Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) (27 page)

But Charlestown fell, and so did Kingsley. He remembered the pain that welled inside him when the fighting began, how he couldn’t breathe. He ran, and during his flight he was shot in the leg by a British soldier. Somehow he returned the fire and shot the man, instantly killing him. The man’s dead eyes still haunted him, as did the memory of stripping the corpse and exchanging uniforms. Now Kingsley Sheridan was a dead hero, for better or worse, rather than a live coward.

Somehow he made it to the ragged settlement of Rawdon Town and Mike Candy’s succor. If not for Candy he’d have died. As it was, he’d been ill for months, sometimes healing, then growing suddenly sick and wishing he’d die. But he wasn’t going to die, he was going to live and make it to the townhouse, to reclaim his bounty. But as fate would have it, the British commandeered the property and he’d been too ill to care about the jewels.

Yet when he felt better he was ready to make his move, only to be thwarted by, of all people, his black-sheep half-brother. Tanner was in residence. God! It was all too much to bear, especially the knowledge that Tanner had married Diana.

Kingsley still didn’t know how that had happened, but their days as a happy couple were numbered — he’d see to that whether Annabelle helped him or not. Diana was his wife, she belonged to him, not his half-breed brother. And soon, very soon, he was going to claim her again and wipe all traces of Tanner from her mind — and her body.

And as for Tanner, well, Diana would most likely grieve for a few days, and Annabelle would most likely believe she’d been duped, and she’d be right. But what could he do, how could he have had any forewarning of Tanner’s sudden and unexpected demise? After all, he wasn’t God, was he?

Kingsley laughed, a heinous sound even to his own ears, at the notion. The more he dwelled upon the image of himself as omnipotent, the more he began to believe it.

19

“Must we attend Captain Farnsworth’s soiree tonight?” Diana asked as she snuggled closer to Tanner. “He and his friends are such obnoxious bores.”

Tanner nuzzled her neck, then kissed her soundly on the lips. “Yes, but this will be the last Tory event we’ll have to attend. Farnsworth confided to me that the British are withdrawing from Charlestown soon.”

“And going where?”

“Back to England. Your side has won, Diana.”

Diana didn’t think of it as “her side,” and it bothered her that Tanner still thought in terms of divided camps. Now that he’d leaked information about the Eutaw Springs battle to Clay Sinclair, he was no longer a loyalist spy. “Our side has won,” she corrected him, and ran a fingernail along his muscular forearm. “For good or ill, you’ve tossed in your lot with me.”

“Definitely for good.” Tanner smiled at her and lifted one of her dark curls, wrapping it around his index finger. “We should have finished dressing an hour ago. Curtis is already waiting with the carriage and must wonder what happened to us. Why is it, do you think, that we can’t ever be ready on time?”

He was teasing her and she knew it. Tanner didn’t give a fig about arriving anywhere late. “That’s a difficult question to answer.” Diana puckered her forehead into a frown. “I really can’t say.”

“Cunning vixen,” came his seductive whisper as he pulled her hard against him. “I thought you knew the answer very well, but apparently you’ve forgotten all I taught you.”

Diana wriggled wantonly beneath him. “Then you must refresh my memory.”

“It will be my pleasure.” And it was.

~ ~ ~

Oh, why were Diana and Tanner dawdling? Annabelle paced her bedroom, her blue negligee flowing around her. She listened for some sound that would assure her that they were leaving. All she heard was a muffled giggle and Tanner’s deep groan. “Dammit! So that’s what’s keeping them. They might never leave at this rate.”

Annabelle flounced onto the bed, her kerchief crumpled in the palm of her hand. This business of retrieving Kingsley’s jewels was taking its toll upon her. She wished the Sheridans were already gone so she could sneak into their bedroom. Her only problem would be the officious Cammie, but somehow, some way, she’d get the jewels tonight and end this torture of being forced to help Kingsley Sheridan and knowing that at this very moment Tanner was making love to his wife. That thought hurt a great deal.

But Diana really wasn’t Tanner’s wife, Annabelle realized. For all intents and purposes, Diana was still married to Kingsley, which meant that once Kingsley claimed her Tanner would be free. And then Tanner would take a new wife — herself.

“I’m going to be happy, finally and completely happy, and have all I’ve ever wanted,” Annabelle spoke aloud to a porcelain figure of a shepherdess on the bedside table. “Things will work out for me, they must.”

However, by the time the clock in her room chimed nine, Annabelle had nearly lost all hope of getting into the Sheridan’s bedroom that night. She started suddenly when she recognized Tanner’s knock on her door. “Annabelle, are you ready to leave for the soiree?” he called.

Bolting beneath the covers, Annabelle arranged herself against the pillows, and in a weak voice she called to Tanner to enter.

“Are you sick?” he asked. He appeared so handsome as he stood beside her bed that Annabelle trembled with desire. “You’re shaking,” he noted. “Perhaps I should send for a physician. You might have a fever.”

“No, no, Tanner, don’t trouble yourself,” came her hurried response. “I’m not feeling too well tonight, but not sick enough that I require medical assistance.”

“I’ll convey your regrets to Samuel.”

Annabelle sighed. “I doubt Samuel shall care. We didn’t part on amiable terms.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Samuel told me he’s in love with you. I hope you didn’t break his heart too badly.”

“Ah, Tanner, you’re to blame for Samuel’s pain, and my own. I told him that I love you and could never marry him.”

Tanner’s face remained a mask of indifference. “You should have accepted Samuel’s proposal.
I
don’t love you.’’

“But you did; I know you did,” Annabelle protested strongly.

“At one time I thought what I felt for you was love, but I know that I was wrong. I never loved you, can never love you. Do the wise thing, Annabelle, and get out of your bed and tell Samuel that you’ll marry him.”

“I won’t!”

Annabelle didn’t care for the way Tanner dismissed her heated retort with a shrug. She heard him speak to Diana in the hallway, then he laughed in utter and intimate delight. Clenching her teeth until they hurt, Annabelle threw back the blanket and went to the window. She watched Tanner’s carriage disappear into the darkness and envied Diana Tanner’s company. But soon Tanner would belong to Annabelle Hastings, and this thought calmed her.

“Now to check on that officious maid,” Annabelle mumbled as she threw on her robe, having decided that she’d plead thirst if she ran into Cammie. All she needed was a few minutes to get into the master bedroom and search the fireplace, but she must know where Cammie was first.

Going downstairs, she walked the length of the house and went outside, braving the cold night air, until she came to the structure that housed the kitchen. Cammie wasn’t there and Annabelle was vexed. Where was she, anyway? The woman spent almost as much time preparing food as she did nosing about the townhouse.

It wasn’t until she neared the slaves’ quarters that Annabelle decided to nose around herself. Perhaps Cammie had retired for the night.

By a strange quirk of fate, Annabelle noticed one of the windows was open enough to allow her to see inside the bedroom she knew belonged to Cammie. Shivering from the cold, Annabelle found herself peeping into the room, lighted by a thin candle. She widened her eyes in utter astonishment and envy as she watched Ezra ride upon Cammie’s writhing body. The pleasurable mewls coming out of Cammie’s mouth and Ezra’s passion-starved visage adequately convinced Annabelle that Cammie wouldn’t be wandering around the townhouse that night.

Running back inside the house on swift but silent feet, Annabelle rushed up the stairs and wasted no time in entering the master bedroom. She closed the door and instantly knelt before the large fireplace, counting eight bricks up from the floor on the left side of the hearth, as Kingsley had told her. Her fingers fastened on the seventh and eighth bricks. She pulled outward and winced at the scratchy sound they made. Laying them on the floor beside her, she then reached into the dark crevice. Immediately her hand clutched the sack.

“At last! I’ve found it.” How easy it had been, she smugly decided and replaced the bricks before returning to her bedroom, where she sat cross-legged on the bed and emptied the sack’s contents onto the coverlet.

Annabelle gasped at the glittering flash of garnet earbobs and a matching ring. They were mingled with an emerald and sapphire necklace, a diamond pendant, and gold and silver rings and bracelets. It had been a long time since she’d been able to touch such pretty and expensive jewels. She hurried to the mirror, pinned the diamond on the front of her robe, and hung the garnet earbobs from her ears. My, but she looked so different when she wore fine things! Almost as if she’d been born to them.

“Soon Tanner will buy me furs and jewels,” she informed her reflection. “And I’ll be a proper lady, just like Diana Sheridan.”

She giggled, then sighed and replaced the jewelry in the sack. When she handed it to Kingsley barely five minutes later in the carriage house, he insulted her, as usual. “I hope I don’t find any of my property missing.”

“It’s all there. Check for yourself.”

Which is what he did. Apparently satisfied with her honesty, Kingsley rewarded her with a smile. “When are you leaving?” Annabelle asked him. “And when will I finally be able to lay claim to Tanner?”

“Not so fast, my eager whore. You must do something else for me first. I need you to sell these jewels for me. I must have money and clothes before I return to Briarhaven. I’m master there now, and the master can’t return in rags. Besides, Diana can’t see me like this.”

“You do look wretched,” Annabelle agreed, “but where am I going to sell your jewels? Who has such money these days?”

“Many people still have money. They pretend to be bad off so no one will try to take it away from them.” Kingsley handed her the small sack. “There’s a man named Cyrus Thompkins who lives on Orange Street. His house is in deplorable condition, but within its walls is a veritable treasure house. Take the jewels to him. He’ll pay you a good price.”

“And then?” Annabelle inquired, wondering how many more errands she’d have to perform.

Kingsley grinned broadly and scratched his head. “Then we put our plan in motion.”

Annabelle hoped so. After she was in her room again, she took out the jewels. The garnet earbobs and ring were quite beautiful, and she’d always been partial to garnets. She looked much more fetching in them than some dowager lady would. When she closed the sack and hid it in a drawer, the garnet set rested in Annabelle’s jewel box. “Kingsley owes me something for all of my trouble,” she insisted aloud, but she knew that Kingsley might wonder what had happened when she didn’t hand him the sum of money he thought Cyrus Thompkins would pay him.

To prevent Kingsley from becoming too suspicious, she substituted a copper bracelet and choker Samuel had given to her in exchange for the garnets. Of course, the garnets would have fetched a higher price, but the copper wasn’t worthless either. Kingsley would have to take her word that Mr. Thompkins couldn’t pay her what the jewels were worth. Bad times and all that sort of rubbish, that’s what she’d tell him. He’d never be able to dispute her, not if he didn’t want to play his hand too soon.

~ ~ ~

A shiver of apprehension slid down Diana’s spine, and she glanced around the garden, seeing no one. Lately she felt as if she were being watched; it was an extremely unpleasant sensation, but one she couldn’t shake. She didn’t see anyone standing at the windows in the house, or in the kitchen or the slave quarters. Her gaze suddenly shifted upward to the room above the carriage house and she started.

For a second she imagined she saw someone watching her, but she blinked and saw nothing when she looked again. Evidently it was the sun hitting the window at a certain angle, the light playing tricks on her eyes. But she trembled and wondered if she might be losing her mind. Perhaps she was dreaming and believing herself to be awake.

She could have sworn that the face at the window was Kingsley’s.

~ ~ ~

Cammie bustled around Diana’s room, pulling the expensive satin gowns from the wardrobe and repacking them in the trunk that Diana had brought with her from Briarhaven. “I bet I’ll like Briarhaven, Mrs. Sheridan. Ezra’s told me all about it, and it sounds so pretty. I just know I’m going to be friends with Hattie, but do you think little Jackie will like me? I hope so. I like children.”

Diana glanced up from the chair before the fireplace, a letter from Anne rested on her lap. She smiled encouragingly at Cammie. “Jackie is a dear little boy and he needs a mother. He has a great deal of love to give, and so do you, Cammie. I predict that once he sees you, he won’t let you out of his sight.”

Cammie flushed and returned to her chore. Diana was so happy for her and Ezra. As soon as everyone was at Briarhaven again there would be a wedding between those two. Maybe the wedding would herald a return to normalcy at Briarhaven. Diana hoped that the scars of this ravaging war would heal quickly. Even now, the British were preparing to flee Charlestown and the American force was ready to enter. The evacuation of military personnel could come at any time. The harbor buzzed with activity; British frigates constantly entered and waited.

Anne mentioned in her letter that the Richmond family wanted to return home to Charlestown very much, but that they didn’t dare risk entering the city at that time. “We’ll wait until we’re certain that the British are withdrawing,” Anne had written. “So far, all we ever hear are rumors. No one really takes the war too seriously on Oak Island. Sometimes it seems that it was all a bad dream.”

“You’re thinking too much again.”

Diana looked up with a wrinkled brow to see Tanner standing before her, dressed in a white linen shirt with a slight ruffle along the edge and tight-fitting breeches. She held out her hand to him and he took it to plant a warm, caressing kiss upon her palm. “I was thinking about Anne and the war. Do you believe that we can go on from here?”