The Mercenary Major (10 page)

“I can’t.” She looked at her hands twisting in the folds of her gown.

“I suppose that’s because we’re not alone,” Jack suggested.

His cousin looked around in confusion. “We’re not?”

“Hardly,” said Jack. “Look at all these Bertrams frowning down on us.” He gestured toward the row of portraits lining the wall before them.

She turned her gaze to follow his hand.

“Want to meet them?” She looked doubtful, but he stood and offered his arm. After a slight hesitation she rose and took her place at his side.

“Now,” he said, “let’s see if we can find someone who will listen sympathetically to your distress.” He led her down the dim gallery to an overlarge painting of an Elizabethan matron in black velvet and starched ruff, her only ornament a long necklace of four strands of heavy pearls. “What do you think?” he asked the girl at his side.

“She looks very stern,” said Katie. “She would think me a coward.”

Jack pressed her to explain, and Katie pointed out the tightness of the woman’s lips, the length of her nose, and the hardness of her eyes.

They moved down the gallery, stopping next at the portrait of a young woman in gray satin, who, but for the antique nature of her dress, might have been at home in the company below. Katie shook her head.

“Why not?” Jack inquired.

“Her brows,” Katie answered. “She’d be laughing at me before I ever said a word.” Jack had to agree. It was the sort of bored, supercilious face he’d encountered at every London gathering.

After they had considered and rejected several more of the Bertrams, Jack said, “Then you must tell
me
what happened. A girl isn’t supposed to be made miserable by a ball, is she? And I did urge Lady Montford to invite you, so I am to blame if you’ve had a bad time.”

“You mustn’t blame yourself. It’s only that I said something foolish,” Katie confessed. After a pause, she added, “I always do.”

“What did you say?” Jack asked. Katie shook her head, avoiding his gaze. He was still moving her along gently, and they came to the portraits of the living Bertrams, including a small portrait of George before the war.

Jack must have paused longer at the picture of his friend because Katie looked up and asked, “Who’s that?”

“That’s the fellow this party is for.”

“I didn’t see him below.”

“He didn’t come.” Jack paused. “He didn’t want to make a fool of himself in company.” Jack looked at her to gauge the effect of his words.

She was studying George’s picture intently. “I don’t see how anyone could laugh at
him
,” she said.

“But they could laugh at you?” Jack asked.

She nodded and gave a deep sigh. “When Miss Nevins said the ballroom was pretty, I said, yes, wasn’t it, that it was probably a Kent, and that it really was a very grand design, what with the swelling of the curved surfaces and the thrust of the columns, and . . . they all laughed.”

Jack nearly did, too, but he marched his cousin back down the row of portraits to the supercilious lady in gray and made Katie look again into those haughty, bored eyes. He would escape the coldness of the
ton
soon, but the young woman at his side had to bear it for a lifetime.

When the dance ended, Victoria excused herself from her partner and went in search of her friend. Katie was not in the ladies’ retiring room, and Victoria’s concern increased. Standing at the entrance of the ballroom, she pictured the moment of Katie’s flight and then turned to a stairway in the near corner. She met Katie at the top of the stairs.

“What happened to overset you?” Victoria asked.

“Oh, Tory, did you see me run away?”

Victoria nodded.

“You must have been worried. Cousin Jack helped me.” Katie looked over her shoulder into a long, dimly lighted room. “He’s very kind. I don’t think I’ll be so afraid anymore.” As if to prove her point, Katie smiled and started down the stairs with every appearance of a girl eager to dance.

Cousin Jack indeed
. Victoria looked after her friend, amazed. It was plain that Jack Amberly had won another Faverton to his side this evening, and Victoria could not like his easy conquest of her friends’ hearts. It left them far too vulnerable. Nor was it the way of an honest man with a just claim to go about establishing himself. She turned to the major.

“Could I have a word with you?”

He grinned. “As you wish.” He stepped back against the wall and allowed her to pass, but her skirts brushed his inexpressibles and she felt a flash of heat course through her as if she had been singed. She reminded herself that all the advantage in this confrontation must be on her side. Whatever the truth of his claim on the Favertons, he was wrong to seek to ingratiate himself with Reg and Katie before making an honest effort to prove his claim to Lord Dorward. In the dim gallery she turned to face him.

Twice before, the press of a crowd had brought them too close for comfort. Now all the emptiness of the long gallery did not seem enough to separate them. He stood between her and the stairs.

He wore a black coat and pantaloons with a white waistcoat, and the weak light of the nearest candle made his face and form a study in dark and light. Just as his character was in her mind. His stance was wide and insolent, with none of the languor of the town gentleman. She was conscious of the unsettling things she’d heard about him. He’d been—a bandit, a soldier. She shifted her slippered feet just a fraction apart and balled her gloved hands into loose fists.

Power emanated from him. His black evening clothes did not so much conceal as reveal his person, the strength of his legs, the narrowness of his hips, the very flat place where the black inexpressibles met the white edge of his waistcoat, and a breadth of shoulder she suspected was not exaggerated by his tailor’s artistry. She met his gaze—playful or mocking, bold or wary, she couldn’t tell.

Jack endured her scrutiny as long as he could. The voice in his head had spoken at the brush of her skirts against his legs, but he refused to listen. She had read the challenge of his stance and responded to it with courage, though he doubted she had any idea of her effect on him. She wore a gold dress that shimmered in the candlelight like a flame, drawing him to her.

“Have you decided what to think of me, Miss Carr?”

Victoria lifted her chin and drew a deep breath. “If you are Jack Amberly,” she began in her most reasonable tone, “why have you not engaged a solicitor and approached Lord Dorward with your claim?”

“No money.” His eyes challenged her as much as his bluntness.

It was just what she’d heard about him. “But you’ve paid your tailor or persuaded him to have faith in your prospects,” she pointed out.

He laughed. “Aunt Letty pays the tailor.”

Victoria was horrified. “And your other expenses?”

“I am not as expensive a fellow as most of the gentlemen here tonight,” he said lightly.

“To depend on Lady Letitia before your identity has been established does not improve your position,” she said.

“
Aunt
Letty,” he replied, leaning toward her slightly, “has never doubted me.” He straightened and took a couple of strolling steps away from her to a long black marble table with elaborate gilt legs.

The movement caught her unprepared. It was as if they had been pulling at opposite ends of a rope and he’d let go, leaving her unbalanced. She glanced toward the stairs and back at him, but he turned and caught her moment of weakness.

“Thinking of an escape route, Miss Carr?” He leaned against the table, bracing his hands on either side of his hips, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankle. Far from suffering any humiliation or distress at her low opinion of his character, he appeared to be enjoying himself. Victoria fumed. She turned toward him slightly, wondering what she could say to unsettle him.

“Why has Letty never doubted you?”

He tensed and for an instant looked uncertain, like an actor who’d forgotten his next line. Then he grinned. An unfair tactic, Victoria thought, observing the laugh lines around his eyes and a distinctive pucker in his left cheek.

“I have my mother’s eyes,” he told her, his voice low and lazy. “What proof of your identity do you carry, Miss Carr?”

She stiffened, and she saw his eyes note the change. It would not do her argument any good to tell him of her own close resemblance to her mother. “You were a bandit,” she said evenly. After all, his past was in question, not hers.

“For two years.”

“An occupation that must demand a ruthlessness and savagery you could not have inherited from Helen Amberly.” It was a telling point, she felt.

“Being a bandit also requires a keen sense of when to run, which a small boy orphaned in a strange land has daily opportunities to learn.”

“But as a soldier you could not run.”

“Bandits learn when to take a stand, Miss Carr, and a great deal about moving unseen through difficult terrain. Hookey found my . . . training valuable.” His eyes didn’t leave hers, and it was a minute before she could think again.

“Lord Wellington offered you a command based on your experience as a bandit?”

“Yes, Miss Carr, after I brought him a number of French dispatches. I wanted to be an officer, not a hired guide, and I had no money to buy a commission.”

“You were an unsuccessful bandit then?”

He laughed. He was looking at her mouth. Victoria took a step back. There was a silence. His eyes met hers again, and he said quietly, “If you reveal that, you will damage my romantic reputation, Miss Carr.”

“Of what value can a romantic reputation be if you are in fact Jack Amberly?”

“Aunt Letty says it will help me to a rich wife, Miss Carr.”

Victoria clenched her fists. Apparently the man felt no shame for his base motives.

He tilted his head to one side. “You think less of me now than you did a few moments ago?”

She did. “Whoever you are, you appear to have no scruples whatsoever. You rely on an ingratiating manner and bold deception to achieve your ends, and those ends are solely self-serving and mercenary.” She paused. She doubted such a speech would have any effect on him, but it did relieve her feelings. “Good evening, sir,” she said, turning toward the stairs.

But the impostor came up off the table in a smooth flow of muscle, grabbed her right wrist, and swung her around to face him. With his other hand he caught her about the waist and pulled her body tight against his. Victoria gasped and pushed against him with her free hand. No man had ever taken such liberties with her.

“You couldn’t love me then, could you?” he asked in a fierce whisper.

“Love you?” The words stunned her. She couldn’t believe he’d suggested it. She couldn’t believe they were touching along a hundred points of sensation. “I couldn’t begin to respect—”

“Good,” he said. He smiled. He looked wicked, but not in any of the ways she had accused him of being wicked.

“Good?” she echoed, staring at him. In his eyes was an expression she had not seen before. He was watching her, waiting for her to understand. Unhurriedly he freed her right hand and lifted her chin.

“Let me go.”

He shook his head. “There’s no danger in this.” He leaned forward and kissed her.

It was impertinent, disconcerting, bold. Victoria knew she ought to wrench her mouth from his and slap him. But she held herself perfectly still, and that was her mistake. The sensation, mild enough at the first meeting of their lips, deepened and spread, very much as if the touch of his lips had set a fire licking along her nerves. And it was worse in her heart. Her heart recognized the sweet ache of longing in his kiss, a longing she knew the Bandit would never speak. Her eyes closed, and her hands curled around the soft wool of his coat.

Jack knew he’d made a mistake from the moment he touched his mouth to hers.
Don’t want what you can’t have
had been one of his rules from those first weeks alone in the streets of Madrid. Kissing Victoria Carr was breaking that one with a vengeance. But no softness, no heat had tempted him like this. He tightened his hold on her and adjusted the fit of their bodies with no regard for the ache he would suffer when their embrace ended. Abruptly, she pulled away.

They stood staring at one another, making no attempt to hide the disorder of their breathing or their persons. In her eyes was the consciousness of who she was, who he was, and where they were. She backed a step away and took a deep breath.

“You have fearless eyes, Miss Carr,” he said.

“Excuse me, sir.” She turned and fled.

“A bandit’s first lesson, Miss Carr. Know when to run,” Jack whispered after the girl disappearing down the stairs.

If Letty felt any dissatisfaction with Lady Montford’s party, it was only that she had not seen Jack and Victoria speak as they had at the theatre. Furthermore, Jack had danced with the wives and mothers of his friends rather than with the young ladies he might have partnered. He was observing the letter but hardly the spirit of their agreement. Still, as she watched her niece with Richard Kindel, Letty smiled. Katie was actually meeting the young man’s gaze and had spoken to him prettily and without her usual constraint. Beside Letty, Charlotte was in raptures.

“Look at her, Letty,” Charlotte said. “She’s talking. It’s just what I dreamed.”

Charlotte had repeated her delight several times and Letty was on the point of introducing some other idea for her sister-in-law’s consideration, when Charlotte said, “I’m so grateful. Where would we be without you, Letty?”

Letty refrained from answering that question, choosing instead to dwell on the success of the evening. “A few more occasions such as this and the girls will be well established. I should think we can have a ball for them by early . . . December without worry.”

“Early December!”

Letty looked away. “Oh, I think so. Easily.”

“Not sooner?” Charlotte asked, her voice barely audible above the music and the talk.

Letty shook her head. Her sister-in-law’s face wore such a look of profound disappointment, of longing hopelessly for what was not to be, that Letty wanted to shake her. “Charlotte, do you remember what Walter did when I left the hall to come to London?”