Julia Justiss – Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife (страница 12)

Only one other woman had ever looked to him for help like that….

He had answered Jerusa Sparhawk in the only way he knew how, using the words of compassion and excuses, the careful, quiet words to calm an unquiet mind.

The same way he did with his mother, his poor, lost Maman, who’d asked for nothing more than that he carry her vengeance to the family who’d destroyed her own life and love. Jerusa’s family.

And because Maman wished it, Jerusa Sparhawk would be first.

No, must be first.

Michel released her arm, and she sank to her knees and buried her face and her tears in her hands. For his mother’s sake, he knew he must leave the girl where she was, leave her to her misery and tears and the dew that would soak her skirts. The only son of Christian Deveaux would turn his back on her without another thought, except, perhaps, to consider how exceptionally easily he’d managed to crush his enemy’s spirit.

But God help him, he couldn’t do it. There was too much sorrow in her to bear alone, too much pain in her bowed, griefstricken body. He’d fail his parents with his weakness, but he couldn’t leave her like this.

Without a word, he bent to raise her back to her feet, gently turning her cheek against his chest, and held her, just held her, until her sobbing stopped and her breathing grew still.

And when at last she stood quietly in his arms, he prayed to God for forgiveness.

Chapter Six

Josh had barely climbed over the side of the Massachusetts sloop before he began firing questions at her captain.

“You’re bound north from the sugar islands, aren’t you?” he asked, his urgency turning a simple question into a demand. “What port, sir? Have you spoke any other vessels on your journey?”

“Stay a minute, Cap’n Sparhawk,” said Captain Harris irritably. “You’re racin’ onward like the devil himself’s licking at your coattails.”

“He may well be.” Impatiently Josh touched the guard of the cutlass at his waist. He wasn’t accustomed to its weight there any more than he was to the unfamiliar bulkiness of the pistols beneath his coat, but his father had insisted that he take no chances. “I’m searching for a lady who’s in great peril, Captain. Some bastard stole her bold as brass from her parents’ house minutes before she was to wed, and I’ve reason to believe she was taken south, to one of the French islands.”

“A stolen bride!” Harris whistled low under his breath, and the crew members around him strained their ears to hear more. “Sounds like the very stuff of ballads and plays, don’t it?”

“Damn it, Harris, this isn’t some bloody drinking song!” It was frustration that made his temper so short, and Josh knew from the surprise on the other man’s face that he’d spoken too sharply. The same thing had happened with the other three northbound ships he’d stopped and boarded when their captains had told him they’d seen no sign of either an English lady or a Frenchman.

But Josh couldn’t help it. In the days since Jerusa had disappeared and before he’d sailed from Newport in the Tiger, there’d been no clue, no word from whoever had her, beyond that first tantalizing scrap of paper with the black fleur de lis.

Yet worst of all was how ready people—the same people who’d been his family’s friends and associates for years—had been to believe Carberry’s accusations instead of the truth. The man’s battered face had brought him sympathy, not scorn, and while Josh didn’t regret thrashing Carberry as he’d deserved, he would admit now that it wasn’t the wisest thing he could have done.

If Josh had begun this journey determined only to rescue his sister, because of Carberry he now was forced to save his family’s honor, as well. No one believed that Jerusa had been kidnapped. She had always been too pretty, too sought after, too envied for the gossips to leave her reputation alone once she had vanished. There were whispers of her running off with a wealthy young man from Boston, and a second tale involving a besotted, married shipmaster from Virginia. Whichever version, Jerusa had always left willingly, with her family’s knowledge and consent. After all, this was New England, not Scotland in the time of Queen Bess, and abducting ladies from their weddings simply did not happen here.

But then, unlike Joshua, none of the gossips had seen his mother weeping in the doorway to his sister’s empty bedchamber, or heard how his father’s voice broke when he prayed for Jerusa’s safe return during grace before supper. Nor had any of them stared out at the endless sea the way that he had, tormented by the dread that his sister, his twin, the other half of himself, was forever beyond his reach.

Yet he would know if Jerusa had come to harm. Somehow he would sense it deep inside the soul they’d once shared. Somehow.

“The Caribbean is a mighty big place, Cap’n Sparhawk,” Harris was saying, scratching the back of his neck beneath his queue, “and there’s a world of fine young women scattered about the islands there. How, then, would I know your kidnapped lady if I came upon her?”

“You’ll know her,” said Josh, his smile grim. “She’s my sister, and she’s my twin.”

Chapter Seven

“I’m sorry, Mr. Géricault,” called Jerusa, drawing her mare to a halt, “but I’m afraid we shall have to stop for today.”

Frowning, Michel wheeled his gelding about. If he hadn’t taken pity on her near the stream, she never would have dared to make this request now.

“That’s for me to decide, Miss Sparhawk, not you,” he said curtly, “and I say we still have farther to go before we stop.”

“I’m not the one who’s asking.” Jerusa sighed, not missing the inflection he’d put on her name. She should never have allowed herself to be so shamelessly weak before him, weeping until he’d felt forced to comfort her. But what had been worse was that his arms around her had seemed so right, full of solace and understanding, as if he himself weren’t the source of the same sorrow that he wished to ease. “It’s my mare. She’s pulling as if she’s turning lame.”

Before he could order her to ride on anyway, Jerusa slid from the saddle to the ground, her legs stiff and clumsy from the long ride. Thankful that her face was turned from Michel’s critical eye, she winced and held tightly to the saddle for support as the blood rushed and tingled once again through her legs. She had always enjoyed riding before, but after the past three days she hoped she’d never see a saddle again.

Murmuring, she stroked the animal’s velvety nose to reassure her before she reached down to lift the mare’s right foreleg. “Though I can’t see properly without a light, I think she must have picked up a stone.”

“I’d no idea you were so familiar with stable-yard affairs, ma chère,” said Michel dryly, watching her obvious ease with the horse. Unexpected though it was, the fact that she was sensitive to the animal’s needs secretly pleased him, her small, elegant hands moving so gently along the mare’s fetlock to her hoof. “And here I’ve been tending the beasts all by myself.”

“As children, if we wished to ride, Father insisted we look after the horses, too.” Carefully she lowered the horse’s hoof and stood upright, flipping her braid back over her shoulder as she looked at Michel over her saddle. He still hadn’t dismounted, but then, he hadn’t ordered her back on the mare, either. “Though Father’s a sailor at heart, he does have an eye for a good Narraganset pacer, and the stable at Crescent Hill’s generally full. When Josh and I were young, you know, he and I always had matching ponies.”

“Pretty, privileged children on their ponies!” exclaimed Michel with withering sarcasm. It wasn’t just the matching ponies themselves, but how they represented an entire blissful childhood that he’d never known. He’d first gone to sea with a drunken privateer when he was eight, and learned to kill to save himself before he’d turned ten. “How charming the effect must have been! That would, of course, have been during the summers you spent at Crescent Hill?”

Reluctantly she nodded, disconcerted again by how much he seemed to know of her family’s life. “You don’t exactly ride like a farmer boy tossed on the back of his father’s plow horse, either,” she said defensively. “You sit like a gentleman.”

“I do many things like a gentleman, my dear Jerusa, but that doesn’t mean I am one.” He swung down from his horse, holding the reins in his hand as he walked toward her. “Is she really lame, then?”

“Nothing that a few hours’ rest likely won’t cure.”

Michel swore under his breath. Why couldn’t the mare have lasted one more night? Though the horizon was just beginning to gray with the light of false dawn, he had counted on riding at least for another hour. By his reckoning, they had one more night of traveling before they finally reached Seabrook and, God willing, Gilles Rochet and his sloop.

Unaware of his thoughts, Jerusa waved her hand in the direction they’d come. “I thought I saw a house there to the north when—”

“No, chérie, no houses,” he said curtly. “I, for one, have no wish to repeat our performance with the Faulks.”