or see, which is more than can be said of your last audience.” With a last little shake Jeremiah released Caro’s arm and she backed away, glaring at him as she rubbed her arm where he’d held it. “What the hell was all that about, anyway? Have you lost what few wits you possess?”

“I did what I judged best under the circumstances.” Around them the horses shifted and nickered uneasily, made restive by the unchecked emotions in the human voices. “And don’t you dare call me witless!”

“I’ll call you whatever I damned well please! Why did you decide I needed a wife?”

He took another step toward her, trapping her in the corner with his body. She could feel his anger like a force between them, a white-hot violence barely contained, and any other time she would have been terrified of him. But her own furious resentment blinded her, and she lifted her chin defensively.

“I thought being married would make the lieutenant pity us, and he’d let you go. I saw it once in a play, though of course the hero was a Scottish laird, and—”

“A play?” He stared at her, appalled that she would even admit such a thing. “All that ‘darling husband’ claptrap was from some damned play?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” she said stubbornly.

“Listen to me! They would have kept me at the press house for an hour or two at most, then let me go!”

“You trusted them too much! This is England, not America!”

“Oh, aye, my fine Lady Byfield, as if I’d forgotten! I don’t need you to tell me that. I don’t need you for anything!”

“Don’t you go making any of this my fault!” She felt tears smarting behind her eyes and she didn’t know why. “You’re not being fair. You were the one who forced your way into George’s house to rescue me. All I did was try to return the favor, and now you’re free.”

“I’ll never be free, you damned selfish bitch!” Tormented by a pain she couldn’t understand, he slammed his fist into the post beside her. “You claim fair play. You turned my private life into a penny curiosity. What of you, eh? What if I took you back in there before the others and told them all your shame, your sins? Would that be fair?”

“You wouldn’t dare.” She shook her head wildly. “You can’t!”

He tore the kerchief from her bodice, and with a frightened gasp she pressed her hands over her neckline, striving to cover herself with her spread fingers. Instead he caught her wrists and pinned them high over her head, mercilessly forcing her back against the rough planks of the stall. She was painfully aware of how she stood trapped between the rough stable wall and the equally unyielding barrier that was Jeremiah Sparhawk.

Yet her body sensed the difference between the two, her softness matching and melting against the lean, muscled planes of his, warm with the heat of his anger. It had been this way the one other time he’d held her in his arms, and she shivered with an anticipation she desperately wanted to suppress. Long, long ago her mother had told her of such feelings between men and women, and their inevitable result. No wonder Captain Sparhawk could taunt her about her sin and shame when her body betrayed her like this!

When he bent his head over hers, she knew he meant to kiss her, just as she knew too late how wrong she’d been to trust him. By trusting him she had made herself vulnerable. She squeezed her eyes shut, the last defense she had.

“I thought you were different,” she whispered rapidly, her voice barely containing her tears of fear and disappointment. “When I saw that scar and guessed what you had suffered, I thought you were the only man who could help me, the one who had fought Hamil Al-Almeer and survived. I believed you were strong and brave, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? I was wrong! You’re a coward, just like you fear. A coward!’

She felt him go still, his ragged breathing matching hers, the only sound between them. Though by infinitesimal degrees his grip on her wrists relaxed, she kept her eyes closed, both unsure of what he’d do next and unwilling to break the strange spell between them.

Gently his fingers caressed the narrow bones of her wrists, his thumbs sliding along the inside of her upstretched arms as he traced the pale blue veins that ran to her heart until, at last, he eased her arms down to her sides. Gently, so gently, he cradled her jaw in his hands, his breath warm on her forehead, and she felt the roughness of his beard on her skin as his lips feathered across the loose wisps of hair near her parting.

“A coward, you say,” he said so softly she nearly didn’t hear him. “Dear God, I never wanted to hurt you.”

Then his hands, his touch, were gone. Bereft, she opened her eyes and saw he’d retreated across the stable, his back against the slatted boards of a stall as he crouched down in the straw, his arms folded tightly over his bent knees and his chin resting on his arms. The light from the lantern hanging overhead was harsh, sparing him nothing. His jaw was bruised from press-gang’s beating, already swollen and mottled, and in his eyes was the same empty, haunted look Caro remembered from that first night.

The nightmare, she thought miserably. Something that she’d said or done had brought it back.

“I didn’t mean that about you being a coward,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You believed it when you spoke, and God knows it’s the truth.” He sighed and rubbed his fingers into his eyes. “So let me guess. Hamil has your precious Frederick prisoner, and you wish me to go fetch him home. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Only to Naples, to his mother,” said Caro eagerly. “She is the one who has heard through the Neapolitan court—they maintain diplomatic relations with the Pasha of Tripoli for their trade, you see—that Frederick still lives, and that Hamil would consider a ransom for him and your friend Mr. Kerr, too. I thought that because you’d fought Hamil before you’d like the chance to meet him again. Not as a friend, of course, but as men do, you know—oh, dear, that’s not coming out at all how I intended!”

“You mean would I like another crack at killing him the way he nearly did me? A bit of bloodthirsty revenge amongst the savages, with a nice little errand delivering dear Frederick’s ransom on the side? Is that what ‘men do’?”

Caro winced. “That makes it sound vastly foolish, doesn’t it?”

“Men are vastly foolish, sweetheart, though I’ve never had reason to judge women much better.” He plucked a piece of straw from the floor and twirled it absently between his fingers. “So to make all this work, you must rely on the promise of a heathen pirate, the good will of an old woman who despises you, and the vengeful wrath of a coward you scarcely know?”

“I told you I don’t truly believe you’re a coward!”

“Ah, but Caro, I do.” He tossed the straw away and slowly stood. “You’ve chosen the wrong man to be your hero.”

She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t a choice. There were no others. You were all I had.”

“Damnation.” He didn’t want to do it, and he’d be ten times a fool to agree. He didn’t trust the old countess in Naples or George Stanhope here in England, the Pasha of Tripoli or Hamil Al-Ameer; any of them could play Caro false in a minute. And God in Heaven, what he himself could do to her hopes without even trying, a pitiful battered Yankee who was afraid of the dark!

Yet there was Davy, and maybe others. To turn his back on them would be to admit far worse of himself than cowardice alone.

And then there was Caro herself, waiting for his decision there by the post like some poor felon in the dock. An exhausted, bedraggled countess in secondhand clothes who’d tried to do her best to save him just as he’d saved her. A beguiling, unpredictable creature who mixed world-weary airs with unstudied innocence. A luscious, desirable woman who melted in his arms and tempted him with lips redder, plumper, sweeter than summer berries on the vine.

A woman who expected him to risk his life for the husband she loved.

Damnation, indeed.

Chapter Seven

“You’ve gone too far this time, Jeremiah,” declared Desire furiously, “too far by half!”

“Oh, hush, Des, ‘tis not so bad,” scoffed Jeremiah, standing beneath the rack of polished pans and kettles in the grand kitchen of his sister’s house. He sipped coffee from the cup the scullery maid had brought him with a curtsy and a giggle, and enjoyed the fuss as the staff pretended to go about their preparations for tea, their collective ears straining to hear what their mistress and her brother said. “Considering some of the scrapes you’ve gotten yourself into over the years, I’d say that drinking coffee stands pretty far down the list of offenses.”

“That’s not what I mean, as you know perfectly well!” She glared at him as she rapped her knuckles impatiently on the tabletop. “You’ve no business coming skulking back here, not now, not after what you’ve done!”

He smiled innocently. “Here? In the kitchen?”

“I’m in no mood for you now, Jeremiah Sparhawk! I’ve seven captain’s wives in my drawing room for tea, all in a fluster over this highwayman loose on the Portsmouth roads. One of them even brought me the handbill that’s been posted since the villain was last seen so close to my home.” She glared at him, her green eyes a match for his own, and lowered her voice against the eavesdropping. “A sight closer to my home than any of them realize. For all love, Jere, they have you down to the buckles on your shoes!”

Jeremiah laughed, remembering how George Stanhope had trembled and squeaked while he was being robbed. Amazing he’d recalled enough to tell the magistrate.

“This is serious, you great oaf!” whispered Desire urgently. “They’ve put a price on your head!”

Jeremiah’s laughter vanished. “They’ve put a bounty on me because I took a worn-out purse with a handful of guineas and tossed it in the poor box?”

“You can forget being Robin Hood, at least as far as George Stanhope’s concerned, and he has friends enough to make it stick. No English gentleman wants to be at the mercy of some roving brigand, and they’ll hang you for certain if they catch you.”

He set the cup down on the table, his pleasure in its contents abruptly gone. “But they don’t know this thief’s name, do they? They won’t come looking for me here without it.”

“I can’t protect you in this, Jere,” she said wearily as she rubbed her back with both hands. “With a new war coming, the whole countryside’s suspicious of foreigners, even Americans like us. The only thing worse would be if we were French.”

“Amen to that,” he said gruffly. This whole conversation made him uncomfortable. All their lives, he’d been the older brother watching over her. Now Desire seemed somehow to be chiding him for irresponsible behavior, and with every right, too.

“French or American, you’re the man that’s described on that handbill. Anyone who knows you would recognize you at once. You’re not exactly the kind of man who can lose himself in a crowd.”

She glanced around the kitchen and sighed. “For all I know there’s someone on my own staff who’ll put those hundred pounds before their loyalty and turn you in. They might be doing it even now.”

“I’m sorry, Des, as sorry as can be.” He’d been wrong to underestimate Stanhope; the man was more clever—or just plain mean—than Jeremiah had given him credit for. The last thing he wanted was to put his sister and her children at risk, and by simply being here in the house he was doing just that. “Who’d have thought it would come to this?”

“I tried to warn you, Jere, but you’ve always been too stubborn to listen to anyone, even when your own neck’s at risk.” Her initial anger gone, she brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. “And now there’s this other rumor that Captain Richardson’s wife is busy whispering upstairs, that the wicked highwayman has stolen some poor lady from her bed! How their hearts are racing over that one!”

Jeremiah drew in his breath, wishing he’d something else to offer than the truth. “It’s not a rumor, sister mine. Not exactly.”

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Oh, Jere, you didn’t! Not after you’d promised me you’d stay clear of that woman’s business!”

“Oh, my lady, please don’t blame him!” cried Caro, rushing forward, unable any longer to keep on the far side of the cupboard where Jeremiah had told her to wait. “It’s all my fault, every bit of it!”

“Lady Byfield,” said Desire faintly. “I must admit I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Jeremiah groaned, wishing Caro had been able to contain herself until he’d had time to prepare his sister. Desire didn’t need shocks like this, not this near to her time, and from the way she was staring at Caro, her cheeks flushed and her eyes a little too wide, she’d definitely been surprised. He slipped his arm around Desire’s waist, startled by how readily she leaned into him for support. “Come along, Des, let’s find someplace where you can put your feet up.”

“I’m not an invalid, Jere,” she said with halfhearted rebellion. “But a bit of privacy would not be amiss. I don’t think Mrs. Curlew would object to us using her parlor, there, to the right. Lady Byfield, you come. too. You’re already so thick in the middle of my brother’s affairs that I’d scarcely want to leave you out now.”

Caro bowed her head contritely, her humility increased by the woebegone bonnet. Jeremiah tried to catch her eye over Desire’s head and couldn’t, not with her head ducked so low. He remembered how she’d been scorned by other “ladies,” and he feared she was assuming the same with his sister. He’d put an end to that as soon as he could; Caro was every bit as good as her so-called betters, and he was too much a New England democrat to believe otherwise.

Yet in the housekeeper’s small, cluttered parlor, Caro refused to take the chair that Jeremiah offered, preferring instead to stand by the wall near the canary’s cage as she watched Desire try to make herself comfortable in an old-fashioned wing chair. Though obviously in the last month of pregnancy, far beyond the time most ladies retreated from the world, she was still dressed with quiet elegance in a dark red kerseymere pelisse over a white muslin gown, and the resemblance between her and Jeremiah was striking. Nor was there any mistaking the bond between brother and sister as Jeremiah tucked another pillow into the chair behind his sister’s back, a bond that Caro noted with both wistfulness and growing dread.

She had met Lady John Herendon once before, at a ball in honor of some naval victory or another, and had been struck not only by her beauty, but by the knowledge and confidence with which the American woman could speak as easily of politics and ships with the gentlemen as the other women spoke among themselves of their modistes. There was no other woman in the county—perhaps even in all the country—quite like her.

But Lady John had warned her brother against Caro, had referred to her as “that woman” in a manner that was all too familiar to Caro. Not that Caro could fault her. How could she, if Lady John loved her brother as much as it seemed?