Midnight Mistress (18 page)

“Let me see if I understand this correctly. From your observation, Juliana spends considerable time with Captain Gabriel.”

“Just so,” her son stated with a nod as he collected his teacup.

“A man with a scar? Who is a notorius privateer?”

“That’s it to a cows thumb.”

“And Mr. McGregor has done nothing to prevent this association?”

“Most certainly not, for it is my impression that Juliana has learned a great deal from the captain.”

“Perhaps more than we know,” she said dryly. “From this moment on I am entirely resolved to
murder
Mr. McGregor.”

“W-what?”

“You heard me. I instructed him to keep the captain and Juliana apart, but that fool has delivered my sweet lamb into the hands of a handsome, notorious rake. With a scar! Heavens, no gently bred Bath miss could resist such a challenge. A greater recipe for disaster I have never heard. And to think I was the one who arranged for that addlepated Scotsman to help her!”

“Mr. McGregor has been a help to her, Mother. So has Captain Gabriel.” Jolly hurried to his mother’s side and began patting her hand. “You should not upset yourself so. The doctor warned you against unusual exertion. In any case, if you are worried about a
tendre
forming between the captain and Lady Juliana, you may set your mind at rest. The two spent the first few weeks barely speaking to each other. Now they can barely spend a moment together without arguing.”

“That concerns me more than anything else!” Instinctively, she started to rise and immediately winced.
Damn
, she thought as she glared at her useless legs. Sometimes she still forgot, even after all these years. She closed her eyes and felt the long-ago memory of terrifying helplessness wash over her. She would not allow it happen. Not to her Juliana. “Horatio, I want to speak with this Captain Gabriel. You shall bring him to my rooms. This evening.”

“But Mother, he might have a previous engagement.”

“See to it that he does not,” she commanded as she settled back against her pillows. “And make sure that you take Juliana out for a drive or to the theatre or some such nonsense. I want her to be engaged elsewhere when I meet the captain. Meg is unwell and will keep to her rooms, but I do not want either of them to know of this meeting.”

The commodore’s confusion showed that he had little understanding of his mothers concerns, but he nodded and left the bedchamber to do her bidding. Hortensia loved him with the full measure of her heart, but she wished he was not such a muttonhead when it came to matters requiring any degree of cleverness. And he had been such a promising young man.…

Still, her son’s failings were nothing compared to the distress she felt over Juliana. Hortensia had assumed that, when Juliana’s period of mourning was over, the girl would reclaim her position in polite society—and her title as one of the most sought after ladies in London. Even now, the butler’s silver salver was piled high with the calling cards of beaux still seeking the girl’s hand. Hortensia had no doubt that a bevy of ardent admirers would quickly steer the girl’s thoughts away from this shipping line foolishness. But if the child’s good name became embroiled in scandal …

The haute
ton
could forgive many things—ladies of rank with several children, none of whom resembled their husbands, stylish rakes like Beau Brummel whose extravagant tastes were always paid for with other people’s money, and a
loutish, self-centered regent who cared more for his cuff links than he did for his subjects. They might even forgive a valiant young miss who honored her father’s dying wish to take over his shipping line.

But if that same young miss were linked even by rumor to a man of no social standing, whose notorious profession was nothing compared to his notorious reputation with the ladies … well, one only had to recall the terrible social fate of the once wildly popular Lady Caroline Lamb to know what Juliana’s future might hold. Every door in Mayfair would be closed to her. Every former friend would disown her. She would lose all the popularity she now enjoyed—along with any hope of an acceptable match and a happy future.

Pen in hand, Mrs. Jolly scratched out a terse note. But even as she wrote, other images from long ago filled her mind. A stormy night. A mad carriage chase. A dreadful crash that robbed her of the use of her legs—and so very, very much more.

She bit her lip and signed the missive, then folded it tightly and handed it to her abigail. “See that this letter is delivered to the evening post. Pay the messenger extra for special delivery. I only pray that I am in time.”

“Time for what, Madame?”

Later at tea in the servant’s hall, Mrs. Jolly’s abigail related to her friends that the older lady had made no attempt to answer her question. “She just stared out the window like I weren’t even in the room, and muttered something that sounded like ‘heavens, a scar.’ ”

“The den of the lioness,” Raoul commented as he looked across the cobbled street at Number 42 Berkeley Square. Candlelight poured out through the manor’s great front windows, lighting the street in front of it as bright as day. “
Mon Dieu
, the place is lit like a church on Twelfth Night. A bad spot from which to make a quick getaway.”

“I doubt that will be necessary,” Connor replied as he
adjusted the knot in his expensive silk cravat, hastily purchased only a few hours ago after he’d received the unexpected summons. “Mrs. Jolly may have the reputation of a termagant, but she is still a woman. And I have yet to fail in charming a member of the fairer sex.”

“Including Lady Juliana?”

Connor’s confident smile lost a bit of its luster. “I am handling the lady quite well.”

Raoul stroked his mustache. “Ah yes, I think perhaps the entire coast of Normandy has heard how well you handle her.”

Connor grimaced. He did argue with Juliana constantly and loudly about almost everything. The woman knew the sea, but she had a great deal to learn about the business of commerce. Still, she was a remarkably quick study, and recently she had begun making imaginative, clever, and profitable decisions on a regular basis. It would not be too long before Connor ran out of reasons to argue with her.

He did not want to think about that.

Raoul’s words brought him back to the present. “It is rumored that this very afternoon she threw an andiron at you.”

“ ’Twas a paperweight. A
small
paperweight. And she has a bloody poor aim.”

“All. That was a stroke of luck,” Raoul commented without much conviction.

“Well, we might soon have more problems than a paperweight. She … mentioned that she had heard rumors of a spy in the Admiralty.”

Raoul shrugged. “Rumors are not proof. I myself have heard rumors of sea serpents and mermaids.”

“Yes, but this rumor is
true
. It can only be a matter of time before we are discovered. And when that happens, I do not want to be anywhere near Juliana or the Marquis Line.”

Rauol shrugged again. “Then leave.”

Connor wanted to. God, he’d intended to leave weeks before. Members of his crew were beginning to whisper that
he’d become a landlubber. Truly, like them, there was a part of him that yearned for the wide-open freedom of the sea. But every morning when he rose, his first thoughts were of Juliana. And every morning, his steps turned toward the offices of the Marquis Line, as if drawn by an invisible, irresistible force, like the tides to the moon.

“Zut alors, your cravat lists like a drunkard. Here.” Raoul efficiently retied Connor’s stock into a natty four-in-hand. “All right, my friend, you are on your own. Good luck in bearding the lioness. And as for the Lady Juliana, just remember there are other fish in the sea. And most of them are
très content
to assault men with kisses rather than paperweights.”

Connor shook his head. “Don’t you ever think of anything but sex?”

The Frenchman considered for a moment. “
Mais oui
, but nothing else I like so much.”

Connor strode across the street, grinning in spite of himself. God, he envied the bastard. Raoul had more women than spots on a Billy Blue neckcloth, but his heart was true to none of them. As opposed to Connor, who could not seem to get his mind off of one vexing, spoiled miss … who had stood up to him with a bravery he’d rarely seen equaled. And who had a kiss that could take a man to heaven in a heartbeat.

Raoul stood in the darkness, watching his friend enter the brightly lit manor house. Memories assailed him. A country chateau blazing with light. Lush vineyards, secret forests, and green, fertile hillsides. His mother’s beautiful voice singing him to sleep. His early years had been a golden haze of uncomplicated happiness—until the night his mother had woken him from a deep sleep and told him he was to leave the house with an uncle he barely knew. Confused, tired, and irritated, Raoul had purposely not returned his mother’s kiss. He hadn’t known it was the last time he would ever see her alive.…

A knife-edge of light from the basement door caught Raoul’s eye. A cloak-wrapped figure carrying a small satchel
stepped cautiously out of the house and glanced both ways before starting down the fog-shrouded street. The cloak concealed the person’s features, but it could do nothing to disguise the graceful cadence of the walk or the subtle sway of hips as the figure hurried across the cobbles. Raoul knew that walk. He’d watched her from a distance on the London docks more times than he could count.

What was Mademoiselle Evans doing out alone at this time of night?

Only one answer came to mind. She was meeting a lover. A curious disappointment stung his heart. In his travels he’d known dozen of women he’d believed to be virtuous but who turned out to be false as paste jewels. Why should he waste a second thought on this one? He turned in the opposite direction, telling himself it did not matter that it was a moonless night, or that she was alone and unchaperoned, or that mayhem could befall an unvirtuous woman as easily as it could a virtuous one—

“Merde!”
He turned on his heel and started after the girl.

Meg adjusted her spectacles and peered down Half-Moon Street. In the distance, a hired coach clattered its way toward the busy thoroughfare of Piccadilly, but the rest of the street was deserted. The gentry were all inside their warm, well-appointed homes, primping and preening for the start of the Season. Meg pulled her cloak closer against the damp winter wind, wondering if any of them ever spared a thought for the souls who did not have homes to go to.

She clutched her bundle tighter and darted across the street, then continued her way down Curzon toward Shepherds Market. During the day, this business district was a beehive of activity, but at night the shops were shut tight and deserted. Huge glass shop windows stared out at her like blind eyes, reflecting her faint, ghostly image in their surfaces.

A shiver crept down her spine. She heard a muffled footfall behind her and whirled around, nearly overbalancing
herself in the process. But the only thing there was the curling fog and the blackness of the empty, staring windows.
Margaret Evans, you are being a goose
.

A thin figure detached itself from the shadows. “Miss?”

“Lettie!” Meg hurried across the street, more relieved than she cared to admit at the presence of another soul. “How are you? Are the children well?”

“Alice is ever so much better, thanks to you, miss. And you wouldn’t recognize my Josh. That mutton stew you gave me last fortnight made him grow a foot taller. And those sweetmeats you sent were a glorious treat. You’re an angel from heaven to send them, and that’s a fact,” Lettie said, bobbing a shaky curtsy. The reason for her awkwardness was all too apparent. The girl’s thin body was several months gone with child.

Lettie was only nineteen, little more than a child herself, and yet she had given birth to three children, including a stillborn daughter. Now there was another on the way. Meg handed over the bundle of clothes and food. “I don’t know if I can come again. I had to cry sick tonight to get away, and I cannot keep doing that. I do wish that you could come to the house. I could give you so much more if I didn’t have to carry—”

The distant jangle of reins silenced her. Lettie glanced down a nearby alley, then turned back to Meg, her eyes wide with fright. “I got to go, miss. My man’s waitin’.”

The girl turned to leave, but Meg caught her hand. “Ask him if he’ll bring you to my house, Lettie.”

“He won’t. You know he won’t. My man can’t show his face.”

“Then
you
come. Lettie, I have friends. You and the children don’t have to stay with that—”

“I got to go, Miss,” Lettie cried, pulling out of Meg’s grasp. She ran into the shadows, clutching the bundle to her chest. A few moments later Meg heard the shrill creak of a dogcart’s rusty wheel—followed by the sound of a brutal slap.

Meg hugged her middle, fighting an almost overwhelming sense of futility. Girls like Lettie knew only one means of staying alive, and that way broke their spirit a little more every day. And there were hundreds of Letties in this city. Thousands.