A gentleman tapped Ethan’s shoulder to cut in. Ethan gave him a look that could set fire to the arctic. “Not to mention the darling of every available male craving the ground you walk on. I can well imagine the raging volcano Jacob will be when he returns. If I know my sister, she is orchestrating this whole affair. How she loves to pile tinder on a fire.”
The evening concluded and Abby, Mrs. Quick and Uncle Thomas waited outside for the carriage. Abby stepped away to allow them some private time and to savor the lovely night, the peace she and Jacob had shared when the darkness fell from the firmament leaving the starlight to wander on the sea’s dark smooth tide. How she missed Jacob.
Percy Devol had been watching her, followed her every movement for two weeks. Waiting for this moment when she had moved from her uncle and the old widow. He could not believe she was still alive. The night he captured her outside her home in England, letting her see her family explode in flames. To think she survived the slaver captain aboard the Civis? What had happened? Her slow death had been guaranteed.
How he hated the Rutland’s and their progeny. He should have been the heir. His mother had told him so. That he was the bastard son of the Duke William Rutland, Lady Rutland’s grandfather. How he hated his mother, her endless beatings and telling him he was never good enough. How he had loved sliding his hands around her throat, squeezing, her eyes bulging from her head until the life drained from her.
After kidnapping Lady Rutland, he left England and had set sail for Boston via a French packet. That English dandy had planned the affair, didn’t want the crime to follow them, had paid him handsomely although he’d have done it for nothing. How powerful he had felt. Now that power was reduced to ashes. The Rutland’s survived the fiery blast and on the heels of this news was the survival of Lady Abigail. How close he’d come to crushing her beneath the carriage wheels the other day. He looked forward to making her suffer. His prey moved to the end of the block, and into the shadows, far from the lantern light and unaware of his presence.
Percy caught her around the neck and covered her mouth with his hand. “We meet again, Lady Rutland except this time fortune will not shine in your favor. How you escaped the Civis, I do not know,” he rasped. She tore her nails down the side of his face. The bitch. She kicked back at him then dragged her feet, dead weight. Her teeth clamped on his hand.
“Bitch!” he howled and dropped her. Her screams tore into the night. He didn’t look back. Footsteps crashed behind him. He kept on running.
Abby scrambled to her feet. Ethan came beside her and she pointed to where her assailant disappeared down a dark alley. She fell into her uncle’s arms. “That voice. High and reedy, uneducated. I’ll never forget. Percy Devol is here in Boston.”
“He escaped,” said Ethan returning from his chase. “Disappeared.”
“To go against the Duke of Rutland would take money, influence and a certain amount of lunacy. To send Abby and her brother off on separate ships? To rig an explosion. No. Not one man could have done this. Think Abby. Who would hate your father enough to perform this cowardly scheme?”
Abby’s shoulders slumped. “How many times have I asked that question?”
Ethan leaned in. “Never was able to get a glimpse of her assailant. He obviously planned his escape well. The runaway carriage incident? That was not random. It was an attempt on Abby’s life. Whoever the perpetrators are, they will not stop. Abby will need to be protected around the clock. I’ll post guards around the house. When Jacob gets back, he can decide what to do from there.”
“I can take care of my niece,” Thomas Hansford pulled himself up with indignance. “What does Captain Thorne have to do with this?”
Abby pleaded to Ethan with her eyes to remain silent.
“To do with this? Since Rachel and Abby are such good friends, I know my cousin would insist on this. On top of that Jacob will owe me a big favor.”
The Vengeance had made port. Ethan had worried his cousin would be delayed by weather, but now breathed a sigh of relief and waited with a spare horse. As predicted, Jacob ran down the gangplank. “You look tired, cousin.”
“Cut the excessive concern. Have you found her?”
“Searched all the outer towns like you told me. Nothing of her there.” Of course, she wasn’t outside Boston. She was in the city. Ethan deleted that detail. To see his cousin’s frenzy was pure enjoyment. Served him right for being so bullheaded.
“If you find her, what makes you think she’ll have you? Maybe she caught up with some loyalists and sailed home, maybe she’s infatuated with a fancy English lord by now.”
“I’ll sail to England and kidnap her.”
“With the British fleet on your heels?” Ethan grinned inwardly, the devil in him primed.
To protect Abby, Ethan had posted men around Thomas Hansford’s home night and day. Jacob would never have forgiven him if he had done anything less. He placed Pascale out front. No one would think to go past the giant Haitian. His inside man was Simeon. Of course, Thomas Hansford was in raptures with his new cook’s genius.
Never had Ethan seen so much hugging, crying and carrying on when Abby reunited with Simeon and Pascale. Her uncle’s heart had been so warmed he obtained freedman papers for Pascale. Who was Ethan to comment on the legality of those documents?
Jacob looped his leg over his horse. “Where are we going first?”
Everything Ethan and Rachel had planned was in place. To convince Jacob was another matter.
Ethan fired his next salvo.
“We’re going home to clean you up. We’re invited to a ball, a friend of Rachel’s, supposed to be a beauty.”
“No doubt some hag to marry off. I’m going out on my own.”
“I’ve exhausted everything and this social is the one last place we have a chance of finding anything about your Abby. Half the city is invited. Some lingering loyalists presumably turned patriot will be there. To investigate a collection of stalwarts might be a good idea. Care to join me?”
His cousin grumbled.
To hide a grin, Ethan clicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, leaving his cousin in a cloud of snow. Ethan was getting payback for the whipping he got for Jacob dying the parson’s dog.
Jacob had never been so miserable or fraught with worry in his life. He stood tall above the crowd in the massive three story home of well-to-do merchant, Thomas Hansford, a rabid behind the scenes patriot. Jacob was aware of Thomas’s marked camaraderie with the Sons of Liberty. Where had Ethan disappeared to?
What if Abby slipped back to England through the assistance of a loyalist? A waltz started and a crush of dancers twirled in satins and silks. Several unmarried ladies tittered, their eye on Jacob. He paid no heed to them.
If you find her, what makes you think she’ll have you?
Damn Ethan for putting that thought into his head.
“Good to see you, Jacob.”
Jacob turned and shook his friend’s hand, Samuel Adams. His gaze turned to Benjamin Elias, publisher of the Boston Gazette, Dr. Warren, and then James Otis, a prominent lawyer and all members of the Sons of Liberty. Jacob had not been part of the dissidents group during the British occupation, too lost in his drunken guilt. But he knew the clandestine group played a part in his escape from the Boston prison when he was framed for Thomas’s murder. The Sons of Liberty also kept a fortified barrier against the departing British, keeping his shipyard from being burnt down.
“It’s been a long time,” said Samuel Adams.
“Too long,” Jacob replied, and he meant that. “And too long for my gratitude.”
Samuel waved him aside. “We are in your debt, Captain Thorne.”
“Captain Thorne!” His name echoed throughout the hall. A subdued commotion erupted among the sidelines as wandering guests galvanized into action, rushing toward him. Greeted by a tsunami of well-wishers, Jacob tolerated the hand shakings, backslapping and ingratiating remarks of a conquering hero. He did not want the trumpet blast�
��hated it. He wanted anonymity.
Jacob shouldered through the crowd to a group of former loyalists, a stamp man, custom official and assorted gentry.
“You’ve had quite an adventure,” said John Stanford.
The custom official had wreaked havoc on Thorne’s shipping enterprises during the British occupation. Did he have the gall to smile? Jacob wanted to smash his fist into the swine’s face.
“Have you seen a young woman, new to these parts about six weeks ago, helped her in any way?” Thorne remained cryptic, gauging the loyalist’s response.
“Who would this woman be?”
Equally cryptic. Thorne’s muscles tightened. How long would it take to drag him outside and pull off limb by limb to get the answers he wanted. “You would know her.”
The man put up his hands. “I’m a patriot now.”
“You’re whatever way the wind blows. I don’t like playing games.”
“What kind of games?”
“The kind of games where I count to three, and if I don’t get the answers I want, it gets interesting.”
“What do you mean interesting?”
“The kind where I drag your carcass down to the Vengeance, and strap you to the muzzle of a cannon with a short fuse.”
“Now see here−” His larger friend, a member of the gentry and dressed in a scarlet brocade frockcoat poked his finger on Jacob’s chest.
Jacob looked down at the man’s bejeweled finger. “What I see is that if you don’t remove your hand, I’ll be obliged to remove it from your wrist.”
The stamp man snorted. “Why don’t all five of us meet with you outside, Captain Thorne?”
“Just five?” Too much drink had emboldened their tongues. Jacob could smell the fumes. Ale for breakfast followed by chasers of rum. If not for the marble column to support the stamp man, he’d be languishing on the floor. Three, he counted would be slow to respond. The dandy next to him would get confused in his froth of lace. No big problem. The tall guy’s palms sweated, had never seen a callous, a leftover spoiled aristocrat with a new periwig. No major threat. The other dandy to his left was hefty, stood a head taller. Jacob was right-handed. One passionate swing and all sorts of things would go slack. Was he volunteering?
Just the kind of situation Jacob had a hankering for.
The hefty guy to his left, a little brighter than his friends, cleared his throat, trying to be casual about it, trying to salvage some dignity. “We are not here to fight you, Captain Thorne. If you would give a description of the lady−”
“Blond, blue eyes, slim build, about this tall.” He raised his hand to his chin to demonstrate Abby’s height.
The aristocrat cleared his throat again, a particularly annoying habit.
“That’s a quarter of the women in Boston.”
“You’d know her when you saw her. She’s incomparable.”
“There is a young lady who is to be present tonight, a guest of her uncle, Thomas Hansford. I have been in her attendance since she arrived. I am afraid she is spoken for as I plan to ask her uncle for her hand tonight.”
Ethan sidled up to him and thrust a cup of punch into his hands.
Rachel flanked him on the other side, linking her arm with his. “Charming everyone with your company?”
The music from the orchestra stopped. The dancers were at a standstill. Throngs of people crowded the dance floor. A hushed murmur rose, growing into a cacophony. Why were Rachel and Ethan staring at him? Something was wrong. He did not like it, not one bit. He focused his attention on the crowd. The loyalists were in raptures. Everyone had lifted their gazes. Thorne had enough. He downed his drink and turned to leave. Rachel held fast, smiling up to him. He remembered that smile. From the time she was a child that smile meant trouble.
Maybe she is in England and infatuated with an English Lord.
Thorne growled. Had she gotten back to England? Married Humphrey?
His attention was focused on what the dandy was saying to him. Jacob glanced left. Ethan had the same sappy rapture as the loyalists. Turning his head, he looked for the source of his cousin’s interest, looked higher, toward the staircase….and he froze. Jacob stared at the woman on the staircase. The woman he’d been searching for.
Lady Abigail Marie Hansford Rutland stood at the top and descended like an immortal goddess, granting divinity to measly mortals. She was wearing a gown of red velvet, her breasts fuller and rising with every breath she took. Her blond hair was caught up in an elegant coiffure, entwined with tiny diamonds; Abigail was a breathtaking vision of beauty and breeding. In the weeks since he’d been gone, her figure had ripened, and her delicately boned face had acquired a radiance that was spellbinding. Jacob’s shock vanished as quickly as it hit him.
She was on the arm of an older gentleman. He patted her hand and said something to her. She laughed. She was having the time of her life while he had not slept in weeks.
Jacob shirked off Rachel’s arm. He smelled his cousins’ hands in this business. He’d deal with them later. Now his sole goal was to get to Abby and wring her neck. No. To drag her out of here. To lock her in his cabin aboard the Vengeance. To never let her go.
The aristocrat clenched his arm. Did he dare to detain him? Jacob glared. The fool quivered in his breeches, unable to contain his idiotic grin.
“She is the girl I’m going to marry. Thomas Hansford’s niece.”
Thomas Hansford…Abigail Marie Hansford…Rutland.
He never saw it coming.
“Like hell.” Jacob launched into the crowd.
With practiced grace, she began her descent and confidently glided to the bottom to greet the rush of young suitors vying to take her hand for the next dance.
Jacob’s eyes fastened on his quarry.
“Abigail? Is it really you?” A male voice boomed above the din from the entrance hall.
Jacob paid no mind to the desperate greeting. But he saw Abby’s beautiful blue eyes widen in joy, her hands clapped to her cheeks as she hurled herself through the crowd, and then leaped into the arms of a man dressed in buckskins and leggings. The frontiersman picked her up, hugging and kissing her, swinging her around. Tears streamed down her face.
Blood pounded in his ears. Bitter bile clogged his throat. Like a fire, it burned and raged. Jacob barreled through the throng. He tore the woodsman from Abby and threw a punch. His hand connected with his jaw. It felt good.
The frontiersman swung his left fist from left to right. Jacob dodged, but the next blow came from his foe’s right and knocked Jacob to the floor. Jacob scrambled to his feet and planted his fist into the frontiersman’s midsection; the momentum knocked him to the floor. Wiry bastard. Agile, the frontiersman rolled and came to his feet.
“Jacob! Stop!” Abby tugged his arm. He turned. “Please, Jacob,” she pleaded.
The frontiersman landed another punch on the side of his head. Jacob shook it off. He deserved that for getting distracted. He lunged again, but Ethan, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Warren grabbed him from behind. Other men pulled back the fuming frontiersman. Abby planted herself between them, her arms outstretched, shaking her head.
“You are acting like children.”
The older gentleman who had escorted Abby down the stairs was a bit too casual.
“I don’t think we’ve had this much excitement in a long time. Gentlemen, we have a war to fight. Not each other. I think we need to straighten out this matter in my library.” He looked meaningfully to Jacob. “I need to introduce myself. I’m Thomas Hansford, Abby’s uncle.”
Jacob grudgingly extended his hand, keeping a baleful eye on the frontiersman.
“And this gentleman that you decided to fight in my home is Abigail’s brother, Joshua.”
Her brother. Jacob winced. The brother who had been missing on the frontier.
They all herded into the library. Ethan held up the mantle behind him. Rachel worried her hands in the corner. Abby gave him a faint inclination of her head then fretted over h
er brother who reclined on a settee and stared daggers at Thorne. Mrs. Quick, a widow, appraised him with the speculation of a hawk. Thomas Hansford glared at him like a tutor ready to whip him.
What a way to win favor with her family.
“Captain Thorne, you upset an important party to launch my niece to be married. Can you explain your actions?”
Ethan waded into the deafening silence. “My cousin is the soul of diplomacy. He believes in using his fists to ingratiate himself with the family.”
“I’m not laughing, Ethan and I want Captain Thorne’s answer,” Thomas Hansford snapped.
Ethan blithely ignored the swirling emotional tensions and moved across the room. “Anyone want a drink? All this excitement has made me thirsty,” he said cheerfully.
In a state of misery, Abby patted her brother’s head with a cool damp cloth. “Joshua, you have no idea what has happened to our family. I must tell−”
“I received communications from Uncle Thomas and came as soon as I was able. The whole despicable act is beyond comprehension.”
“Percy Devol, the one who kidnapped me…is here in Boston,” Abby said and filled him in about the explosion and Nicolas’s disappearance.
“And he has made two attempts on her life,” Thomas confirmed. “I have investigators combing Boston. The house is guarded.
“Two attempts on your life?” Jacob exploded.
Abby wanted to go to Jacob, but he looked so forbidding and so ruthlessly cold that she sank back into the cushions. Her nerves had been fraught for weeks. Worried that he might be killed or maimed, then not knowing if Jacob would come for her, and now that he had… Well, she didn’t know what to think. He was angry for sure and had searched all over for her. But was he angry that she had duped him and left the ship without a word, or because of Percy Devol?
And she was angry too. Angry for the way he had treated her during those last days on the Vengeance and furious for the way he brawled this evening.
But seeing him here, seated across from her, his polished booted foot resting casually atop the opposite knee, his long legs encased in breeches and white hose, like he was master of this home instead of his ship and overall he surveyed... Never had he looked more handsome−or more impossible.
Sweet Vengeance Page 29