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

Sadly Jerusa wondered why she was the only one who had any faith in Tom Carberry. Like the Faulks before her, this girl echoed Michel’s sentiments regarding Tom, sharing suspicions that, unhappily, Jerusa had been driven to consider herself.

“But what of the poor lady’s family?” she persisted. “Surely you’ve heard news of them? Handbills, or a reward offered for her safekeeping?”

“Nary a word nor a scrap, ma’am,” declared the girl soundly. “Pretty as it may be, Mrs. Geary, I fear I warrant your tale false.”

Heartsick, Jerusa wondered what she’d done to make her family abandon her like this. She thought again of the father who’d loved her so well, and of her brothers, Jon, Nick and Josh. Especially Josh. Sweet Almighty, surely Josh wouldn’t have given up on her like this?

Unless Michel had sent some sort of message to them, full of lies to make them doubt. Maybe he’d told them she was already dead and beyond their help. Could he be planning to avenge his father’s death by taking her life, lulling her into an ill-founded sense of trust and dependence until he decided the perfect moment to kill her? The pistol from the saddlebag that she’d held in her hand might be the very one he meant to use on her.

“If there’s no other way to oblige you, Mrs. Geary, I must be back downstairs to me mother,” said the girl with another stiff little curtsy. “Call for me, now, ma’am, if there’s aught I can fetch for you.”

“Wait!”

The girl turned, her brows raised at Jerusa’s urgency. “Ma’am?”

“Another word, I beg of you, before you leave.” Jerusa worked to control the shaking of her voice. “Did Mr. Geary say anything else of me to you or your mother?”

The girl studied her curiously. “Nay, ma’am, naught beyond what I’ve told you already. That you were to wait to take your supper for him, and that you were to have whatever else you wished brought to you. Like the bath, ma’am.”

“Nothing more?”

“Nay, ma’am, but what would he say to us? Sure the man loves you dear and wishes you happy in all things. You’ve but to see his eyes when he watches you to know that.”

Jerusa bit back her retort. It was hardly the girl’s fault if she’d swallowed Michel’s lies. Hadn’t she been taken in by them herself?

Abruptly she stood. “I believe I shall take a short walk before my husband returns.”

“But, ma’am, you’ve hardly touched your tea!”

“I’ll take it later.” She had no money and no sense of where to go in the little town, but the idea of remaining in the room alone, waiting for Michel, was now intolerable. “If Mr. Geary should return before I do, you may tell him I shall see him at supper.”

Still fearing that the Cartwrights might stop her at Michel’s orders, she hurried past the serving girl and down the stairs, her skirts fluttering around her. The door to the yard was propped open, and as she rushed through it, nearly running, she felt the same wild exhilaration that she had when she’d escaped from Michel that first day, from the barn. But this time would be different, for this time she would succeed.

She walked swiftly down the street, pausing at the corner to get her bearings. Though Seabrook was new to her, the plan of its streets was similar to every other New England town that had grown around a harbor, with every street either parallel or perpendicular to the waterfront. Toward the east she’d seen the tops of masts and furled sails from her window in the inn, and she headed toward them now.

Ships were familiar to her, a welcome reminder of home, and though she briefly considered looking for the town’s constable, she believed she’d be more likely to convince a seaman than some puffed-up townsman that she was a Sparhawk. Seabrook wasn’t that far from Newport. Surely somewhere in this little port she’d find one sailor who knew her father, one man who’d see the family resemblance in her face and believe she was who she claimed.

But just as every street in a seaport led to the waterfront, every waterfront also tended to be the least reputable section of town, and Seabrook was no exception. Though much smaller than Newport, Seabrook had its handful of block-front warehouses and countinghouses, chandleries and outfitters, as well as taverns, rum shops and rooming houses to suit every sailor’s taste and purse.

With the summer afternoon nearly done, workers from the docks and shipyard and a smattering of fishermen were beginning to trudge through the narrow streets to their homes and families. Others stayed behind to meet friends in the rum shops and bring their filled tankards to the well-worn benches outside in the fading sun.

Steadfastly Jerusa walked past them with her head high, ignoring their comments as best she could. Men had always admired her—she couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t—but this kind of crude, leering invitation called after her was new. Her cheeks flaming and her heart beating faster, she wished she had at least a wide-brimmed bonnet to hide within, or, better yet, a cloak that covered her clear to her feet, and longingly she thought of the gun she’d left in Michel’s saddlebag. Perhaps she should have brought it, after all. They wouldn’t have dared shout at her if she’d been carrying that.

At last she reached the water itself, the wide, shining mouth of the Connecticut River, where it emptied into the sea. But unlike Newport, there were only three stubby wharves jutting out into the water instead of a dozen, and only four vessels of any size tied to them. She hesitated, her grand plan disintegrating in the face of reality. How was she to know which of these sloops and schooners might harbor a friendly captain who could help her? Perhaps it wasn’t too late to find the constable, after all.

“Do ye be lost now, lassie?” asked a man behind her, and before Jerusa could reply, he’d seized her arm in his hand. “Lookin’ for a man t’give ye proper guidance?”

“I’m not your lassie, and I’m not looking for any sort of guidance that you could offer.” Jerusa wrenched her arm free, rubbing it where his fingers had dug into her skin, and glared at the man. Dressed in dirty canvas breeches and a striped shirt with a checkered waistcoat, he was young, her age or close to it, with a ruddy face that nearly matched his dark red hair and beard. “And whatever would give you the idea that I’m lost?”

The man grinned suggestively in return. “On account o’ ye wanderin’ about like a lamb without her mama, that’s why. Or whyever.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Oh, I’ve no mind to be ridiculous,” he said, his grin widening. “Ye don’t have no bonnet, nor bucket, nor basket, an’ ye be dressed fine as for th’ Sabbath. Finer, maybe.”

Mentally Jerusa cursed her lack of forethought. The man had every right to judge her the way he had, and she caught herself trying to imagine what Michel would say in such a situation.

Sweet Almighty, hadn’t she found trouble enough with lies and deceit? Had she forgotten what it was like to tell the truth?

The man was inching closer, his hand hovering toward hers to take it. “Yer shepherd shouldn’t have let ye roam, pretty little lamb, or some great wolf might carry ye off. Or do ye be lookin’ fer another shepherd?”

Uneasily she backed away. Behind this man were a half-dozen others that were his friends, each one grinning at her like the very wolf their leader had described.

And Lord help her, she’d never felt so much like that lost lamb.

“Come along now, little lamb,” coaxed the red-haired man. “The lads an’ I will see ye be treated right proper.”

The devil take the truth. These backwater sailors wouldn’t believe it anyway. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, drawing on every bit of her mother’s training on how a lady should stand to earn the respect of others.

“I don’t need your assistance, sirrah, and I never did,” she said imperiously as she pointed to the vessel tied to the nearest dock. “I’ve business with the master of that schooner there, and I’d be obliged if you would let me pass so I don’t keep the gentleman waiting.”

Briefly the man glanced over his shoulder and then back to her with disbelief written over every feature. “Ye have business wit’ old man Perkins? A sweet little lass such as ye wit’ him?”

“Captain Perkins’s age has no bearing on my business,” she said primly as she read the schooner’s name on her quarter-board. “All you need know is that I’m expected directly on board the Hannah Barlow.”

Crestfallen, the man shook his head as he and the others shuffled from her path. “It be beyond my reason,” he muttered unhappily. “A pretty lass wit’ old Perkins.”

Amazed though Jerusa was that her bluff had worked, she still couldn’t resist giving her skirts an extra flick as she walked past them. How Michel would have laughed to see the hangdog looks on their faces after they’d swallowed her story about this Captain Perkins!

But her triumph was short-lived as she walked along the wharf and had her first close look at the Hannah Barlow. The gangway was unguarded, without a single crewman in sight on the deck, and cautiously Jerusa stepped aboard. Only a piebald dog with a cropped tail growled at her halfheartedly before he lowered his head and went back to sleep in a nest of old canvas beside the mainmast.

Not good signs, she thought uneasily, and wondered if she’d traded one unfortunate situation for a second that was worse. Thanks to her father and brothers, Jerusa’s knowledge of ships was far better than most women’s, and what she saw of this schooner did little to reassure her. Her paint was faded and peeling, her planking stained, her lines bunched in haphazard bundles rather than the neat coils that any conscientious captain would have demanded.

“What ye gawkin’ at, missy?” growled a man sitting slumped on the steps of the companionway. Hidden by the shadows, she’d missed him before, and from the meanness in his eyes she wished she’d missed him still. “Yer kind’s not wanted on board here. Go along, off with ye! Take yer stinkin’ trade to them who’ll buy it.”

“I’m not—not what you think,” said Jerusa with as much dignity as she could muster. “My name is Jerusa Sparhawk, of Newport in Rhode Island.”

“Oh, aye, and I’m the friggin’ royal Prince o’ Wales.” The man took another pull of the rum bottle in his hand, his gaze insolently wandering over Jerusa. “Off with ye, ye little slut, afore I set the cur on ye.”

Jerusa felt herself color at the man’s language, but she stood her ground. “I’m not leaving before I see Captain Perkins.”

“He ain’t here.” With a grunt the man pulled himself upright, swaying slightly from the rum. He was rangy and hollow eyed, his dark hair braided in a tight sailor’s queue that swung between his shoulder blades as he slowly climbed to the deck to stand before her. “And he won’t be back until he’s so bloody guzzled that the men will have to carry him aboard on a shutter.”

Jerusa sighed with impatient dismay. No wonder the other men had been so appalled that she’d call on this Captain Perkins! “Then who are you?”

“John Lovell, mate on this scow, for all it’s yer business.” He squinted at her closely. “Ye said yer name was Sparhawk? Of the Plantations?”

“Oh, yes, in Newport,” answered Jerusa excitedly. She’d never expected her savior to be so sorry a man, but he was the first she’d met who seemed to recognize her name. “My father is Captain Gabriel Sparhawk.”

The man studied her closely. “I’ve a mind of him. Captain Gabriel, eh? Privateerin’ bloke, weren’t he?”

Jerusa nodded, her excitement growing. “He sailed in both the Spanish and French wars.”

“Did sharp enough to set hisself up as regular guinea-gold gentry, didn’t he? I seen him once paradin’ about Bridgetown, fine as a rum lord.” His eyes glittered beneath their heavy lids. “Ye have the look of him, missy, right enough. But what the devil would his daughter be doin’ here on her lonesome in Seabrook?”

“I was kidnapped by a Frenchman who wishes to hurt my father for—for something he did in the last war,” she explained, unable to bring herself to repeat Michel’s justification. “He’s made me ride all across the countryside here to Seabrook, but this has been the first time he’s left me alone long enough to escape.”

“Hauled ye about, has he?” He smiled, looking her over again and noting her new gown. Half his teeth were broken off, and the stubs that remained were brown from tobacco. “Ye don’t look like ye suffered overmuch.”

“I haven’t exactly,” she said hurriedly, not wishing to discuss such details. “At least not in the worst ways a woman can suffer.”

Lovell grunted and drank again from the bottle, and from his expression, Jerusa was sure he was busy inventing all the details she’d omitted.

“Kidnappin’ should earn that Frenchman a trip to the gallows,” he said. “Don’t ye want to swear against him with the constable so’s ye can see him dance his jig on a rope for what he done to ye?”

She could picture the scene all too easily. Michel at the gallows with his hands pinioned, his white shirt and gold hair tossing in the wind as the hangman slipped the noose over his head, her stern-faced father at the center of the crowd waiting for justice to be done, and she herself—no, she wouldn’t be there. How could she bear to witness his hanging, knowing she’d killed him as surely as if she’d put a pistol to his head and fired? Once she’d wanted nothing better, but now the idea alone sickened her.

And how could it be otherwise? Unlike Michel, revenge held no charms for her. Whatever had begun with their fathers must end here, with them.

“I cannot wait the time it would take for the Frenchman to be captured and tried,” she said with only half the truth. “I’m free of him now, and that’s what matters most to me.”

Skeptically Lovell turned his head to look at her sideways and then spat over the schooner’s side. “Seems to me, missy, that ye shall lose a powerfully fine chance to rid the world of one more bloody Frenchy.”

She shook her head swiftly. “Now I must return to my family and my—my friends in Newport as quickly as possible,” she stammered, and fleetingly she wondered when she’d begun thinking of Tom as her friend, no more. “I was hoping to convince Captain Perkins to carry me there.”

“Ye would have the old man set his course for Newport jus’ because ye asked him nice? Jus’ like that?”

“I’m not so great a fool that I’d believe he’d do it from kindness alone,” said Jerusa dryly. “Of course he’ll be paid for his trouble.”

Lovell looked at her shrewdly. “Have ye the blunt on ye then, missy?”

“I told you before, Mr. Lovell. I may need your captain’s assistance, but I’m not a fool.” Though she smiled sweetly, her voice crackled with irritation. “If you know my father, then you know he could buy this pitiful excuse for a deep-water vessel outright with the coins he jingles in his waistcoat pockets. Captain Perkins need have no fear on that account.”

“Sharp little piece, aren’t ye, for all that ye pretend to be such a fine lady. Ye musta got that from yer pa, too, that ye did.” He winked broadly, then emptied the bottle and tossed it carelessly over the side. “But consider it done. Ye have my word as the first officer of the Hannah Barlow that we’ll clear fer Newport with the next tide.”

It was now her turn to be skeptical. “And what captain lets his mate decide his next port? Thank you, Mr. Lovell, but I do believe I shall wait to speak with Captain Perkins himself.”

He made her a sweeping caricature of a bow. “Then come below to take yer ease in the old man’s cabin, missy,” he said with another sly wink. “Ye wouldn’t be wantin’ that wicked Frenchy to spy ye on the deck, would ye now? I’ll fetch another bottle so’s we two can pass the time proper between us, all companionable.”

How great a fool did the man truly believe she was? She’d take her chances with a Frenchman like Michel any day before she’d go below for any reason with this rascally Englishman.

“Thank you, no, Mr. Lovell,” she said more politely than his invitation deserved. “I believe I shall wait right here instead for Captain Perkins’s return.”

Lovell scowled and swore and scratched his belly. “Well, then, what if we go ashore together to sniff out the old bastard and fetch him back to the Hannah Barlow? Or is ye too genteel to be seen steppin’ out with the likes of John Lovell?”

Jerusa listened warily, wondering how far, if at all, she could trust him. The sun had nearly set over the green Connecticut hills, but by the lanterns hung outside the waterfront taverns, she could see that nightfall hadn’t diminished their business at all. Raucous laughter from both men and women drifted out toward the water, mingled with the giddy sound of a hurdy-gurdy. With all those people for company, how much grief could Lovell cause her? And if they really could find Captain Perkins, she would be that much closer to returning to Newport.

A little breeze rose up from the water, and absently she pushed a loose lock of hair back from her face. In the fading light she could just make out the spire of the meetinghouse that stood near to the right of Mrs. Cartwright’s public house. She wondered if Michel was there now, and what he’d thought when he’d discovered her gone. Wistfully she realized that she’d probably never see him again. Would he miss her even a tiny bit, or would he only regret the satisfaction she’d stolen from him?

“Lord, how long can it take ye to know yer mind?” demanded Lovell crossly. “All I’m askin’ ye to do is walk along this wharf until we reach that tavern at the end of the lane. Ye shall find the old man sittin’ as near to the fire as he can without tumblin’ into it, pouring the Geneva spirits and limes down his throat as fast as the wench brings it.”

“Very well, Mr. Lovell,” she said before she changed her mind. “We’ll search for Captain Perkins. Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to find him before he’s—what did you call it?— ‘so bloody guzzled.’”

“Aye, aye, missy,” agreed Lovell as he knuckled his forehead. “Mayhaps we will.”

But as Jerusa followed him off the schooner and along the wharf, she found her uneasiness growing. He said nothing, nor did he try to take her arm like the other man had, but that in itself made her worry. He’d been interested enough earlier. His wiry frame was larger than she’d first thought, and now that he was ashore, all his initial unsteadiness from the rum seemed to vanish, making him menacing enough for other men to move from his path.

She stopped and peered into the open door of the tavern where he’d told her Perkins would be drinking. From where she stood she couldn’t see any older men near the fireplace, but perhaps if—

“Quit yer gawkin’,” growled Lovell. “Ye said ye would follow me, mind?”

“You told me Captain Perkins would be in here, and I—”

“Quit yammerin’ and mind me!” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her along after him, around the corner into a murky alleyway. “There’s another way to enter that the old man favors.”

He jerked her wrist so hard that she yelped and stumbled. After the lantern’s light, the darkness here swallowed everything around her. But Lovell was still here: she could hear his breathing, rapid and hoarse, smell the fetid stench of cheap rum and onions and unwashed clothes, feel the pain from the way his nails dug into the soft skin of her wrist.

Why, why had she trusted him? Why hadn’t she listened to her instincts and left him when she had the chance?

With a terrified sob she tore her wrist free and stumbled again, pitching forward. As she fell she felt his hands tighten on either side of her waist, dragging her back to her feet, only to slam her hard against the wall behind her, trapping her there with the weight of his body.

“Not so proud now, are ye?” he demanded. “Every bitch looks the same in the dark, even bloody Sparhawks.”

Frantically she tried to shrink away from his body, but he followed relentlessly until she could barely breathe. The bricks were rough against her back, snagging at her clothes and skin.

“Too good fer me, ye thought,” said Lovell furiously, grinding his hips against hers as he dragged her skirts up around her legs. “Ye gave yerself to that Frenchy, but still ye was too good fer me. But ye shall make it up to me now, won’t ye? First ye give me yer money, ye little trollop, then yer body, and then, ye high-nosed little bitch, yer precious little life.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting to shut out the terror of what was happening to her. Yet still she felt the cold edge of the knife as he pressed the blade against her throat, and with awful, sickening clarity she knew she was going to die.

Chapter Twelve

Instinct drew Michel to the alley behind the tavern. Instinct, and what he’d overheard from the indignant whore out front about a girl in a green gown dipping into her trade with the sailors.

As it was, he was nearly too late. Back in the shadows, her face was hidden behind the seaman’s back, but at once Michel recognized her legs, forced apart on either side against the wall beneath her upturned skirts, legs that were pale and long and kicking as she fought for her virtue and her life. He would have recognized her legs anywhere; he had, after all, seen them that first night in her parents’ garden long before he’d seen her face.

His Jerusa, his bien-aimée. And sacristi, he’d bought her those green ribbons not four hours past.

But he’d wasted time enough. Once again she’d left him no choice.

Michel drew his knife from the sheath at the back of his waist as he crept silently behind the sailor. Briefly he wondered who the man was, and why Jerusa had chosen him to trust. Whatever his name, he would be the one who suffered for trusting her. Another fate, another death to lay to the name of Sparhawk.

The man jerked only once as Michel’s knife found its mark, his own knife falling harmlessly from Jerusa’s throat to the ground with a thump. While Michel stepped away, back into the shelter of the shadows, the man swore, his voice thick and his eyes already glazing with death. As he staggered backward, he pulled the girl with him, and they fell together in a tangle of arms and legs.

Gasping for breath, she struggled frantically to free herself, still not aware that the grasp she fought belonged to a dead man. Unsteadily she tried to push herself up onto her hands and knees, and at last Michel reached down to pull her roughly to her feet.

“You see what you have done, ma chérie?” he demanded. “No, don’t try to look away. If you had not run from me again, that man would live still.”

Her eyes wild with terror, she shuddered and tried to break free. But Michel held her tight, turning her face so she was forced to see Lovell’s body and the spreading dark pool of blood around it. She had to understand what she’d done. She had to know the smell and feel of death, or she’d never understand him.

“He—he was going to kill me, Michel,” she rasped, her voice ragged from fear and the pressure of the man’s knife against her throat. “He was going to rob me, and—and use me, and kill me.”

“Then it was you or him, Jerusa,” said Michel relentlessly. “Because of what you did, one of you would have died here tonight. Was leaving me worth your life? Think of it, ma mie. That could be your blood.”

“It would not have been like that, Michel, I swear!”

“It couldn’t have been anything else.” He grabbed her hand and thrust it downward, into the warm, sticky puddle of Lovell’s blood. “Did you wish to be gone from me that badly?”

She gasped and jerked her hand free, but not before her palm and fingers had been stained red. She stared at her hand in horror, her fingers spread and trembling.

“What have you done, Michel?” she whispered as the horror of what had happened finally grew real. “God help me, Michel, what have you done?”