Silver Deceptions

by Sabrina Jeffries

Charity jumped up. “You stop this now, dear heart! Lord Hampden’s a good man. I know he wouldn’t lie to you.” Her eyes filling with malice, she turned on Aphra. “Why are you telling her such nonsense? Are you smitten with Lord Hampden? My mistress has his affections, so you think to destroy her trust in him with your lies?”

  Aphra’s startled gaze swung to Annabelle. “Is this what you believe? Because I assure you Hampden and I have never been more than friends. I had no idea that you might assume—”

  “I don’t.” Annabelle cast her maid a quelling glance. “Charity, I’m afraid, sees Colin as the solution to all my problems, and she fears my losing him.” Annabelle’s voice sharpened. “She’s also been swayed by his money, I suspect.”

  Not to mention that the maid resented the way Aphra had become her mistress’s confidante. Clearly Charity didn’t like Annabelle taking another woman’s advice.

  Charity dropped into a chair with a sniff. “I see my opinions aren’t wanted by such fine ladies as yerselves. My ideas are too coarse, I suppose.”

  Exchanging a glance with Aphra, Annabelle said soothingly, “Come now, Charity, you know I value your opinions. But I also know Aphra speaks the truth. Colin lied to me about where he was going, which means something is amiss.” She added meaningfully, “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Charity’s gaze jerked up to hers, and Annabelle shot her a cautioning glance. Annabelle had not told Aphra her purpose in coming to London. Only Charity understood what Colin’s deception could mean.

  Especially if he was headed north. Norwood was to the north.

  Alarm coursed through her. Could Colin be going to Norwood to find out her secrets? Sweet Mary, if he was . . .

  No, he couldn’t be. She’d never told him she was from there; she’d merely told him her county, and he couldn’t exactly travel the whole shire searching for someone who knew her. He didn’t even know her real surname.

  So why had he lied? Was he like Sir John, harboring a fiancée in the country? Or perhaps even a wife? The very thought sickened her. “Colin’s not married, is he?”

  “Pish, of course not,” Aphra said. Then realizing how that sounded, she added, “I mean . . . well, not that he wouldn’t, but he’s always said—”

  “It’s all right,” Annabelle bit out. “Rakes generally avoid marriage.”

  “Not all of them,” Charity said bitterly. “Sir John’s only too happy to leap into the marriage bed. With someone else, that is.”

  “Sir John?” Aphra asked.

  “Charity’s lover,” Annabelle explained. “She found out that he’s got a fiancée.”

  “Of course that don’t mean he don’t want me,” Charity said defensively. “He wants to keep me.”

  “Aye,” Annabelle snapped, “he wants to keep you in the country, so you and his fiancée won’t bother each other.”

  Aphra shook her head. “I’m in love with a man who’s courting a younger woman while claiming to love me to distraction. These treacherous, strutting cocks haven’t an inkling of the precious fragility of love. They bid us be wantons with them alone, yet see no reason to stay faithful themselves.”

  A bitter sigh escaped Annabelle. Colin had made her promise to be faithful to him, but he hadn’t offered her the same promise.

  “I say it’s time we declare war on our two-faced gallants.” Climbing atop a stool, Aphra posed like an orator in Parliament. “I ask you, ladies, why should we sit at home while our men take freedoms they won’t allow us? We of the soft, unhappy sex must fight this unequal division of love, this dishonest inconstancy!”

  Charity cast Annabelle a quizzical glance. Annabelle merely shook her head. Aphra was prone to grand pronouncements, undoubtedly because of her aspirations to be a playwright.

  “How do you propose we fight this battle?” Annabelle asked. “We have no rights, no money, no weapons. All of the advantages are on their side.”

  “Not all.” With a toss of her hair, Aphra struck a seductive pose. “We have our beauty and wit. If we flaunt those before their friends while denying our favors to our lovers, it will remind them that we do have choices. These men are possessive creatures; they won’t long endure being put in second place.”

  “You’re saying to make them jealous, aye?” Charity snapped. “We do that, and they’ll find other women who won’t be so demanding.”

  “Perhaps.” Aphra looked fierce. “But if our lovers treasure us only for our bodies and docile natures, then we should find other, better lovers. We must make them appreciate our wit, our kindness, our loyalty. We must remind them that we, too, can find our pleasures elsewhere. They count on our sense of modesty and honor to keep us from being as wild as they, so we must set aside those shackles!”

  “And pretend to wildness to keep our men?” Annabelle snapped. “Must we feign promiscuous desires to keep them company in theirs? Nay, I will not!”

  She began to pace the room. She hadn’t enjoyed pretending promiscuity to gain her vengeance. Why should she do it again to taunt Colin?

  Because he’d lied to her. Because he’d made her no promises.

  “Our men feign constancy,” Aphra said softly. “Perhaps if we feign inconstancy, we can show them how wounding it can be.”

  Tears stung Annabelle’s eyes. Aphra thought men could be taught to care about women’s wants and needs, but Annabelle knew better. Men like Ogden Taylor and Annabelle’s father would always believe that women were chattel.

  Still, she’d thought Colin was different, better somehow than the other rakes. For heaven’s sake, she’d even thought she could marry him!

  “You know,” Aphra said, “if Hampden came back to find you merrily flirting with the gallants and behaving as if you hadn’t noticed he’d even gone, he’d not be so quick to deceive you next time. His pride would be pricked.”

  True, and she sorely wanted to prick his pride after the way he’d left her so easily. Still, what if he had some innocuous reason for lying to her? Or what if Aphra had misunderstood Sir Charles’s comments?

  “I for one think it’s a sound notion,” Charity surprised her by saying. “Sir John thinks he can hold me by the strength of his passions—and his money—without engaging his heart. I say, fie on that! If I’d wanted a married lover, I’d have taken one.” She steadied her shoulders. “From now on, I’ll run that fickle rake a merry chase. If he wants me, then he must relinquish his fiancée. Or I swear I’ll find another man to keep me warm.”

  The two women turned to Annabelle. “You have pride, don’t you?” Aphra chided. “I’ll admit I’d never thought Hampden would use a woman so ill, but since he has, will you let him return to find you pining away while he blithely attends to some secret purpose?”

  Annabelle thought of Sir Charles and the smug smile he and Rochester would wear when she came to the theater. They probably already assumed Colin went to meet another lover. They’d smile like ministers carrying the king’s secrets, mocking her for her faithfulness to him.

  That decided her. She wouldn’t let Colin make a fool of her. She’d hide her pain and tear out the love he’d planted in her breast.

  Her vengeance already required that she play the role of wanton, so she’d play it to the hilt. Let him wonder that she still flirted with all the gallants. Let him wonder about her broken promises. When he made the same promises to her, then she’d honor her own, and not before.

  Removing Colin’s ring, she tucked it into her apron pocket. She’d not wear it again until he proved that it stood for more than the fee paid to a strumpet.

  “All right, then, ladies, let’s be merry,” she said with a forced smile. “Let’s show our fickle lovers what brilliant women they’ve tossed aside.”

  MORE THAN A week had passed when Annabelle was waylaid outside the tiring-room after the play one evening by a towering oaf. When he requested that she meet his master and she refused, he simply strong-armed her from the stage and dragged her, protesting loudly, down the passageway and up some stairs.<
br />
  “Listen, you cur,” she growled, “if you don’t unhand me or tell me what this is all about, I will have you thrown out of—”

  She was rudely shoved into a box at the back of the theater. She stood there a moment, disoriented, then searched about her for her captor. Whoever it was sat in the shadows, barely discernible by the light of candles from the passageway. That in itself sent a chill down her spine.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded. “I swear, you men think you can manhandle any woman you please without a whit of concern for her dignity.”

  The man gave a short, cruel laugh. “Yes, so dignified you are there onstage as you contort your body into lewd positions to tease those fools in the pit.”

  Her breath froze in her throat. She peered into the darkness. “Who are you to care what I do on the stage?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a friend, concerned about your behavior.”

  She doubted that very much. “If you’re a friend, then why hide in the dark? What do you fear from me?”

  “I fear nothing from you!” he barked, half rising from his chair. When she flinched, he seemed to note it and sat back down with the help of the cane she now saw. “But you should fear me.”

  Her blood ran cold. “Oh?” she asked, trying not to show that she already feared him. After all, few had servants willing to manhandle women at their command. “Because you’re rude and distasteful?”

  “Because you meddle in matters you don’t understand. ‘The Silver Swan’ isn’t a name to use lightly.”

  Dear heaven. Her father? Could this gravel-voiced stranger be her father? Who else would be interested in her use of the appellation? “I can’t help what the gallants call me.”

  “Nor can you help wearing that silver swan brooch or showing a preference for silver, can you?”

  He lifted his cane to tap her brooch, and she shrunk from him instinctively. Her stepfather had beaten her once or twice with a cane.

  The stranger reacted oddly, muttering a coarse oath and dropping the cane at her feet. It was as unnerving as his use of it in the first place.

  She forced herself to continue her questioning of him. “What do you care if I am called the Silver Swan?”

  “That’s none of your concern, girl. Just stop doing it.”

  “Was it your nickname, then?” she prodded.

  “Because I come when I hear it? Nay, not mine. But it’s too dangerous a name to be used by wanton girls without a thought in their heads.”

  If it wasn’t his name, then why was he here? Was he a friend of her father’s?

  “You seem to know so much about my character,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “Have you been spying on me, sir?”

  The word spying made him sit up straight. “Why do you have them call you the Silver Swan? Tell me that, and I’ll spy on you no more.”

  She stiffened. “That’s for me to discuss with the bearer of the name. If you are not he, then I have nothing further to say.” She started to leave.

  “And if I were to tell you that he sent me on his behalf?”

  She halted, then faced him. “I would say he should come himself if he wants the truth.”

  “Damn you, girl! What game are you playing?”

  “No game. I told you, it’s a nickname, nothing more.”

  That seemed to provoke him beyond endurance, for he rose to loom in the darkness like a waking nightmare. “You’re a brazen, selfish bitch with not a virtue to commend you, do you know that?”

  Though every word seared her, she stood her ground. “And you, sir, are a rude arse. Now that we’ve both called each other nasty names, may I go?”

  “Aye,” he said sharply. “But I’ll be watching you, girl, remember that. If you decide to explain yourself, leave a message for the Silver Swan at the Green Goat Tavern. I’ll see that he gets it.” He lowered his voice to a menacing whisper. “But if you continue this foolish charade, you’ll learn that I can be a treacherous enemy. So I’d watch my step if I were you.”

  He had the audacity to threaten her? She glared at him. “And you, sir, can go straight to hell!”

  With that, she left. But as soon as she could find an empty box where she could be alone, she slid inside and dropped into a chair. She was going to be sick. She fought her heaving stomach, grateful that she’d been able to find a place where no one would see her.

  That . . . that wretched bastard! Could that horrible man actually be her father? Sweet Mary, she hoped not. She hoped he was as he said, a friend to her father.

  But more and more she’d begun to realize how foolhardy she’d been to embark on this insane quest for revenge. She’d thought to cause her absent father pain while remaining immune, to shame and humiliate him while he stood quietly by, enduring his punishment until he admitted that he’d wronged Mother.

  She hadn’t counted on the possibility that he might fight back. That he might even try to harm her.

  “What a naive little fool you are,” she hissed. She’d held some sentimental notion that he would regret his actions. But if he was the man she’d met tonight, he wasn’t a man to regret anything. He was an unfeeling beast.

  And if the man in the box was not her father? Could he indeed have found someone to spy on her? She supposed it was possible.

  At least that probably meant that Colin wasn’t spying on her, for why would her father need two spies? Despite her anger at Colin’s deception, it gave her hope to think that Colin might not be in league with her father.

  So what was she to do about the man who was? Obviously her nickname had upset him. But why? The stranger had implied that it had a deeper, more sinister significance. That had never occurred to her.

  What could it be? She thought once more of the peculiar poem that made little sense on the surface. What message had been hidden in those odd words? And why hadn’t her father signed it with his own name?

  Unless . . . unless he’d not wanted anyone to know what he was about. If the Earl of Walcester really was her father, then it made no sense for him to have been a Roundhead captain during the war, not according to the little Charity had learned about him. So perhaps he was living a lie. Perhaps he didn’t want people to know he’d fought for the other side. Perhaps he’d been a spy!

  It would explain the peculiar nickname. And though the man in the shadows had commented snidely about her wantonness, he had seemed far more worried about her use of “The Silver Swan.”

  Perhaps she could use his fear for her vengeance. He’d clearly been up to no good all those years ago or he wouldn’t be trying to hide it now. And he’d dragged her mother into it, which was even worse.

  But if you continue this foolish charade, you’ll learn that I can be a treacherous enemy.

  A shiver ran down her spine. Still, what could the man do to her? Her reputation was already in tatters because of her plans for revenge, and Colin had wounded her more thoroughly than her father or his accomplice ever could. What, then, was left for him to do to her?

  He could kill her.

  She caught her breath. Sweet Mary, surely even her father couldn’t be such a miserable worm. Then again, he didn’t know she was his daughter. And she knew nothing of his character; she had yet to be certain of his full name.

  Besides, if anybody killed her, then none of them would learn why she was prancing about onstage with the name ‘The Silver Swan.’ And that would protect her.

  For a while, anyway. But it was more important now than ever that she discover her father’s identity. Unfortunately, she clearly would not be able to depend on Colin in the search. The scoundrel hadn’t so much as sent word of his whereabouts in the two weeks since she’d last seen him.

  Suddenly an alarmed voice calling her name outside the boxes intruded into her thoughts. It was Charity.

  “I’m back here!” Annabelle called out. What was she to tell Charity about her frightening encounter?

  The maid stuck her head inside the box seconds later. “Odsfish, you had me worried, you
did! One of the orange girls said some brute had taken you off! She didn’t know what to do, and she couldn’t find anyone to help. What happened?”

  Annabelle stood and tried to regain her composure. “A man wanted to speak with me. He claimed to come from my father, or rather, from the man calling himself the Silver Swan, so I assume it was my father.”

  Stepping into the box, Charity surveyed her from head to toe. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  “Nay. He wanted to know why I used the nickname, and when I wouldn’t tell him, he left.”

  Charity let out a coarse oath. “Do you still plan on going with the others to the supper?”

  Annabelle groaned. She’d forgotten all about Aphra’s supper at the Blue Bell, the ordinary where the players normally supped. Aphra had planned a ribald diversion, funding it out of the money Colin had given her for Annabelle’s keeping. Annabelle could think of no better purpose for it than to spend it on a wild supper, since she’d already decided to pay Aphra out of her own meager funds.

  And the supper was to be wild indeed. Aphra had persuaded all the actresses to come in male attire. The gallants who were invited were not to know about it until they arrived, but Aphra was well aware of how much the men enjoyed seeing women in breeches. She wanted her supper to be a scandalous affair, a sufficient taunt to the men in their lives. It was to have fiddlers and dancers and drinking till dawn.

  Despite Annabelle’s growing disenchantment with the games that represented life in the theater, she’d been looking forward to the supper. Until now.

  “Well?” Charity demanded. “The others have already left and Aphra will be waiting for us.”

  Now that the two had joined forces against their men, Charity had lost her resentment of Aphra. If anything, they’d become closer. Meanwhile Annabelle couldn’t seem to share their wicked delight in flirting with all the wits.

  But tonight Annabelle wanted to lose herself in revelry. She wanted to forget that Colin had taken her virtue, then abandoned her, that her father was a cruel man capable of wishing harm to her. Most of all, she wanted to blot out of her heart the love growing like a weed, choking out her very lifeblood.