Читать книгу Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 12

JULIA AWOKE ALL AT ONCE, realizing that something—or someone—was on the bed with her. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Alice sitting at the bottom of the mattress. “Hello. Who are you?” she asked the child of twelve or thirteen who was still bouncing as she grinned at her.

“I’m Cassandra, except that everyone save Papa and Chance calls me Callie, which is a wickedly common name, but I like it. And you’re Julia. Don’t tell anyone I’m here. I’m supposed to be in bed with a horrid cold.”

“Your nose is a little red,” Julia said, pushing herself up against the back of the bed as she smiled at Callie. She reached for her father’s pocket watch that she had put on the bedside table, opened it and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock. “I’ve slept entirely too long.”

“You’re worried about Alice? Don’t be, please. Edyth has already fed her and washed her and dressed her, and now Alice is downstairs, where my sisters can fuss over her,” Callie said. “Edyth’s very competent, Papa says. She was my nurse when I needed a nurse. I don’t now, of course, because I’m all grown-up. I haven’t been in the nursery for years.”

Julia couldn’t help but smile at this. What a pretty child, with a small heart-shaped face, her high cheekbones still nicely padded with baby fat. Huge brown eyes dominated the face also remarkable for its full, pouty lips. And Callie Becket had enough light brown hair for any two people, much of it in long, loose ringlets that bounced as she bounced.

“My nose is only red because it will insist upon running all the time,” Callie informed her, then tilted her head to one side. “I wish I had hair like yours. It’s so wonderfully straight, isn’t it? I have more curls than Odette, but she’s supposed to have them. At least, that’s what she says.”

Julia blinked at the name. Odette. Wasn’t that the name of the servant who’d been put to taking care of Dickie? “Is Odette your housekeeper?”

“No, silly.” Callie put her fists on the bedspread and leaned closer. “Odette’s our mambo. She is very powerful, but not so much as her father was. He was a houngan and he could turn people into animals for days and days. She said she’d change me into a pigeon and roast me for dinner before I could change back if I got out of bed again. So you won’t tell, will you?”

“I…I probably shouldn’t, should I?” Julia said, wondering if it was possible she was still asleep and caught up in some strange fantastical nightmare. “Why is Odette a mambo?”

Callie rolled those huge, expressive eyes. “Because she’s a very special voodoo priestess and very powerful. Everyone knows that.” She sat back on her haunches and opened the top two buttons of her night rail, then pulled out a thin golden chain. “See this? This is a real alligator-tooth amulet Odette made for me.”

“Is that so?” Julia said, looking at the rather brown, stained thing that, yes, was most definitely a tooth, thankfully too large to be human. “And why do you have that, Callie?”

“It’s my gad, of course, my guard. We all have one.” Callie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s very, very special and keeps me from harm, keeps the bad loas away. I never take it off, never, except one time a year to soak it again in the mavangou bottle, of course. It needs to feed on the magic to keep the bad loas away. Odette is very put out with Chance, because he hasn’t allowed her to soak his gad in a prodigiously long time.”

“Really?” Julia was becoming more intrigued by the moment.

Callie rolled her eyes again. “Oh, yes. We’re just lucky he’s still alive. It’s really very reckless of him. Odette becomes fatigued, always lighting candles and saying prayers for him.”

“Prayers, is it?” Julia slid her feet out from under the covers, stood up and reached for her dressing gown. “I think I understand now,” she said, slipping her arms into the gown, then tying it tightly at the waist. Her father’s education had been centered mostly around things religious, and he had told her about the rituals of many other religions, most especially the “poor heathens” who worshipped strange gods, indulged in magic and other “fanciful nonsense,” as her father had termed it. Wearing an alligator tooth seemed to fit this description. “Odette came here from Haiti, didn’t she?”

“From Saint-Domingue,” Callie said. “There were many problems there, many wars, but Odette doesn’t like to talk about Saint-Domingue, or what is Haiti now—or anything that happened on the island. Very bloody times. I don’t remember them at all, because I was just a puling infant when we left there and came here. That’s what Jacko said. A puling infant. I don’t think that’s nice, do you?”

Julia remembered Jacko. “That was probably only friendly banter,” she said, hiding a wince. While Callie jabbered away like a magpie, Julia gathered up the underclothing and the gown she had thankfully taken the time to lay out before at last crawling into bed last night. She stepped behind the screen in the corner and hastily dressed herself, trying to pretend she was unaware that nature was calling to her.

Callie shrugged as she climbed down off the bed. “Jacko loves me,” she said, buttoning her night rail once more. “And Odette says people can’t help what they look like, so even if Jacko looks like he eats little girls for breakfast, that doesn’t mean he does. I have to go now, before someone comes to see how I feel today and I’m not there to tell them. You really should go downstairs, Julia. We’ve got coddled eggs today. Aren’t you hungry?”

“I’m famished,” Julia said, realizing that was true. “How do I get to the kitchens?”

“Why would you go there? I heard Edyth tell Birdie that she’s supposed to move your things downstairs to the bedchamber next to mine so that Edyth can stay up here with baby Alice, like she did when I was a puling infant. Papa’s orders.”

Julia’s heart managed a small hiccup in her chest. “I’m…I’m to be moved downstairs, with the family?”

Callie nodded. “Papa says you’re Chance’s very good friend and our guest and you’re going to be a wonderful companion to us girls while you and Chance are here. I’m going now. Remember, you didn’t meet me yet.”

Julia gave the girl a small, weak wave, then sat down on the bed. Guest? Wonderful companion? Very good friend? Good God, it was happening. She was being introduced to this family as Chance Becket’s mistress. What sort of ragtag family was this?

And she shouldn’t tell anyone she’d seen Callie. Of course not. She hadn’t seen those boys on the Marsh. She must pretend she doesn’t know that there’s something decidedly havey-cavey about Jacko and Billy. She shouldn’t ask questions about anything, anyone.

No, she shouldn’t. What she should do is finish her toilette as quickly as possible, pack up her belongings and demand to be taken to the nearest coaching inn. That’s what she should do!

But she wouldn’t.

“I’ve never been quite so fascinated in my life,” Julia told her reflection in the mirror above the bureau as she dried her face after splashing it with—how wonderful!—the warm water she’d found in the pitcher.

Although even the presence of that warm water bothered her. How had the servant who’d brought it done so without waking her? Did the servants in this household wrap their footwear with strips of blanket to muffle the sound?

“Stop it, Julia,” she told herself as she rummaged through her bag for her brush. “You’re being fanciful. You were exhausted and you slept like the dead. Someone could have run through this room shouting that the Frenchies were coming and you wouldn’t have budged.”

She sighed, decided she’d convinced herself, and then brushed her hair, smiling at the thought that straight-as-sticks pale hair could possibly be better than Callie’s marvelous tumble of warm golden-brown curls.

She pulled back her hair with both hands, preparing to twist it into a bun, then stopped. If she put up her hair, Chance—dear Lord, she was now very easily thinking of the man as Chance, not Mr. Becket!—might decide to tug it all loose again.

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? And would she go straight to hell for even asking herself that question?

Hastily tying her hair at her nape with a green grosgrain ribbon that matched those on her three-year-old gown, Julia made up her bed and packed up the remainder of her belongings, not much caring for the idea that anyone else would see her meager wardrobe with its discreet patches and darns.

Before heading downstairs, she then pulled back the heavy drapes on one of the large windows, her breath catching as she saw the sand-and-shingle beach not one hundred yards away and the Channel beyond, brilliant sunlight dancing on the water and not a hint of mist in sight.

How beautiful. How wonderfully, wildly beautiful.

She leaned closer to the glass. Yes, that was a ship out there, moving parallel to the shore. “I can almost make out the flag….”

“It’s French. But not to worry, we’re not about to be invaded. They just like to sail back and forth out there beyond the range of our guns and make a grand show once and again.”

Julia spun around, one hand to her chest, to see Chance Becket standing not three feet from her. “Does everyone tiptoe here?”

Chance smiled. “Your eyes look even more green this morning. I imagine it’s the gown. Pretty. Did you rest well?”

“I did, yes, but I will probably never sleep again, unless I find a key for the door,” she told him, doing her best to ignore the fact that Chance had forgone his city attire in favor of fawn nankeen breeches above shiny black top boots, his full-sleeved white shirt open at the neck. He wore a dark brown leather vest he’d left unbuttoned. It looked as soft as newly churned butter.

She could see a thin strip of well-worn dark leather hanging around his neck and wondered if an alligator tooth hung at the end of it, then realized she’d been staring. Would like to continue staring. She folded her hands in front of her, then looked at those hands with some intensity.

Chance watched as Julia bowed her head, the sunlight streaming in through the window setting off small sunbeams in her hair. No bun today, which was a large improvement, but all her glorious hair still, alas, swept tightly away from her face. His fingers itched to release that confounding ribbon. Amazing how women could drive a man nearly wild by showing themselves to be so obviously chaste.

He’d been too long without a woman. Either that or Julia Carruthers was a witch.

“Yes,” he said, turning his thoughts away from treacherous territory, “I know you had a visitor. I stopped to see Cassandra on my way up here. She told you Ainsley has stuck his thumb in my business?”

Julia busied herself in taking off and folding up her paisley shawl that she’d believed she might need downstairs. Silly. It was warm in Becket Hall. Excessively warm. At least in this suddenly very small room. “I’m to be moved to a bedchamber downstairs, where I, as your very good friend, will be treated as a guest while I amuse your sisters. Yes, I know. Will you provide me with a tambourine? Trained monkeys usually have those, I believe.”

“Such a sharp tongue. I don’t know what made either of us believe even for a moment that you had the makings of a nanny.” Chance sat down on the edge of the bed, patted the smoothed coverlet. “Didn’t you sleep in here last night?”

She rolled her eyes. “Some people take care of their own needs. I slept in that bed and I made up that bed this morning. I’m more than capable of caring for myself. And while we’re on the subject of acceptable manners—you don’t belong here.”

“Here being this room, sitting on this bed? Or here being Becket Hall?” He stood up. “No, don’t answer. I’ve come up here to tell you that Dickie and Johnnie, their mother and the remainder of her brood are already traveling north to my estate. They were escorted on their way after a fine but necessarily short moonlight service for the departed Georgie, who now resides in an unmarked grave on the Marsh. Harsh but unavoidable, for planting him in the local churchyard would raise too many questions. Better they all merely disappear.”

After all, Chance thought fleetingly, that had worked well enough for the Beckets. Up until now, at least.

“That…that was both cruel and good of you, I suppose,” Julia said, knowing how much her father would have disapproved. “Thank you for telling me.”

Chance tugged at his earlobe. “I’ve more to tell you, although you’ve already guessed, with Cassandra’s help. Thanks to Jacko’s eavesdropping ways and, yes, my impromptu thought to divert him, Ainsley believes the two of us are…shall we say, involved. Because that misconception places you under my protection, I’ve decided to allow him to continue to think that way. You’ll be safer here at Becket Hall than you were in your mother’s arms.”

“My mother handed me to my father when I was but three months old and ran off to France with her second cousin,” Julia told him, the memory too old to cause her any pain. “Perhaps you have another comparison?”

She held up her hand. “No, please don’t bother. And please don’t tell me I’m being treated as a guest as a result of your very deliberate lie. I’m being kept where I can be watched, to make sure I don’t go haring off to the local Waterguard to turn you all in for a king’s reward. Feed me well, house me royally and gain my silence. I suppose nobody wanted to dig a second grave on the Marsh today?”

“My, what a fertile imagination for a vicar’s daughter.” Chance shook his head, wondering if he could have made a worse choice of nanny for his daughter if he’d hired a Bow Street Runner for the job.

Then again, how could he have known Courtland would turn into an idiot?

“And what would you tell the authorities, Julia? That you helped a dastardly family of smugglers to flee the Marsh? That your host employs old seamen on his estate? Ainsley’s well-known here and well respected. Who, of the two of you, looks guilty?”

Julia bit her bottom lip for a moment, then said, “You. You look guilty.”

Chance threw back his head and laughed. “My God, woman, you’re right. Do you think it’s too late to ride after Dickie and his brother, turn them over to the lieutenant at Dover Castle? That may be the only way I can save myself.”

“We’re talking in circles,” Julia said, then sighed. “I’ve nowhere else to go at the moment and no way to leave here, and we both know that. And in any case, I don’t want to leave Alice until I know she will be happy here once you’ve gone back to London. But then I’m leaving.”

“To go where? Back to London? Back to Hawkhurst?”

“You really are an annoying man,” Julia said, exasperated with the entire conversation. “And I’m hungry.”

She got as far as the main room of the nursery before Chance stopped her by placing a hand on her forearm. He had to get through to her, make her understand, make her believe. “My family are not smugglers, Julia. I give you my word on that. But that does not mean that any of us would turn over two frightened boys to be hanged or transported.”

Julia took a steadying breath. “If I say I believe you, will you let go of my arm?”

Chance loosed his grip. “God, you’re impossible.”

“And you’re insulting,” Julia said, gathering all her courage and not even bothering to wave goodbye to her common sense. “I saw your reaction last night when I told you about this Black Ghost of Dickie’s. You know him, whoever he is. Don’t you? Is that why you’re here, why you’re really here? Are you simply using Alice as your excuse?”

Chance stood in front of the closed door to the hallway, blocking her escape, if that was going to be her next thought.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll tell you the truth. My only reason for coming back here—God, why did I even think about coming back here? My only reason was to bring Alice here, away from London, with people I could trust to take care of her. Unfortunately my superior at the War Office decided I should remain here for a while, poke about, possibly find out why, with all the troops we have stationed along the coast, smuggling is growing more prevalent, not less so.”

“A fool would know that. Half the troops are in league with the smugglers, for one thing,” Julia said. “And, for another, the local smugglers are giving way to large gangs financed by wealthy men in London. Go to London if you want to find the source and most of the profits.”

Chance tugged on his earlobe again, realization dawning on him. “How involved was your father with the local Owlers? Did he simply turn his back while his church was used to store smuggled goods before they could be moved inland? Or did he go out on the runs?”

Julia set her jaw. “My father was a man of God, a man who cared deeply for those in his care and did everything in his power to alleviate their suffering.”

“Which doesn’t answer my questions, does it? But it does tell me what I already knew. You know the reasons and the consequences and can be trusted as much as anyone can be trusted. But we’ll keep up the facade, I believe. Jacko might not be as easily convinced or as impressed by those beautiful eyes of yours.”

“Stop that,” Julia said, angry. “Just stop that. Wasn’t last night enough for you? Believe me, I’m suitably cowed. I’m more than aware of my current situation. I know I’m alone here and under your so-called protection. Please don’t expect me to listen to your lies, like some impressionable girl. You have my promise that I’ll never say anything about what I saw last night or what I believe or don’t believe about what might be happening here at Becket Hall and even where your loyalties might lie. Is that enough? That has to be enough.”

Chance stepped forward, ran the back of his index finger down her smooth, pale cheek. “For an intelligent woman, Julia Carruthers, you can be quite naive. Do you really believe I’m not…attracted to you?” He leaned forward, whispered his next words in her ear. “Or that you’re not attracted to me?”

Julia kept her arms at her sides, her hands drawn up into fists. “You’re no gentleman.”

Chance pulled his head back slightly, cupped that determined chin of hers in his hand. “No, I’m not, am I? I’d had hopes, but I’m afraid it’s true, no matter how long it takes, blood will out. Lucky, lucky me.”

“Don’t—” Julia said just before Chance brought his mouth down on hers. He smiled as he kissed her, she could feel that smile against her lips even as her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

She wasn’t resisting. Alas, she also wasn’t responding. Chance stepped closer, so that their bodies touched, and cupped his hands on either side of her face, directing all his energy into coaxing her mouth to soften, to respond.

He needed her soft, compliant. Willing to stay where he could watch her, too occupied with him to poke that pretty nose of hers where it didn’t belong.

What he hadn’t counted on was his own reaction to their kiss. The sudden need he had to feel her warm and willing against him.

“Open your mouth for me, Julia,” he whispered against her lips, feathering them with light kisses. “Let me in….”

Julia heard herself whimper involuntarily as her senses swam, as she felt her body fill with a yearning words couldn’t describe, urges her mind refused to understand. She only knew that fighting him—or simply her traitorous self—wasn’t an option.

“Oh, yes, Julia, there’s a dear,” Chance breathed as he felt her melt against him. He deepened the kiss, lightly brushing the tip of his tongue across the roof of her mouth.

She didn’t know what to do, how to respond. But, oh, what a lovely invasion! Julia needed an anchor or she’d float away. She raised her arms and grabbed on to the full sleeves of Chance’s shirt, not touching him yet pulling him closer.

Her obvious inexperience intensified Chance’s reaction to her. For all her bluster, all her show of bravado and independence, she was unschooled in the ways of a man and a woman. Unschooled but, bless her, not uninterested.

Not too quickly, he told himself, even as he slid his hands down her sides, to her waist, then slowly brought them up again, lightly cupping her breasts. She was slim and long-waisted, her breasts high and firm. Her body structure was so different from those smaller, rounder bodies now in fashion in London.

Artfully placed curls, dimpled cheeks; soft, giggling girls of little conversation and less wit. These were the young women the gentlemen of the ton favored now. They’d all bored him, even his own wife. Just as she had been bored by him.

Then again, Julia had just told him what he’d finally learned after fighting that truth for more than a dozen years: he was no gentleman.

She fit against his body, his hands, with the sleek strength and suppleness of a racehorse, the fine, clean lines of a greyhound. Made for speed, for grace, and with a great heart for the race.

Ridiculous! She was a woman. No different from any other woman. Many would call her too thin for lovemaking.

But none had ever kissed her. Had ever held her.

Chance broke the kiss, knowing he was becoming fanciful. He had to concentrate on the matter at hand and Courtland’s idiocy. “No one will question our association now, Julia, not even Jacko,” he said, touching her softly pink and swollen bottom lip with the tip of his finger. “You look well and truly kissed.”

Before Julia could think, she stepped back and slapped Chance hard across the face. “And what will your family think of that, sir?”

He put his hand to his cheek. Damn, it stung. He’d probably wear the mark of her hand on his skin for most of the day. “They’ll think, Julia, that at last Chance has met his match with this woman of his and that it’s damn well time.”

“I don’t understand. Why would your family allow your…your mistress under the same roof with your daughter, your sisters? Are you Beckets that uncivilized?”

“Do we give a tinker’s damn what anyone else thinks of us? No, Julia, we don’t. However, I am probably the exception, so please don’t shriek and faint when I introduce you to my sisters as my affianced wife.”

“So you’ll lie to your sisters, your own daughter? I don’t believe you. All of this deception because of what I saw and heard on the Marsh last night?”

“Among other concerns I or anyone in my family might harbor, yes. Not that we’re announcing the banns, as I’m still in mourning. In other words, our betrothal is for here and for now, that’s all. Give me a month, Julia. I won’t press my attentions on you again. After a month, it won’t matter who you talk to or what you think you know.”

Julia protectively pressed her hands to the center of her chest, then realized she had waited much too long to worry now about her modesty. “It’s…it’s as if I were a prisoner here at Becket Hall.”

“True enough.” Chance smiled as he held out his arm to her. “Nevertheless, Miss Carruthers—welcome to the family. Shall we go down to breakfast?”