Silver Angel (32 page)

I
n the end, Chantelle did let Derek take her to the Huntstable estate with him, but only because she had finally recalled the dilemma she had left behind in England. It was
not
that she had agreed to be his mistress, though he steadily worked on changing her mind. It was simply that he could help her locate Aunt Ellen and assess the current situation much easier than she could, and he owed her that much.

He wasn’t too happy about learning who her father had been, especially when he learned his grandfather had been acquainted with him. Nor did he listen to the rest of her story calmly. That he was angry for her sake surprised her. That he agreed to help her without having to be coerced into it surprised her even more.

She met Caroline the first day of their arrival. It was an uncomfortable ordeal in every way. Even the new clothes that Derek had purchased for her in Dover didn’t give Chantelle the confidence to face up to this beautiful, and splendidly attired, woman. She was wearing plain blue linen. Caroline was adorned in Chinese red silk.

The seamstress who had relinquished the two already finished outfits that needed only a few minor adjustments to fit Chantelle was upstairs waiting to fit her for the complete wardrobe she had agreed to let Derek order for her, but that didn’t help her now. Seeing Caroline and Derek together was like watching long-lost friends reunited. They didn’t seem at all
like lovers, yet Chantelle still hurt to see that Derek really did have true feelings for this woman.

What he told Caroline about her after their brief introduction, she didn’t know. She didn’t care to stay and watch this reunion any longer than she had to, and quietly slipped away unnoticed—or thought she did.

Derek watched her leave but didn’t try to stop her. Seeing her with Caroline, he was more confused than ever, and he had been in a state of continuous confusion where his feelings were concerned ever since he had had the expected row with Chantelle on the ship.

He was glad to see Caro, delighted in fact, having missed their special closeness. He very nearly blurted out his dilemma with Chantelle, as he would have done before their engagement, to ask her advice. It was then that it hit him, the differences in his feelings for the two women. He loved Caroline. He adored her. She would make an ideal wife in every way but one, and it was that one factor that he had never considered before. He had no real desire to bed her. He could do it if he had to, but the simple truth was he would rather not.

Christ, how had he missed it before? They were
too
close, more like siblings. In fact, what he felt for her, he now realized, was distinctly brotherly.

What he felt for Chantelle, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. She exasperated him, frustrated him, made him crazy. She also fired his desire with just a look or a touch. He not only wanted her in his bed, he would be perfectly happy if she never left it.

Bloody hell. What did that tell him? Just that he had deluded himself too long. He was marrying the
wrong woman, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it except hope that Caroline would call it off herself. He couldn’t. He had tied her up for nearly a year with this engagement. And at twenty-five, she was considered quite on the shelf. He couldn’t hurt her like that, even for the sake of his own future happiness.

Four days later Aunt Ellen arrived, thanks to the efforts of a dozen servants sent out to locate her. Chantelle was so happy to see her she cried for twenty minutes without getting a single word out. Ellen was only half as emotional. She managed to tell her news first, that their cousin Charles was dead, challenged to a duel after having been discovered cheating at cards. The bad news was that his son, Aaron, now had guardianship of Chantelle.

“And if you felt the need to hide from Charles, you can be sure it is much more imperative that you stay out of Aaron’s hands. He wouldn’t marry you off, my dear. He would keep you an old maid and permanently under his protection, if you know what I mean.”

Chantelle did, and that left her in the same predicament, exchanging one rotten apple for another. But she wouldn’t think of that now. Derek had promised to help her, and she would wait and see what he had to say after he finished his investigation into the American Burke’s affairs.

Right now Chantelle had her own story to relate, and she did so with a lot of missing pieces that she couldn’t bring herself to confess to her aunt. Unfortunately, her abridged story left Derek smelling like a rose. Ellen saw him as nothing less than a glowing hero, and after she met him, she couldn’t sing his
praises loud enough. It made Chantelle positively sick.

She met Derek’s good friend Marshall Fielding that evening, but when Caroline showed up for dinner, too, Chantelle managed to drag Ellen away shortly afterward with the excuse that they hadn’t caught up yet on everything that had happened over the summer. Ellen knew Chantelle well enough to discern immediately what was wrong, and when they got upstairs and Chantelle pleaded tiredness suddenly, that confirmed it. But she also knew Chantelle wouldn’t talk about it until she was ready. She wouldn’t press her.

Downstairs, Marshall rudely requested a private word with Derek, leaving Caroline abandoned to the Marquis’s company in the drawing room. That he and Marshall hadn’t had a chance to talk since his return wasn’t the only reason Derek agreed. He was uncomfortable in Caroline’s presence now. It was absurd, but nonetheless true.

Derek filled two snifters with brandy before taking the chair opposite Marshall in the small library. “Did Miss Woods get back to her people all right?”

“Yes, and is giving out some ridiculous story about having escaped from the corsairs and finding succor from some Christians until you rescued her.”

Derek chuckled. “If that’s what she says…”

Marshall made a face. “She’s not a very pleasant young woman, is she? Too prim and starched for my tastes.”

“You should have met her before she found out she was going home. A more charming and agreeable girl you couldn’t ask for.”

“And your guest? What’s her background?”

“The same as Miss Woods’.” Derek grinned. “After all, I found them together.”

“Beautiful girl,” Marshall remarked. “Stunning, really.”

“Yes,” Derek agreed tightly. He thought so, but damned if he liked Marshall’s noticing.

“And you traveled all that way with her?”

“You could say she was as unpleasant as Miss Woods once she realized she was free.”

“Really? Strange reaction, that. But you’ve done your part, more than was asked of you. I’ll take her off your hands, if you like.”

Derek sat forward, his humor gone. “Chantelle Burke is not your concern, Marshall, so stay out of it.”

“Touchy, aren’t you?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“I beg to differ. Caroline can’t be too happy that you’ve brought another woman home with you.”

“Caroline understands perfectly, and what the hell has this got to do with you?”

Marshall backed down. He hadn’t expected to get into an argument with Derek over it. He thought he would be relieving a ticklish situation by offering to help. What the devil
was
Derek so touchy about?

And then it occurred to him. “Is there something going on between you and this girl?” But at the storm gathering in Derek’s expression, he again backed down. “Forget it. I just don’t want to see Caroline hurt, is all.”

“She won’t be,” Derek replied curtly.

“Good, good, delighted to hear it.” A change of subject was definitely in order. “Now, about your activities in Barikah—”

“Didn’t you read my report?”

“Come on, Derek, you call those two sketchy pages you sent round to me a report?”

“I summed it up rather nicely, I thought. The problem was internal and has been taken care of. England can enjoy Jamil Reshid’s reign without further worry.”

“That’s putting it mildly. According to a report that arrived from Sir John just this morning, in the first few days of Reshid’s return to normal business, he granted us six concessions, two of which the French previously had exclusive rights to.”

“So he was a little grateful—”

“Don’t be so bloody modest. A little grateful? You must not have heard yet about the Barikahian ship that arrived a full week before you did. It was filled to the brim with exotic gifts for His Majesty, gems to put the crown jewels to shame, silks, brocades, parrots, ostriches, two
live
panthers—”

“A drop in the bucket, Marsh. He’s not exactly an impoverished ruler, you know.”

“That’s not even the half of it, Derek. There were also twenty female slaves—” At Derek’s burst of laughter, Marshall frowned. “Would you mind telling me what you find so amusing? It was a bloody embarrassment.”

“I don’t doubt it. So he found an excuse to weed out his harem after all.”

“His harem? They claimed to be from his household—but his harem? No wonder each of them possessed a personal fortune even a duke would envy. But doesn’t he realize—”

“Of course he does. He knew full well they would be set free.”

“Then why didn’t he just free them himself?”

“Come on, Marsh, you know that isn’t the way things are done over there. Slaves are given away quite frequently and for any number of reasons, but rarely
are they granted freedom without recompense. They’re just too valuable a commodity.”

“But in effect he freed them.”

“Yes, but in the guise of gratitude. There is a difference.” And then Derek grinned. “Besides, he probably thought I would appreciate the gesture.”
Since I failed to do the weeding for him
.

“Which brings us back to your modesty. You must have done something more than simply point him in the right direction.”

“Not at all. They were getting nowhere by suspecting Selim. I might have turned suspicion elsewhere, but it was one of the Dey’s own concubines who discovered the true instigator of the plot.”

“So you claim. Chantelle Burke, by any chance?”

“I don’t recall giving any names in my report.”

“As uncooperative as ever.” Marshall sighed. “You’re just not going to tell me the whole of it, are you?”

“There’s nothing else to tell. England is happy. Barikah is happy. What more could you want?”

“A little honesty between friends,” Marshall grumbled.

Derek stared at him for a long, thoughtful moment; then he finally said, “He’s my brother.”

“Good God! That explains…no wonder…” Marshall cleared his throat, his expression almost comical in his embarrassment. “Sorry, old man, for being so bloody persistent. As you say, there’s nothing else to tell, is there? Shall we rejoin Caroline and your grandfather?”

Derek suppressed a grin. “By all means.”

But his own discomfort returned on finding Caroline alone in the drawing room, the Marquis obviously having deserted her, too. She was finishing a
piece on the piano, a melancholy tune that didn’t suit her at all. It suited him, however, when he thought of how disturbed Chantelle had been during dinner and how stubbornly she had tried to hide it.

Of course he knew why, but there was very little he could do about it. He had her tucked in under his roof where he wanted her, and would do everything possible to keep her there. But Caroline thought of this as her second home, and she would be popping around more and more often as the wedding day approached. Meetings between the two would be unavoidable.

The music had ended and Marshall’s voice broke into his thoughts with a surprising “Rather off key, weren’t you, Lady Caroline?”

She stood up, smiling tightly. “I didn’t realize you were tone-deaf, Lord Fielding.”

“And I didn’t realize you were so unaccomplished at the piano.”

Caroline’s gasp was heard clear across the room. “How dare you!”

Marshall shrugged carelessly. “Just pointing out what everyone else is too polite to mention. You would have saved your music teacher a good deal of frustration, I imagine, if you had just told your father that you had no interest in learning the piano. But that wouldn’t do, would it? You’ve never made a decision on your own in your whole life.”

Derek couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and it didn’t stop there. Caroline got angrier, and Marshall became even more insulting, and they both seemed oblivious that he was in the room, the sparks flying between them hot enough to singe the carpet. It occurred to him that he and Chantelle behaved in much
the same way when they couldn’t come to terms with their feelings, and suddenly he burst out laughing.

He received two furious scowls that choked off his humor, and he managed a very conversational response. “Would this antagonism end if I left you two alone?”

Caroline was the one to answer, her voice still sharp. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Actually, I believe you do. Perhaps I should have asked instead if a broken engagement might improve the situation.”

She blushed, but it was Marshall who replied. “You can’t expect her to answer that. The woman doesn’t know her own mind.”

“I do so!” Caroline snapped.

Derek crossed the room to put an arm around her shoulders. It was all he could do to keep from grinning.

“Perhaps you were a bit hasty in accepting my proposal, Caro.”

In a ridiculous emotional about-face, she glanced up at him meekly. “Do you think so, Derek?”

He nodded. “I’m a cad and a scoundrel, but I’m going to ask you to beg off.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Don’t argue with him, Caroline!” Marshall said impatiently.

She threw him another scowl before she smiled at Derek. “Very well.”

He finally let the grin loose and leaned down to whisper, “Don’t let him get away, love. I think this is the one you’ve been waiting for.”

“But how did you know?” she whispered back.

“Intuition—and the same problem.”

“Chantelle?”

“You guessed it.”

“I like her, but I don’t think she likes me.”

“She will, love, once she hears you’re going to marry someone else and not me. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to tell her now.”