Midnight Mistress (2 page)

“I want the truth, boy. By God, you owe me that much.” The marquis rammed his hand through his graying hair and leaned forward, his broad, usually smiling face pale and drawn. “Connor, why did you do it? Why did you take the money?”

Juliana gripped the chair arm, feeling the pain in her father’s voice stab through her. Eight years ago Albany had pulled Connor from the filth and squalor of the London docks. He’d raised the boy as his own, and no father could have loved his son more. Connor had become a part of Juliana’s family, and had been her protector and companion during her father’s fabulous seafaring adventures. She’d lost count of the number of times he’d saved her from the perilous situations her childish curiosity got her into. He was her hero—

“Why, damn you?”

Albany slammed his fist on his desk, sending quills and papers flying, and teetering the single candle that provided the room’s only light. For an instant, the erratic flame shimmered through Connor’s dark blond hair, turning it into an angel’s halo. But the moment passed, and the ominous shadows closed in again. Connor bent his head and clasped his hands tightly behind him, as if the iron manacles were already on
his wrists. “You have my confession, my lord. Why should my reasons matter?”

“Why,
indeed.
” A shape uncurled itself from the shadows beside the desk. Mr. Rollo Grenville, Juliana’s second cousin, stepped into the small circle of light. At twenty-six he was only five years older than Connor, but his elegant coat of plum-colored superfine and his polished manners made him seem like another breed entirely. “He has admitted to taking the five hundred pounds from your strongbox. ’Tis more than enough to send him to Newgate. I say we send for the magistrate and be done with the cur.”

Rollo’s words dripped with disdain. Juliana watched as Connor’s hands balled into hard fists, and felt the ghost of a smile flicker across her lips. There had never been any love lost between Connor and her pompous cousin—Lord knows there had been times when
she’d
longed to pummel the smug Grenville for the insults he’d made at Connor’s expense. But her father’s old first mate, Tommy Blue, had told her to pay the dandy no mind.
It’s deeds what makes the man, not words spoke by some silly popinjay
.

Of course, Tommy’s words lost much of their comfort when she recalled that Connor’s most recent deed was stealing five hundred pounds.

“I’ll not send for the magistrate.”

Lord Albany’s pronouncement brought shocked gasps from Grenville, Connor, and Juliana. She pressed her hand to her heart. Connor wasn’t going to prison. Her father had seen that somehow this was all a terrible misunderstanding—

“I’ll not send for the magistrate if you resign your commission and are out of London by tomorrow’s dawn and out of England by week’s end.”

Juliana’s relief shattered. In exchange for his freedom, her father was stripping Connor of everything he possessed—his career, his shipmates, the country he loved … and her.

“Well, boy, do you agree?”

No!
Juliana wanted to scream.
Do not agree. Say you
didn’t steal the money. Say you never saw it. Say anything, just don’t leave me
—

“I agree.”

Like a man who’d just been handed a gallows sentence, Connor backed away from the desk and gave a nod of respect to the marquis, then a swift, unreadable glance at the smirking Grenville. As he turned toward the door, Juliana finally glimpsed his eyes, his brilliant, sky blue eyes that had always gleamed with easy laughter. The laughter had died. In its place was the lost, hopeless expression that Juliana had seen only once before, on the long ago day when she’d first seen him on the London docks—a filthy, starving beggar boy who’d been too proud to accept her coin. With a soft cry she reached out to comfort him. His mouth hardened at the sound, but he passed her by without a word. He slipped out of the room, leaving behind a whisper too soft for anyone else to hear. “I’m sorry, Princess.”

The sob that had been building inside her finally broke free. Eight years ago he’d saved her from an icy grave in the Thames. He’d saved her from the loneliness of her mother’s death, and in the years that followed they’d become the best of friends. When Connor had left three years ago to join the Royal Navy, not even distance could break the bond between them. He had remained her best friend, her trusted confidant, and her hero. Until last night, on the eve of the new year, when he’d become so much more.
I’m only a second lieutenant now, but in a few years they say I’ll be promoted to commander. After that ’tis only a short jump to captain, and a man can support a wife on a captain’s pay
—

A shadow fell across her, wrenching her thoughts back to the present.

“You should have listened to me,” Grenville purred as he loomed over her. “I knew that wharf rat would show his true colors one day. Perhaps next time, my dear, you will not be so foolish as to entertain the attentions of a man so far beneath
you. Why, he probably laughed about your
tender feelings
with a woman of his low and vile class—”

“That’s not true!” Juliana bolted from the room before he could see the hot blush of shame stain her cheeks. Rollo was wrong. Connor loved her. Whatever else he had done, he loved her.

By the time she reached her bedchamber, she had a plan. The marquis of Albany was a man of passion and daring, and his daughter was cut of the same livery. Growing up on a merchant ship traveling to all manner of strange and exotic foreign ports had given her a nature both bold and practical. She opened her wardrobe and shoved aside the beautiful gowns that her doting father had lavished on her, and pulled out an ugly but sturdy oilskin from her seafaring days. She shrugged on the old coat and twisted her thick red-gold hair into a serviceable bun easily concealed beneath the hood. Efficiently masked, she opened her jewel box, removing the emerald necklace and earrings that she’d inherited from her mother. She breathed a silent prayer to the long-dead Anna Dare.
I know you wanted me to pass these on to my children, Mama, but Connor will need the money the gems will bring until he gets back on his feet
.

She penned a quick note to her father, telling him not to worry and promising to write soon. More than that she dared not say, not until Connor and she were safely wed. Then, without so much as a twinge of regret, she turned her back on her world of wealth and privilege and slipped out into the raw January night toward Connor’s lodgings.

It was a foul evening, with a cold drizzle dripping down from the starless sky. Yet to Juliana it was like walking through heaven. She was on her way to join the man she loved, the man she believed in with all her heart, no matter what he’d supposedly done. Together they would put right this dreadful mess and clear Connor’s name. He needed her love and support now more than ever. And he would have her support—
for
richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part
.

She raised her hand to her lips, recalling the soft kiss Connor had brushed across her lips to seal their engagement. It was the first time she’d ever been kissed. Connor’s mouth had been warm and gentle as a South Seas trade wind. Just thinking about it started a sensation like a whole flight of butterflies fluttering in her stomach. In that single instant she felt a whole new life open up to her, a life that was as full of possibilities as the exotic cities she’d visited as a child—enchanting, mysterious, and more than a little frightening.

 … 
laughed about your tender feelings with the woman of his low and vile class
 …

Juliana’s steps slowed. She tried to tell herself that Rollo’s words meant nothing, but the truth was she was less than confident about Connor’s romantic feelings for her. Too tall, too thin, and with a bothersome spray of freckles across her nose, she could hardly be considered a beauty. Besides, she was sixteen and barely out of the schoolroom, while Connor Reed was a man of twenty-one who had spent almost three years sailing under the king’s flag from one port to another. She’d spent enough of her childhood visiting such ports to know what went on in such places, far more than young ladies her age were supposed to know. Far more than she
wished
to know.

She had loved Connor for longer than she could remember. She had no doubt that he loved her—as a friend. But until last night he had never touched her in anything except a brotherly fashion. And the possibility that he might have touched other women differently filled her with a chilling ache that had nothing to do with the cold January wind.

She turned under the stone arch of the courtyard of the building that housed Connor’s second-story rooms. Looking up, she could see his window, brightly fit and covered with the rose-embroidered curtains she’d made for him during her finishing-school needlework lessons. The chill of uncertainty
left her when she recalled how he’d handled the amateur efforts as if they were the finest silks, vowing that he would treasure them always because
she
had made them. She remembered the look in his eyes—sure, strong, and so full of love it made her heart skip a beat.

She lifted her skirts and dashed across the cobbled courtyard as if she had wings on her feet. Grenville was wrong. Connor had not been unfaithful to her, any more than he had taken the money from her father’s strongbox. She believed in him. If the whole world turned against Connor, she would
still
believe in him. And no matter what anyone accused him of, she would never stop loving him.

Shadows crossed the window. Against the backlit screen of Juliana’s lovingly embroidered curtains she saw the tall, broad-shouldered silhouette of Connor Reed wrap his arms around another woman.

The earl of Morrow’s New Year’s ball was one of the most glamorous events of the year. The house, designed to ape the fashionable Argyle Rooms, was decorated in the Grecian motif, with magnificent Corinthian pillars, life-sized statues of fawns and nymphs, marble floors inlaid with glittering gold and jade, and hanging brass lamps, all of which put one in mind of a temple. The carefully selected guests came dressed to the nines in their most elaborate finery, in silks, satins, and velvets of every hue in the rainbow, and cascades of jewels that shone and sparkled as they whirled across the sweep of the grand ballroom floor.

But not all of the guests had chosen to deck themselves out in regal opulence. One lady in particular had arrived in a simple white dress cut in the classic style, unadorned save for the plain gold ribbon at her high waist and a spray of tiny white blossoms in her red-gold hair. It was a scandalously plain dress in the midst of the gaudy riot of fashion, and more
than one lady clucked behind her fan at its inappropriateness. But those same ladies were also making mental notes to rush to their mantuamaker in the morning and have the same dress made for themselves. For the woman wearing the dress was an acknowledged leader of the beau monde, one of the most sought-after guests of the Upper Ten Thousand, and the lady who was poised to be the sensation of the upcoming Season—the honorable Lady Juliana Dare.

Juliana ignored the sidewise looks and settled with unhurried ease onto the gilt and brocade settee in the earl of Morrow’s side parlor. Languidly, she unfurled her pearl and ivory fan and fluttered it eloquently beneath her chin as she declared, “The rest of the city might stand on their heads for this Archangel fellow, but not I.”

A chorus arose from the group surrounding her, momentarily drowning out the music from the nearby ballroom. The celebrated Lady Juliana had been the toast of London for the last two Seasons, and it was anticipated that she would be just as popular when the next official Season began in March. She was beautiful, accomplished, and arguably one of the wealthiest heiresses in the country, and her style and wit set the bar by which all the other ladies of the
ton
were measured. But her comments about the mysterious privateer known as the Archangel, who was to make his first public appearance at Morrow House later that evening, were without precedent.

“But how can you say such a thing?” the impressionable Miss Millicent Peak uttered, her turquoise headdress of ostrich feathers bobbing with every other word. “The Archangel and his ship have run the French blockades dozens of times, bringing badly needed supplies to our soldiers in the Peninsula.”

“For a pretty price,” Lady Juliana replied.

Mr. Hamilton shook his head so firmly that his new wig slipped askew. He patted the lapels of his elegant bottle green velvet waistcoat that had been tailored by the fine and
fashionable Mr. Weston in Conduit Street, and which Juliana suspected concealed a Cumberland corset under its well-turned lines. “Well-paid or not, you must own that the man showed uncommon courage. True, he sails under a letter of marque and gains a share of the cargo he captures in the prize court, but that is hardly the point. Three times he has put his bannerless ship between Boney’s cannons and our defenseless merchant vessels.”

“More likely ’twas just an ill-timed shift of the wind,” Juliana drawled as she rose from the settee. “Or an unfavorable current. La, I suspect there is more buffoonery than bravery in his actions.”