The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (19 page)

“And why didn’t you come to me?”

It seemed an eternity before she answered. “I almost did,” she said, a tremble to her voice. “But I didn’t know—”

He stopped in the middle of the floor. “Know what?”

“I didn’t know if you would forgive me. Or what that night had meant to you—”

“Did it mean anything to you?”

“More than you could know.”

“Then prove it. Say you will marry me.”

Then came a loud outburst that drowned out her response. For a red-faced, furious matron at the doorway to the Ashe ballroom stopped the evening cold, as she shouted at the top of her lungs, “That woman is a thief and an imposter!”

Ashe stalked back and forth in front of the breakfast table where his mother sat eating her morning repast as if nothing were amiss.

“I lost her, Mother! Again!” In the chaos of the Lady Fitzsimon’s shouted accusations, his lady love, his fairy queen, had managed to slip through the crowd and get out of the house.

One of the servants had seen her leaving through the garden.

Lady Ashe nodded and smiled and buttered her toast without a word.

“How will I ever find her again? I don’t even know her name.”

“You looked as if you knew each other quite intimately,” his mother said. It wasn’t so much a scold … But really, such a kiss! And in front of the guests. Then again, hadn’t her husband kissed her in much the same manner the night they had fallen in love? But he’d had the decency to steal her off to the conservatory on some ridiculous pretence that the oranges were in bloom.

“What if Lady Fitzsimon gets to her first?” he said. “She’ll have her thrown in prison.”

“Lady Fitzsimon
will
most likely get to her first,” Lady Ashe said.

That froze her son’s steps. “Mother, that is the last thing we want to happen.”

She shrugged and continued eating her breakfast.

Julian paused before the table. “How can you be so certain that Lady Fitzsimon knows where she is?”

“Because I, just like Lady Fitzsimon, know exactly where that dress came from.”

She glanced up at him and he looked ready to burst. Yes, he was in love with that girl and there would be no setting her aside. He’d loved her all these years and no other lady would brighten his heart. Good. It was exactly as it should be. So she pushed aside the tablecloth and pulled from beneath the table a set of gossamer wings. “She lost these last night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he exploded.

Lady Ashe smiled, wiped her lips with her napkin. “Because I wanted to finish my breakfast before we went and fetched your future wife home.”

Ella emerged from the basement room that she shared with Hazel and Martha a miserable wreck. She’d been able to escape the Ashe Ball the night before — her knowledge of the house suddenly becoming rather convenient.

Once she’d found her trusty carriage and helpers, they had whisked her home and scattered into the night. When Hazel and Martha had arrived so many hours later, she had sobbed out the entire story on their sympathetic shoulders.

Now the morning had come and Ella knew the reckoning, the one she’d avoided all those years ago, was about to come to roost. But perhaps it was as Hazel averred — there had been no crime committed. Madame Delaflote had demanded that Ella pay for the gown, so technically it was hers. She had found the invitation on the floor of the shop. There was no theft whatsoever.

Not that Madame would see it that way. She’d sack Ella for bringing this scandal down upon her shop, she’d—

Ella’s wayward thoughts came to an abrupt halt as she parted the curtain before going about the business of opening. She spied a crowd of ladies and onlookers outside, all queued up and waiting for the shop to open. Several of them waved at her and others pointed at the door, in hopes of enticing her to open the shop early.

Lady Fitzsimon stood front and centre with a pair of Robin Redbreasts at the ready. She hadn’t wasted any time and was here to exact her reckoning. But that sight didn’t frighten Ella as much as did the tall, handsome figure of Lord Ashe standing at the back of the crowd.

He was here!

Ella whirled around and hid behind the curtain. He’d found her after all.

Hazel and Martha had just come upstairs and were rubbing their sleepy eyes.

“What is it?” Martha asked.

“Is something wrong?” Hazel said, then glanced over Ella’s shoulder. “Is
she
out there?” “She” being Lady Fitzsimon.

Ella nodded her head.

“Is
he
out there?” Martha asked.

She nodded again.

“Well, let him in and see what he has to say. I still wager he’s here to propose. Then he’ll send that old cow packing.” Hazel pushed past Ella and went out into the main shop but then came to an instant standstill, much as Ella had done previously. “Oh, my stars! He’s brought half of London with him.”

At this point, Madame arrived, coming down the stairs from her rooms above. She glanced at the lot of them and sighed. “What is this? Standing about? The shop needs to be readied. I want—” She pushed open the curtain and discovered the mob outside.

She whirled around on her employees. “Whatever have you done?” But before any of them could answer, she took another glance at all the anxious and happy faces outside — well, except those belonging to Lady Fitzsimon and her police officers. “Oh,
la
! It matters not — I’ll be rich before this day is out. Get those doors open!”

Martha bobbed a curtsey, and made her way to the door. The moment the doors sprang open the shop was filled with people and a cacophony of requests.

“I would like a gown from that green silk.”

“Can you do my costume for the Setchfield masquerade?”

“I would like the same design of gown as the princess wore last night.”

“I want that gel arrested for theft! She stole my gown and my invitation!”

But the loudest and most commanding request came from Lord Ashe. “I am here to fetch my bride. Bring her out immediately.”

This stilled every pair of lips in the shop. Even Lady Fitzsimon’s.

“Gar,” Hazel whispered. “It is just like a fairy tale.” Then she pushed Ella through the curtain and into Ashe’s waiting arms.

And like any good fairy tale, it all ended with a kiss.

It started with a woman and it would end with a woman. This woman. The one Anthony Barnett had been dreaming about for thirteen years. The one who would now be the instrument of his revenge.

Lady Paget — Marissa, to her close friends and family — studied his sombre office, taking in the dark, heavy furniture and the stacks of bound shipping ledgers. She looked everywhere but at him.

Not that he could blame her. His summons to her brother, Lord Joslin, had been carefully worded, but the threat had been clear. Marissa was to appear at Nightingale Trading by noon today or the entire Joslin family would suffer the consequences.

Anthony maintained his silence, knowing victory would be sweeter when Marissa finally came to him of her own volition. Step by reluctant step. She had already taken the first one by coming down to his dockside warehouse. The next would be when she worked up the nerve to look him directly in the eye.

The casement clock by the door ticked out the seconds as she inspected everything in the room worth inspecting. Eventually, like a disobedient child dragging her feet, she slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. Her pale eyes, the colour of a clear winter sky, fixed on him with reluctant attention. A hint of shame pooled in those cool blue depths. At the sight of it, a grim satisfaction settled in Anthony’s chest. She could no longer ignore him, and had now stepped willingly into his carefully laid trap.

He finally had Marissa where he wanted her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

“The light is poor in here, but I think you are greatly changed,” she said in a flat, toneless voice. “I hardly recognize you.”

He frowned. What had she expected? The last time she had seen him, he’d been a callow youth, and a weedy one at that. Years spent at sea had toughened him — hardened him in ways she couldn’t imagine. She had changed as well, and in ways he had not expected.

Marissa retained the feminine power to command his complete attention, of course. But she had always chattered and sparkled like a rippling brook, full of laughter and mischief. Now she was subdued, even colourless — a muted reflection of her youthful self.

Reluctantly, he recalled the last time he had seen her, the night his life reached both a beginning and an end. Then she had been full of life and beauty — so joyously in love that his heart had well nigh burst with glory of it. The beauty remained, with her tall, slender figure and hair spun from moonlight. But the glow that had lit up his world had faded. Now her allure had become unearthly, even remote. Lovely but cold, like an Alpine lake before the spring thaw.

Anthony abandoned his post by the window that overlooked the docks and his growing shipping empire. He prowled across the room, halting in front of her, deliberately crowding her against a bookcase. This close, he could inhale her perfume — faint and scented with jasmine — and the sweetness that had always been Marissa. That, at least, had not changed. His body recognized the subtle scent, responding with a flash of heat and a sharpening of all his senses. Almost unconsciously he leaned into her, wanting more.

As she flinched and stepped back, Anthony scowled. Marissa had never trembled before anyone, not even her bastard of a father in one of his towering rages.

He waged a brief internal struggle to ignore the long and lamentably ingrained impulse to protect her. She had forfeited such a right years ago, and his current plans called for exactly the opposite of protection.

“Lady Paget, please sit down. I’m sure you’re as eager to begin our discussion as I am.”

She muttered something under her breath and stepped around him to the hard cherry-wood chair in front of his desk. With a spine as straight as an oak mast, she perched on the edge of the seat, looking as if she were facing a roomful of Barbary pirates.

He wasn’t a pirate — he was her first lover. The man she had sworn to love for ever but instead had betrayed, breaking all the vows they had made so many years ago.

Rather than settling into his own leather chair, he leaned against the edge of his massive desk, deliberately looming over her. She edged back in her seat, trying to put distance between them. But distance between them, at least of the physical sort, wasn’t part of his strategy.

Marissa took a deep breath and raised her gaze to meet his. Heat infused those eyes now, fire and ice clashing to a devastating effect. It jolted him that look, sending a heady lust roaring through his veins. He smiled, knowing he wouldn’t wait much longer to bed her.

His smile seemed to discompose her. She cleared her throat.

“Mr Barnett—” she began.

“Captain Barnett,” he interrupted, nodding towards the window. “Those are my ships out there in the Thames.”

Frost clashed with the fire in her eyes, dousing the heat. Her lips curled in an aristocratic sneer. “Forgive me. I had no idea you had done so well. As I was about to say, I would be grateful for an explanation behind the missive you sent my brother. He was not well pleased to hear from you. It was only with great reluctance that he agreed to your demand that I come to your office, unescorted but for my maid.”

“I do like to observe at least the appearance of propriety,” he replied sardonically.

Obviously, Lord Joslin had not seen fit to explain to his sister why he was forced to accede to Anthony’s demands. Marissa likely had no idea just how far in debt her brother really was.

With a puzzled shake of her neatly trimmed bonnet, she continued. “Since I am here, I would like an explanation. Your business is clearly with Edmund — Lord Joslin, rather. I fail to see why I must be brought into it. Whatever it is.”

With that last phrase, some of the old defiance came back into her voice. Time to switch tack and keep her off-balance.

“You have a daughter, I understand,” he said, stretching out his legs so his booted feet almost touched her shoes.

She froze, gloved hands clutching her large reticule in a convulsive grip. Long-lashed eyes searched his face, as if looking for the answer to a question she didn’t want to ask. “Yes,” she replied in a hesitant voice.

“How old is she?”

She paused. An odd expression, one almost akin to panic, flashed across her features.

Bloody hell
.

You’d have thought he’d asked her to strip down to her shift, right here in his office. Not that the idea hadn’t crossed his mind. He’d already calculated how long it would take him to unfasten the long line of buttons that marched up her elegant but severely tailored pelisse. That pleasant task, however, must wait for another day.

She pressed her rosy lips together, as if holding in a great secret that longed to escape. “My daughter is not yet twelve,” she admitted grudgingly.

Anthony gave her a disdainful smile. “You didn’t waste any time, did you? How long were you married to Paget before you whelped?”

She flared up at him, just like the Marissa he used to know. “It’s not like I had any choice in the matter,” she retorted. “I was engaged to be married to Sir Richard, as you recall.”

“Oh, yes. I recall everything,” he said. “I remember how desperate you were to break your engagement. So desperate you begged me to elope with you to Gretna Green.”

She closed her eyes, fighting to regain her control. After a few moments, she opened them. Her stare was once again cool and remote.

A reluctant admiration stirred within him. Marissa would never have reined in her temper so quickly. Lady Paget was obviously made of stern stuff.