Treasured Vows

Treasured Vows
is still my favorite of the books I’ve written. I love Phadra Abbott. I admire her audacity, her resiliency, and her vulnerability.

Is she out of step with Regency heroines? I don’t think so. The Regency was a time of vivid characters and boundless opportunity. Like many of us, Phadra comes to an awakening—if she intends to live life to its fullest, it’s going to have to be up to her. What she knows of the world has been from books. Now, she’s ready to see for herself.

Many people ask about Phadra’s name. It is pronounced “fay-dra,” like the Phaedra of myth, but that isn’t where I took the name (which has been spelled many different ways over the centuries). My Phadra is named after a young girl who died of child abuse around the time I wrote the book. Her death haunted me. That Phadra never had a chance. My Phadra would.

I took a risk in writing the character of Grant Morgan. He’s a banker. Yes, that’s right, a banker. Grant is amazingly steady. In fact, he’s so steady, he does need a shake-up, and Phadra, with her scarves and toe bells, is exactly the right person to challenge him at every turn.

She dances on dreams; he is rooted in reality. Someplace in between love happens. I hope you adore them as much as I do.

All my best,

Rousseau declares that a woman should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquettish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire, a
sweeter
companion of man, whenever he chooses to relax himself…. What nonsense!

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

M
ARY
W
OLLSTONECRAFT
(1759–1797)

May 1810

B
ankers and body snatchers, Phadra Abbott decided grimly, they were one and the same.

Standing in the office’s window alcove, she turned her head and looked at Sir Cecil Evans, a member of the Bank of England’s Court of Directors, letting all of her anger flow from her eyes.

Sir Cecil reacted as if her glance scalded him. His fingers fumbled and dropped the letter opener he’d been playing with onto his desk. He’d been nervously toying with the dratted thing for the past ten minutes while they waited. His bushy brows came together in a frown, and he huddled down deeper over his desk as if he could shut out her presence. “It wasn’t
all
my fault,” he muttered. “Your father had a hand in the matter.”

Phadra snorted but said nothing, not trusting herself to speak. Ignoring her companion Henny’s look of concern, she gave them all her back and stared with unseeing eyes out the window.

Two hours. That was all the time that had elapsed since Sir Cecil had delivered the news of her financial ruin and her carefully constructed world had come crashing down around her. She took a deep breath, steadying herself. She wouldn’t give up. Not yet.

When the banker had finished his confession, he’d added that he held hopes that there was a way out of “this tangled web your father and I wove for you”—as if he wouldn’t also go to debtor’s prison with her.

He probably wouldn’t. He had money, whereas she was bankrupt and would be held responsible for her father’s debts as well as her own.

Dear God, she had no desire to see the inside of a prison.

A sharp knock broke the silence of the room. “Come in,” Sir Cecil said, his voice squeaking on the first word. He cleared his throat and repeated his command in a firmer tone.

He’s more nervous than I am,
Phadra thought, and realized that she’d been holding out some hope, some prayer, that this was all an elaborate hoax and she’d return home to find her life intact.
I must be strong. I must be brave.
She repeated the litany to herself and then turned to face the one man Sir Cecil felt could contrive a way out of these dire circumstances. He’d even gone so far as to describe Grant Morgan as the sharpest mind in England.

She wondered what Morgan was doing involved with Sir Cecil if he was so intelligent, but wisely held her tongue.

The door opened and a respectful young secretary announced, “Mr. Morgan, sir.”

“Good!” The word exploded out of Sir Cecil as he rose and walked around the desk to greet his visitor,
who was without question one of the most handsome men Phadra had ever laid eyes on. “Morgan, thank you for coming.”

Grant Morgan had a profile—and a body—like those Michelangelo had loved to sculpt. He met Sir Cecil halfway into the room and took his hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your summons sooner, sir. I had to finish some accounts on the Scottish question for Deveril.”

His low, deep voice was pleasing to Phadra’s ear. A good voice for an actor.

But it wasn’t just the looks or the voice that captured her attention so completely. The man had presence. Why would anyone so young—he must have been in his early thirties—and so devilishly good-looking lock himself up in a stuffy bank?

Ignoring Henny’s whispered “Oh, my” of admiration, Phadra closed her own gaping mouth and let her artist’s eye for detail take over. Physically attractive he might be, but he had banker’s eyes, steel-gray and direct, as if they could see right through a person. Nor did she admire the short, conservative style of his thick, dark hair or the fact that his well-tailored dark blue coat and buff trousers allowed no personal flair. He wore his clothes almost as if they were a uniform.

Sir Cecil turned to her. “Let me introduce you to Miss Phadra Abbott. She is the daughter of Sir Julius Abbott.”

“The explorer?” Mr. Morgan asked.

Phadra was impressed. “You’ve heard of my father?”

“I read his book. Of course, that was several years ago.”

“At least twelve. It was published the last time he was in England…that I know of.” She struggled to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“Sir Julius has an account with the bank,” Sir Cecil said.

“He does?” The news apparently surprised the younger man.

Sir Cecil looked away, as if embarrassed. “It is one I handle personally.”

Mr. Morgan’s silvery eyes narrowed as if he sensed the unspoken in Sir Cecil’s statement. He looked at Phadra and then back to his colleague. “I see.”

He did see, Phadra realized, and that only made her angrier. If he knew Sir Cecil for the bumbling, incompetent fool she now knew him to be, why hadn’t he done something sooner? Before she’d been ruined?

As if wanting to cover the moment of realization, Sir Cecil hurried to introduce Henny, who sat in a chair to his right. “And this is Mrs. Henrietta Shaunessy, Miss Abbott’s companion.”

The banker dutifully took her offered hand and bowed over it while Henny cooed in her throaty voice, “Please call me Henny.”

Phadra shot her a cross look. There were times when Henny’s heyday as an opera dancer was a little too apparent, but this was the first time it had embarrassed Phadra. Henny smiled back, unrepentant, and tucked a dyed red curl back under her bonnet.

Her flirtation seemed to have no impact on Mr. Morgan. He released her hand with a tight, pleasant smile and turned his attention to his colleague. “You need my help,” he stated, confirming Phadra’s suspicion that this wasn’t the first time Sir Cecil had
turned to Mr. Morgan for help. She looked out the window, biting back a harsh accusation.

“Yes, yes,” Sir Cecil said. “Please, Miss Abbott, Morgan, be seated. This will take some explaining.”

“I’m fine where I am,” Phadra said. “Be seated, Mr. Morgan. Sir Cecil takes his time in telling a story,” she added dryly.

Her touch of sarcasm caught Grant off guard, and he gave her a closer look. She’d returned to the window alcove, her arms tightly crossed against her chest and her chin lifted in defiant pride.

When he’d first entered the room, he thought her a child because of the way her hair curled freely down to her waist. Now the sunlight of the May afternoon captured and highlighted those unruly flaxen curls. This was no child but a young woman in her twenties, he’d hazard to guess, whose dark blue eyes flashed with the promise of a spirited intelligence and challenged him directly, without the restraints of false modesty so common among debutantes these days.

In fact, dressed as she was in a vivid purple high-waisted tunic that flowed gracefully to her feet and emphasized the round firmness of her breasts, she looked more like a bold Saxon princess than the well-bred daughter of a knight. The wide bronze bracelets on her wrists and the gold circlet around her head enhanced that impression. A very unconventional style.

Perhaps a very unconventional woman.

“What service can I perform for you, Sir Cecil?” he asked, dragging his gaze away from Miss Abbott. He didn’t sit, as she’d ordered.

Sir Cecil cleared his throat, took a deep breath, worked his eyebrows up and down as if considering the best way to approach the subject, opened his
mouth to speak, and then closed it again with a frown.

Grant prodded, “Whatever it is, sir, I am sure I can help you.”

Instead of offering encouragement, his words seemed to deepen Sir Cecil’s anxiety. Grant thought he detected tears, which the man blinked back. “Sir Cecil, whatever is wrong?”

The cool, husky voice from the window gave him his answer. “He’s embezzled from the bank and is afraid to tell you.”

The words shocked Grant. He looked from the proud woman in the window back to the older man. “Sir Cecil?” he started, almost afraid to ask if it was true.

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” Sir Cecil said.

Grant wanted to sigh with relief. “You didn’t embezzle.”

“Well, that isn’t exactly right, either.”

Grant felt uneasy. “You’d better explain, sir.”

“I just managed to work the books a bit to my advantage in order to finance Sir Julius’s last expedition.” His words came out in a rush of breath.

Grant sat down. He’d embezzled.

Sir Cecil finally raised his ruddy face to Grant. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

You’re right,
Grant wanted to shout. During the eight years he’d been with the bank, he’d almost made a career of extricating Sir Cecil from his bad business dealings. But he’d never thought the man would stoop to stealing. “What exactly have you done?”

Sir Cecil studied his thumbnail as if it were a work of art.

Finally Miss Abbott said, “My father, the famous
explorer”—again he detected the touch of sarcasm in her tone—“and Sir Cecil, the trusted banker, defrauded the Bank of England to raise money for a
treasure hunt
.”

Sir Cecil jumped to his feet and faced his accuser. “It exists, I tell you. Hikuptah’s treasure is real.”

“Who is Hikuptah?” Grant asked.

“A very wealthy and powerful Egyptian priest who lived around the time of Alexander the Great,” Sir Cecil answered. “Julius stumbled on the story in some papers written by a Greek merchant. He’d purchased the papers from an antiquities dealer years ago, before Miss Abbott was born.”

Grant stole a look at the young woman, who now stared out the window, her arms wrapped around her waist.

“Morgan, you must understand, Hikuptah was rich! Wealthy beyond imagination,” Sir Cecil practically crowed. “The Greek had been a friend of Hikuptah and, in true shopkeeper fashion, had documented everything he saw delivered into the man’s tomb for the afterlife. You can’t imagine what was in there!” He waved his hands in the air as if conjuring the treasures of the tomb before them. “Solid gold plates for eating in the spirit world, baskets woven out of silver and gold, sapphires as big as goose eggs, crowns encrusted with every stone known to man. All of it sitting there waiting for someone with daring to come and take it.” He gave a happy laugh. “And Julius had discovered directions to the tomb. Everything was in the Greek’s letter.”

Grant leaned forward in his chair. “Let me see if I understand this correctly, sir. Are you saying that Sir Julius wasn’t an explorer at all but a
grave robber?
”

Miss Abbott gave a sharp bark of laughter. Sir Cecil’s smile abruptly turned to a frown. His eyebrows came together. “No, no! We would have shared what knowledge we’d gained.”

“And how does the bank fit into this—” Grant searched his mind for a seemly word. “—endeavor?”

“The bank
financed
their grave robbery,” Miss Abbott responded audaciously.

Grant returned her brazenness with a measuring gaze of his own. He didn’t admire bold women and wondered if Miss Abbott was one of those females who didn’t understand her place in society. She had the look. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation in private, sir.”

At that she marched toward him, her chin tilted up in defiance. “In private? About
my
father and
my
future? I don’t think so, Mr. Morgan.”

But Grant didn’t hear her clearly. His attention was distracted by the tinkling of bells, apparently coming from the floor. He’d heard it earlier, when he’d entered the room. Curious, he bent over in his chair and searched around the room until his gaze fell on the petite toes that peeked out at him from beneath Miss Abbott’s gauzy purple skirts.

“Do you like Phadra’s sandals?” Mrs. Shaunessy asked. She’d bent over as well, and now Grant discovered her practically nose to nose with him. He sat up abruptly.

Mrs. Shaunessy followed him up. She smiled and proudly announced, “She designed them herself. She designs all of her own clothing. Very original, I think. Phadra darling, lift your skirts a bit and show Mr. Morgan your pretty sandals with your little toe rings and their bells.”

“Toe bells?” Grant repeated, surprised by a slow heat stealing up his neck. Normally nothing ruffled his composure, and yet there he was, blushing like a callow youth at the sight of Miss Abbott’s toes.

“Henny, I am not going to lift my skirts for this man,” she protested, and then her own cheeks turned pink at the double entendre of her words.

Grant forced the discussion back to business. “Explain to me, Sir Cecil, exactly what happened.”

Sir Cecil, who had also been contemplating Miss Abbott’s toes, looked up and cleared his throat. “We had to finance the expedition. It was all very innocent at first. We were determined to keep this all private, so I gave Julius everything I could spare for a stake in the treasure, and he raised a good share of the funds by marrying Mary Milford.”

He slid an uncomfortable look in Miss Abbott’s direction. “Mary was an heiress. Her fortune was not a prodigious one, but she had enough to spare and no kin to lay claims. Julius married her and, when we had the money together, left on the first ship for Cairo.”

“Leaving his pregnant wife behind in England,” Miss Abbott added softly. “Please understand, Mr. Morgan, that at this time, everything they did was all very legal—”

“Yes,” Sir Cecil readily agreed. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“—although a person could question the morality of marrying a young woman for her money and then abandoning her,” she finished.

“She wasn’t abandoned,” Sir Cecil snapped, as if they’d had this argument before. “She had the benefit of his ring and his name.” Turning his back to her,
he continued, “Julius spent years looking in Egypt for that tomb. Time had erased most landmarks, and the sands were constantly shifting. He had to bribe everyone, from the workers, who were impossibly lazy beasts, to every government official, including the French.” He lifted his hands in the air. “A lesser man would have given up years earlier, but not Julius. He didn’t stop until he
found
it, the tomb of Hikuptah.”

Sir Cecil sank down into his chair behind his desk. “But grave robbers—real robbers, not men like us—had beaten him to the treasure. Can you imagine what Julius felt, Morgan? To have made so many sacrifices, only to discover the treasure gone, stolen?”

“So he returned to England?” Grant asked.