JoAnn Wendt Read online

  She uttered a little cry, pressing her face to the thudding pulse that throbbed in his strong, warm neck.

  “Please, Garth, don’t. It’s madness! Don’t torture me by saying such things. If I went with you, the duke would find out. He’d have you killed! Oh, I love you too much to put you in danger.”

  “Nonsense,” he began, then stiffened as a noise came from the adjoining section of greenhouse. A clay pot crashed to the ground. Flavia jumped in fear.

  “A cat,” Garth suggested, his hands tightening on her shoulders. “But you must go. You’ll be missed, and,” he added reluctantly, “the Baroness Vachon will miss me.”

  He swept her to the door and wrenched the door open.

  “Come to me tomorrow. On the Caroline.”

  Flavia trembled.

  “No,” she said, and then, as his hand touched her face, “yes, oh, yes!”

  She moved to go, but he caught her hand.

  “That night on the quay. Have you. . . done such things often?” His voice was tight, tortured.

  She shook her head.

  “Never before. Never since.”

  His sigh was one of deep relief.

  “Then why that night, Flavia?”

  She glanced into the darkness. Rain was beginning to spit down. The ballroom music was muted now, as though windows had been shut. What could she say? She couldn’t tell him he had a son. He was the sort of man who would move heaven and earth to claim what was his. He would confront the duke, and what would the duke do to the baby? And to her? She shuddered away the answer and floundered for a gentle lie to tell him, a sweet lie, the sweetest lie she could think of.

  “I—I—was starved for love.”

  She reached out, touching his face.

  “And Garth... that night, I—I found it.”

  * * * *

  With a last look at his puzzled brooding face, she flew into the night and back to the mansion. Shaking with emotion, she found a maid to help rub the grass stains from her gown and repair the wisps of hair that had loosened during Garth’s kisses.

  She struggled to slow her banging heart, to regain her poise. With great difficulty, she strove to pull on a mask of cool serenity. She was hostess. She must resume her duties.

  Torn in half by the equally powerful tugs of ecstasy and dread, she went out to dance with her guests. As she danced, conversing politely, her heart shouted. He loves me! I love him! Oh, God, what should I do?

  Uncle Simon was the only guest who sensed her agitation. He drew her aside, linking her arm under his as he strolled from the noisy ballroom toward the cloakroom.

  When they were free of the throng of guests, Uncle Simon said, “You’ve done an unwise thing tonight, Flavia.”

  Her knees went to water. Garth. The garden.

  He went on, “You have publicly questioned the duke’s right to raise his son as he wishes. That was dangerous. His Grace is extremely angry with you, Flavia.”

  She gulped air in relief. So it was not about Garth.

  “But my baby—I—I shall apologize to His Grace.”

  “See that you do, child. I fear the duke’s temper. A streak of madness. . .” Uncle Simon’s voice trailed off into a wheezing cough.

  At the cloakroom he sent one footman for his landau, another for the cloak. Tiredly, he shrugged into the cloak, turned and kissed Flavia on the cheek. He’d taken no wine, and his breath smelled of illness. As Flavia helped him to the door, the duke’s steward strode in, bowed to Flavia and thrust a package at Uncle Simon.

  “Mr. Beauchamp. His Grace would be pleased if you would take these papers to the Board of Trade immediately and file them. In the usual manner.”

  Flavia’s breath caught in outrage.

  “It is the middle of the night! My uncle isn’t fit to—”

  “Your Grace!” Uncle Simon checked her, then slowly reached for her hand, bowed over it and kissed it. “Your Grace, I shan’t detain you. You have your duties; I have mine.”

  She breathed in tight, jerky spasms as she watched Uncle Simon go. When his landau had clattered off, she remembered the steward. The man was a sycophant. He would rush to tell the duke about her outburst unless she somehow apologized. She turned to do so. But except for footmen, the entry hall was empty. The steward had gone.

  When the ball ended and she could at last escape to her apartment and undress, she fell into bed, emotionally exhausted. She drifted toward sleep even as she fought against it.

  That the duke did not come in, that he’d omitted the marital visit he’d requested, scarcely made a ripple in her mind.

  * * * *

  She awoke to bright sunshine and a tap on the door. One of the duke’s newly hired German maids came in bearing Flavia’s usual morning cup of chocolate. Bleary-eyed, Flavia reached for the cup. It flashed robin’s egg blue in the sunshine, its gold rim glinting, its contents steaming chocolatey and rich. She brought the cup to her lips.

  Ten minutes after she’d drunk it, she knew the chocolate had been drugged. A hundred hammers pounded her skull. Her heart was a clock gone mad—now racing, now refusing to tick. She tried to lunge out of bed, but the bedpost danced away and she fell into a chasm. From the bottom of the chasm she could see the pink and gold walls of her bedchamber begin to tumble. Faster and faster they spun, until a door in one wall opened and the duke’s steward tumbled toward her. Flavia blinked. The steward splintered and now there were six of him tumbling closer, ever closer.

  “Help me,” she whispered.

  But even as she begged, she knew it was too late. Everything was slipping away. She felt someone pick her up and drop her onto the bed. Then the bed dropped away and was falling. She fell with it. Fell into oblivion.

  Chapter 4

  Garth NcNeil was blind drunk. He’d been drunk for a month. Drunk ever since the duchess of Tewksbury had taken sick and died the morning after the Tewksbury ball.

  Lying in a nest of stinking bedding, he groaned. He cursed the consciousness that stirred in him as sunlight filtered through the space in the broken window slat. He rolled from its stabbing light. He fumbled in the sour sheets for his bottle. He found it. With shaking hands, he guided it to dry, crusted lips.

  Empty!

  He launched a torrent of invectives at the offending bottle. He cursed it thoroughly, as though it were the embodiment of the pox that had taken Flavia so suddenly. Drunkenly, he snaked his way to the edge of the bedstead and drummed the bottle against the floorboards, signaling the innkeeper below.

  He needed rum. Much more rum. Consciousness was not to be borne. Pain... too much pain... memories that slashed like scimitars.

  His risky visit to Tewksbury Hall, where he’d waited for news in the crowded receiving chamber, along with other solicitous callers, the chilling verdict of smallpox, the violent banging of his heart when he arrived to find servants draping doors and mirrors with black bunting, his stunned disbelief and then the crashing despair, his inevitable acceptance of her death when Flavia’s own nurse nervously recounted to him Flavia’s last moments.

  “It was my sad duty, sir, to accompany Her Grace to the gates of her Reward. I myself closed Her Grace’s lifeless eyes and placed the pennyweights upon them... I myself closed her eyes . . .”

  God Almighty! No more of it!

  With a bellow of inner torment, McNeil clutched the bottle and savaged the floor with it. The bottle shattered. Splinters of glass shot into his hand. He didn’t feel it. He scarcely noticed the blood. He slumped to the bed. Numb. Exhausted. Around the bed, the water-stained walls revolved like a Dutch windmill. His leaden eyes closed.

  The door creaked open. McNeil did not trouble himself to flicker an eyelid.

  “Uncork it and bring it here,” he snarled. “Be quick.”

  There was a light step, the brisk rustle of a gown. A bottle was slapped into his demanding palm with more force than was necessary. McNeil grasped his salvation. Greedily, he sucked in the amber fire. The acrid, memory-expunging smell of rum
filled his lungs. Then, mixed with the rum aroma, came the scent of perfume. McNeil stiffened. It was not the familiar stench of the innkeeper’s wife, who divided her time between serving up and tending her flock of randy-smelling goats.

  McNeil wrenched his eyes open. Red silk and a tumble of glossy black hair jarred into focus. He shut his eyes in disgust.

  “Get the hell out of here, Annette.”

  Unperturbed, the baroness sat upon the bed, setting the bed to rocking, and McNeil knew— knew beyond doubt—that for the first time in his life he was going to be seasick. Totally, ingloriously seasick.

  He lunged for the edge of the bed, racing the rising gorge. He began to retch. With her neat little kid slipper, the baroness toed a slop jar in the general direction of his misery. As he emptied himself, she watched without a murmur of pity. When he was done, she got up, fished a towel from the room’s debris, wet it in the cracked, slow-leaking pitcher on the washstand and dropped it into his waiting hand.

  “Devil take you, Annette,” he muttered by way of thanks.

  She laughed her soft throaty laugh.

  “You’re welcome, McNeil.”

  She sat down heavily upon the bed. Again the bed rocked like a cradle. McNeil swore, gritting his teeth against the threatening gorge. He retrieved the bottle, which was two-thirds spilled, its rum soaking into the straw mattress. He drank. The rum burned its way down, a snake of acid. He choked, swallowed, choked, until the painkiller had done its work.

  The baroness watched without comment. Garth glowered at her. Then, sickened at the cloying taste of rum, he flung the bottle at the wall. It hit with a crash. For a moment, a sunburst of amber appeared on the gray plaster. Then its rays dripped downward into ordinary stain.

  The baroness was unflappable. She continued to study him with her dark, good-humored eyes.

  “Go away!” he roared.

  She shook her head.

  “You stink, McNeil,” she offered cheerfully, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ‘Tell me, McNeil, do you intend to stay drunk forever? Or only until the Caroline is impounded and you are arrested for thievery?”

  McNeil opened one eye. What the hell was the bed-craving bitch blathering about? The Caroline in jeopardy? Stiffly, he raised up on one elbow. A seedy alarm coursed through him. The Caroline was his responsibility. The crew depended upon him.

  Finding she had captured his attention, the baroness did not mince words. In her forthright way, she stated the case bluntly.

  “The duke of Tewksbury has obtained papers for your arrest. On the night of the ball, you stole two of his priceless jade carvings. Even now, the magistrate and his men are thrashing about the waterfront, searching for you.”

  McNeil was stunned. He sat up, instantly sober.

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “I know. But the carvings were found aboard the Caroline. In your cabin. In the desk containing your private captain’s log.”

  McNeil couldn’t take it in. He staggered to his feet. Dizzy as a landlubber on high seas, he braced himself against the bedpost.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  For response, Annette went to the door, flung it wide and beckoned into the hallway. A young man with scared eyes and a wig that didn’t fit edged into the room sideways, as though ready to bolt.

  “Who the devil?” McNeil growled.

  The young man ducked his head, swallowed, opened his mouth to speak. Annette cut him off.

  “Footman to the duke of Tewksbury,” she said. “It was he who planted the jades in your cabin. A clever choice of emissary by the duke, was it not? If the boy succeeds, fine. If he is caught and tells his story, who will believe it? The duke merely accuses the lad of stealing and trying to escape to the colonies. The lad is thrown into Newgate to rot.”

  McNeil’s head spun.

  The young man fell to his knees. “Please, sir, I be fearful scared. I’ve runned from my post. Footmen what does favors for His Grace’s steward, them footmen has a way of disappearin’. Please, sir, take me to the New World?”

  Garth scowled, scarcely hearing the boy’s plea. He tried to think, tried to make his pickled brain work. For some reason the duke wanted all eyes on the Caroline. Why? His meeting with sweet Flavia could not have been the reason. Their few moments in the garden had been chaste and short, a lifetime too short.

  As he stood thinking, Annette dismissed the boy, sending him to the Caroline. Garth shook his head to clear it.

  “McNeil, wake up!” Annette scolded. “There is not a moment to waste. The duke is sparing no effort to have the Caroline impounded. Thus far, he’s not been successful.”

  She swept through the room, muttering after his boots. When she found the boots, she hurled them at him.

  “Get dressed. I have ordered the baron’s steward to do everything possible to delay impoundment. But it won’t last forever. Your first mate, Mr. Jenkins, has obtained clearance from the harbor master. The Caroline sails on tonight’s tide, before Tewksbury can do further mischief—”

  She broke off, breathless. Garth drove a foot into a boot, listing a little as he lost his balance. Damn! He was captain of a ship first, a man in mourning second. The Caroline was his responsibility. He would see her safely to Virginia. He owed that much to his stockholders. After that, he could drown himself in rum, drink himself into the very oblivion that held Flavia.

  As he wrenched open the door, the baroness flung herself against it. Twisting under his arm, she placed her hands upon his chest in warning.

  “McNeil, you shan’t leave on your own two feet. It would mean instant capture.”

  Stupidly, thinking slowly because of the alcohol, he stared down at her urgent face. Her eyes were startled starlings.

  “Then how?”

  She petted his grizzled cheek, touching it gingerly as one touches an animal that both charms and frightens.

  “You shall be carried aboard in a wardrobe trunk belonging to the Baroness Annette Vachon.”

  “What!”

  “The Baroness Vachon sails to America to inspect her husband’s land holdings. She travels with a dozen large trunks. No one—magistrate or harbor master—would have the audacity to search those trunks.”

  He stared at her. For the first time in many weeks, a thin smile strained over his lips. He was baffled. Amazed. To think this cheerful titled wench had courage enough, brains enough, to arrange such a deception.

  She sensed his thoughts and bridled.

  “Jackanapes! There is more to me than tail and tit. As you would know if you took the trouble to find out.”

  She pushed past him in a huff, and McNeil found himself swaying like a stripling tree in a hurricane. To steady himself, he reached for her arm. Coordination failed him. He ended up with a handful of silk skirt. He was surprised when she did him the kindness of not pulling away.

  “Annette,” he said softly. “You place yourself in danger for my sake. Why?”

  She colored slightly. For a moment, her brassy confidence wavered. She shrugged the moment away and eyed him boldly.

  “Because you amuse me, McNeil,” she said crisply. “Were you thrown into Newgate Prison, darling, I should be deprived of my amusement, should I not?”

  Her retort hung in the air, brittle as ice in January, and as much a lie. McNeil did not know what to say. But even in his rum fog, he knew he would despise himself if he deceived this gallant woman.

  “I don’t love you,” he said bluntly.

  In a snappish gesture, she jerked her skirt from his hand. “‘Love’!” she said scornfully. “Every woman knows she must choose between love and amusement. I find amusement the wiser investment.” She granted him a dazzling smile. “It is far less costly, is it not?”

  He grinned. A weary, soul-wracked grin. So, she understood. Knew the limits of their relationship and would not complain when more was not forthcoming. He found building in him the urge to fondle her chin, as one fondles a dear relative. He did so, and earned her ire for it.
r />   “Damnation, McNeil!” she said, slapping away his hand. “I may be old enough to be your mother, but may I roast in hell if I let you treat me like it. Now, come. Pay attention. Let us tend to the details of your departure.”

  A quarter of an hour later, the baroness threw a gray cloak over her silks and swished to the door.

  “Oh,” she called back in her artless way, “I near forgot to tell you. The queerest happenstance, McNeil. That dull little duchess of Tewksbury? She’s died of the smallpox. Had you heard?”

  McNeil sucked wind. His head roared. Something violent smashed about in his ribcage. She’s dead, McNeil. Accept it. The kindest thing you can do for Flavia is to pretend you never knew her.

  He took a deep breath.

  “No,” he said with deadly calm. “I hadn’t heard.”

  Chapter 5

  “Try ‘nuther sip, dearie. There, that’s a luv.”

  Flavia’s throat was as parched as a desert. She desperately craved the water that someone seemed to be holding to her cracked lips. But she couldn’t swallow. The water trickled down her chin.

  “Don’t be wastin’ it, luv. Little’s enough yer ration on a ship.”

  The cup was offered again. Flavia struggled to swallow. She was disoriented. Her head was spinning. Every bone and muscle in her body ached. Her eyelids were leaden. Try as she might, she couldn’t force her eyes open.

  There was the roaring sound that never ceased, and she felt bruised, as though her bed were flinging her from bedpost to bedpost.

  Where am I? Oh, my throat! Why does it burn like fire? And my bed—why does it buck and pitch so? If I could have something hot to drink—send the maid—

  “Please,” she croaked in an unused voice, “I want my tea.”

  A cackle of laughter hit her full in the face along with a gust of breath well laced with garlic.

  “Her wants tea!” the garlic voice crowed. Flavia flinched as the laughter cackled forth again. This time, there was an answering echo of snickers and jibes.

  Flavia tried to open her eyes. They were gummy, stuck. As though she’d slept weeks.