Yankee Earl (6 page)

      
“Whoa, Fox,” Jason said, laughing and tousling the lad's straight black hair, which he noted had been cut in the latest fashion. The boy was also dressed in proper English attire. “You've been busy indeed, it would seem. Life at Cargrave Hall must be a great adventure.”

      
“Oh, yes!” The boy paused, noting for the first time that the marquess and a second gentleman were standing behind Jason. “Oh, I have not minded my manners, have I?”

      
Rachel stood back out of his line of vision, taking in the whole scene. The lad bowed like a most proper court gentleman toward the viscount, then looked up at Cargrave, saying, “Good evening, Grandfather.”

      
“Grandfather?” Jason echoed, raising his eyes to meet those of the marquess questioningly.

      
“And, pray, why not?” the marquess said fondly, patting the boy's back.

      
“Grandfather said that since he was your grandfather and I was your foster brother, it was only logical that he was my foster grandfather.” Fox's large black eyes shifted worriedly between the old man and Jason.

      
Jason could read the self-satisfied smirk in the marquess' eyes. “Yes, Fox, our grandfather is a most logical man…and a devious one.”

      
Fox nodded, once more at ease. “Does that mean he cheats at chess? He does, you know,” the lad blurted out, then flushed with embarrassment and stammered, “I'm sorry, Grandfather. I did not mean that to sound badly.”

      
The Marquess of Cargrave struggled to smother his guffaw with only partial success as Jason fixed him with a baleful glare, saying, “Truth is truth, Fox. He always cheats.”

      
By this time Cargrave had controlled his brief spurt of mirth. Taking the lad by his shoulder, he directed Fox's attention to Hugh Fairchild. “We must mind our manners, son. This is Viscount Harleigh, my very good friend, Hugh Fairchild.”

      
Fox bowed again with the smoothness of a trained courtier. But when the marquess turned the boy to face Rachel, Fox's polish evaporated like mist in sunlight. His eyes, already large and glowing, seemed to grow to twice their size and his mouth opened in wonder as he beheld the gleaming vision in peach silk who now stood before him. In her high-heeled slippers and with a mass of curling chocolate hair piled high atop her head, she was almost as tall as his hero, Jason. And she was so very beautiful that when she smiled at him while Grandfather made introductions, all he could do was stammer and gape until Jason prodded him gently into making his bow.

      
Rachel studied the beautiful child whose sinuous long-legged body and finely chiseled features gave a hint of the striking man he would one day be. Another arrogant American like Jason Beaumont? She hoped not as she smiled warmly and said, “Master Fox, I am delighted to meet you.”

      
Fox's face once again flushed hotly as he blurted out, “You must be the most beautiful lady in all England! And America, too!”

      
The two older men smiled indulgently at the boy, but only Jason noted the way the compliment seemed to affect Rachel. She looked startled, and he detected a faint flush steal up her throat to stain her sun-gilded face. Did she not know she was beautiful? He observed her with interest as she spoke to Fox. She was not conventionally pretty, certainly. Her features were more strong and handsome than the round-eyed, dainty sort currently in favor. Her coloring was off, too, by the standards of the ton, but her skin glowed like honey and her thick chocolate-brown hair begged for a man to run his fingers through it.

      
Jason caught himself in horror. He was falling right in line with his scheming grandfather! Damned if he would wed the she-cat, even if he did fancy those long legs wrapped around him. Need of a woman was certainly no cause for matrimony. His troubling ruminations were cut short by his grandfather's announcement to Fox.

      
“Miss Fairchild is to be your brother's bride.”

      
“You mean you're going to marry her, Jace?” Fox asked in awe, still staring at Rachel.

      
She and Jason exchanged troubled looks. What could they say that would not disappoint or confuse the boy?

      
“That is a matter for the adults to decide, young man, and I happen to know it is well past your bedtime,” Jason said, giving the lad's shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

      
Cargrave caught the quelling expression in his grandson's eyes and nodded. “So it is, you young rascal,” he said, ringing for a servant to take the lad up to his room.

      
A brawny man missing half an ear and possessing a nose squashed flat as a run-over turnip answered the summons. He was dressed in a cutaway jacket and old-fashioned knee britches that strained over massive shoulders and bulging thighs. His small piggy eyes swept the room, settling almost insultingly on Jason, as he bowed before the marquess. “Come along, Master Fox,” he said with forced joviality.

      
After bidding everyone good night, Fox departed with the battered fellow who the marquess said was the boy's bodyguard. Jason fixed the old man with a shrewd stare, murmuring, “You would have done better to choose a bodyguard more adept at guarding his own body.”

      
“Mace Bings will serve to keep the lad safe, considering that the only one he need be protected from is you,” Cargrave replied.

      
“You mean I might steal him away and sail home to America?” Jason suggested.

      
“You have given your word to be my heir,” the marquess replied sternly.

      
“But
not
to wed the woman of your choice,” Jason shot back.

      
“Young Master Fox has infinitely better taste than do you, young nodcock. He appreciates Miss Fairchild's worth,” Cargrave snapped.

      
"Then let him marry her!"

      
“If either of you say one more word as if I were absent or an imbecile incapable of speaking for myself, I shall be forced to dash your thick heads together,” Rachel interjected in a deceptively mild tone.

      
The viscount's eyes nearly popped from their sockets as he laid a trembling hand on Rachel's arm, trying to deflect her ire. “Now, my dear—”

      
“Shush, Papa,” she said, patting his hand dismissively, then turning back to the marquess. “M'lord, I believe your grandson and I should become better acquainted. Perhaps there is some way to smooth out this frightful coil.” She bestowed a blinding smile on him before offering her hand to Jason. “Do let us be civil and join the dancing. As I recall, you do dance, do you not? Or need you paint your body first?”

      
“Oh, I dance, m’lady…even without war paint,” he replied, then whispered low in her ear as he took her hand, “on occasion, even without clothes.”

      
Rachel stifled her angry retort, gliding from the room serenely after nodding good evening to the marquess and viscount.

      
Fairchild shuddered as the young couple departed. He knew what that unholy light in his daughter's eyes presaged, and he did not like it one bit. What devilment was the gel up to now?

Chapter Four

      
“You've made quite a conquest.” Jason said as they headed toward the sounds of music in the ballroom at the opposite end of the corridor. The lad is decidedly smitten.”

      
Rachel looked up at the wry smile curving his lips. “And you, of course, are decidedly not,” she said with more tartness than she intended. What was it about this accursed Yankee that raised her ire so quickly? And why did it bother her that he did not find her attractive? Was that not exactly what she wanted? Nonetheless, she could not stop herself from blurting out, “Temper of a treed bobcat and manners of a drunken tar, indeed! With such sugary words 'tis small wonder you could only find a wife if one were forced to wed you.”

      
He stopped and looked at her in frank disbelief. “I just witnessed the exchange between you and your father. Give me leave to doubt that the viscount could force you to do anything you didn't wish.”

      
She felt the heat climbing up to her face and fought the urge to claw at him just like the bobcat he had named her. Damn the man! She clenched her fists in the folds of her skirt to conceal her trembling, vowing not to feel the slice of pain. Her voice was cool when she replied, “I do not wish to be your countess, a title you so sarcastically bestowed upon me when first we met. In spite of my father's docile nature, when he sets his mind on an idea, nothing can dislodge it. He has worn me down with reminders of my duty…something with which you appear to have only the slightest acquaintance.”

      
Jason stiffened. “I understand duty all too well, Countess. It was my responsibility to my crew which led me to this sorry plight.”

      
“Oh? And was it not your peerless leadership, Sir Privateer, which caused your worthy crew to languish on a prison hulk in the first place?”

      
He sighed in resignation. “Our bickering solves nothing.”

      
“I could not agree more. Neither of us wants this marriage, so it is incumbent upon us to find a way to escape it.”

      
“And how do you think we might do so with my grandfather holding Fox hostage?”

      
She looked up and down the long corridor, then headed for a door halfway to the ballroom. “Come. We would be wise to discuss this matter in private.”

      
Jason followed her into an elegantly appointed sitting room furnished with beautiful Chippendale chairs and sofa. She stood behind one delicate gold brocade chair and waited as he closed the door. He turned and crossed his arms over his chest, then said, “Pray continue. What do you have in mind that could free us?”

      
Ever since her father had explained about her betrothal, Rachel had been desperate to foil him and Cargrave. She had known that the earl was American, but until tonight, she had believed the fabrication the marquess put about—that Jason was a secret agent for the Admiralty. She'd had no idea he had been a prisoner, forced to become Cargrave's heir…and now blackmailed into wedding her. Armed with this new knowledge, she now knew precisely how they should proceed…

* * * *

      
The dancers swept about the huge ballroom floor in a blur of brilliant color and glittering jewels. Laughter punctuated the strains of the orchestra as ladies flirted with their partners. Jason and Rachel had vanished for well over an hour. When they reappeared, they were the cynosure of the crowded room. Their abrupt departure from the dance floor earlier had ignited all sorts of delicious speculation. Were they to be affianced? Or had Harleigh's termagant daughter drowned the American in the garden fishpond? With a gel such as Rachel Fairchild and a Yankee earl, anything was possible.

      
Jason noted the way Rachel studiously ignored the whispers and stares as they passed through the crowd. She looked as regal as a queen, smiling politely to acquaintances but pausing to speak with none. He leaned down and said softly, “They shall be quite titillated by what is about to occur.”

      
“I shall be happy to lend a small measure of excitement to their vapid lives,” she replied.

      
“So you are not overly fond of the ton?”

      
“Is that faint approval I detect in your voice?” she asked with irony.

      
“Merely puzzlement. Most young women of my acquaintance both here and in America love nothing so much as dressing in the latest fashions and having a gaggle of men dance attendance on them.”

      
“I am not most women.”

      
“Assuredly not,” he replied dryly. “You prefer riding about the countryside in men's britches.”

      
“I have overseen my father's estates since I was but fifteen. There is real work to be done…if one has the wit and the will to do it.”

      
“A very American way of thinking, Countess. Before the war I ran a large shipyard. Built the fastest clippers on the seas.”

      
“So much the better for piracy when hostilities broke out.” Her tone was deceptively sweet. “Let us see how soon we can arrange for your return to the high seas. But in the meanwhile, we must play out this charade. Come, let me introduce you to your cousin Roger. If all goes as planned, he shall soon be the next Earl of Falconridge.”

      
“Roger Dalbert? I met him several times when I visited my grandfather.”

      
She led him toward a paunchy balding man with a round ruddy face who stood beside a plump woman dressed rather unflatteringly in puce satin. As Rachel made the introductions, Dalbert shook Jason's hand heartily, slapping him on the back.