JoAnn Wendt (6 page)

“Yes! Oh, yes,” she gasped as he crushed her to his banging heart. At his touch, his smell, she began to weep with stunned happiness. Holding her as though he would never let her go, his lips went to her hair and pressed against its silken strands.

“God,” he whispered, his voice shaking with reverence, “God. . .” He held her tight and she wept against his warm, thumping chest. “To find you here, to find you the duchess of Tewksbury... I don’t understand. That night on the quay. Why?”

Shaking with emotion, she looked up at him, helpless to explain, helpless to excuse herself. But his eyes met hers with bewildered gentleness.

“Don’t tell me,” he ordered. “I fear to hear it. I fear I can’t bear it.” He cradled her in his arms, rocking her, brushing his lips in her hair.

“You stole my heart that night. I’ve searched for you for almost two years. God, how I’ve searched!”

Flavia lifted her wet face in joyful surprise.

“I searched, too,” she admitted with a sob. “Every face that came to Tewksbury, every face in the theaters on Drury Lane and at the parties the duke took me to. Oh, I don’t even know your name.”

He took her face in his hands, and she drank in his dark eyes.

“Garth,” he said softly. “Garth McNeil.”

“Garth,” she repeated in a hushed whisper. She shivered, sensing a boundary had been crossed. She now knew his name, and his name would forever define the boundaries of her life. She shivered again, only half sensing what that might mean.

“Flavia,” he said softly, tasting her name. “Flavia... Flavia...”

Scattered heavy drops of rain pelted suddenly from the closing sky. The moon darkened.

“Where can we go, Flavia? To talk? To be alone?”

She shivered in fear. She mustn’t! She
must
go back to the ball. If the duke...

“The greenhouse,” she whispered. “But only for a moment. We mustn’t be discovered.”

The greenhouse smelled warm, moist and earthy. Blossoming gardenia and fruit-laden lemon trees filled the air with fragrance. As soon as the door closed behind them, they were in each other’s arms. They kissed in anguished passion, and their few words were utterances of love, pledges of commitment, confessions of need. They touched each other, their eager hands trembling at the sweet wonder of stroking the beloved brow, the cherished face.

“Now that I’ve found you, I won’t let you go. Sail with me. Leave the duke. Forget your life here. I love you, Flavia!”

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.”