Louise Allen – Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch (страница 18)
The nightmare, she thought miserably. Something that she’d said or done had brought it back.
“I didn’t mean that about you being a coward,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You believed it when you spoke, and God knows it’s the truth.” He sighed and rubbed his fingers into his eyes. “So let me guess. Hamil has your precious Frederick prisoner, and you wish me to go fetch him home. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Only to Naples, to his mother,” said Caro eagerly. “She is the one who has heard through the Neapolitan court—they maintain diplomatic relations with the Pasha of Tripoli for their trade, you see—that Frederick still lives, and that Hamil would consider a ransom for him and your friend Mr. Kerr, too. I thought that because you’d fought Hamil before you’d like the chance to meet him again. Not as a friend, of course, but as men do, you know—oh, dear, that’s not coming out at all how I intended!”
“You mean would I like another crack at killing him the way he nearly did me? A bit of bloodthirsty revenge amongst the savages, with a nice little errand delivering dear Frederick’s ransom on the side? Is that what ‘men do’?”
Caro winced. “That makes it sound vastly foolish, doesn’t it?”
“Men
“I told you I don’t truly believe you’re a coward!”
“Ah, but Caro, I do.” He tossed the straw away and slowly stood. “You’ve chosen the wrong man to be your hero.”
She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t a choice. There were no others. You were all I had.”
“Damnation.” He didn’t want to do it, and he’d be ten times a fool to agree. He didn’t trust the old countess in Naples or George Stanhope here in England, the Pasha of Tripoli or Hamil Al-Ameer; any of them could play Caro false in a minute. And God in Heaven, what he himself could do to her hopes without even trying, a pitiful battered Yankee who was afraid of the dark!
Yet there was Davy, and maybe others. To turn his back on them would be to admit far worse of himself than cowardice alone.
And then there was Caro herself, waiting for his decision there by the post like some poor felon in the dock. An exhausted, bedraggled countess in secondhand clothes who’d tried to do her best to save him just as he’d saved her. A beguiling, unpredictable creature who mixed world-weary airs with unstudied innocence. A luscious, desirable woman who melted in his arms and tempted him with lips redder, plumper, sweeter than summer berries on the vine.
A woman who expected him to risk his life for the husband she loved.
Damnation, indeed.
“You’ve gone too far this time, Jeremiah,” declared Desire furiously, “too far by half!”
“Oh, hush, Des, ‘tis not so bad,” scoffed Jeremiah, standing beneath the rack of polished pans and kettles in the grand kitchen of his sister’s house. He sipped coffee from the cup the scullery maid had brought him with a curtsy and a giggle, and enjoyed the fuss as the staff pretended to go about their preparations for tea, their collective ears straining to hear what their mistress and her brother said. “Considering some of the scrapes you’ve gotten yourself into over the years, I’d say that drinking coffee stands pretty far down the list of offenses.”
“That’s not what I mean, as you know perfectly well!” She glared at him as she rapped her knuckles impatiently on the tabletop. “You’ve no business coming skulking back here, not now, not after what you’ve done!”
He smiled innocently. “Here? In the kitchen?”
“I’m in no mood for you now, Jeremiah Sparhawk! I’ve seven captain’s wives in my drawing room for tea, all in a fluster over this
Jeremiah laughed, remembering how George Stanhope had trembled and squeaked while he was being robbed. Amazing he’d recalled enough to tell the magistrate.
“This is serious, you great oaf!” whispered Desire urgently. “They’ve put a price on your head!”
Jeremiah’s laughter vanished. “They’ve put a bounty on me because I took a worn-out purse with a handful of guineas and tossed it in the poor box?”
“You can forget being Robin Hood, at least as far as George Stanhope’s concerned, and he has friends enough to make it stick. No English gentleman wants to be at the mercy of some roving brigand, and they’ll hang you for certain if they catch you.”
He set the cup down on the table, his pleasure in its contents abruptly gone. “But they don’t know this thief’s name, do they? They won’t come looking for me here without it.”
“I can’t protect you in this, Jere,” she said wearily as she rubbed her back with both hands. “With a new war coming, the whole countryside’s suspicious of foreigners, even Americans like us. The only thing worse would be if we were French.”
“Amen to that,” he said gruffly. This whole conversation made him uncomfortable. All their lives, he’d been the older brother watching over her. Now Desire seemed somehow to be chiding him for irresponsible behavior, and with every right, too.
“French or American, you’re the man that’s described on that handbill. Anyone who knows you would recognize you at once. You’re not exactly the kind of man who can lose himself in a crowd.”
She glanced around the kitchen and sighed. “For all I know there’s someone on my own staff who’ll put those hundred pounds before their loyalty and turn you in. They might be doing it even now.”
“I’m sorry, Des, as sorry as can be.” He’d been wrong to underestimate Stanhope; the man was more clever—or just plain mean—than Jeremiah had given him credit for. The last thing he wanted was to put his sister and her children at risk, and by simply being here in the house he was doing just that. “Who’d have thought it would come to this?”
“I tried to warn you, Jere, but you’ve always been too stubborn to listen to anyone, even when your own neck’s at risk.” Her initial anger gone, she brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. “And now there’s this other rumor that Captain Richardson’s wife is busy whispering upstairs, that the wicked highwayman has stolen some poor lady from her bed! How their hearts are racing over that one!”
Jeremiah drew in his breath, wishing he’d something else to offer than the truth. “It’s not a rumor, sister mine. Not exactly.”
Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Oh, Jere, you didn’t! Not after you’d promised me you’d stay clear of that woman’s business!”
“Oh, my lady, please don’t blame him!” cried Caro, rushing forward, unable any longer to keep on the far side of the cupboard where Jeremiah had told her to wait. “It’s all my fault, every bit of it!”
“Lady Byfield,” said Desire faintly. “I must admit I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Jeremiah groaned, wishing Caro had been able to contain herself until he’d had time to prepare his sister. Desire didn’t need shocks like this, not this near to her time, and from the way she was staring at Caro, her cheeks flushed and her eyes a little too wide, she’d definitely been surprised. He slipped his arm around Desire’s waist, startled by how readily she leaned into him for support. “Come along, Des, let’s find someplace where you can put your feet up.”
“I’m not an invalid, Jere,” she said with halfhearted rebellion. “But a bit of privacy would not be amiss. I don’t think Mrs. Curlew would object to us using her parlor, there, to the right. Lady Byfield, you come. too. You’re already so thick in the middle of my brother’s affairs that I’d scarcely want to leave you out now.”
Caro bowed her head contritely, her humility increased by the woebegone bonnet. Jeremiah tried to catch her eye over Desire’s head and couldn’t, not with her head ducked so low. He remembered how she’d been scorned by other “ladies,” and he feared she was assuming the same with his sister. He’d put an end to that as soon as he could; Caro was every bit as good as her so-called betters, and he was too much a New England democrat to believe otherwise.
Yet in the housekeeper’s small, cluttered parlor, Caro refused to take the chair that Jeremiah offered, preferring instead to stand by the wall near the canary’s cage as she watched Desire try to make herself comfortable in an old-fashioned wing chair. Though obviously in the last month of pregnancy, far beyond the time most ladies retreated from the world, she was still dressed with quiet elegance in a dark red kerseymere pelisse over a white muslin gown, and the resemblance between her and Jeremiah was striking. Nor was there any mistaking the bond between brother and sister as Jeremiah tucked another pillow into the chair behind his sister’s back, a bond that Caro noted with both wistfulness and growing dread.