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

By the light of the single candle her eyes flashed bright as her diamonds. “What he told me was that you were proud and hot tempered, but oh my, I never dreamed he meant this!”

“But you came anyway, didn’t you?” Shoving himself from the bed to stand, Jeremiah saw how her eyes widened at his size as he loomed over her, how she stared at the jagged new scar that sliced across his torso. “Was I that much of a curiosity, a foreigner, an American, that I seemed worth the effort of seduction?”

“Seduction!” She tipped back her head and her laughter rippled merrily from her lips. “You think I came here to seduce you?”

He was in no mood for teasing, and he never liked being laughed at, especially not by a woman this pretty. “Aye, what other reason could there be for you creeping in here while I slept, every bit as bold as any barkeep’s daughter?”

“You left me no choice.” With her head cocked, she looked at him shrewdly. “You never leave this house. How else was I to find you?”

“You found me well enough in my bed, didn’t you?”

“You really do believe I came to seduce you,” she said incredulously, lifting her gaze to meet his. “Lord, I wouldn’t know how to begin.”

“Like this.” He rocked her back off her feet and into the crook of his arm before she could protest. He swallowed her startled little cry into his mouth, his lips moving deftly over hers. He would show her that he wasn’t some laughable American savage. He’d prove to her that he didn’t need her pity, or her curiosity, or whatever other contemptuous impulse had brought her here tonight. She tasted every bit as sweet as he’d hoped she’d be, soft and warm in his embrace, and with a low groan he slid his hands along the satin, down her back to settle on the curve between her waist and hip.

Yet for a woman brazen enough to chase him to his bed, she seemed oddly uncertain. She lay stiffly in his arms, her hands curled defensively against his chest, and though her lips had parted for his, she waited for him to lead her. Were English gentlemen so self-centered that they left their women as unschooled as this one so obviously was?

With a new gentleness he deepened the kiss, exploring the most sensitive corners of her mouth until she began to answer him, tentatively at first and then with growing ardor. Her hands crept up his chest and around his neck to draw him closer, and, charmed by the ingenuity of her response, he felt his anger melting away, replaced by an intense bolt of desire. Lord, it had been too long! Countess or not, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to take what she offered. He lifted her against him and she moaned deep in her throat, and he knew then she wanted him as much as he did her.

And then she jerked free and slapped him as hard as she could.

He stared at her, his cheek stinging where she’d struck him. “What the devil was that for?”

“You—we shouldn’t have kissed like that,” she said breathlessly. Her face was flushed, her lips still wet from their kiss, her hair disheveled and her plume cocked to one side. “It wasn’t right.”

“It seemed right as rain to me.” Strange how he wasn’t really angry with her. Disappointed, yes, but not angry.

“No, you don’t understand.” She lowered her gaze, her clasped hands twisting together. “You don’t understand at all.”

“You’ve called it well enough there.” He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, still rubbing his face. She’d caught him on the jaw with the edge of one of her bracelets, and he knew he’d have a bruise in the morning. “You’re not making much sense, sweetheart.”

“I don’t, not when I’m distraught.” She fidgeted with the clasp on one bracelet as she struggled to regain control of her emotions. “Frederick says it’s one of my greatest failings, and he has worked quite hard to rid me of it.”

Though Jeremiah waited for her to explain who Frederick was, she didn’t. Her husband, most likely. If she was a countess, then somewhere there had to be a count—no, an earl. But whoever Frederick was, Jeremiah would be damned before he’d ask.

“Don’t tell me,” he said instead. “You have a list of failings as long as my arm.”

“No, Captain, I don’t, no matter how much you wish to believe the contrary.” She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. “Good night, then, and forgive me for disturbing you.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that, yes.” She gave her shoulders an odd little shrug, almost a shudder. “I’ve caused us both enough trouble tonight, haven’t I?”

He caught her arm as she turned toward the door. Beneath the silk, her skin was warm and he felt the quickening of her heartbeat at his touch. “You can’t go now.”

She looked pointedly at his hand before she raised her gaze to meet his. “Why not? You’ve been telling me to leave ever since you woke.”

“Use your ears, ma’am, and you’ll know. All’s quiet below. It must be well past midnight.”

“Then I can let myself out. I’m hardly helpless, you know. My coachman will be waiting with the carriage where I left him, at the bottom of the hill.”

“Well, you’re not going alone.” He released her arm, reaching for his shirt and tugging it over his head. Helpless or not, she wasn’t going to traipse off into the darkness by herself as long as he had anything to say about it.

“I assure you such sudden chivalry isn’t necessary,” she said indignantly. “I’m quite capable.”

“Oh, aye, I’m sure you are.” He shrugged on his coat, not bothering with a waistcoat or hat, and smoothed back his hair. “And don’t mistake it for chivalry. If you’re found in the shrubbery tomorrow with your throat slit and your diamonds gone, I don’t want to be the last one who saw you alive.”

She made a disgruntled, undignified sound in the back of her throat that made him smile. He liked her better this way, when she wasn’t so busy being a great lady. Given the chance, perhaps in the moonlight beside her coach, he’d kiss her again.

No, he wasn’t being chivalrous at all.

He took the lantern from the table beside the bed. “Along with you then, ma’am.”

“If you can’t bring yourself to call me ‘Caro,’ then you must use Lady Byfield,” she said irritably as she followed him. “‘Ma’am’ is common.”

“Common or not, it’s what we call ladies in my country,” he said drily. “I fought a war with your people over such things.”

She didn’t answer, or maybe she was ignoring him, but he didn’t care so long as she was quiet and didn’t wake the rest of the house. He’d no wish to explain any of this to his sister, or worse, to his brother-in-law. Oh, he meant to have a few words with Jack in the morning, all right, but not with the subject of their discussion present the way she was now.

The long hallway to the front stairs was dark, and the single candle lit their way only a few shadowy feet before them. Fiercely Jeremiah lifted the lantern higher, determined to control the wariness that could turn so easily into fear. He’d walked this hall a hundred times, no, a thousand, in daylight without coming to harm. What difference, then, could there be in the dark?

He felt the woman beside him tentatively take his arm, and he patted her hand self-consciously to reassure her. If it had been a long time since he’d lain with a woman, it had been longer still since one had turned to him for comfort. He smiled wryly to himself, wondering what she’d do if she’d learned the truth about the sorry champion she’d chosen.

But once outside, she scurried away from him, skipping down the stone steps with her white gown fluttering out behind her in the moonlight. He followed more slowly, for the wound still pained him if he moved too fast, and he’d no wish to begin wincing and gasping like an old man before her.

The moon was almost full, the sweeping lawns around the house lit nearly as bright as by day, and Jeremiah relaxed. No demons here; here his only company was this sprite of a countess. The gravel of the drive crunched beneath their feet and with an exasperated mutter she stepped onto the grass instead.

“You’ll ruin your slippers,” warned Jeremiah as he joined her. “The dew’s already fallen.”

“I don’t care. It won’t be the first time, and I doubt it will be the last.” She paused, waiting for him to catch up. “I refuse to stay off the grass simply because ladies’ slippers are so insubstantial. It vexes Frederick, of course, but I lived in the country as a child, and if I could I’d go without shoes and stockings and garters altogether.”

“Then shuck them off now. Where’s the harm?” The night was warm for April, and Jeremiah liked the idea of her vexing this infernal Frederick.

She grinned at him. “I could, couldn’t I?”

“Of course you can,” he said easily. “I won’t tell.”

“Then I shall do it.” Modestly she turned away from him as she lifted her skirt, but as she bent to untie her garters, the white silk gown draped over her round, upturned bottom in a charming, if unintentional, invitation that Jeremiah found far more provocative than any mere show of her ankles ever could be. When he’d been younger, women had bundled themselves away in layers of petticoats and buckram, but the scanty fashions now were worse—or better—than if they’d come out walking naked. And this woman before him would tempt a saint to sin.

Purposefully he looked up at the stars overhead and away from her. “I was raised in the country, too, and we didn’t wear shoes from May till September, excepting when Granmam made us dress for church on Sundays.”

“On a farm?” she asked eagerly. She was upright again, safe for him to look at as they once again began walking down the hill toward the gates and the road. In the swinging circle of the lantern’s light her bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem of her gown. She held her slippers in one hand and her stockings in the other, the fine-gauge silk of the stockings still keeping the shape of her calves as they drifted out from her hand. “I’ve always liked farms.”

“It was a plantation, really, though all that means is a bigger farm that the owner doesn’t work himself.”

“A plantation? That sounds very grand.”

“For Rhode Island, it was,” he agreed, remembering the last real home he’d had before he’d gone to sea. “My grandfather made a king’s ransom from privateering, and he must have spent half of it on that house alone. But I expect it would pale beside what a countess would call home, even in the country.”

“Indeed,” she said softly. “A proper countess most likely would.”

“You’d know better than I.” There was no mistaking the wistfulness in her voice, and he didn’t understand it. He brushed the back of his fingers lightly across her arm, just enough to make her look back at him. “Exactly why did you wish to see me, Caro? You must have come with some reason in mind.”

She frowned as she realized he’d finally used her given name, and rubbed the place on her arm that he’d touched.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said swiftly, her words tumbling over one another. “I thought that we might help each other, but now I see how foolish an idea that was. I hadn’t expected—oh, but I’ll never see you again, so none of it matters anyway, does it? Look, there’s my coach, just beyond the gate. There’s no reason for you to come any farther.”

“Don’t, lass.” He reached for her, but she scurried across the grass beyond his reach. “Damnation, I said I’d see you to your carriage!”

“And I say it’s not necessary. Good night, Captain Sparhawk, and goodbye.”

She turned and ran, holding her skirts up above her bare feet. He called her name, but she didn’t look back, and he let her go. She was right: most likely they would never see each other again. She was an English countess and he was an American shipmaster, and in another week, a fortnight at the most, he meant to be gone, back to Rhode Island to pick up the shattered pieces of his life as best he could.

He watched her disappear through the door beside the gate, and he smiled to himself as he thought of her bare pink toes. He hoped she didn’t catch hell from Frederick when she got home. The man should take better care of his wife.

But still Jeremiah wished she’d stayed a little longer.

Chapter Two

Caro’s feet skidded on the slippery grass, and the oath was already halfway from her lips before she swallowed it back. She hadn’t sworn like that in years; swearing had been one of the first bad habits that Frederick had convinced her to abandon. Ladies didn’t swear, and she was a lady, a countess, wife to a peer of the realm.

But ladies didn’t let strange men kiss them, either, and for the first time the magnitude of what she’d done swept over her. She’d crept into the bedchamber of a man she didn’t know, a foreigner, with a question that she’d finally been too fainthearted to ask, and instead she’d smiled and laughed and behaved as commonly as the barkeep’s daughter he’d accused her of being.

It didn’t matter that she’d gone there with the best intentions in the world. The truth remained that Frederick deserved better from her. He’d cherished her and loved her and educated her far beyond her station, and then, finally, had raised her up to his own by giving her his name and his title. There could be nothing finer for her than to be the wife of a man so endlessly kind and generous, and in return she loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone else. Because he’d told her so, she’d always believed that that love alone would be enough to redeem her.

And dear Lord, it wasn’t, not now that she’d finally been tested. It wasn’t even close.

The carriage loomed before her in the shadows, the Byfield crest barely visible on the side. The horses had been loosened to graze, but there was no sign of her coachman or the footman, either.

“Ralston?” she called uneasily. She touched one of her bracelets, recalling what Captain Sparhawk had said. She didn’t believe that the grounds of an admiral’s house would harbor footpads and cutthroats, but here on the Portsmouth Road she wasn’t as sure. “Ralston, where are you?”

“And where have you been, my dear aunt?” drawled the young man who stepped from behind the coach. “I don’t want to tell you how long I’ve been waiting.”

“What a pity you’ve waited in vain, George,” said Caro sharply, inching around him to reach the coach’s door. “I’ve no more to say to you here than I do anywhere else. If you insist on your rude and impertinent questions, then I must refer you to Lord Byfield’s solicitor.”

“A solicitor, Auntie?” said the young man as he lounged back against the coach and stretched his legs before him to block her way. He wore a tall-brimmed hat cocked forward that hid his eyes, but for Caro his insolent smile was more than enough. “That’s deuced uncharitable, even for you.”

“Then perhaps I should call on Mr. Perkins myself, and arrange for charges to be brought against you,” she answered, her irritation growing. “Surely there must be laws against your kind of vile harassment.”

“So unkind, Auntie, so cruel!” He clucked his tongue in mock dismay. “And what of the laws against adultery, eh? Laws to protect husbands from a set of cuckold’s horns from their slatternly wives?”

She gasped. “How dare you defame Frederick and me that way!”

“Dare I? Dare you, more’s the point.” His smile widened as he crossed his hands over his chest, the moonlight reflecting off the twin rows of polished buttons on his coat. “Oh, I’ll vow you’ve been most discreet. These past months there’s never been a hint of scandal about you. Until tonight, of course. Your slippers in your hand, your legs bare, your headpiece askew—what gossip I’ll have to whisper over cards at Lady Carstairs’s tomorrow night, eh? I didn’t think you’d be enough to tempt gallant Admiral Lord Jack, but then his wife’s breeding again, and to my own joy, you’ve never shown much inclination that way.”

With an incoherent shriek, Caro dropped her slippers and flew at George’s smirking face, determined to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her. It was bad enough for him to believe she was Jack Herendon’s mistress, but to be taunted about her childlessness cut her to her heart.

But George’s reflexes were unclouded by anger, and he deftly caught her wrists before her fingers reached his eyes. In the next instant he twisted and shoved her back against the side of the carriage, pinning her hands over her head and trapping her with his body.

“A widow’s portion’s not such a bad thing, Caro,” he said, breathing hard as she struggled against him. “Once you’re the dowager Lady Byfield the world will expect you to take lovers. Say the word, and it’s done. So simple for you to have your freedom, and be rid of the old bastard for good.”

“You’re the bastard, George, not Frederick!” Furiously she fought against him. “Ralston!”

“Save your breath, Caro. I sent them off with a bottle of rum so we could talk in private.”

She glared at him. “You’ve no right to do that! They’re my men, not yours!”

“But for how long, eh?” He pressed closer, near enough that she could smell the same rum on his breath. “Dowager or not, Auntie, you’re not so old I couldn’t oblige you myself, and keep it all in the family. It’s time you had a taste of a man young enough to remember what a woman desires most.”

Caro stared at him, too stunned by what he was suggesting to answer.

He smiled, taking her silence as acquiescence, and leaned his mouth closer to her lips. “Simply say the word, my dear, and please us both. You’ll find I’m generous with both my gold and my company.”

“You’re despicable.” She practically spat out the words, forcing him to draw back. “Let me go at once!”

“Not yet, Caro, not before—”

“You heard the lady,” said Jeremiah, his voice unmistakable to Caro. “Let her go. And do it now.”

George twisted around, searching the shadows for the man who’d spoken. “What the devil—”

Jeremiah stepped forward. In the moonlight he looked to Caro like some wild forest giant, his size accentuated by the shadows around him, his face sharply planed and his thick black hair loose to his shoulders. He stood with his legs widespread and his whole body so tensed and ready to fight that the primed pistol in his hand seemed almost superfluous. In her small, sheltered world she’d never known a man like this one, and she flushed at the memory of how she’d let him kiss her, how much she’d enjoyed it before the shame had stopped her. And oh, what sorrowful mischief George would make for her if he ever learned what she’d done!

“Look here now,” blustered George. “This is a private matter between Caro and me, and it don’t concern you, whoever you are.”

“I told you to let the lady go,” said Jeremiah again, his voice rumbling deep. “I’m not a patient man, and I’m accustomed to having my way.”

“Mind him, George,” whispered Caro loud enough for Jeremiah to hear. “He has a gun, and I’ve no wish to be shot to death by some highwayman on account of your stubbornness. Lord knows we’re probably already surrounded by his confederates in the trees.”

A highwayman? thought Jeremiah, frowning. Confederates in the trees? What the devil was she up to now?

“A highwayman!” George’s voice squeaked upward as he let Caro go, his eyes still turned toward Jeremiah. “Damn it all, Caro, you would be wearing those diamond cuffs, too! They must be worth a thousand guineas if they’re worth a penny.”

“They’re worth ten times that if they’ll save my life.” She turned bravely toward Jeremiah as she slid the bracelets from her wrists. “Here, sir, they’re yours, and my earrings, too, if you wish them. I know you’d take them by force anyway, but I pray because I’ve been so accommodating you’ll spare me and my—my companion.”

“Hear, hear,” echoed George faintly, staring at the pistol.

Jeremiah’s frown deepened. Here he’d thought he’d saved her from some ruffian’s attack, yet instead the man had some sort of claim to her, enough that she’d protect him like this. Not that he was worth it, in Jeremiah’s estimation: a fancy-dressed little Englishman so cowardly he’d let a woman defend him. But what was all this nonsense about highwaymen and bracelets?

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he began, “but I don’t—”

“Oh, please, sir, please!” she begged, clutching her hands piteously before her. “Don’t be so hasty in your judgment!”

Jeremiah shook his head in bewilderment. Whatever he’d blundered into belonged on a London stage, not here on the high road to Portsmouth. He glanced toward a rustling in the bushes and saw two wide-eyed men in livery cowering in the shadows, and curtly he waved at them to join the others. No matter what the woman intended, she hadn’t really left him any choice but to go along with her game, at least for now.

George sniffed derisively at the two servants. “Is this how you display your loyalty to Lady Byfield, leaving her alone to be accosted like this?”

“But sir,” protested Ralston, “that be what you wanted o’ us!”

“None of your bickering, you silly fools,” snapped Caro, her glance darting from George to Ralston and back again as exasperation temporarily overcame her show of terror, “else I’ll leave you all as hostages.”

George sniffed again. “You shouldn’t bargain with ruffians like this, Caro. It ain’t decent.”

“I’ll do what I must.” With her jewelry cupped in her hands, she walked slowly to Jeremiah, her bare feet silent on the grass.

“Here you are,” she said softly, her eyes so beseeching Jeremiah knew now he wouldn’t give her away before the others. “I pray it’s enough to ensure our safety.”

He scooped the jewelry from her hand and stuffed it into his pocket with what he hoped was a proper highwayman’s nonchalance. He’d been a great many things in his life, but this was the first time he’d been a thief, and he wasn’t quite certain how it was done. “The gentleman has a purse, doesn’t he?” he asked gruffly. “And that cut-stone ring there, on his little finger.”

George opened his mouth to argue but Caro glared at him, her open hand outstretched. “Give it up, George, and consider it cheaply done. If you hadn’t followed me here and interfered, none of this would have happened.”

Glumly he handed his purse and ring to Caro, who brought them back to Jeremiah. “I fear that’s everything, sir,” she said sadly. “Oh, please, please, say it’s sufficient to let us go!”

Though her words were meant to sway the hardest heart, there was still an impish gleam in her upturned eyes, meant for Jeremiah alone. She’d protected this man George, true, but she’d also enjoyed taking his purse. Jeremiah was glad, for the man was both a fool and a bully.

“If there’s anything else you want,” she continued when he didn’t answer, “anything else that could sway your decision, so that we might be on our way.”

Jeremiah looked down at her, struggling to appear as if he were weighing her plea instead of wondering if she’d intended a double meaning to her words. What else did he want? He wanted to send the three men on their way, and keep her here with him so she could explain. And kiss her again. Oh, aye, he wanted that very much, even if the reasons against it seemed even stronger after this silly masquerade. Her upswept hair had slipped further to one side, the egret’s feather now bent at a jaunty angle over one eye as she looked up at him through her lashes. She was a charming, bewildering creature, no mistake, but with a start he realized she’d made him forget his own miseries, however briefly, for the first time since he’d been brought to England.

Her diamonds sat heavily in his pocket, a lump against his thigh. At least now he had a decent reason to see her again, if only long enough to return her jewelry, and knowing that made it easier to let her go.

Over her head he motioned to the coachman. “You heard the countess. She’s ready to clear for home. And you, Master Georgie, you leave the lady alone, or you’ll answer to me.”

Even in the moonlight, Jeremiah could have sworn the other man paled. “See here now,” he said weakly. “You can’t threaten me like that. I’ll see you hung, see if I don’t.”