JoAnn Wendt (39 page)

He snapped his jaw shut and propelled her along, excusing his way through the silks and brocades.

“But my chaperone, Garth?”

He took a deep, long breath, trying to stifle the anger that forked through his fear. Criticize Flavia, would she? By God! He had to swallow several times before he was able to reply with a modicum of civility.

“A premarital landau ride is hardly the cardinal sin, Eunice.”

* * * *

A large black-lacquered coach with six horses waited outside his house on York Street, dwarfing his own modest landau and making even his house appear small. A half-dozen attendants and drivers lurked about the coach: big, brutish men with cudgels stuck in their belts. McNeil’s pulse raced. He wished Harrington and Jenkins were here and not miles away in Hampton.

He let himself in without ceremony, drew one last steadying breath of air, then preceded Eunice into the drawing room.

Cloaked in black, the duke stood at the fireplace. A small spring fire had been kindled as a gesture of respect, and refreshments had been brought, but it was obvious His Grace had not touched them. The man was as McNeil remembered: arrogant, pompous and deadly dangerous.

The duke turned as he entered, and McNeil met the icy scornful eyes with casual coolness, his own eyes narrowing. He was alarmed at the fury the man stirred in him. He’d wanted to remain cool, his intelligence and his reflexes on the alert. But he found himself heating. This titled popinjay had had access to Flavia—touching her, bedding her whenever he’d chosen.

It galled him.

Eunice swished into the room behind him, with a pleased chirp.

“Your Grace, what an honor to see you again,” she trilled, tripping across the room and offering her hand. “May I offer you my belated but most sincere condolences, sir. Such a tragedy at Bladensburg.”

The duke seemed momentarily startled at her presence, then recovered himself. With inbred politeness that requires no thought, he bowed over her hand and kissed it.

“Thank you, Miss Wetherby. However, such condolences are no longer necessary. I have reason to believe my son still lives.” Turning from her startled glance, the duke cast scornful eyes on McNeil. Coldly and with matching contempt, McNeil returned the look.
Your move, Your Grace. I’ll not tip my hand with needlessly spoken words.

The duke’s glare was icy, frost seeming to rise in his eyes.

“I will speak with you in private, Captain McNeil.”

It was not a request. It was a command. In the foyer, Garth’s mother’s fine old case clock struck the hour. Waiting until it was done, until the echo had faded, he replied, “You will speak with me here and now, or not at all.”

Eunice gasped in horror. “Garth, it’s His Grace! You cannot say such things to His Grace.”

The duke drew himself up, his face darkening. He glanced meaningfully out the window at his waiting coach. McNeil understood and tensed. Trent . . .  sleeping innocently upstairs. The bullies could seize him at will. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Mentally, he went to his study. There were weapons there . . .

“
I
want my son.”

Eunice fluttered in bewilderment. “Your Grace?” she asked, staring at the duke and then at McNeil. Both the duke and Garth ignored her.

“I have had you under surveillance, McNeil. Ever since the night of my son’s natal ball when you so freely helped yourself to my—” He paused, spitting out the last word with contempt.
“Treasure.”

Eunice gasped.

Garth’s throat tightened in anger. He struggled to remain calm as his temper went on the boil. Some inner sense warned him the duke was not speaking of jade pieces but of Flavia. His mind shot back to the Tewksbury gardens. Vaguely, he recalled Flavia’s alarm when a clay pot had plopped to the greenhouse floor as they had stood talking. Or was the duke bluffing, hoping to entrap him?

Boiling with anger, he held himself in check, saying nothing.

The duke went on. “I obtained a writ for your arrest that very night, and then I instructed my steward to—”

“To plant your damned jade pieces on the
Caroline.”

The duke smiled frigidly.

“Yes,” he admitted proudly, airily. “It amused me to use you for another purpose. A double stroke, if you will. I obtained my purpose, and I obtained your humiliation. You dared to touch my duchess that night. No one touches what is mine!”

McNeil clenched his jaw, checking his fury. To hear Flavia spoken of as if she were of no more value than a damned jade piece! He shook with the urge to strangle him.

“I do not understand,” Eunice whispered. “Garth? What is this about?”

The duke ignored her. “I would have seen you rotting in Newgate, McNeil. However, you slipped through my net. Then, Captain McNeil, you sought revenge for the jade, did you not. You went to Germany. To Bladensburg. You stole my son, and you made it appear that my son drowned.”

Eunice uttered a sharp cry.

“Two months ago,” the duke went on, “I received certain information. Two days after my son ‘drowned,’ an orphan was brought aboard the
Caroline.
He was the same age as my son. He was brought to Virginia, and he lives here—here in
this
house.”

Eunice gasped. “Do you mean Trent, Your Grace? That cannot be. Trent has no noble blood in him. Trent is as common as a stable hand.”

The duke swung her a cold look.

Eunice sputtered on in bewilderment, “Sir, you must be ill. Ill with grief. Your son drowned. I remember the night, I recall it well because of the bright hunter’s moon. Garth was with
me—
in Köln.”

“All night?” His Grace asked pointedly.

Eunice rocked at the insult, reddening. Garth held his breath.

“Indeed
not,
Your Grace. It would have been improper,” she replied with spirit.

Garth broke into a sweat.

Angered, Eunice went on. “I could not sleep that night. Nor could my aunts, the Lady Wetherby. The moon, sir. So, Auntie and I strolled the gardens. Garth’s room was in the ell of the wing. His candle was burning.”

The duke laughed coldly. “A candle proves nothing. You are being used, Miss Wetherby.”

Eunice blinked uncertainly. “Your Grace, Auntie and I
saw
Garth through the window. He sat at his table, reading.”

Garth had been holding his breath. Slowly, cautiously, he let his breath escape. So the charade with Jenkins
had
been necessary. To think he’d almost not bothered.

The duke seemed to waver at Eunice’s testimony. It was time to jump in. Garth strode into the center of the room, giving a casual wave of his hand.

“Enough,” he said, affecting a slightly bored, irritated demeanor. “If His Grace wants an orphan bastard to call ‘son,’ then His Grace shall have one. The boy Harrington brought from Amsterdam is a damned nuisance, anyway.”

Wheeling around, he went out of the drawing room and into the foyer. He shouted up the stairs.

“Mab! Up at once!”

In a few moments, Mab appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing sleepy eyes with her knuckles. She was in a wrinkled flannel nightdress and her hair was braided for sleep.

“Bring Trent down at once,” he ordered loudly. “The duke of Tewksbury wishes to make him his heir!” Mab blinked in astonishment. He turned back to the drawing room, then had a better thought. He barked at Mab again. “Wait! Go up to cook’s bedchamber. Her grandsons are sleeping there. Wake them. Bring all three boys into the drawing room at the same time.”

Mab blinked her amazement, and he strode back into the drawing room, closing the door with a firm click.

“You
will
be able to recognize your ‘son,’ Tewksbury?” Garth sneered. “You
will
be able to pick him out of a group of three?”

The duke faltered slightly, then covered himself with an arrogant, “Naturally.” But uncertainty tinged the word and the duke’s thin, hawkish face flushed with anger.

Score one,
McNeil thought,
the old goat doesn’t know what Trent—Robert—looks like.

The minutes ticked by. Hostile silence settled upon the room. Bewildered by everything, Eunice sank weakly upon the settee and nervously wrung her hands.

“I wish I had stayed in London,” she whined. “I should never have—oh, the disgrace—whatever will people say?”

As though unconcerned with events, McNeil strolled to the sideboard and poured a glass of port. He gestured toward Eunice, offering wine, but she merely looked at him and shuddered as though he were an ominous stranger. With a sneer he held a glass toward the duke. His Grace merely stiffened in icy silence.

With a careless chuckle, Garth quaffed the wine himself.

At last, commotion began upstairs. Doors banged. Children’s sleepy voices rang out. Garth tensed, the sweat beginning on his brow. A few moments more and Mab—her nightdress covered with a serge wrapper—shepherded the children in.

“Over here, by the candles,” Garth snapped coldly. “The duke of Tewksbury will want to see well when he picks out his son. Deliberately, he made the word “son” ring with irony.

Dumbfounded, Mab obeyed, and the duke strode forward, flinging back his cloak. He studied each sleepy child. They were of a piece: all of them dark-eyed with sandy to dark hair. The duke flushed, a blue vein thumping dangerously in his temple. He swung toward Garth.

“Enough of your games. Which is my son?”

Garth laughed scornfully.

“Take your pick. Any one of them will be well pleased to inherit the Tewksbury title and all of its wealth.”

He’d hit a nerve. The duke’s complexion darkened.

“I’ll see you dead for this!” he hissed, lunging toward the window to signal his men. Just then, a landau clattered into the street. Garth froze in his would-be dash to the study for weapons. The front door banged open. High heels clicked on marble, then on wood as Annette burst into the drawing room. Her color was high, her bosom rose and fell with panting.

Breathless, she dropped a little curtsy to the duke, then turned to the sleepy children. Garth was stunned. Goddamn it, what was she doing—

“Trent,” she cried out. “Trent, dear, come to me.”

Garth found his voice. “Annette, damn it,” he swore, starting for her. But it was too late. Trent was fond of Annette. With a sleepy smile he ran into her waiting embrace and was crushed to the blue satin gown.

The duke smiled his triumph.

“Thank you. Lady Annette—or Lady Dunwood, I should say. You have just identified my son. If you will kindly release him—” The duke started toward Trent, and Garth tensed to spring. He’d not wanted violence. But if it came to that, so be it.

“Your
son?” Annette said loudly, hugging Trent. “How dare you, sir! Trent is
my
son. My son born out of wedlock to Captain Garth McNeil. A secret I had to guard, sir, from my late husband, the baron Vachon.”

The astounding announcement froze the assembly. The duke tottered a bit in shock, and McNeil stared at Annette, dumbfounded that she should do this for him. So! Annette had guessed Trent was his. He drew a hoarse breath.

“Mab, take the children away,” he ordered quickly. Wide-eyed, puzzled, Mab jumped to do his bidding. On the settee, Eunice burst into tears. She lunged to her feet, sending hate-filled looks at Annette and at Garth.

Eunice shrieked, “How
can
you disgrace me like this, Garth! I shall be the laughingstock of all London. To think that you and Annette Vachon . . .  Oh, I hate you! When Auntie hears—when my cousin, the earl hears! I
shan’t
stay another moment in this house.” Eunice ran out.

The front door banged shut, and in a few moments McNeil recognized the creak of his own landau as it moved off.

The duke glared at Annette.

“Do you know what you are admitting to,
Lady
Dunwood?”

Annette blanched, and only then did Garth begin to sense what she’d done to herself.

“Yes,” she said boldly. “If you refer to my husband’s mother—and I think you do, Your Grace, you are quite right. Lady Dunwood now has ample grounds to annul my marriage.”

The duke eyed her with contempt.

“I grant you one last opportunity to deny the boy is yours, Annette. Else you become the joke of society.” He laughed coldly. “Had you borne a bastard to the Prince of Wales or to someone highborn, London would have easily forgiven you. But to bear a bastard to a mere sailor!” He snorted, as the lords and ladies of London would snort when they heard.

Annette’s eyes fluttered to the floor, and Garth held his breath. Social position was everything to Annette. He knew she reveled in it, enjoying status and power. As wife of the earl of Dunwood, she would enter even higher circles on her return to London. His heart hammered.

“I—I—” She stopped and drew a quivering breath. Softly she began again. “I will not deny my own son. Whatever the cost.”

As her tears began to spill, Garth growled at the duke, “Get out of this house, Your Grace. Get out of Virginia. Get out of the colonies.”

The duke drew himself up arrogantly.

“In due time. Do not presume to order
me
about, Captain McNeil. I’ve unfinished business in the colonies. I mean to finish it.”

There was threat in his words, but threat of what? Garth had no idea.

“Get out!” he reiterated. “If you do not leave America at once, the London Board of Trade will receive some very interesting information. The Board will learn that in September of 1753, a jade piece was planted aboard the
Caroline so
that all harbor attention would be focused on
her
and not upon two incoming ships.
Virtue
and
Bountiful Lady.”

He paused as the duke flinched in surprise. Evidently the duke had thought no one knew about his smuggling ventures.

“The Board will also learn that when the duke of Tewksbury landed in Virginia, his first callers were the captains of
Virtue
and
Bountiful Lady.”

The duke’s eyes widened in alarm for a moment, then narrowed to dangerous slits.

“Be careful, McNeil. You do not know what you are saying.”

Garth met the cold, shrewd eyes without blinking.