Nathan leaned against the railing and watched the lights of Calais bob in time with the ship. Frustration roiled through him. It took only a few hours to sail to Calais from Dover but the ship left England late and they missed the high tide that would have taken them straight to Calais’s shore. Now they were stuck offshore for the night while they waited for the morning tide.
He reached into his pocket to retrieve the letter that changed his world and his beliefs but realized that it was in his cabin, drying, because some damn chit had scattered his papers through the mud. He added her to his list of curses and pushed away from the railing to head to his cabin and at least try to sleep.
Damn. He still had to check on Sebastian’s sister. Why the hell he agreed to help Sebastian Addison was beyond him. The bigger question should be why Addison even approached him in the first place. Everyone knew Nathan Ferguson, Lord Blythe, was unreliable. And, of course, he’d proven that again tonight by not searching out Lady Hartford to see if she was faring well on this voyage.
He recalled bits of the conversation he’d had with Addison the morning three days ago when Addison had asked the favor. To be honest, Nathan had still been half in his cups and hadn’t yet gone to bed while most people were nearly finished with their day. The conversation was a blur to him. Addison had told Nathan that Lady Claire was traveling to France with her old nanny.
It had been her nanny, correct?
Yes, Nathan was sure of it.
“Why would your sister not procure passage on one of your ships?” he’d asked, referring to Nicholas Addison’s company that was fast becoming the biggest shipping company in England and the American colonies.
“She did,” Addison said. “Or rather, I secured passage for her, then I discovered through one of Nicholas’s acquaintances that she went behind my back and made her own plans.”
“Why the devil would she do something like that?” Blythe’s head ached, and the noise from the coffeehouse hadn’t helped.
“Claire is headstrong. She has it in her mind to tour the Continent since she missed out on what she terms ‘an adventure.’ I’m willing to allow her a little freedom but I’m damned if I’ll allow her to go flitting about foreign countries without at least some protection. All I ask is that you watch out for her until she reaches France. I don’t want her falling prey to the con artists and thieves that haunt the docks. She has letters of introduction from me and letters from my bank in the event she needs money. Once she reaches Paris, I suspect she’ll attend balls and do a bit of shopping. Betsy will rein her in if need be, and Betsy has been told to inform me of Claire’s whereabouts and actions.”
“Wait a moment,” Nathan said, a memory coming to him. “Claire. Wasn’t she the one who nearly ran away with that rascal? What was his name? The one who owed nearly everyone money.”
Addison had chuckled but the look around his eyes was strained and guarded. “That was long ago. She’s … Well, that was long ago.” He leaned forward. “I haven’t told Claire that you will be watching out for her and I prefer to keep it that way.”
“I doubt she’d even recognize me, Addison, it’s been forever and a day since we’ve seen each other. But why me?”
Certainly there were more reliable gentlemen on the ship. Nathan was the last person Addison should charge with watching his sister. After all, he was a despot. Society said so and he wasn’t in much of a position to dispute it. Opening his own gaming hell had been his way of thumbing his nose at those who already thought the worst of him—and of ensuring that his mother kept her nose out of his life.
Nathan couldn’t remember what Addison’s answer had been. Neither did he care at that point. In the end, he’d agreed. He was sure Addison probably gave him a description of Claire, but Nathan couldn’t recall. At the time, he remembered a young girl with brown hair who used to follow him and Nicholas about and pester them with questions. Who chattered nonstop until both boys were sorely tempted to toss her in the lake.
Addison assured Nathan that Lady Claire was well chaperoned so maybe it didn’t matter that he’d yet to search her out. Yet his conscience wouldn’t allow him to shirk this duty. He owed it to his friend, the only one who’d stood by him when his life fell apart after his father’s death.
He would locate the captain and discover what cabin Lady Claire was in. In the morning he would make certain she was well taken care of. When they reached Calais, he would ensure that she was safe and then wash his hands of her.
A soft shuffle of feet had him looking to his left and pausing in wonder. There she stood. The cheeky minx from the dock. The one who nearly ruined his papers.
Read on for an excerpt from
Samantha Kane’s
The Devil in My Arms
Chapter One
London, September 1819
The sun was setting; dusk casting an ominous shadow over the quiet, residential square. There had been nurses and children in the central park earlier, but they had wandered back to various affluent houses some time ago, for supper she supposed. Eleanor’s stomach rumbled at the thought. She’d run out of money yesterday, and so hadn’t eaten since a greasy meat pasty purchased with her last coins from a disreputable inn along the coach line two days ago.
She kept to the shadows of the alley, tiptoeing along the wall, her side pressed to the brick. The small satchel in her left hand had grown heavy hours ago, but as it contained all her worldly possessions she didn’t dare put it down for fear of losing it if she had to run suddenly. She’d walked around these particular two blocks of London for the better part of three hours. She could see nothing suspicious, but that didn’t mean she was safe.
She bit her lip in indecision. She’d come so far. If she were to fail now, it would kill her. It really would this time. She couldn’t bear being locked in her room again for days upon days, no food or water unless she did as Enderby demanded. She’d worked on this plan for years while she’d endured her husband’s punishments. But no more. She had followed the plan meticulously, waiting the three months she deemed necessary for Enderby to call off his search. Three endless months of hoarding her money, trying to sleep in drafty waterfront inns whose other occupants were as suspicious as she. But the rooms there were always too close, with windows that often wouldn’t open. The night terrors had struck more than once as she woke screaming, imagining being locked in her room back at Enderby’s again. Three months of eating only meager fare, faint with hunger and fear and exhaustion every second.
After all that time, surely he thought her dead. She hadn’t tried to contact Harry at all. She’d learned the hard way that to do so would be a mistake. She didn’t make the same mistakes twice. She was too clever for that. She was. He hadn’t broken her at all. She was still the same. Still smarter than he was, and at last he’d know it.
Finally, her courage bolstered by the very fear and hunger that had nearly laid her low so many times in the past few months, she ventured out of the alley. There was no hue and cry at her appearance. No one emerged from the shadows to accost her just as she tasted freedom. She kept to the sidewalk, sauntering along as if she hadn’t a care in the world, the boy’s clothes she wore making her almost belligerent shuffle believable. She’d studied the stable boys and grooms and dockworkers; this was their walk, the walk of a lad who owned the world, daring friend and foe alike to knock the chip from his shoulder. She wanted to laugh aloud at what a lie that walk was for her. Her cares were a burden weighing her down, the chip on her shoulder a simmering hatred for the man who had forced her to take such dire measures.
When she reached the walk in front of Harry’s door she casually looked around, pausing to dust off the sleeves of her ratty coat. She was hardly dressed for a visit to one of the elegant mansions in Manchester Square, but she brazened it out. If she could get past the butler she’d find Harry.
She’d just turned up the walk, her eyes glued to the door as if salvation waited beyond it, when a voice spoke from behind her. “Mrs. Ender
by, I presume?”
Eleanor spun around with a gasp, her satchel flying from her hand as she reached into her coat and grabbed the cudgel she’d stolen from a drunken sailor on the docks in Lyme Regis. She faced her attacker head-on, hoping a scuffle here would be noticed. She didn’t care if she drew attention now. They’d found her. Her only hope was that Harry could prevent the miscreant from dragging her back to Enderby.
He was tall, his dark-red hair poking out from beneath a beaver hat. He wasn’t as burly as Enderby’s other lackeys. She’d never seen this one before, the better to take her by surprise, damn him. He was well dressed, which seemed discordant somehow with the danger of the situation. He didn’t look belligerent at all, merely mildly amused and relieved, but she was still wary. There was an aura of power about him that made the hair on her nape stand up. He smiled at her then and her mind spun in confusion.
“You shan’t need that, Mrs. Enderby,” he said quietly, pointing at the cudgel with his oversized walking stick. “I am not who you believe me to be.”
“And that’s how you disarm someone who wants to knock your head off?” a voice sneered from behind her. Eleanor backed quickly to the side so she could see them both. The speaker was a young man observing them from several feet away. He had his arms crossed and his feet planted wide, blocking her exit to the street. His casual stance didn’t fool her for a second. He looked like a scrapper and had the height and weight to take her down, cudgel be damned.
“Wiley, be quiet,” the redhead said, clearly annoyed. “Now you’ve startled her again.”
“Why don’t you ask her to dance?” the Wiley fellow said sarcastically. “Maybe she’ll put down the stick and waltz.” He looked at Eleanor then. “He probably isn’t who you think he is, but keep the cudgel just in case.”
The redhead closed his eyes as if in pain. “She could just give it to you, and you could knock my head off. Would that satisfy your need to protect the lady from my dastardly charms?”
“Maybe,” Wiley said, looking thoughtful. “At least it would be a good time for me.” He addressed Eleanor again. “We mean you no harm, he’s not lying about that.”
“Who are you then?” she demanded, refusing to drop her guard at their foolish banter. Neither made a move toward her but simply stood there, watching her carefully. The redhead leaned on his walking stick with both hands as if to reassure her. It was a wasted effort. She knew better than to trust someone like him. He was a man with the power to break her and enjoy doing it.
“My name is Sir Hilary St. John and this is Wiley. We have been looking for you.”
“Of course you have,” she sneered. “How much did Enderby promise you?”
He shook his head. “You misunderstand. We have been searching for you for your sister.”
Her hands began to shake. “Harry?”
“We have been very worried about you, Mrs. Enderby,” he said kindly. He looked her up and down. “You look as if you’ve had a rough time of it, my dear.”
At that the fatigue assailing her finally took its toll. She dropped her arm and staggered back a step. “A rough time?” She started laughing and then she simply couldn’t stop. Before she knew it she was crying, great gulping sobs. What a spectacle she was.
“Perhaps we should go in?” the red-haired stranger said. He still didn’t move closer to her, just gestured to the door.
She warily watched them, wiping her nose inelegantly on her sleeve, still unsure if she could trust them. The door opened behind her and she quickly raised the cudgel again before she finally turned to see a handsome, dark-haired man standing there frowning at them. “Hil?” he asked, looking curiously at Eleanor. “What’s going on?”
“Who is it, Roger?” A blonde, elegant, very pregnant woman came up behind him and peered over his shoulder.
“Harry,” Eleanor whispered, awed by how beautiful her sister had become. She’d always had the potential, of course. My God, how she’d missed her little Harry.
Harry gasped. “Ellie,” she cried, awkwardly shoving her way past the man in the doorway and out onto the walk. Eleanor met her halfway and fell into her arms, hugging her little sister for the first time in almost fifteen years.
* * *
Hil watched as Harriet Templeton ushered her exhausted sister into the drawing room after their emotional reunion on the front walkway. He’d left Wiley out front, watching to make sure no unwanted guests arrived looking for her. Now that she’d been found, he didn’t plan to lose her again. And, of course, after his behavior Wiley deserved to be left out there. In so many ways, Wiley was still the foolish boy he’d taken in off the streets of St. Giles several years ago, despite an education and Hil’s tutoring on the finer points of being a gentleman.
Mrs. Enderby hadn’t been at all what he was expecting. He’d been told she was quiet and shy. Nondescript and thin, with plain features and long, light-brown hair she wore simply. At least, that was the description they’d been given by her husband’s men when they’d come looking for her. They’d gone so far as to hint she’d recently gone a little off in the head, thus her mysterious disappearance. The woman who had confronted him and Wiley on the front walk with a cudgel was none of those things. Well, he couldn’t determine her looks just yet because of the enormous hat she wore, but shy and retiring were not the first terms that came to mind. She was younger looking than he’d expected, as well. She was at least thirty-two according to Mrs. Templeton, though she didn’t look a day over sixteen in her current clothing. He attributed her wan, thin appearance to a life lived on the run for the last three months.
Harry Templeton had been suspicious from the start. Both she and Roger, one of Hil’s dearest friends, declared that the Eleanor Stanley they’d known prior to her marriage was none of those things. True, Harry hadn’t seen or corresponded with her sister in almost fifteen years, and for Roger it had been longer, but Eleanor had been uncommonly bright when they were children according to Roger, vivacious and outspoken. She’d been a quiet beauty, the kind of woman who was passably pretty until that inner fire lit her up like a firework. Harry had revealed that Eleanor had been unhappy about her marriage to Enderby, and was nervous about her future the last time she’d seen her, when Enderby had taken her back to Derbyshire after their wedding. She had never returned to her parents’ house, nor had she attended their funerals when they both succumbed to a fever several years later.
A man had arrived at the Templetons’ three months ago looking for her, claiming to work for her husband. Roger hadn’t cared for the fellow at all, saying he was crass and untrustworthy. The man had declared that if she was there they had best hand her over so she could be brought back to Mr. Enderby. Roger had told Hil the entire affair was suspicious. They had indignantly refused to allow the rude stranger to search the premises and they’d shown him the door. A week later a letter arrived from Mr. Enderby corroborating the fellow’s story. Eleanor Enderby was missing and her husband very much wanted her returned. Roger and his wife had formulated a polite response which, if one read between the lines, had more or less told Enderby to sod off, and they’d called Hil for help. A logical choice, of course. He was well-known for his knack for solving mysteries and locating missing persons. There was very little he loved more than a good mystery, be it academic or of a more immediate nature.
“Oh, Ellie,” Mrs. Templeton said with concern, “you look awful.”
Mrs. Enderby was wiping her tears with Roger’s handkerchief and sniffing loudly. Hil liked that she didn’t seem embarrassed by her tears and wasn’t trying to pretend her nose wasn’t running. Honesty always received high marks from him. She gave a tremulous laugh at the comment. “Don’t sugarcoat it, dear,” she said wryly, folding the handkerchief over into a little square and dabbing her eyes some more. “But truly, you haven’t seen the worst of it.” She sighed and pulled the oversized hat from her head, revealing light-brown, curly hair that had been cut ruthlessly short, and badly, too. It looked like a blind man
had taken scissors to her head.
Mrs. Templeton gasped. “Your hair!” she cried out. “Your beautiful hair.”
“Its just hair. It will grow back.” Mrs. Enderby shrugged with supreme nonchalance.
“Of course it will,” Roger said staunchly. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I suppose you’d like something to eat.”
Mrs. Enderby smiled at him and Hil was taken aback. Her mouth was a bit overlarge, and when she smiled her entire face was transformed. Despite her fatigue and general state of dishevelment, she was uncommonly pretty at that moment.
“I am starving,” she declared. “I haven’t eaten in two days, and it’s been even longer since I’ve slept.”
“I’m so sorry, Ellie.” Mrs. Templeton was obviously horrified. “I wasn’t thinking.” She motioned at Roger. “Go. Go and tell Cook to prepare a meal, and then tell Mandrake to have Mrs. Dempsey prepare a room for Eleanor.”
Roger smiled at both ladies. “I’m going,” he said, pretending to be put out about taking orders from his wife. Hil knew, of course, that his friend would do anything his wife asked him to do, and he’d do it gladly. Now that she was expecting, Roger was even more the besotted fool, and Hil didn’t blame him one bit. Mrs. Templeton was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and a delightful person as well. Sometimes he envied Roger and his marital bliss.
Hil stepped away from the wall where he’d been observing the reunion. The sisters looked over at him, identical expressions of surprise on their faces, as if they’d forgotten he was there. “I shall take my leave, ladies,” he said with a bow. “Welcome, Mrs. Enderby, and may I say that I am relieved to meet you at last.”
She fidgeted and crushed her hat brim in her hands. “I have a favor to ask of you, Sir Hilary,” she said hesitatingly.
Interesting, Hil thought. “Of course. Whatever I can do to be of assistance.” Roger had stopped at the door and turned back to listen.
A Kiss of Lies Page 31