Amor Meus

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Sebastian let anger cross his features. “You, sir, are insulting my character and my—”

  “Nathanial, we don’t have time for this,” the girl said wearily. “He’s ruining the most delicious caper I’ve ever dreamed up. Do something!”

  This time Sebastian could feel the shock right through to his fingertips. He stared at Beatrice, at her fresh innocence and youth. The high cheekbones touched with a blush of pink. “You…you are attempting to swindle Lady Wandsworth?” He felt breathless.

  “You are rather in the way,” Nathanial told him.

  “How…?” Sebastian asked the girl flatly.

  She smiled at him. “As if I would tell you!”

  “One of you needs to renege,” Nathanial added.

  “I have been working on this for weeks,” Sebastian protested.

  “I’ve been doing it for months,” Beatrice said flatly. “She doesn’t trust anyone. It’s taken me weeks to win her approval.” She scowled. “I don’t know why she trusted you so quickly.”

  “She doesn’t trust me,” Sebastian said flatly. “She believes I am as stupid as I have let her believe. She wants the money in Spain. Once she gets her hands on it, she thinks, she is going to throw me out of England and keep it for herself. Trust has nothing to do with it.” He gave Beatrice a small smile. “I play to the victim’s weaknesses. Perhaps you should try it. You may have better luck.”

  “I am playing to her weaknesses,” Beatrice shot back with a scowl.

  “I assure you,” Sebastian told her. “Mercy Wandsworth is no more interested in your admittedly breathtaking innocence than mine.”

  “Of course she is not,” Beatrice snapped. “She wants my body, not my soul.”

  Sebastian caught his sagging jaw and closed it with a snap, while he reconstructed the facts surrounding Lady Wandsworth as he now understood them. It was always vital to understand the victim’s wants and desires, what moved them to make decisions, before attempting any swindle. How had he missed this?

  “Mercy Wandsworth is as crooked as a bent farthing,” Nathanial added. He clapped Sebastian’s shoulder. “You knew that, or you would not have dangled the temptation of ill-gotten gains in front of her. Come and drink with us, Laurier. You look in need of propping up. An ale will take care of that.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “I thank you, but I must refuse.”

  “Leave the widow alone, boy,” Smythington said. “Give her time to think and to develop a keener appetite for your friend’s money. She’ll fall into your hand like a ripe peach.”

  There was wisdom in what he was saying. To press the matter too hard would be to show his hand. But to leave her unattended for too long came with different risks.

  “I suppose a small cup of ale would be appreciated,” Sebastian conceded. But he fully intended to pursue Lady Wandsworth to the bitter end as quickly as possible, now he had a rival for her sixty thousand pounds.

  * * * * *

  There was a public inn on Pound Tree Road, a brisk forty minutes’ walk from the oak tree they had stood beneath. Smythington, however, had a coach waiting on the west side of the park, which he led them to. “My rooms,” he told the driver, who touched his brim and picked up the reins.

  They settled inside the carriage. Sebastian found it odd that Beatrice did not sit next to her fiancé…if he was her fiancé. Instead, she sat next to him and took off her hat and gloves, and the lace modesty panel covering her décolletage. She loosened her hair, letting a few stray locks fall about her face.

  The change to her appearance with just a few simple adjustments was astonishing. The innocent maiden had departed. In her place sat a woman of striking loveliness, her figure outlined most agreeably by the satin of her gown. She glanced at Sebastian with a look that spoke of experience with men. “It is more effective a disguise than simply trying to appear foolish,” she told him.

  Nathanial smiled. “Hers is a disguise that has enamored legions,” he added.

  “I thought we were going to an inn,” Sebastian said.

  “My rooms are closer and the company far more congenial. Besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate for a lady to be seen in an inn,” Smythington replied. “What is your name, by the way?”

  Sebastian stared at him.

  “I ask, because I am wondering if I have heard of your deeds before now,” Nathaniel continued. “There are not many of us who move among the gentry…well, not many that last long. You had an excellent scheme there.”

  “I have an excellent scheme,” Sebastian replied stiffly.

  “Your accent is quite genuine, too,” Nathaniel added. “Were you born to this life and lost your way?”

  “That is most certainly none of your concern.” Anger was prodding him, and Sebastian considered once more the wisdom of spending time in this man’s company. “Who are you, exactly?” he demanded. “I know nothing of you. Your name is not familiar.”

  “Of course it isn’t. The name is not mine, any more than Beatrice is Anne’s real name.” He touched his long fingers to the silk brocade waistcoat. “I am Nathanial Aquila. You will not have heard of me. I only arrived in England this spring.” He lifted his hand toward Beatrice. Anne. “This is Anne Beecham, who has gone by many names and can claim many coups as her own. Do not let her looks deceive you.”

  Sebastian looked at them both. “You trust me with your real names?”

  Nathanial raised a single brow. “We witnessed you acting in a fraudulent manner toward Lady Wandsworth. You could no more tell the police about us than we can reveal your activities to them and risk you sharing our names with them. We have each other over the proverbial barrel. So tell me your name. I will not deal with one of your false identities.”

  Sebastian took a deep breath. “Sebastian Christopher Worthington the Third.” It felt very strange to speak his real name aloud. He had not done that for many years.

  The pair of them was studying him once more. “You forgot to add the titles,” Anne said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Nathanial replied. “The titles are no longer his.” He looked at Sebastian. “What were they, purely out of curiosity?”

  Those were names he had not spoken of in well over a decade. He swallowed. “Viscount Norwood and eventually, the Earl of Knighton.”

  “Knighton,” Nathaniel repeated. “Your father still lives, then. I must congratulate you, Sebastian. There isn’t a lingering trace of the Irish in your accent. Not one ounce.”

  Sebastian let himself relax. “I could say t’same about yer own accent. You bein’ so new to England.”

  Nathaniel smiled almost reminiscently. “I lost all traces of my birthplace a long time ago.”

  The carriage swayed around a corner and began to slow.

  “We’re nearly there,” Nathaniel said, looking out the window. “It will be easier to talk, inside. We have much to share, you and I.”

  Anne smiled and her smile was full of knowledge and wickedness, sending a dart of surprise and wonder into Sebastian’s chest. What, exactly, did Nathanial mean by that?

  Chapter Two

  Nathanial’s rooms were located inside an extravagantly large house not far from the park. It was a very respectable address indeed.

  Nathanial handed Anne out of the carriage while Sebastian looked up at the white stone façade and the windows, which all wore lace panels. He wondered if these expensive rooms were part of Nathaniel’s disguise as Beatrice’s fiancé, or if they were his real abode.

  Inside, a staircase swept up to the next floor. Nathanial led them to the steps and they climbed to the second floor. A grand gallery opened up from there. Nathaniel strode to the far end, where a set of doors was recessed into the wood paneling of the gallery. He unlocked the door and opened it as he tucked away the key. He stood aside.

  “We’re quite harmless, I assure you,” he told Sebastian.

  Still uneasy, Sebastian stepped into the room and Nathanial shut the door behind him. Sebastian let his gaze roam around the room.
There was an elegant sofa, pulled up to the fireplace, a large round dining table covered with a damask tablecloth, with a crystal chandelier lamp sitting in the middle of it. Through another set of doors that stood partially open, Sebastian could see a bedroom, with a large bed and an equally large wardrobe, its clawed legs sitting upon an elegant carpet.

  It was not the poor lodgings of a hand-to-mouth swindler by any measure. He relaxed just a little.

  Nathanial was standing at a bureau, pouring wine from a large flask into two glasses. Anne had settled herself on the sofa—but not in the stiff-backed upright position a lady of character maintained at all times. She was lying back against the high corner, with one foot actually raised from the floor, her lower limbs draped along the length of the sofa. Sebastian tried not to stare, for her ankle was showing. Her hems had lifted enough to reveal the slender joint encased in fine white stocking.

  “Here,” Nathanial said, by Sebastian’s side.

  Sebastian drew his gaze away from Anne and looked at the glass Nathanial was offering and took it. A drink was sounding more agreeable by the moment.

  Nathaniel handed Anne the other glass and sat upon the low armless chair pulled up by the fire alongside the sofa. The fire was dead, but there were smoking coals that said it had been burning not long before.

  “You are not drinking?” Sebastian asked Nathaniel.

  He held up his hand. “Do not take offense. I cannot drink, although I would join you if I could.”

  Sebastian surmised that the man must have some sort of delicate condition that disallowed wine. He held up his glass. “Very well then. Your good health, sir…and madam,” he added looking toward Anne.

  She lifted her glass with a smile that seemed to be full of promise.

  “Drink,” Nathanial urged him.

  Sebastian drank.

  * * * * *

  He woke with a start, as rain pattered against glass close by his head. It was dim in the room and Sebastian blinked, tasting the effects of too much wine on his tongue and teeth.

  He was in a bed. A strange bed.

  Slowly, he began to put the last moments he remembered back into their proper order. Nathanial and Anne, and wine. Laughter. A great deal of laughter. As the fire Nathanial had rebuilt slowly died, there had also been a great deal of talk.

  Nathanial was a storehouse of astonishing tales. He had travelled to a great many places, some of which Sebastian did not know even existed. The stories he told were fascinating for their strangeness and the oddity of the events Nathanial had experienced.

  Sebastian had sat listening with rapt attention. Anne had refilled his glass more than once, but he had barely noticed. The warmth of the fire and the congenial company was quite enough to hold his complete attention.

  He rolled onto his back on the comfortable mattress, frowning. He couldn’t remember clearly how he had arrived upon this bed. It was Nathaniel’s bed – the claw foot wardrobe crouched like a darker shadow in the gloom, telling him where he was. But how had he come to be here?

  Dimly, he remembered being helped along, his own feet barely managing to swing forward. His head had been hanging, leaving him staring at his boots. He had been talking the whole time he was helped into the bed. What had he been saying?

  He sat up in the bed and discovered a new thing: He was naked.

  Invisible fingers walked the length of his spine, making him shiver. Who had undressed him? Both of them? Anne was most certainly a woman who was familiar with the intimacies of men—she would be quite capable of removing his clothes.

  He looked toward the foot of the bed. Nothing lay there but a man’s dressing robe. His clothes had disappeared.

  The rain ceased suddenly, leaving behind the drip of water from eaves and the wet clop of horses’ hooves, almost drowned out by the hiss of carriage wheels slicing through the water on the cobbles, outside. The room grew a little lighter, which told him it was daytime, still, but gloomy because of rain clouds.

  He reached for the robe, as there was nothing else to wear, and climbed out of the bed and threw it on, belting it firmly. Then he stepped out into the main room.

  Nathanial stood at the fireplace, kicking a log to coax it into rolling further into the heart of the fire. His elbow was on the tall mantle. He had taken off his coat and his shirt sleeves were carelessly rolled, lace and all, to reveal his wrists.

  The candles had been lit, giving the room a yellow glow that made it seem far more intimate than its size would normally allow. The flames from the fire illuminated the carpet in a rosy halo, too.

  Nathanial turned as Sebastian entered. “Good evening. I hope your sleep was sound?”

  “It is evening?” Sebastian asked, looking around for a timepiece, but there was no clock to be found.

  “It is nearly six o’clock. You’ve slept the afternoon away,” Nathaniel replied. “There is food on the table. I suggest you eat it. It will help with your headache.”

  Sebastian did have a headache. He looked at the table. “This is most generous of you,” he said slowly, “but I should return to my own affairs and impose on you no longer. Where are my clothes?”

  Nathanial kicked at the log once more. “We burned them,” he said flatly.

  A cold, invisible hand clutched at Sebastian’s heart. “You…burned them.” He couldn’t believe it. “Why? What have I done to offend you that you would take such—?”

  Nathaniel gave a small waving motion with his hand. “They were threadbare and good for naught but kindling.” He turned and gave Sebastian a hard look. “How long have you been wearing your entire wardrobe upon your back? Do you even have accommodations?”

  “What gentleman doesn’t?” Sebastian replied.

  Nathaniel gave him a glance that he had trouble interpreting. “Where have you been sleeping?” he asked sharply, proving he had seen past Sebastian’s evasion.

  Sebastian thought of the hard, high-backed wooden bench he had been dozing upon at the Dog and Crow on Pound Tree Road, until the inn keeper had tossed him out for the night. There were park benches and, once, a doorstep that was deep enough to keep the rain off him. But he made himself glare indignantly at Nathaniel. “Where else would I sleep, but in a bed?”

  Nathaniel studied him. There was something in his expression that Sebastian could not analyze, which was disturbing, for he had never before failed to read a person’s thoughts and wishes from their gestures and expressions before.

  “When was your last meal?” Nathanial asked gently.

  Sebastian would have answered with more hot indignation, except that his stomach, which must have heard Nathanial’s question, gave out a sharp, loud rumble. Sebastian kept his gaze averted from the food on the table. He would not beggar himself any more than he had already.

  Nathanial moved to the table and pulled out a heavy brocade chair and patted the back of it. “There’s no need to answer,” he said. “Sit. Eat. I know you are hungry. I have sent to my tailor for more clothing, as swiftly as he can arrange them. That was several hours ago, not long after we carried you to bed, so the garments will soon be here. Come and sit down.”

  Sebastian moved toward the table, a dozen questions occurring to him. He didn’t know where to start, so he began with the obvious one. “A few hours to deliver an entire set of garments?” he asked. “Your tailor must be a magician in disguise.”

  “I commissioned the items a few weeks ago. I merely asked him to hurry their finishing. You and I are close enough in size that you should be able to wear them without embarrassment.”

  Sebastian approached the chair hesitantly. “Your charity—” he began.

  “Nonsense,” Nathanial replied, with a touch of anger in his voice. “I do not pander to paupers and charity is not an act of which you could rightfully accuse me.” He gripped Sebastian’s elbow and drew him to the chair, and pushed him into it. His hand pressed his shoulder for a moment. “You are a fellow traveler, Sebastian. I would be remiss if I did not help you.”

/>   “That still sounds like charity,” Sebastian muttered, curling his hands into fists in his lap to stop himself reaching for the platter of apricots and strawberries. His mouth watered at the sight of it.

  Nathanial sat in the other chair pulled up to the table. His gaze was steady. “I like you,” he said simply. “I would hate myself if I did not help when I am in a position to do so.” He pushed the board with a redolent cheese on it closer to Sebastian, then dropped a cheese knife right in front of him. “If it helps smooth your conscience, I will confess I have spent two guineas on this meal that you can return to me when you have funds available. Now, will you eat?

  It did help, to know he was expected to repay the meal, although he could not guess when he might do so. His plan to ease Lady Wandsworth away from a few of her thousands had come adrift, although the plan was still salvageable.

  He picked up an apricot and bit into it, his stomach growling. The apricot was heavenly. It had been a while since he had tasted anything fresh like this. It had admittedly been a long, cold and lean winter.

  “Are you not eating?” he asked Nathanial.

  The man got to his feet and moved to the bureau by the door, from where he had retrieved wine, earlier that morning. “I’ve eaten already,” he replied. “You go ahead and enjoy yourself.” He poured another glassful of the excellent claret and placed it in front of Sebastian. “Just a small glass. It will help,” he said as Sebastian was about to protest.

  Sebastian was more interested in the food. It was excellent – the cheese was as aged as the fruit was fresh. There was a half of a roasted fowl and a minced meat pie, both of which were quite satisfying despite not being hot. He ate quickly.

  “I remember that,” Nathaniel said.

  “Remember what?” Sebastian asked, after swallowing an enormous mouthful.