Virginia Henley (41 page)

She stirred against him languorously, not wanting to move from the lovely cocoon for the rest of the day and night. His hands caressed her belly where his children would grow. His brows drew together. If he kept at her like this, his seed would take root before it should.

“I told you to stay in Ireland until week’s end, then meet me at Edenwood. Why did you come to Half-Moon Street alone?”

She suddenly remembered her stupendous news. She turned in his arms to face him. “I came to tell you something fantastic.”

His mouth covered hers and she gave herself up to the lingering, melting kisses they’d had no time for in their hot passion. He finally allowed her to draw a breath. “My brother Anthony is alive!”

He sat up. “Is this a joke?”

“No, no. He’s alive. He didn’t drown. We have his letter, isn’t it wonderful?”

“Wonderful indeed. But what the hell has he been playing at all this time? Taking his place put your life in jeopardy.”

“Oh, Adam, don’t be angry. We don’t need to worry about Bernard Lamb any longer. I’m safe, Lamb Hall is safe, and Anthony is safe from him. Tony’s in Ceylon with Mother!”

“Jesus Christ, I don’t believe it.” Savage swore. “The reason I left you in Ireland to attend to pressing business was Bernard Lamb. I’ve taken great pains to spirit him out of the country. My self-esteem is a little bruised that you don’t need my protection any longer.”

She went on her knees to him and lifted her arms about the thick column of his neck. “Adam, I shall always need your protection.”

He grimaced. “It will be a full-time job protecting you from yourself.”

“What the devil do you mean?” she demanded.

“I mean that you shouldn’t be here. You are courting scandal, have been for months. Your reputation is important to me.”

“If my reputation is so important, why did you bed me as soon as I walked through the door?”

“If you come here alone, that’s inevitable.”

She was hurt and annoyed. She decided to hurt him back. She shrugged a shapely shoulder and swept aside the filmy emerald curtains that floated about the bed. “If you don’t wish to be my lover any longer, I shall have to find another.”

He was suddenly beside her, grabbing her with rough hands. She looked up into icy cold eyes. The scar on his mouth made his dark face threatening. “I’ll drown him in his own blood. I was first and I shall be last! You belong to me, Tony. What is mine, I keep.” His hard mouth crushed down on hers, branding her as his woman. “We can only be together on weekends at Edenwood. My servants keep my secrets. No one in London will know. In fact, I’d much prefer it if you went home to Lamb Hall. London is no fit place for a young lady.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “What the devil is wrong with London?”

“It’s a cesspool!”

Her eyes narrowed. “And who knows better than you? You’re up to your bloody neck in it, while I’m to be packed off home to be a good girl all week, then as a reward you’ll let me be a naughty girl on the weekend. You’re nothing but a bloody hypocrite!” she shouted. “I have no intention of leaving London until I put my cargo aboard the
Red Dragon.”

“The
Red Dragon
sailed for Ceylon yesterday with your precious cargo aboard.”

“You bastard!” she cursed, raising her hand to slap him full in the face.

He caught her wrist and squeezed it painfully. His eyes fastened on her mouth, then moved lower. “You are angry again. Are you doing it on purpose to arouse me?”

She could see that indeed he was aroused again. As he reached for her, her other hand came up with a stinging blow to his face.

He raised his hand.

“Go on, knock me down. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Violence was ready to erupt in both of them when a low knock came upon the bedchamber door.

“Mr. Baines is below, sir. He says floodtide is early tonight.”

Antonia began to dress. She was seething inside. So, he was off on the
Flying Dragon
smuggling God only knew what.

He watched her in brooding silence. She buttoned the lovely yellow pelisse and picked up her parasol.

“Have a care, Savage. If I open my mouth about you, I could have you swinging on the end of a rope!”

Adam Savage threw back his head and his laughter rolled about the room. By Satan, he’d taught her well how to threaten a man. “I’ll see you at Edenwood,” he said firmly as she swept from the room.

Tony almost choked on her anger. The liveried servant looked askance at her wildly disordered hair, but she’d be damned if she was going to try to tuck up the curls as Georgiana had done. She tossed it back from her shoulders. “Keep your damned eyes to yourself!” she snapped.

The
Flying Dragon
made its familiar way into the mouth of the River Somme toward St. Valéry. Savage picked out the signal light that told him it was safe to dock, and the moment the plank was let down his crew began to transfer the cargo. They had done it so often, they were actually becoming so proficient that little time was wasted.

Savage knew all he needed was calm confidence to lull the fears of those he had to deal with. The money changed
hands quickly and the clipper was out in the Channel again on a steady course for Gravesend.

Savage stood at the wheel, his mind thousands of miles away. Thoughts of Ceylon filled his head. Young Anthony Lamb was safely out of harm’s way, reunited with his mother, Eve. Suddenly a fertile oath dropped from Savage’s lips. What if Bernard Lamb took a ship from Madagascar to Ceylon? They were almost three thousand miles apart, but both were in the Indian Ocean. By now it would be clear to him that it was Savage who’d had him shanghaied aboard the
Red Dragon.
A premonition touched him. Deep down he suspected Bernard the Bastard would take his revenge by making his way to Ceylon. How ironic life was. Because of deliberate interference on his part young Anthony Lamb’s life might be in jeopardy. He had no choice but to return to Ceylon. Antonia would never forgive him if anything happened to her twin now that he had been restored to her. Antonia! He closed his eyes, knowing her image was ever before him.

How she had complicated his life. He had known he must return to Ceylon eventually to make a clean break with Eve before he married Tony, but, coward that he was, he had pushed the dreaded confrontation into the future. Now that her twin’s life might possibly be in danger, he would not delay. Above all things Savage hated having his hand forced. He was a man who liked being in control. His greatest challenge in life had been learning to control himself. Once he had achieved that goal he had worked twenty hours a day for eight years to make his plantation thrive and accumulate enough wealth so that he could control his destiny. His life had been unfolding exactly as he had planned. The stately home had been built, its chatelaine chosen. He had returned to his homeland with enough power to have a say in the running of the country. Then a green-eyed, long-legged female, with more guts and passion than any woman had a right to, had scattered all his carefully laid plans to the four winds.

He wanted her with every fiber of his being. He wanted her for his mate, he wanted her for his wife, and he wanted her to bear his children. He intended to do everything in his power to have her too. But the problem was he wasn’t in complete control. Tony was a bloody genius at upsetting the apple cart. He created order; she created chaos. She had stretched his patience to the limit when he had thought her Anthony, now she almost drove him to violence in his attempt to control her.

If she learned the unsavory details of his past, he ran the risk of losing her. Finally he faced the crux of the matter. If she ever found out he’d been involved with her mother, losing her was more than a risk, it was a probability.

He squared his shoulders and filled his lungs with the salt sea air. What the hellfire was the matter with him? Brooding and worrying weren’t his style. Life was a challenge! Lady Antonia Lamb was a challenge! The dice were not yet cast. He’d play the bloody game and he’d win!

Antonia decided to go to Edenwood after all. But she wasn’t going at week’s end and she wasn’t visiting the Marquess of Blackwater. She was going to have a cozy little chat with John Bull. If anyone knew what skeletons rattled about in Indian Savage’s checkered past, it would be his trusted friend and manservant.

She smiled as her wicked juices began to bubble. John Bull still thought she was young Lord Lamb. She wondered what he would make of her transformation.

Antonia felt decidedly guilty when she concocted a story of homesickness for her grandmother’s benefit. She had always had a passion for truth until lately and hated liars above all people. Now as she kissed Roz good-bye on the pretense of leaving for Stoke, she silently laid the blame at Savage’s door. When she was on the outskirts of London she told Bradshaw that their destination was
Edenwood, not Stoke. She felt guilty as sin when he winked and informed her cheerfully that Mr. Burke had already told him to drop her off at Edenwood, then return to London.

When the carriage arrived at Adam Savage’s stately home, a welcoming committee of servants was led out onto the driveway by John Bull.

“Welcome to Edenwood, memsab. Excellency told me to expect you. All is in readiness. I am John Bull, Excellency’s majordomo.”

“John Bull, it’s me, Tony!”

He bowed formally, his blood-red turban almost touching his knees. “Yes, memsab. You are Lady Lamb, twin sister to honorable Lord Lamb. May I say the likeness is very marked indeed!”

“It’s marked because I’m him! I simply took off my pants and put on a skirt.”

John Bull turned imperiously to the curious servants and dismissed them. “Are you trying to tell me Lord Lamb has been defrocked?”

She giggled and took his arm. “I am trying to tell you that I am my brother Tony.”

He shook his head in admiration. “The disguise is perfect. You look exactly like a female!”

Antonia gave up. She squeezed his arm. “John Bull, I adore you. I only hope I don’t have to sleep on the floor this time.”

“Indeed not. Excellency bade me prepare the adjoining bedchamber to the master’s suite for Lady Lamb.”

“I’ll bet he did.” Obviously Savage had been back to Edenwood since he returned from Ireland.

“So, you may have your sister’s chamber until she arrives. Confidentially, Tony, I am betting your sister will be the chatelaine of Edenwood.”

Tony made a rude noise. “Indian Savage will never saddle himself with a wife.”

“Oh, indeed, young sir, you are wrong. Excellency has
been seeking a wife for a very long time. He seeks a titled lady to be a leader of fashionable society. Someone who will be a perfect hostess when he entertains his political friends. Edenwood is the setting he has created for this priceless jewel. He needs many children. He intends to found a dynasty!”

“John Bull, you are a gold mine of information. My mouth is watering for one of your curries. After I have viewed my room, or rather, my twin sister’s room, I’ll come to the kitchen so we can have a talk.”

The chamber was indeed lovely. She realized she had chosen every piece in the room herself, save the priceless silk Indian carpet. She wondered if Adam Savage had furnished it by design, and decided he had. She must never make the mistake of underestimating him. She heard a faint rustle of silk and her nostrils detected an exotic fragrance.

“Kirinda, how are you?”

“I am very good, memsahib. Are you wishing me to unpack for you?”

“It isn’t necessary, unless you are curious about my clothes.”

“It would give me great pleasure to see your dresses. I never knew how you had the courage to be wearing men’s clothes,” Kirinda said softly.

“How did you know I was a woman?” Antonia asked curiously.

“The way you looked at the master. I, too, love him, memsab.”

Antonia caught her breath. Lecherous swine! His conquests were legion. Well, he could strike the name of Antonia Lamb from that endless list.

After they had unpacked, Tony went down to the kitchen. John Bull eyed her with open curiosity, then dismissed the other servants from the spacious room. He tapped his forehead. “At last the sun has risen upon me.”

She puzzled for a moment, then murmured, “It has dawned upon you.”

“Dawn, sunrise, what is the difference?”

“At the moment it escapes me,” she answered softly.

“I am shrewdly thinking you are not a man dressed as a woman. Oh, no, you are not as simple as you look.”

“I hope not,” she said faintly.

“Make your confession, you were a woman all along the way.”

“You have guessed my secret.”

“No one is pulling the wool over John Bull’s ears for long, not even Excellency.”

“I imagine you know everything about his clandestine activities?”

“Ah, yes. He is making the run across the Channel thrice weekly. He had a dock built right here on his own property for the
Flying Dragon.
The Greek temple down by the river is really a warehouse where the stuff is stored. There is going to be a resolution in France.”

Antonia felt sick. She had refused to believe Savage’s smuggling activities were harmful, but she could pretend ignorance no longer. Her own common sense told her the illicit cargos that made money in wars or revolutions were guns, weapons, explosives. Killing people for profit. Savage had told her that she hadn’t the stomach for it, and he was right. It was mercenary, corrupt, conscienceless. Part of her cried out that Adam Savage would not do such a thing, but another part of her decided to see with her own eyes what was being stored in the large warehouse.

As she watched John Bull’s deft fingers crush the chili peppers and carefully wash the rice, she probed for information that would condemn Savage. “You are the only one who knows the shameful secrets of his past.”

“Ah, memsab, he has done things that blackened his soul. He is needing a good woman to redeem him.” He looked at her with speculative eyes.

“If redemption is what he seeks, he has a strange way of going about it,” Tony said dryly.

“Strange and wonderful are the ways of the Leopard,” John Bull said, touching his ruby reverently.

Tony thought grimly,
The wages of sin are supposed to be death, but obviously they are jewels, gold, castles, and titles.
She sighed heavily. “I wish he wasn’t such a bastard.”

“I am thinking his parents were married. He is not baseborn,” John Bull defended.

She smiled tightly. “No, just base,” she said with deep regret.

While there was still light left in the sky Tony went outside on the pretext of viewing the gardens now they had been completed. She walked down to the Grecian temple with its graceful columns and lingered about its portico, but there were many gardeners and groundspeople about whose eyes were upon her. She suspected them of being guards. She could clearly see there was a stout lock upon the temple door.

The beauty of the garden made her heart ache. The lake, with its black swans and the woods beyond filled with deer and game birds, made it seem like Paradise, but Edenwood, as its name implied, possessed a serpent who dwelled therein. She loved Edenwood with a passion that bordered on what she felt for its owner, Adam Savage, but her heart told her she must give up both.

At dinner she insisted both John Bull and Kirinda join her. She was entertained by the barbs they shot at each other as they played out the age-old battle of the sexes, yet as she listened and laughed with them, she detected no cruelty in their thinly veiled hostility. They had been together so long and knew each other so well, they were like a comfortable pair of slippers. Not a matched pair, but not far off.

When Tony retired for the night, she had no intention of undressing for bed. Around midnight she intended finding out what Savage had warehoused inside the Greek
temple. She gathered a dark cloak, an oil lamp, and a heavy brass candlestick to break the lock. If she couldn’t get in the door, she would break a window. They were very high, but climbing had never deterred her before.

To pass the time she took her journal from her traveling case and poured out her heart onto its pages. Without her even realizing it, her words formed their usual pattern. The first page poured out her anger at Savage; the second catalogued his sins; and the third was filled with wistful longings for what might have been. What she had felt was a grand passion. Adam Savage was the love of a lifetime. Thoughts of him had a drugging effect upon her senses. He was like a narcotic, like the evil substances he’d smuggled. Now that she had tasted him, she craved him. When he was far away she could resist his fatal lure, but when they were together he could wipe away her resistance with his wicked attraction. She drifted off to sleep with Savage filling all her senses.

Tony awoke with a start and wondered what the hour could be. It must be way past midnight considering the amount of oil the lamp had burned. She wrapped herself in the dark cloak, turned the lamp down low, and picked up the heavy candlestick. It would make a formidable weapon if anyone accosted her.

The house was very quiet as she made her way downstairs and through the French doors that led out to the gardens. She moved slowly through the shadows of the trees. At first it seemed pitch dark, then gradually her eyes became more accustomed and she discerned the faint light of the predawn sky. Only when she heard the river did she turn up the wick of the lamp. Her footsteps quickened now that she could see the path that led down to the temple.

When she got to the door she put the lamp on the ground, then hesitated—not because it was padlocked, but because of what she knew she would find beyond the door. Why was she doing this? If she went back to bed and
pretended ignorance of his smuggling, Edenwood and its master might still be hers. She made her decision. She would confront him with the evidence. He had such a facile tongue, turning lies to truths so that she wanted to believe whatever he told her. She needed proof of his perfidy.