Amethyst (32 page)

And it was true, in a way. Robert had been in her life a long time; she was relieved to see him whole and healthy.

"Your letter didn't say where you were," Robert said doubtfully, setting her away from himself. "Did you at least tell your Aunt Elizabeth? I wrote to her to find out, but I haven't heard back yet."

"Yes, I wrote to her," Amy said slowly. God in heaven…it hadn't occurred to her that Robert would contact her aunt. He would have found her even in Paris. She hadn't credited him with being that resourceful.

No, she corrected herself, she'd known all along that Robert was intelligent, though a bit unimaginative. The truth was, she'd done her best not to think of him and what he would do at all.

"I'm sorry," she said now, meaning it. "I should have found you to discuss matters. I wasn't thinking straight. I was…mourning. Devastated." She took a deep breath. "What have you been doing?"

Robert shuffled his feet on the slushy ground. "Looking for you. Helping my father a little. Drinking with my old chums at the King's Arms, mostly."

Not only drinking, Amy surmised, but eating his troubles away as well. He'd put on weight in the three months since she'd seen him.

Suddenly, he grabbed her by the shoulders. "I vow and swear, I cannot believe I've found you. I thought I'd never see you again."

When Amy didn't respond, he paused, apparently considering. "Were you
ever
going to try to find me?" he finally asked in a slow, suspicious tone.

Amy looked down at the street. She wished he'd let go of her, but he had her shoulders in an iron grip. A faint, stale smell of ale washed over her; she could taste it in her mouth. "Of course. I—I just got to the City," she hedged. "I've been staying with friends. Out in the country."

"Friends? Friends I don't know about?"

She lifted her head and shot him a bold look. "There's much you don't know of me, Robert."

"I'm coming to see that," he returned, dropping his arms to fold them across his chest. "Our wedding date passed, as you know. We shall have to reschedule."

Amy stared at him. "Did you not read my letter?"

"Wedding date?" Emerging from the shadowed corner of the carriage, Kendra stuck her head out. "Amy?"

Amy turned to her gratefully; this talk of weddings was making her ill. "Kendra, this is Robert Stanley. Robert, my friend Lady Kendra."

He aimed a curt nod at Kendra. "This is your friend?" he asked Amy bluntly. "The one you've been staying with?"

"Yes."

"Fancy carriage." He said it as though it were a crime to own one.

"It belongs to my brother," Kendra explained.

"Lord Something-or-other?"

"The Marquess of Cainewood."

Robert blinked and frowned, as though he were trying to remember something, then gave a quick shake of his head. He turned back to Amy. "So…when do you want to get married?"

"Never," she said quietly.

"You were promised to me." Robert's voice was low and deep and even more quiet than hers.

Too quiet.

Though Amy looked at him defiantly, she was shaking inside. She didn't want to hurt him, but she had to make him understand she had no intention of becoming his wife. "My father is dead. Everything has changed for me. And"—she lifted her chin—"and I don't have to marry you."

"Damn it, Amy, you're supposed to be mine. I waited and waited. The shop was supposed to be mine, too, but now it's gone. The inventory…" His eyes lit up. "Where is the inventory?"

Amy swallowed hard. "I don't
want
to marry you, Robert."

Robert's jaw was set. His pale blue eyes flashed with menace.
"Where is the inventory?"

"I don't have it." Her voice wavered, but it wasn't quite a lie. She didn't have it here.

"I don't believe you. I went back to look, but found not a trace. No molten metal, no diamonds in the ashes. And diamonds don't turn to ash." He took a step closer. "Where is it, Amy?"

"I don't have it," she repeated shakily. "I—I have to go now." She turned to enter the carriage.

He grabbed her by the upper arm, swung her around, and dug his fingers in painfully. "The inventory is
mine
. I worked five years for it. Where is it?"

Amy winced and threw a worried glance at Kendra, spurring her friend into action. Kendra planted herself firmly in the doorway of the carriage. "Leave her alone!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "She doesn't have it!"

Visibly shocked at this outburst, Robert turned on Kendra. "You stay out of this! It's not your concern."

Kendra's eyes narrowed recklessly. She came down from the carriage in a flash, curling one hand into a fist, which she propelled expertly into Robert's face. "Leave her alone, I tell you!"

Robert's pale eyes bugged out, and he dropped Amy's arm to grasp his rapidly reddening jaw.

With a triumphant grin, Kendra grabbed Amy's freed hand. "I haven't three brothers for nothing!" she informed nobody in particular, then jumped into the carriage, pulling Amy after her.

Amy stuck her head out and pinned Robert with a disdainful look. "Five years? My family worked five
centuries
for that jewelry. You learned your craft and were paid a fair wage, as well as bed and board. I owe you no more, and you'll never have more, Robert Stanley!"

She slammed and latched the carriage door.

Robert beat on it with both fists. "You're mistaken, Amethyst Goldsmith! I'll have the inventory yet, and you as well. You just wait!"

Inside the darkened carriage, Amy hunched over on the bench seat, covering her head with her hands so she wouldn't hear him. After what seemed an interminable wait, the vehicle jerked and started moving.

Amy straightened. "I'm sorry about that," she apologized, massaging her upper arm. She was certain to have marks from Robert's fingers.

"It's not every day I get to practice my boxing." Kendra's laugh was shaky. She rubbed her bruised fist ruefully. "God's blood, was he ever surprised!" She pushed open the curtains, and sunlight flooded the cabin. "Are you all right?"

Amy nodded mournfully. "I cannot believe what a perfect beast he was! And to think I almost married him." She shuddered.

"You never told me you were betrothed."

"I wanted to forget it. I never wanted to wed him in the first place—it was all my father's doing."

"He's so…he doesn't fit with you." Kendra's face turned contemplative. "He looked as though he might have an engaging grin when he's not angry, but he's short, bulky…soft-looking. I cannot imagine you with him. Now, you and—"

"He always scared me a little," Amy interrupted Kendra's musings. "He lived with us as our apprentice the past five years, but we'd been promised since we were children."

"Did you like him at all?"

"At first, until I got to know him. He had definite ideas of what he wanted in a wife, and they didn't mesh with mine. Still, I could have done worse, and my father was insistent." She shuddered again. "I'll
never
marry him, especially not after this," she declared vehemently.
"Never, never, never."

Kendra frowned. "Your aunt won't expect you to wed him, will she?"

Amy thought a moment. Aunt Elizabeth was a warm, motherly type who wanted to see everyone around her happy. And she'd never been particularly fond of Robert. "No," she said at last. "No, I don't believe she will. Or my uncle, either."

"Then you've nothing to worry about. Robert doesn't know where to find you while you're staying with us—"

"And I'll be gone soon. Very soon." The sooner the better, she thought morosely.

Her time in England was really at an end.

Kendra leaned over to touch her hand, then suddenly grinned. "Five centuries?"

Amusement lightened Amy's mood. "Well…perhaps I exaggerated, just a little." When her eyes met Kendra's, they both burst out laughing.

ROBERT'S ALCOHOL-LADEN
brain was trying to tell him something. Surrounded by his chums at the King's Arms, he was drinking too much and eating too little. He felt sick. Still, something in the back of his head was working its way out.

Kendra. Kendra. He took another swig. Was there not…

Yes!
That bastard Greystone had a sister named Kendra.

They'd come into the shop only once, but the way the man had looked at Amy, and Amy's flushed reaction, still burned in his memory. He hadn't paid the sister any attention, but this could easily be the same woman.

He rubbed his aching jaw. This Kendra, with her iron fist, didn't look much like Greystone. Her hair was dark red while Greystone's was black, and her eyes were a lighter green than his, too. She was petite, and the bastard was tall—so tall that Robert had felt intimidated, although Greystone had ignored him.

Well, the sister intimidated him, too. Now.

Yes, she must be his sister. He squinted his bloodshot eyes, trying to better picture them both. They shared the same facial bone structure, he was sure of it, and the same shape eyes. And they both had the same cocky self-assurance.

And they were both "friends" of Amy's.

Amy. Beautiful, elusive Amy. She'd promised to marry him. For five long years he'd sat at her father's bench, with the promise of Amy and her riches in time.

The time had come. She was in London. If she wouldn't come with him willingly, he would have to force her. There were places he'd heard about, "privileged" churches where a man could marry a woman without posting banns, without taking out a license.

Without her consent.

He turned to the man next to him, one of the many who spent their evenings in this popular middle-class tavern. "Hey," he said, surprised to find his voice wavering, "have you knowledge of a privileged church? Not too far?"

"St. Trinity, in the Minories," the man answered.

"St. James in Duke's Place is another," a man sitting across the table put in. "They're the only two, I think. Claim they're outside the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London and can therefore make their own rules. M'sister was wed at St. James."

"Against her will?"

"Nah. She was just in a hurry. Got a predated certificate, too, so the babe wasn't early."

Robert nodded, digesting the information. Both Duke's Place and the Minories were nearby, just outside the old Roman wall. "I won't need a license or anything?"

"Nah. Just two crowns for the curate and a couple of witnesses."

Not a problem, thought Robert, imagining the stash of coins, gold, and gems that awaited him upon his marriage.

His stomach roiled, protesting another swig of ale. He was sorry it had come to this, sorry she wasn't wedding him of her own free will. But she was his due, and once the deed was done she'd get used to the idea. She'd come to his bed and bear his children. Eventually. She'd always been a cold one, anyway—he'd never expected much of her sexually.

And when she was his, everything she owned would be, too.

He looked up at his two drinking companions. "Either of you heard of Lord Greystone?"

"Nay, never heard of him," the man next to him muttered.

"Nah." The man across from him shook his head.

"Hey," he called out, his voice slurred. "Anyone here know a Lord Greystone? Colin Something-or-other?"

"Chase," someone called out. "Colin Chase." The man wore a long, crimped periwig and was dressed a tad more stylishly than the average patron of the King's Arms; Robert believed he could be acquainted with Colin Chase, or at least know of him.

"He got a brother? The Marquess of something?"

"Cainewood. The Marquess of Cainewood. Jason Chase."

"Right." And Amy had been riding in Cainewood's carriage, with Cainewood's sister. It all fit together.

Pleased with his powers of deduction, Robert paused for another swallow and dragged his sleeve across his mouth. "Anyone know where Cainewood lives? I'll pay someone"—he burped loudly—"ten shillings to show me where he lives."

There was a scraping of benches as men rose, eager to collect ten shillings for such an easy job. Robert wasn't so sotted, however, that he didn't realize most of them probably didn't know Cainewood's house from the London Bridge.

"You," he said. He rose unsteadily and pointed at the man who had answered his questions. "You're the one. Come along."

Gesturing for the man to follow, he stumbled through the door and out into the street. His companion pressed himself up against the wall as Robert paused to throw up in the gutter, his vomit barely adding to the refuse and filth already there.

Robert stood up, swiped a sleeve across his mouth, and let loose a loud belch. "That's better. Let's go."

Shaking his head in disgust, the man led the way all the same.

Ten shillings was ten shillings.