Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife

Chapter Six

Josh had barely climbed over the side of the Massachusetts sloop before he began firing questions at her captain.

“You’re bound north from the sugar islands, aren’t you?” he asked, his urgency turning a simple question into a demand. “What port, sir? Have you spoke any other vessels on your journey?”

“Stay a minute, Cap’n Sparhawk,” said Captain Harris irritably. “You’re racin’ onward like the devil himself’s licking at your coattails.”

“He may well be.” Impatiently Josh touched the guard of the cutlass at his waist. He wasn’t accustomed to its weight there any more than he was to the unfamiliar bulkiness of the pistols beneath his coat, but his father had insisted that he take no chances. “I’m searching for a lady who’s in great peril, Captain. Some bastard stole her bold as brass from her parents’ house minutes before she was to wed, and I’ve reason to believe she was taken south, to one of the French islands.”

“A stolen bride!” Harris whistled low under his breath, and the crew members around him strained their ears to hear more. “Sounds like the very stuff of ballads and plays, don’t it?”

“Damn it, Harris, this isn’t some bloody drinking song!” It was frustration that made his temper so short, and Josh knew from the surprise on the other man’s face that he’d spoken too sharply. The same thing had happened with the other three northbound ships he’d stopped and boarded when their captains had told him they’d seen no sign of either an English lady or a Frenchman.

But Josh couldn’t help it. In the days since Jerusa had disappeared and before he’d sailed from Newport in the Tiger, there’d been no clue, no word from whoever had her, beyond that first tantalizing scrap of paper with the black fleur de lis.

Yet worst of all was how ready people—the same people who’d been his family’s friends and associates for years—had been to believe Carberry’s accusations instead of the truth. The man’s battered face had brought him sympathy, not scorn, and while Josh didn’t regret thrashing Carberry as he’d deserved, he would admit now that it wasn’t the wisest thing he could have done.

If Josh had begun this journey determined only to rescue his sister, because of Carberry he now was forced to save his family’s honor, as well. No one believed that Jerusa had been kidnapped. She had always been too pretty, too sought after, too envied for the gossips to leave her reputation alone once she had vanished. There were whispers of her running off with a wealthy young man from Boston, and a second tale involving a besotted, married shipmaster from Virginia. Whichever version, Jerusa had always left willingly, with her family’s knowledge and consent. After all, this was New England, not Scotland in the time of Queen Bess, and abducting ladies from their weddings simply did not happen here.

But then, unlike Joshua, none of the gossips had seen his mother weeping in the doorway to his sister’s empty bedchamber, or heard how his father’s voice broke when he prayed for Jerusa’s safe return during grace before supper. Nor had any of them stared out at the endless sea the way that he had, tormented by the dread that his sister, his twin, the other half of himself, was forever beyond his reach.

Yet he would know if Jerusa had come to harm. Somehow he would sense it deep inside the soul they’d once shared. Somehow.

“The Caribbean is a mighty big place, Cap’n Sparhawk,” Harris was saying, scratching the back of his neck beneath his queue, “and there’s a world of fine young women scattered about the islands there. How, then, would I know your kidnapped lady if I came upon her?”

“You’ll know her,” said Josh, his smile grim. “She’s my sister, and she’s my twin.”

Chapter Seven

“I’m sorry, Mr. Géricault,” called Jerusa, drawing her mare to a halt, “but I’m afraid we shall have to stop for today.”

Frowning, Michel wheeled his gelding about. If he hadn’t taken pity on her near the stream, she never would have dared to make this request now.

“That’s for me to decide, Miss Sparhawk, not you,” he said curtly, “and I say we still have farther to go before we stop.”

“I’m not the one who’s asking.” Jerusa sighed, not missing the inflection he’d put on her name. She should never have allowed herself to be so shamelessly weak before him, weeping until he’d felt forced to comfort her. But what had been worse was that his arms around her had seemed so right, full of solace and understanding, as if he himself weren’t the source of the same sorrow that he wished to ease. “It’s my mare. She’s pulling as if she’s turning lame.”

Before he could order her to ride on anyway, Jerusa slid from the saddle to the ground, her legs stiff and clumsy from the long ride. Thankful that her face was turned from Michel’s critical eye, she winced and held tightly to the saddle for support as the blood rushed and tingled once again through her legs. She had always enjoyed riding before, but after the past three days she hoped she’d never see a saddle again.

Murmuring, she stroked the animal’s velvety nose to reassure her before she reached down to lift the mare’s right foreleg. “Though I can’t see properly without a light, I think she must have picked up a stone.”

“I’d no idea you were so familiar with stable-yard affairs, ma chère,” said Michel dryly, watching her obvious ease with the horse. Unexpected though it was, the fact that she was sensitive to the animal’s needs secretly pleased him, her small, elegant hands moving so gently along the mare’s fetlock to her hoof. “And here I’ve been tending the beasts all by myself.”

“As children, if we wished to ride, Father insisted we look after the horses, too.” Carefully she lowered the horse’s hoof and stood upright, flipping her braid back over her shoulder as she looked at Michel over her saddle. He still hadn’t dismounted, but then, he hadn’t ordered her back on the mare, either. “Though Father’s a sailor at heart, he does have an eye for a good Narraganset pacer, and the stable at Crescent Hill’s generally full. When Josh and I were young, you know, he and I always had matching ponies.”

“Pretty, privileged children on their ponies!” exclaimed Michel with withering sarcasm. It wasn’t just the matching ponies themselves, but how they represented an entire blissful childhood that he’d never known. He’d first gone to sea with a drunken privateer when he was eight, and learned to kill to save himself before he’d turned ten. “How charming the effect must have been! That would, of course, have been during the summers you spent at Crescent Hill?”

Reluctantly she nodded, disconcerted again by how much he seemed to know of her family’s life. “You don’t exactly ride like a farmer boy tossed on the back of his father’s plow horse, either,” she said defensively. “You sit like a gentleman.”

“I do many things like a gentleman, my dear Jerusa, but that doesn’t mean I am one.” He swung down from his horse, holding the reins in his hand as he walked toward her. “Is she really lame, then?”

“Nothing that a few hours’ rest likely won’t cure.”

Michel swore under his breath. Why couldn’t the mare have lasted one more night? Though the horizon was just beginning to gray with the light of false dawn, he had counted on riding at least for another hour. By his reckoning, they had one more night of traveling before they finally reached Seabrook and, God willing, Gilles Rochet and his sloop.

Unaware of his thoughts, Jerusa waved her hand in the direction they’d come. “I thought I saw a house there to the north when—”

“No, chérie, no houses,” he said curtly. “I, for one, have no wish to repeat our performance with the Faulks.”

Self-consciously she looked at the toes of her shoes. It wasn’t what had happened at the Faulks’ that she wished to avoid again, but what had followed. “I don’t think that would be a problem, Mr. Géricault. The house I meant looked to be a ruin. Against the sky the chimney looked broken-down, and part of the roof gone. From the hurricane two years ago, maybe, or a fire, I don’t know. But at least there’d still be a well, and maybe an orchard or garden.”

“Is that so.” Michel leaned his elbow across the sidesaddle, watching her. She’d just said more to him in the last two minutes than in the last two days, and though he rather enjoyed the change, it still put him on his guard. “Then tell me, ma chérie, exactly how you plan to try to leave me from this delightful ruin of a cottage?”

“Leave you?” Jerusa repeated, her face growing warm at the accusation, which, this time, was unfounded. She wished they could return to talking about the horse instead.

“Yes, yes, leave.” He sighed deeply, in a way that made her think again of what it had been like to rest her cheek against his chest. “I hadn’t expected you to give up just yet, you know.”

“Then you have more faith in me than I do myself. I have neither food nor water nor money, I’m in a place I don’t know, where no one knows me, and my horse is lame. You might not have bound me with chains or cords, Mr. Géricault, but what you’ve done has been thorough enough.”

His smile faded as he listened. Though the bitterness was still in her voice, something else had subtly altered between them. He couldn’t tell exactly what, not yet, but the change was unmistakable.

“No more of this ‘Mr. Géricault,’ ma chère,” he said softly as he stepped around the mare’s head to come stand before Jerusa. “Call me Michel. Please.”

She twisted her reins in her fingers, shaking her head. The distance she earned by using that “Mr.” was small and fragile, but with him she felt she needed every last bit, and she was almost painfully aware of the dark, inexplicable currents of emotion swirling between them now.

She forced herself to look away and to watch instead how her mare had begun to graze, tugging at the long wild grass that grew alongside the path. They had stopped near an old stone wall that was overgrown with a tangled mass of honeysuckle, and the sweet, heady fragrance of the white-and-yellow blossoms filled the air like perfume.

Michel clucked, and the mare’s ears pricked up as she eyed him quizzically. In spite of herself, Jerusa smiled and let her gaze follow the mare’s to the Frenchman. He stood with his hat in his hand, the pose of a careless supplicant, his hair pale gold in the fading moonlight and his blue eyes almost black, a half smile playing about his lips that was meant to be shared. With a start, she realized she’d never smell honeysuckle again without thinking of Michel Géricault. Would he, she wondered, say the same of her?

Whatever are you thinking of, Jerusa Sparhawk? This man is your kidnapper, your enemy! He deserves no place at all in your thoughts, let alone in your heart! The minute you can you’ll escape and leave him as far behind as possible. Remember that, Jerusa, and forget these silly musings about honeysuckle and blue eyes!

“Come,” she said, all too aware of how strained her voice sounded as she gathered the mare’s reins to lead her. “We can’t dawdle in the road forever.”

But Michel didn’t move from her way. “Perhaps, ma chère,” he began softly, his accent seductively more marked. “Perhaps you don’t run away because you don’t wish to.”

From the way her eyes grew round, Michel knew he’d put into words what she’d secretly feared. A lucky guess. But then, so much of what had happened with her was lucky, at least for him, and he didn’t mean just how easy their journey had been, either. She was blushing now, her face so rosy her discomfiture showed even in the moonlight. Somehow he’d never expected the belle of Newport to blush at all, but he was glad she did, and gladder still that he was the reason.

“Of course I wish to return to Newport,” she said, struggling to sound as if she meant every word. “I want to go back to my poor parents, my home, my—”

“To your marriage to a faithless, fashionable popinjay?”

She frowned, toying with the reins. “Tom will be fine once I speak to him and explain everything.”

“‘Fine’?” Michel raised one mocking, skeptical brow. “That is what you wish in your husband? That he be fine?”

“Well, he will,” said Jerusa defensively. “Tom’s the man I love and the one I intend to marry. Oh, stop looking at me like that! It’s simply not something you would understand!”

“True enough, ma belle. All I can do is keep you safe.”

She glanced at him sharply, unsure of what he really meant, but he’d already turned away, leading his horse back in the direction they’d come, and leaving her no choice but to follow.

Michel was being possessive, that was all, just like any good gaoler would be with his prisoner. What else could he have meant by keeping her safe? Yet still her mind fussed and worked over the doubt he’d planted. The only thing Tom would ever fight to keep safe would be the front of his shirt, and then the enemy would be no more formidable than a glass of red wine. He certainly didn’t seem eager to come to her rescue, and that hurt more than she’d ever admit to the Frenchman. But that was what she’d always wanted, wasn’t it? A gentleman of wit and ideas, not some rough man of action?

Wasn’t it?

Michel, too, had seen the abandoned house earlier from the road. As they drew closer, picking their way through the overgrown path, the burned, blackened timbers that remained of the roof and the broken chimney became more clearly outlined against the pale dawn. The gelding snapped a branch beneath its hoof and a flock of swallows rose up through the open roof, their frightened chatter and drumming wings piercing through the early morning.

He glanced over his shoulder at Jerusa, so close on his heels that they nearly collided. Considering what he’d said to her about Carberry, he’d half expected her not to follow at all. Though it would have been a nuisance to track her down again, he was glad for other, less appropriate reasons that she’d decided to come with him.

“No doubt now that it was a fire that drove them out,” he said, stating the obvious. Though from the growth of plants and vines around the house, he guessed the fire must have taken place years ago. There was still a desultory pile of half-burned chairs and benches in the yard, and clearly no one had since returned to repair or rebuild. Unless, he thought grimly, no one had survived. “Are you sure you want to stay here?”

Jerusa sniffed self-consciously and smoothed her hair, still more disconcerted by the way she’d almost walked right into his back than the burned-out house before her. “Why shouldn’t I? We’ve come this far, haven’t we? If you don’t want anyone seeing us, what better place could there be than this?”

“I meant, ma belle, were you willing to share your sweet company with whoever might have lived here before?”

“You mean ghosts?” She stared at him, searching his face to decide if he was teasing or trying to frighten her, and couldn’t decide either way. She’d never met a man whose thoughts were harder to read. “You’re asking if I’m afraid of ghosts?”

He shrugged, all the answer he’d give. He’d said too much already. But the ruined house still made him uneasy, the way any place destroyed by fire always did.

How many times had Maman taken him to see the empty shell of his father’s house, the tall chimneys and pillars now snaked with vines, the charred walls crumbling and the windows blind as unseeing eyes? She had meant the visits to inspire him, to show him how grandly his father—and she, too, briefly—had lived. Twenty years, and still she could recite the contents of every room like a litany, the paintings and silver and gilded furniture with satin coverings. She said his father had been a grand gentilhomme, a Parisian by birth, a man of the world with the fortune to support his elegant tastes. Even the ruin of his house showed that.