A Heart in Jeopardy

by Holly Newman

  Nigel Deveraux rose to greet Maria, and Leona was forced to make the formal introduction.

  "Mr. Deveraux, this is my companion, Miss Sprockett."

  Her tone was not as gracious as it customarily was. Fortunately no one noticed.

  "Delighted, Miss Sprockett." He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  Leona smiled sourly behind their backs. He had never ventured to kiss her hand. Her suspicions were lamentably proving accurate.

  Maria blushed rosily and bobbed a curtsey.

  Leona was annoyed to see her friend in a flutter. It was obvious she was taken with the gentleman.

  He nodded solemnly. "You're very considerate, Miss Sprockett. I should be happy for a glass of port. First, let me fetch Chrissy's portmanteau. And do you have a barn or shelter where I can stable my horse? I changed mounts at the inn so this horse is not heated, but nonetheless, I hate to leave him standing out in this weather." There was a hint of warmth in his voice when he addressed Maria that was lacking when he had spoken to Leona. It was as if he addressed her from a position atop the castle curtain wall while she stood on the ground on the other side of a moat, far below him. The imagery made her squirm.

  "Of course, Mr. Deveraux," Maria tittered.

  Leona rolled her eyes.

  "Go around the cottage to the left. It's just beyond the kitchen wing. . . . What a handsome man your uncle is," Maria told Chrissy after he left.

  Sitting on a scarred and scratched wooden chair swinging her legs back and forth, the girl nodded happily. "He's the best!"

  Leona looked from one to the other, hysteria bubbling up. Chrissy was naturally biased in favor of her uncle. Maria admired any single male over the age of twenty. Worse, she insisted on evaluating those single males as potential husbands for her friend and employer. It would serve no purpose to tell Maria otherwise. For all her sweet, wistful nature, when she chose she could be like a horse with the bit between its teeth. Over the years Leona discovered it safer to ignore her friend's actions than to take umbrage. She just hoped Maria did not say or do anything of a matchmaking tenor in front of Mr. Deveraux. That could prove a further condemnation.

  Maria was right about one thing. There are times when duty does stand in the way of wisdom. She should have stayed abed today with the covers pulled up over her head!

  Sniffing and blowing her nose again, she settled back against the cushions of the sofa. Oh, if she could only get rid of the pounding in her head! She was glad there were no mirrors in the parlor. She would hate to catch a glimpse of herself, for she could well imagine what she would see: watery eyes, flushed face, red nose. Not at all the image of a gallant rescuer or heroine. Perhaps it wasn't to be wondered that Mr. Deveraux should suspect the worst. She sighed and took another sip of tepid tea.

  Mr. Deveraux returned moments later, stamping the ice from his boots. This time he removed his greatcoat and allowed Maria to hang it on a hook by the door.

  He held out the portmanteau to his niece. "Here you are, poppet"

  "I'll go help her, Mr. Deveraux, and make sure she has everything she needs while you warm yourself by the fire and have your port"

  "Thank you, Miss Sprockett. I appreciate that" He watched the two of them mount the stairs. When they were out of sight he turned toward Leona and casually strolled into the parlor.

  Wary, Leona watched him, unaware when she pugnaciously thrust her chin forward.

  His eyelids drooped, obscuring but not hiding the icy aquamarine glitter in his eyes. "Well, Miss Leonard," he drawled, "now we may get down to the truth. How much do you desire?"

  "I beg your pardon?" Though stunned by his directness, she managed to retain a reasonable semblance of aloof calmness.

  He sat down across from her, crossing one booted leg over the other. He reached for his port glass and took a sip. He stared broodingly at the dark liquid. "How much do you desire for the return of my niece?" He looked up at her, a faint jeering smile on his lips. "In the nature of a reward, of course."

  "Mr. Deveraux—" she began repressively, then paused, raising her handkerchief to her nose as she fought back a sneeze, her eyes watering with the effort. This was not the time to show weakness! The threat passed, and she blinked to clear her eyes. "Mr. Deveraux, I do not desire, nor will I accept, a reward for what was only my duty," she said, her naturally throaty voice husky with her illness.

  "Duty, Miss Leonard?" His dark, rumbling voice was arrogantly mocking.

  "Yes, duty!" she seethed, then composed herself again. She studied the shape of her fingernails. "I have been managing Lion's Gate since the ah—untimely death of my eldest brother, Edmund, three years ago. The estate is now the property of my brother Charles; unfortunately he has not been able to assume control of his inheritance for he is doing his duty to his country. He is in the army."

  He watched her narrowly. So she was Captain Charles Leonard's sister. He was mildly annoyed he'd not put the connection together sooner. "I know Captain Leonard," he said dryly, reaching for the decanter of port that Maria had left on table.

  Leona's head flew up to look at him. "You do?"

  He smiled thinly. "Yes, and that explains many things." He refilled his glass and set the decanter back on the table, then leaned back in his chair to observe her objectively.

  Her coloring was the same as Charlie Leonard's, but she lacked the female equivalent of his pretty-boy looks. Her coloring was more dramatic, her features stronger. It was her eyes, though, that truly set her apart from her brother. His were the soft brown that women claimed to die for. Hers were a mélange of green, brown, and gold. They reminded Nigel of the forest floor in autumn.

  He remembered Leonard mentioning a sister. It was late one night when a group of officers sat around a scarred wooden trestle table set up outside a Spanish tavern. It was a night for stealing relaxation where one could find it and with whom one could find it. The next few days were hectic, and then there was Salamanca. But that night, in the light of the flickering flambeau, Leonard's face looked taut and dissipated. He crudely joked about his plain spinster sister back in England and what a millstone he expected her to be around his neck his entire life.

  "Captain Leonard was in my regiment in Spain for a time," Deveraux explained slowly. A wry smile lifted the comers of his firm mouth. "I sincerely beg your pardon. I had not realized until now that you were related."

  "Oh." Leona bit her lip, uncertain how to interpret his dry tone. There was an undertone of commiseration there that she neither understood nor liked. She decided to ignore it and continue her explanation. "The villagers have been complaining for months about the tenants at Lion's Gate. Since I let the manor to them, they were my responsibility."

  "Your duty," he clarified, smirking. Charlie Leonard's duty was clearly to himself and, according to gossip, it was the same with Edmund. No doubt a galloping family trait.

  "Yes! My duty!" Leona's chest heaved. She pinned him with her autumn gaze. "I'm sorry, sir, if duty to one's family is not something you hold in high regard. It is something I hold very dear indeed!"

  He threw his head back and laughed richly. "You have not the first inkling of what that word means, Miss Leonard. You play with it as if it were a toy." He studied her critically, his sneer more pronounced. Perhaps he was wrong in believing her an accomplice to kidnapping. Her brother would never have the guts for such a stunt, so it was likely she didn't as well. What Leonard would do was take advantage of any plum that was to fall within his grasp.

  "You're like your precious brother. You like to be important, to be in the thick of things, don't you? You know if you went to London, you would be lost in that glittering metropolis among women richer, more beautiful, and wittier than you. You couldn't stand that, could you? So you stay here gloating at your perceived importance in this backwater village." He tossed off the last of the port and stood up, pacing the room.

  Rage held Leona silent. She fought the violent trembling in her body as she lurched to her f
eet. "How dare you?" she hissed, stalking him. "How dare you come into my home and cast aspersions upon me and my family? What would you have me do? Ignore a possible crime on my family's property? Would you do so at Castle Marin?"

  He cast her a dismissing glance. "That is different. I am a man." He turned away from her to face the window.

  She grabbed his arm and spun around in front of him.

  "What does being a man have to do with it? Are you saying women can have no sense of duty? Of honor?"

  He stared at her. Grudgingly he had to admit she had more courage, more style than her brother did. The flicker of attraction that had glowed within him since he first saw her suddenly flamed. It shook him to the core of his being. But damnation, attraction did not negate her self-seeking behavior. If anything, it explained it further. He deliberately whipped that flame into anger.

  How dare this woman use Chrissy to make herself important? He remembered the magistrate saying she'd climbed in a window to rescue Chrissy, but then led her out through the house risking recapture. Why had she taken matters into her own hands? Why didn't she notify Cruikston sooner? A muscle throbbed in his cheek. He grabbed Leona by the arms and shook her. "You risked Chrissy's life!" he roared, the careful mask stripped away, leaving a haunted visage.

  "Wh-what?" Leona stuttered, confused.

  "Uncle Nigel!" cried Chrissy from the stairs.

  Numbly the two combatants turned to look at her. Her lower lip was thrust forward, and her blue-green eyes flashed anger. Though now dressed like a lady, she jumped down the two last steps like a hoyden and flew across the floor toward her uncle, hurtling herself at him.

  "Stop it, Uncle Nigel! Stop it!" she wailed, pounding on his chest with her small fists. "She saved me! She believed me!" Fresh tears coursed down her pale cheeks. She whirled out of her uncle's arms to hug Leona while propelling her away from Nigel Deveraux.

  "I'm so-sorry, Miss Leonard," she hiccupped. A shuddering sob wracked her small frame.

  Leona stroked the child's hair. "Sh-sh. Hush. It's all right." She glanced over at Nigel Deveraux who stood rigidly where Chrissy left him. Deep furrows ran between his brows and alongside his lips. Leona sighed and looked back down at the small form that clung tightly to her.

  "Y-you helped me," Chrissy sobbed into Leona's chest. "Y-you risked your li-life. You climbed up three stories in the rain and ice!"

  Deveraux's head snapped around. Three stories?

  Leona chuckled. "Only because I believed my brother, Charles's stories about how easy it was. Now I think it was all a hum, for let me tell you after I cleared the ground floor and looked down, I was too frightened to descend. I had to keep going up. But don't be too hard on your uncle." She looked up again, staring into his appraising light blue eyes. "I think the kidnapping placed a great strain on him. He was probably even a little bit frightened," she said slowly, feeling for the truth. "And all that emotion and fear built up inside him is like a great roaring bonfire. He has to release that, you know, and though I'm certain he'd rather release it against the Norths, where it truly belongs, barring their availability I am the next readily available target!" she said with a dry laugh.

  She looked over Chrissy's head at Nigel Deveraux, her smile ruefully inviting his, inviting a truce. Slowly his posture relaxed, and his lips curved upward.

  Where was his mind? What did he mean charging into battle without the least knowledge of the terrain or his enemy's circumstances? He couldn't even be sure an enemy existed here! Not nine months out of the army and he was forgetting everything he knew. He shook his head to clear his mind as he ran a hand through his hair. Wordlessly Leona held out her hand to him. He walked slowly toward them, his hand reaching out to curve warmly around Leona's outstretched fingers.

  Sensing her uncle's nearness, Chrissy loosened one arm from around Leona's waist to snag her uncle. She pulled him close until she could embrace them together.

  Leona blushed and raised startled eyes to meet Nigel Deveraux's. Her position next to Mr. Deveraux was awkwardly intimate for she was pressed against his hard length, and everywhere they touched a prickling sensation skittered through her body. She felt heat radiating from his body and smelled his musky, masculine odor. Her heart beat faster. Confused, she tried to pull away, but Chrissy would not let her.

  "Chrissy, please dear...." Leona said, her voice huskier than before.

  Amusement brought the boyish charm back into Nigel Deveraux's face. He did not seem the least inclined to break the intimate embrace nor—damn him—to feel any of the wild, alien surging that pulsed through her body. In fact, to steady Leona he put his arm around her shoulders. Leona scowled pointedly over her shoulder at his offending arm. He ignored her.

  Leona didn't know how long they would have stood there like that if Maria hadn't audibly cleared her throat reminding them all of her presence. That sound served its purpose, for Chrissy shyly dropped her arms and self-consciously backed away. The next thing Leona knew, she and Nigel Deveraux were ten feet apart, though she couldn't have said who moved first or fastest. They glanced at each other and laughed.

  A tickling pressure welled up again in Leona's head. She pressed her handkerchief to her nose, willing the feeling to vanish. It didn't The sneeze shook her entire frame. "Oh, my goodness," she murmured before a second and third sneeze had her clinging to the edge of the sofa.

  "Didn't I tell you how it would be? Didn't I tell you? You should be in bed, Leona Clymene Leonard," scolded Maria as she bustled forward and encouraged Leona to sit on the sofa so she could tuck the blankets about her.

  Deveraux took a step forward, his brow furrowed. "Miss Leonard is ill?"

  Maria turned her strongest governess stare upon him. "Isn't it obvious? And no wonder, I say, tramping about the countryside at all hours of the night dressed like a scruffy urchin with nary a muffler about her neck—"

  "Urchin! That was Charlie's best suit of clothes when he was fifteen," Leona protested good-naturedly before ducking her head to fend off another sneeze.

  "It might have been when you left last evening, but by the time you returned that suit was only fit for the dustbin— what with the mud stains, rips, missing buttons, and all."

  "Well, it is not as if Charlie will miss it" Leona suggested with an impish smile.

  "Am I quite hearing correctly? You went about last evening in man's attire, Miss Leonard?" drawled Mr. Deveraux, fascinated. It appeared there was much to last evening's events that Sir Nathan Cruikston didn't tell him—or perhaps didn't know.

  Leona cast him a scathing look. "I could hardly climb the ivy in my skirts," she said repressively.

  He came forward to stand before her, amusement softening the hard planes of his face. "Forgive my confusion, Miss Leonard. When Sir Nathan told me you climbed in a window to rescue my niece, I assumed he meant a ground-floor window. Am I to understand from this and Chrissy's outburst that this was not the case? That your exploits ranged further afield?"

  Leona squirmed under his direct gaze and compressed her lips, wondering how best to answer him. As she saw it, any answer she gave would likely anger or amuse him at her expense. That wasn't much of a choice.

  Maria Sprockett took the matter out of Leona's hands. "She's a mite headstrong," she explained congenially.

  Chrissy came around the sofa and plopped down on the end by Leona's feet. "She said her brother did it all the time. Or at least he said he did. I wanted to escape that way, but she said no."

  Deveraux cocked an eyebrow toward his niece as he digested her comment. Then he swept the sides of his Bath blue superfine coat back and stuck his hands on his hips as he turned to face Leona, his deep, rumbling voice still carrying its new lilt of humor. "By all indications it would appear that my, ah, initial perceptions were out of line. My apologies. I doubt any woman involved in a kidnapping would succumb to something so inelegant as ague or quinsy prior to reaping her reward." His mouth twisted wryly.

  "Again, my apologies for my seeming lack of s
ympathies. I was blind to what was right before me. Miss Sprockett is correct. You should be in bed. It is wicked of Chrissy and I to detain you any longer, though I hazard from what I understand about your naive concept of duty that you will insist on remaining out of bed."

  "Naive?! What—"

  "I suddenly realize—rather belatedly I'll admit—that we Deverauxs are under an obligation to you. I would not have you dying before that obligation may be fulfilled." He bent over her.

  "Piffle," she managed with lofty dismissal before she realized his intent. The next moment found her high in his arms as he lifted her from the sofa. "What? Put me down! How da-da-Aachoo dare you?"

  "Calm yourself, Miss Leonard. Any more sneezes like that and I shall most likely drop you. Miss Sprockett, if you would be so kind?"

  Maria beamed at him, now completely smitten. "Delighted. This way, sir. .. ."

  Out of charity with both of them, but too weak to argue, Leona contented herself with scowling, oblivious to the comfort she'd taken in resting her head against his shoulder as he carried her upstairs.

  In her room, he laid her gently down on the counterpane, then stepped back several paces for propriety's sake. Chrissy came up beside him. He slipped an arm about his niece's shoulder. "We began badly, and I apologize. I'm annoyed to admit your summation had the ring of truth to it. Still, I feel compelled to point out you risked lives—Chrissy's as well as your own. You are far too rash for your own good. No, do not speak. Hear me out. Though the magistrate believes the Norths to be long gone and not soon to show their faces in this area, I am more pessimistic. The particular brand of ransom demanded by these kidnappers places them beyond the ordinary. There is a viciousness I cannot dismiss. I have requested the Tubbs family and Sir Nathan to keep to themselves the events of last night. For your own safety it would be best if your role in this be secret. I am hoping that the failure to raise a hue and cry will make the Norths careless and bring them back to this county. Then we shall be able to capture them. But if they come back, it might be to extract revenge on whomever spoiled their plans. I would not dismiss the notion lightly," he said quickly as he saw her about to protest.