Julia Justiss – Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife (страница 2)

Startled, but not afraid. “You’ve caught me, haven’t you?” she asked wryly. “Fair and square. You must be one of my brothers’ friends, for I don’t believe I’ve met you, have I?”

“But I know you,” he said softly, his voice deep and low, his accent barely discernible. It had been nearly twenty years, yet still he would have recognized her anywhere. “Miss Jerusa Sparhawk.”

“True enough.” She bobbed him a little curtsy. “Then you must be friends with Josh. He’s the only one of my brothers I truly favor. As it should be, considering we’re twins. But then, I expect you knew that already.”

Michel nodded in agreement. Oh, he knew a great many things about the Sparhawks, more than even she did herself.

“Miss Jerusa Sparhawk,” she repeated, musing. “I’ll wager you’ll be the last to call me that. While you and all the others act as witnesses, in a quarter hour I’ll become Mrs. Thomas Carberry.”

Her smile was dazzling, enough to reduce any other man to instant fealty. He’d heard much praise of her beauty, the perfection of her face, the flawlessness of her skin, the vivid contrast between her black hair and green eyes and red mouth, but none of that praise came close to capturing her charm, her radiance. Easy even for him to see why she was considered the reigning belle of the colony.

Not that any of it mattered.

She was still a Sparhawk.

Still his enemy.

“Is this really the great love match they say?” He didn’t miss the irony that she’d mistaken him for a guest, let alone a friend of her brother’s, and trusted him to the point of not even asking his name.

Like a pigeon, he thought with grim amusement, a pretty, plump pigeon that flew cooing into his hands.

The girl tipped her head quizzically, the diamonds in her earrings dancing little fragments of light across her cheeks. “You dare to ask if I love my Tom?”

“Do you?” He was wasting time he didn’t have, but he wanted to know exactly how much suffering he’d bring to her family this night.

“Do I love Tom? How could I not?” Her smile outshone the moonlight as her words came out in a tumbled, breathless rush. “He’s amusing and kind and, oh, so very handsome, and he dances more gracefully than any other gentleman in Newport, and he says clever things to make me laugh and pretty things to make me love him even more. How could I not love my darling Tom?”

“Doubtless it helped his suit that he’s rich.”

“Rich?” Her eyes were innocently blank. “Well, I suppose his father is. So is mine, if you must put so brass a face on it. But that’s certainly not reason enough to marry someone.”

“Certainly not,” agreed Michel dryly. She’d never wanted for anything in her sweet, short life. How could she guess the lengths she’d go to if she were cold enough, hungry enough, desperate enough? “But if you love him as you claim, then why have you run from your own wedding?”

“Is that what you believed I was doing? Oh, my!” She wrinkled her elegant nose with amusement. “It’s Mama, you see. She says that because I’m the bride I must stay in my bedchamber until the very minute that I come down the stairs with Father. If even one person lays eyes upon me before then, it’s bad luck, and I’ll turn straight into salt or some such.”

Another time, another woman, and he might have laughed at the little shrug she gave her shoulders and the sigh that followed. Another time, another woman, and he might have let himself be charmed.

She sighed dramatically. “But I would want a rose from this garden—those bushes there, the pink ones—to put in my hair because Tom favors pink. Banished as I was, there was no one else but myself to fetch it, and so you found me here. Still, that’s hardly running off. I’ve every intention of returning the same way I came, through the window into my father’s office and up the back stairs.”

“Don’t you fear that they’ll miss you?”

“Not with the house full of guests that need tending, they won’t.” Restlessly she rubbed her thumb across the heavy pearl cuff around one wrist, and, to his surprise, Michel realized that much of her bravado was no more than ordinary nervousness. “The ceremony proper won’t begin until half past eight.”

No matter what she said, Michel knew time was fast slipping away. He’d dawdled here too long as it was. His mind raced ahead, changing his plans. Now that she’d seen him, he couldn’t afford to let her go, but perhaps, in a way, this would be even better than what he’d originally intended. His fingers brushed against the little vial of chloroform in the pocket of his coat. Even Maman would appreciate the daring it would take to steal the bride from her own wedding.

The Sparhawk bride. Mordieu, it was almost too perfect.

“You’re not superstitious, then?” he asked softly, easing the cork from the neck of the vial with his thumb. “You don’t believe your mother’s unhappy predictions will come true now that I’ve seen you?”

She turned her head, eyeing him with sidelong doubt. “You’ll tell her?”

“Nay, what reason would I have to do that? You go pick your roses now, ma chère, and then back in the house before they come searching for you.”

Hesitancy flickered through her eyes, and too late he realized he’d unthinkingly slipped into speaking French. But then her doubt vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by the joyful smile he was coming to recognize. With a pang of regret that caught him by surprise, he knew it would be the last smile she’d ever grant him.

“Then thank you,” she said simply. “I don’t care which of my brothers is your friend, because now you’re mine, as well.”

She turned away toward the flowers before he could answer. Her cream-colored skirts rustled around her as she bent gracefully over the roses, and the sheer lawn cuffs of her gown fluttered back from her wrists in the breeze as she reached to pluck a single, pink rose.

So much grace, thought Michel as he drew the dampened handkerchief from his pocket, so much beauty to mask such poisoned blood. She struggled for only a moment as he pressed the cloth over her mouth and nose, then fell limp in his arms.

He glanced back at the house as he carried the unconscious girl into the shadow of the tall hedges. There he swiftly pulled off her jewelry, the pearl necklace and bracelet and ring, the diamonds from her ears, even the paste buckles from her shoes. Whatever else they called him, he wasn’t a thief, and he had pride enough to leave her jewels behind. He yanked the pins from her hair and mussed the elaborate stiffened curls until they fell in an untidy tangle to her shoulders, shading her face. With his thumb he hurriedly smudged dirt across one of her cheeks and over her hands, trying hard not to think of how soft her skin was beneath his touch.

She was a Sparhawk, not just a woman. Think of how she would revile him if she knew—when she learned—his father’s name!

He used his knife to cut away the bottom silk flounce of her gown, baring the plain linen of her underskirt, which he dragged through the dirt beneath the bushes. Finally he yanked off his own coat and buttoned it around her shoulders. As he’d hoped, the long coat covered what remained of her gown, and in the dark streets, with her grimy face and tousled hair, she’d pass for one more drunken strumpet from the docks, at least long enough for him to retrieve his horse from the stable.

Briefly he sat back on his heels and wiped his sleeve across his forehead as he glanced one last time at the candlelit house. The girl had been right. No alarms, no shouts of panic or pursuit came through the open windows, only the sounds of laughter and excited conversation. It took a moment longer for him to realize that the loud, rapid thumping was the beat of his own heart.

One last task, that was all, and then he’d be done.

Swiftly he retrieved the rose she’d picked from where it had fallen and laid it across the pile of her jewelry. He dug deep into the pocket of his waistcoat until he found the piece of paper. With fingers that shook only a little, he unfolded and stabbed the page onto the rose’s thorns so that the smudged black fleur de lis would be unmistakable.

The symbol of France, the mark of Christian Sainte-Juste Deveaux.

A sign that Gabriel Sparhawk would read as easily as his own name.

And at last Maman would smile.

Chapter Two

It was the rain that woke Jerusa, the rattle of the heavy drops on the shingles overhead. Still too groggy to open her eyes, she rubbed her bare arm against the damp chill and groped for her silk-lined coverlet. She knew she’d left it on the end of the bed last night, there beside her dressing gown. Blast, where was it? Her blind fingers reached farther and touched the sharp prickle of musty straw.

“Whatever you’re seeking, it isn’t there.”

She turned toward the man’s voice, forcing herself to open her eyes. The world began to spin in such dizzying circles that she swiftly squeezed her eyes shut again with a groan. Now she noticed the foul taste in her mouth and how her head ached abominably, as if she’d had too much sherry and sweetmeats the night before. She must be ill; that would explain why she felt so wretched. But why was there straw in her bed and a man in her bedchamber, and where was that infernal coverlet?