Sweet Deception (Hidden Identity)

by Colleen French

  "Help! Help me!" the strangled voice still called. Richard could hear another rider a quarter of a mile behind, most obviously in pursuit.

  Richard ran across the rutted roadway to where the horseman had pulled up his mount. By the time he reached the rider, he had flung himself down.

  "Holy, hell," Richard murmured, spotting the tangled skirts. The rider was a woman—most definitely a woman from the flash of her bare breasts beneath her cloak as she dismounted.

  "You have to help me," she begged, running toward the coach.

  "What is it?" Richard demanded, turning to follow her. "Who chases you?"

  She flung open the family-crested door of his coach and somehow managed, even under the burden of her cumbersome woman's skirts, to get inside on her own.

  Richard stuck his head inside the coach. A corner of her petticoat had caught in the hinge of the door, but before he could release it, she snatched the material, tearing it away. "Madame? I say, who pursues you?"

  "Thieves," she shouted, gasping for her breath. "Thieves."

  Richard stared out into the darkness. Peculiar, he thought, for a single thief to be chasing a woman on horseback in the dark of a rainy night.

  He watched her pull back the curtain in the rear of the coach and stare. Richard could see that the rider had reined in some one hundred feet from the coach.

  "Your horse?" Richard asked the mysterious woman. "Shall I have the coachmen tie her to the rear?"

  "Leave her. Please—" she turned back in the seat to face him, her hands clasped as if in prayer, "please tell your driver to drive on. I beg of you."

  The baron hesitated for only a moment, the rain running down his angular handsome-featured face, and then he called to Paul. Richard stepped back into the coach, pulling the door closed from the inside, and the vehicle rolled forward, leaving the "thief" behind.

  For a long moment Richard regarded the young woman by the light of the single candle that burned in a sconce on the coach wall. Shaking from head to toe, she had pulled off the battered hat she wore and now pushed back long locks of wet, matted hair. She was a tall woman with ivory skin and dark eyes. Richard recognized that look in a person's eyes. He'd seen it too many times in the wars. This woman had just escaped death . . . and barely, he was certain of it.

  She was a tearing beauty, whoever she was, and of nobility. But what touched Richard's heart the most was the courage he recognized in her frightened face. He knew that he could never have this woman in the way he wanted her at this moment, but a strange sense of protectiveness came over him. If he could never make love to her, at least he could protect her, and God willing, he would.

  "Don't be afraid," he murmured, offering her his drier cloak so that she could cover the torn bodice of her gown. "I know the man who followed you was no thief. Now tell me the truth of your circumstances, and I'll see what I can do for you."

  She lifted her lashes, and for the first time he saw a tear trickle down her pale cheek. "How . . . how do I know I can trust you?"

  He considered her words for a moment before he spoke. "Have you anyone else you can trust?" he asked gently, guessing the answer.

  She shook her head.

  Richard slid across the coach into the seat beside her and took her trembling hand. His blue-eyed gaze met hers. "Then you've no real choice, have you, madame?"

  Chapter Two

  London, 1664

  Gavin Waxton, the Earl of Waxton, leaned back on the coach seat and nodded absently in response to a comment made by one of his companions. Having arrived in London only two days ago, Gavin would have preferred to remain in his rented rooms at Covent Garden and tend to some business. But he had run into an old friend, James Knowles, in the Royal Exchange, who had insisted Gavin accompany him and his companions to the Royal Theater tonight. James had promised it would be a night to remember.

  James's coach, with its family-crested doors, swayed down Drury Lane, its progress hampered by the vendors, apprentices, beggars, hackney coaches, and hired chairs that thronged the street. The afternoon din was so loud, between the vendors calling out their wares and the roll of coach, cart, and hackney wheels, that a man could barely hear himself speak, let alone hear what anyone else had to say. The fetid stench of the summer air pouring through the tiny coach windows was enough to make even someone of strong constitution retch.

  As Gavin glanced out the open window, he couldn't help but be astonished by the change in London in the last three years. He had left the summer of 1661, immediately after King Charles had awarded him a land grant in the American Colonies as payment for his family's loyalties and funds during the war years. London, then, had been on the verge of violent change, with the passing of an age of Puritanism, but Gavin had never anticipated that it would be so swift and mighty.

  Restoration London was vibrant with the putrid smell of the open sewers, the site of crowded streets, and the taste of smoke in the air. In three years time it had become a bawdy city in sight and sound, alive with activity both honest and dishonest day and night.

  To Gavin, it seemed as if every man, woman, and child on the street, in an ale house, or in a shop was frantically involved in some task or another. There seemed to be no difference between a countess hurrying through the exchange or a pickpocket slitting strings of gold buttons from gentlemen's coats; each was inexhaustible in his or her quest. All of England was prospering, yet Gavin saw little happiness in the faces of royalty and beggars alike.

  Two days in London, and already Gavin missed the fresh, clean air of the American Colonies, the vastness that was so silent and enveloping. Here he felt anxious, fearful he would be swept up in the same tide as every other Londoner. Here he felt smothered by the masses, but there on the Chesapeake Bay of the Maryland Colony, he had come to experience the true meaning of freedom.

  Gavin had intended to remain in the Maryland Colony and send a representative to the king to request another land grant, but it was the letter sent by his brother Waldron's solicitor that had brought him back across the sea.

  The letter, misrouted for nearly two years, bore the disturbing news that Waldron, Gavin's elder brother, the Earl of Waxton, had been brutally murdered by his young wife, and Gavin was now heir to his brother's title and lands, as well as small fortune. But it was neither the title, nor the lands, nor even the needed money that brought Gavin back across the ocean. It was the need to see justice done.

  The murderess had not been arrested. In fact, Gavin had been informed yesterday that she had escaped the very night she had killed her husband in cold blood, and now she walked free while Waldron was buried beneath the earth. Gavin was determined to find the sister-in-law he had never met and to see her hanged for her gruesome deed.

  James Knowles repeated his question to Gavin, who glanced up. "Sorry, James, what was it you said?"

  James reached across the coach and shook his friend's arm good-naturedly. Both men were fashionably dressed in fitted velvet suits, with scrolls of gold braid at the neckline and cuffs and low-crowned cavalier hats with plumes. Gavin had chosen a more traditional forest-green, but James wore a vibrant red, reminding Gavin somewhat of a barnyard cock.

  "I said," James repeated, "London has changed since last you were here."

  Gavin looked out the window of the swaying coach again. "That it has. I don't remember it being so dirty. There are so many people—more pickpockets, I'll vow, than honest men."

  "They say they've come from the villages to share in the good fortune Stuart has brought—to some, of course, more than others." He flashed his other two companions an all-knowing look. They were all aware of Gavin's financial success after he had received a letter of marque two years ago allowing him to seize foreign vessels in the name of the king, for which he was well paid. He crossed his legs. "True, the crime has increased, but that's just part of the city's allure. And I can vouch to you there have been some prudent changes. Wait until you see what walks across our stages these days."

  Gavin
lifted an eyebrow, trying to appear interested, wishing he had remained in his apartment. He had several documents belonging to his brother that he was hoping would lead him to the dear widow. "And what might that be?"

  "Women."

  Gavin gave a lazy smile. "Women, you say?"

  One of the others, a man in a lavender suit, slapped his knee with his purple-plumed hat. "They sing, dance, strut across the stage half naked, and entertain at private parties for a fee." He nodded to James. "Our good friend here has made just such an arrangement. After the performance, a Madame Lucy Maynor will be accompanying us to The Strumpet and Bull tavern."

  Gavin returned his gaze to the window as the coach pulled up to the playhouse, where a yellow flag flew declaring a play would be performed that day. "The woman of my dreams," he murmured with good-natured sarcasm.

  The men burst into rowdy laughter as the coachman threw open the door and the gentlemen stepped out into the dirty street.

  Inside the Royal playhouse, one of the only two licensed playhouses in the city, James led them to a box above center stage. The play, a performance of one of Shakespeare's comedies, had not yet begun, but the playhouse was alive with an electrifying energy that could be found nowhere else. It was here that the royalty came to see and be seen; the play was almost an afterthought.

  The curtained stage was apron-shaped and directly in front of it was the pit, where a hundred or so young men sat on benches calling to each other and climbing over the seats. Young girls selling oranges and sweetmeats called out their wares from the pit and shouted at the harlots who had accompanied the men in the pit. Directly above the pit but near the stage was a center balcony divided into boxes meant for the king and his guests. Another balcony above the royal boxes was filled with ladies—faces painted, necklines heavy with jewels—and their gentlemen. Gavin guessed that there were more women attending the afternoon play with their lovers and men with their whores than husbands with their wives. It seemed that Londoners had so long lived under the iron rule of the Puritan Cromwell, where playhouses, face paint, and bright clothing were prohibited, that they were going to make up for those lost sixteen years. Faithful marriage had apparently gone as far out of fashion as farthingales.

  Gavin took his seat between James and the companion in lavender in the front row of one of the upper boxes. He listened to their conversation but made no attempt to participate. Finally, the minstrels began to play and the curtain lifted. The audience grew quieter but by no means hushed.

  The comedy began and Gavin tried to become involved in the story, but it wasn't until a woman walked out on the stage that his attention was suddenly drawn. Gavin leaned forward in his seat, looking down at the redhead who had materialized in a group of several other actresses.

  Her part was a minor one, but the moment she stepped foot on the gas-lamp-lit stage, the audience was captured. The younger men in the pit began to holler and clap, stomping their feet until the lines of one of the actors could barely be heard.

  The actress wore her brilliant red hair long and wavy down her back and over her shoulders, to frame her heart-shaped face. Beneath her costume was evidence of a perfectly shaped female form, all curves and soft spots with long, lithe legs. But it was her eyes and the tilt of her smile that caught Gavin's attention. The actress's dark brown eyes gave off a sparkle of life that showed a woman who was content, even happy, something he did not see often here in London or abroad.

  Gavin sank his elbow into James's side. "Who is she?"

  "Who?"

  Gavin indicated with his chin. "You know damned well who I mean, Knowles. The redhead."

  James chuckled, leaning forward in his seat to admire her with him. "A beauty, isn't she?"

  The redhead spoke and Gavin paused, holding up a finger for James to be silent. The actress's voice was low in pitch, almost gravelly, but utterly feminine and extremely provocative. The redhead's lines ended and another spoke.

  Gavin watched her as she made her exit. "Is she for hire like the others?"

  "Ellen Scarlet?" James gave a little laugh and reached inside his coat for his snuffbox. "I fear not."

  "I should like to sup with her."

  "As would every other man in this box . . . in this theater, for that matter. Choose another and I'll see what I can do, Gavin."

  "Ellen Scarlet . . ." Gavin said aloud, enjoying the taste of her name on his tongue. Never in his life had he been so thoroughly captivated by a woman. Though never an abstainer from womanly wiles, Gavin had never before sought out a woman; they always seemed to find him. In his lifetime, he hadn't met a woman he'd consider getting to know better outside his bedchamber. There'd just never been the interest. But seeing Ellen Scarlet, for just those few moments, convinced Gavin she would be a woman worth becoming acquainted with.

  He turned back toward James. "And what makes her so unobtainable?"

  "She's Lord Chambray's mistress."

  "I imagine she wouldn't be the first kept woman to see another man."

  "The circumstances are different here, friend. Richard Chambray, Baron of Chambray, is not a man to cross. He is a nephew or something to the Lord Chancellor. They say he's very protective of his woman. Not six months ago there was a duel at Ridgely field. He killed the offender with a blade through his heart."

  "She must be a very special woman."

  "You're not listening to me," James insisted. "You've been away from England a long time. Things have changed. I'm telling you, you don't want to get involved with Madame Scarlet."

  Gavin leaned back in his seat, forgetting about the play. "What does she think of her keeper's protectiveness?"

  "They say she's in love with him. She socializes very little with the other actors and actresses and seems completely content to spend her time away from the theater in the arms of her lover." James turned back toward the stage and touched Gavin's sleeve. "Now, there's Lucy . . . A tearing beauty, isn't she? She's the one I was telling you about. The one that will be accompanying us."

  Gavin glanced down toward the stage at the blonde who was singing as she danced around a circle of swains. She was beautiful, but nothing compared to Ellen Scarlet.

  Gavin said no more about the redhead, but when the play was over and James led him backstage to the tiring-rooms, where they were to meet with Lucy, Gavin hung back from the others.

  "This way," James called through the crowd of actors and actresses and equal number of admirers. He waved his scented handkerchief as they became separated by a swarm of students.

  "I'll meet you at the coach," Gavin answered.

  "I'll not be your second at a duel," James warned.

  Gavin only laughed and waved. He certainly had no intention of dueling over the redhead. He only wanted to speak with her. What harm could there be in that?

  Ellen Scarlet stepped behind a curtain in the far corner of the woman's tiring room and sat down at a mirror to wipe the stage makeup from her face. She couldn't resist a smile as she caught the reflection of the redheaded woman that looked back at her.

  She brushed back a lock of the hair that had once been chestnut-brown. It was all Richard's doing. Dear Richard. It was he who had come up with this brilliant way to protect her from arrest for the murder of her husband.

  Even after they had bleached her hair until it had become this shade of red, even after she had changed her name and Richard had sworn to protect her, Ellen had still not felt safe. She was plagued by nightmares of her husband returning from the dead, of the Duke of Hunt finding her. But when Richard had suggested she audition to be one of His Majesty's actresses, Ellen had seen light at the end of a dark tunnel. As a sworn servant of the Crown, no actor or actress could be arrested for a crime with a signed warrant from the king himself. Locked into her new identity with her new appearance and the safety of her appointment, she could live again.

  Countess Thomasina Waxton was gone forever. She saw herself as Ellen now. She felt like Ellen. Her past was nothing but a nightmare now, which
dissolved with the coming of dawn. She had her job at the theater that she loved, and she had Richard whom she loved just as fiercely.

  When Richard had first told her of his terrible injury, she had been shocked, then saddened by the thought that he would never be able to marry. Not her, not anyone. But she soon discovered that Richard was not a man to be pitied. He was too full of life. He had too good a heart. He wanted no pity. He was content with the life he had been given and encouraged Ellen to be content in her own lot of life.

  And suddenly Ellen had so much with which to be content! For the first time in her adult life, she had someone to love and be loved by. This love was such a glorious gift that the fact that their relationship would never be the same as between other men and women mattered little to her.

  Ellen heard her name and looked back up into the mirror. The curtain behind her had parted and in the reflection she saw a man. He was as handsome as Richard, but in a different way. His rich brown hair was cut to just below his shoulders, his cheekbones high, his nose angular. He had the most startling green eyes.

  "Madame Scarlet?"

  For a moment Ellen didn't answer. Although the women's tiring room was always filled to capacity with admirers after a performance, few people bothered with her. Word had gotten around that she was Richard's and that she was not interested in admirers. That combined with the fact that Richard often stood guard, waiting for her after every performance, kept most men away.

  When Ellen said nothing, Gavin went on. She was even more beautiful up close. "My name is Gavin Merrick."

  "And what can I do for you, sir?" She couldn't resist a hint of a smile.

  Men sometimes still frightened her, but somehow she felt immediately at ease with this strikingly handsome gentleman. Unlike most of the fashionable peacocks these days, he wore a sober suit, but expensive nonetheless and well fitting. He was tall, though not quite as tall as Richard. But where Richard was slenderly built, this man was all muscle and bulk. His shoulders were broad and his legs muscular beneath his silk stockings.