Much Ado About Jack

by Christy English

  She went away, still smiling, and James sat once more beside Angelique, closer this time, so that his heavy thigh pressed against hers where no one else could see.

  He did not remark on their proximity, though. He simply handed Angelique her stew and hunk of bread and began to eat his own. Angelique’s appetite for food had fled when he first sat down beside her, but as she took in the aroma of the rich beef, her mouth watered for more than just his touch.

  His thigh still pressed hot against hers, Angelique put aside her scruples and indulged herself in a perfect moment of sensation with his body close, the scent of the road still on his skin. The scent of him mingled with the creamy taste of the stew, the beef so well-cooked and succulent that it melted on her tongue. She ate the entire bowl in silence, leaving her bread untouched.

  When she set her bowl down, James saw that she would not eat her buttered slice of rye so he took it himself and devoured it in three bites. She laughed, her eyes gleaming.

  Perhaps here in the country she could allow herself the luxury of an affair with him. Away from London and all its influence, she wondered if she might enjoy this man and the heat of his touch without compromising the rest of her life. No one here would judge her for knowing him, for she could do no wrong in Wythe. In a week’s time, she could return to London, her charge here settled, and her lust for this man behind her.

  She knew that she was lying to herself somehow, but she also knew that she did not care.

  James wiped the last of the rye crumbs from his lips with his handkerchief. She watched his hands as he folded the cloth and slipped it back into his coat pocket. The brown wool clung to his broad shoulders like a second skin. Angelique wanted to see those shoulders looming over her that night in her bed.

  “For all your faults, Captain Montgomery, I am glad you’re here.”

  He smiled at her then, and she felt as if the sun had come out after months of rain. He took her hand in his, and her small hand disappeared into the warmth of his palm. She did not feel lust in his touch this time, just joy in being alive. When had she last met a man who brought her joy?

  “You are a hard woman to run to ground. Before I met with Smythe, I almost lost hope.”

  Angelique felt the walls of her defenses thinning, and she wondered why, even as she gave him her habitual, seductive smile.

  “All men should live in hope,” Angelique said.

  “And so I do.”

  As she stared into the blue of his eyes, she found it difficult to look away. The rest of the room had resumed their conversations, though Angelique could still feel the village watching them.

  No doubt they knew he was her latest paramour, for the people here knew she was a woman who chose to live as freely as a man. In spite of their country ways, they did not judge her for it. She supposed because she was their chatelaine, the woman who lived in the old manor house, the woman who settled their debts and saw to it that no one went hungry when the crops failed or the winter was overly harsh.

  Angelique felt free in Shropshire as she did nowhere else, and she savored that freedom and James’s touch in front of the public house fire.

  It was Lisette who broke into her reverie, reminding her of why she had come to Shropshire in the first place.

  “My lady, the girl is here. Mademoiselle Sara Burr.” Lisette leaned close to Angelique’s ear. “Your husband’s daughter.”

  Angelique felt as if a sluice of cold water had been thrown over her. She drew her hand from James’s grasp and rose to her feet.

  She knew her duty, both to herself and to the dead. How she had managed to forget it, to wile away an hour in front of that fire with her lover when her husband’s daughter waited for her, she did not understand. James Montgomery seemed to take over her wits as well as her senses whenever he came near.

  “Thank you, Lisette. I would speak with Sara. Where is she?”

  A voice spoke from behind the crowd, and a girl stepped forward, her blonde hair hidden beneath a fine white cap, a clean apron covering her simple brown dress. “Here, my lady. I am Sara.”

  Seventeen

  The girl had Geoffrey’s eyes. It was the first thing Angelique thought as she took in the sight of his daughter standing before her. She forgot James Montgomery in all his masculine glory, his heated looks and her own desire for him. All that fell away as she stood abruptly, moving without thought toward her husband’s daughter.

  The girl saw her move and took a step back as if to get away, checked by Mrs. Withers’s hand on her arm. The innkeeper’s wife stayed close by Sara as if to protect her, even from Angelique.

  The girl also had Geoffrey’s hair, thin wisps of gold that escaped the braids that fell down her back. Her light blue eyes seemed to catch and hold the summer sky within their depths. Looking into those eyes, Angelique was taken back to the first time she had ever seen Geoffrey, one night at some debutante ball.

  Her father had finagled the invitation out of a business contact. Angelique and her mother were sadly out of place, French nobility disowned by their family, the wife and daughter of a mere sea captain. The entire press of people at that ball had made it clear they did not belong there. Only Geoffrey had approached them, bowing low, asking her to dance.

  Geoffrey’s daughter did not look thirteen, her fine-boned face too young and thin, her body as slight as a child’s. The girl stared at Angelique half in fear, half in defiance, as if she expected Angelique to eat her alive, or to cast her into the pit of hell. Mr. Withers came out from behind the bar and stood a little apart, watching Angelique and Sara anxiously.

  Angelique swallowed hard, searching hard to find her voice. She had never been struck speechless before, but her old grief rose to engulf her even as she stood there and looked into her dead husband’s eyes. She took a deep breath and forced herself to speak.

  “Good evening, Sara,” Angelique said. “I am Angelique Beauchamp. I live in the house up on the hill.”

  “I know, my lady. You are the Countess of Devonshire. My mam used to cook for you when you had a big party. Sometimes I would come, and eat a scrap of pastry she made me.”

  The girl’s voice broke the connection with her father in Angelique’s mind. Geoffrey had been a nobleman with the nasal cadence of a man about Town. This girl’s soft country speech would have to be trained out of her, Angelique thought. Already she knew that she would not just give the girl a governess and forget her. She would not leave this child in the country alone. This girl would be a member of her household, for better or for worse.

  Angelique hoped desperately for better, but she knew how hard it would be for the girl to take on a new role in the world. Even if she wanted it, learning to be a lady in only five years’ time would be no small feat. Angelique would have to begin instructing her almost immediately. There had been no one to teach her those hard lessons. Once she was married, she had worked hard to lose the last of her Marseilles accent, the last of her childish ignorance. Nothing she had done had been enough, however. Geoffrey did not love her anyway.

  Sara’s face had become a mask of misery at the mention of her dead mother. Angelique saw not an echo of Geoffrey, but a girl who was cut off from the only thing she had ever known, a girl whose life would never be the same again. That was someone Angelique recognized. Once, that lost girl had been herself.

  “Not that my mam stole from you, my lady. She only gave me ruined scraps, bits that would have gone to the dogs.”

  “I am sure your mother was an excellent woman.”

  Sara’s blue eyes took on a sheen of tears. “My mam was the best woman in the world.”

  Angelique suddenly became aware of everyone looking to her expectantly, as if she might have some magical method to assuage this child’s pain, as if she might heal the breach between this girl’s life now and what it had been. Angelique had helped with many things in the last decade in the village of W
ythe, but faced now with the misery of one little girl, she was not as sure of her success. She could educate her, make a lady of her, settle money on her, and arrange a decent marriage for her, but those were trifles compared to what the girl had already lost. Her world had ended. There was nothing Angelique might do that would bring her mother back.

  In that moment, three of the Withers boys came running through the public room. The oldest looked to be about five years old, chasing the three-year-old twins. Mrs. Withers was obliged to corral them all, leaving Sara in the center of the room facing Angelique alone.

  Sara was thin, but Angelique assumed that she simply was naturally slim. The abundance of food at the Four Horses Inn spoke for itself, the scent of delicious beef and mutton still hanging in the air. She could keep feeding her, at least. Maybe under Angelique’s care the girl could gain enough weight to look healthy.

  Angelique’s old longing for a child welled up within her, a many-headed Hydra, its tendrils reaching for her heart, threatening to drag her down. Seeing this orphan girl alone and bereft before her made her think of her own daughter, buried beneath Queen Anne’s lace beside the river Severn.

  James’s hand was on her arm then, a heavy weight that brought her back to the here and now. He had come to stand beside her, and his touch seemed to offer support and strength. That this man she barely knew had seen enough of her pain to offer the comfort of touch made her burn with shame.

  Her back straightened, and she blinked her tears away. If he, a virtual stranger, could see her pain, no doubt the rest of the public house could as well. She drew herself back once more behind her wall of stone, the brittle façade she had perfected during her years as part of the Prince Regent’s set. But when she turned to look at Sara, she found that wall had a crack in it.

  “Sara, I know Mrs. Withers told you of my arrival today. Did she also tell you that you will come to live with me in the manor house on the hill?”

  Sara turned pale, her blond braids standing out like yellow gold against the pallor of her face. “No, my lady. I am to live here. I can work. I can earn my own keep. I am almost a woman grown.”

  Angelique took in the thin shoulders of the girl before her, her long arms ending in narrow wrists and small hands. Sara looked as if she would blow away with the first strong wind, until you looked into her eyes. There Angelique saw the beginnings of a stubborn strength that reminded her of herself.

  “I am sure you can, Sara. You are no doubt a hard worker and a great asset to Mrs. Withers.”

  “Yes, Your Ladyship, she is at that,” Mrs. Wither piped up, desperately trying to hold on to two wriggling three-year-olds at once. Sara stepped toward her and placed one of the boys on her hip, where he stopped moving and leaned quiet against her shoulder.

  Angelique could see that the people around her expected that she would leave the girl here, among the people she had known all her life. She would be within her rights to leave her husband’s bastard to rot in the village of her birth. If she felt any obligation, she could offer the Witherses a bit of money to help with the expense of an extra mouth to feed. The girl could work in this public house until the keen edge of the intelligence reflected in her eyes was blunted by the years of endless labor, eventually suffering indignities under the straying hands of traveling men, until she too gave birth out of wedlock like her mother before her.

  She looked into the child’s bright blue eyes set beneath feathery brows. Geoffrey’s daughter would not be left to that fate. Angelique would offer her another.

  “Sara, as much help as you are to Mrs. Withers, I would offer you another path. Come with me tonight, and we will speak of it.”

  Sara’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Mrs. Withers stepped forward to speak for her, one unruly boy still caught between her hands. “My lady, I ask that you let Sara spend this night with us. Send someone to fetch her in the morning. She will be happy to come to the great house then.”

  Sara’s look of misery did not fade, but Angelique steeled her heart against it. She would not leave this bright, beautiful child behind, one day to become the plaything of some man passing through on his way to Wales. She would take her in and make a lady of her. This girl would become the daughter she did not have, the daughter she would never have. After a few months or a year, the girl would see the new world opening before her, and she would be grateful for the opportunity Angelique had given her.

  But as Angelique looked at the fear on Sara’s face, she knew that she would grant the girl one more night in the familiar inn where she had lived all of her life. It was a small thing to give.

  “Very well,” she conceded. “I will send someone for her in the morning. Please see that her things are packed, Mrs. Withers.”

  The innkeeper curtsied, still clutching her son by the shoulder. The boy thought it a game and bowed as well, laughing. Only Sara stood frozen as if she could not see or hear. The boy she held still had his head on her shoulder, for by this time he had fallen asleep.

  Angelique felt the eyes of the village on her. When she had arrived, she had been one of them. Now she was separated by the gulf of money, of power, the gulf that had truly always been there. She was the lady of the manor, and she would take this child out of the village and into a new life. As she looked at the village men around her, she saw that they did not approve of her choice.

  Lisette caught her eye and brought her traveling cloak. Wrapped in the folds of soft wool, she steeled herself to hold to her decision. Whether they approved or not, she would make Geoffrey’s daughter’s life better. Angelique forced herself to smile.

  “Thank you again for your hospitality, Mrs. Withers. My man will return tomorrow for Miss Burr, sometime around ten o’clock. Will that be convenient?”

  Mrs. Withers blinked, for a moment not understanding who “Miss Burr” was. When she realized that Angelique referred to Sara, she bobbed another curtsy. “Of course, Your Ladyship. I will have her things ready by then. She doesn’t have much.”

  Angelique nodded to Sara but did not offer her hand. The girl had retreated behind her own wall of stone, her eyes downcast, misery clear on her face.

  Mrs. Withers still held her errant son in one hand but reached out to shake Sara with the other. “Her Ladyship is leaving, Sara. Make your curtsy as your mother taught you.”

  Sara curtsied then, and Angelique observed her inherent grace. Now, as she rose from her curtsy to frown like thunder, Angelique saw the stamp of her husband’s willful stubbornness on the girl’s face.

  Angelique smiled in the face of Sara’s frown. The girl, surprised, allowed her frown to soften. “I like your courage, Sara. We will get along well together.”

  She left the public room then, raising a hand to acknowledge the farewells called out to her by all who stood at the bar and sat along the benches of the inn. She stepped out onto the porch, taking in the sweet scent of the spring evening. The sun was still setting over the hills to the west, and the sky was lit with the softening colors of orange and mauve. Angelique took in the sight of it as Lisette came forward with James at her heels.

  “You would leave me without a word then?” James asked.

  “Are you still here, Captain? I am headed for home and for my bed.”

  He let the incendiary mention of her bed pass. “We still have unfinished business.”

  “Must we discuss this business tonight?”

  “Tonight, tomorrow, whenever you choose. But we will talk, Angelique. I came to Shropshire only for you.”

  She met his eyes and saw he spoke only the truth. He had set aside a bit of his arrogance; he had left something behind in London, just as she had. For the first time, she felt as if she were speaking to him without his mask. If a journey to the country improved him this much, she wondered what he must be like on his own ship, out on the open sea.

  Still, she did not bend.

  �
�A bit out of your way, is it not, Captain? Far from the sea, and from the ship you hope to procure. Very well, we will talk, but tomorrow. I am tired. Call on me in the morning.”

  James did not accept her casual dismissal but stepped close to her until his broad shoulders blocked out the rest of the world. “I do not know the men you have dealt with in the past. They may all be milksops, knaves, and fools. But I am not one of them.”

  Something electric stirred in the air between them, lightning crackling before thunder struck. Angelique found herself caught once more by the blue of his eyes and by the heat behind them. She did not know what it was about this man that kept drawing her in, but as tired as she was from her journey, as emotionally exhausted as she was from meeting her husband’s daughter, she wanted to find out. He intrigued her as well as maddened her. Perhaps that was reason enough to do as he asked.

  “What do you want of me?”

  He spoke low, so that no one else might hear him. “Angelique, you know what I want.”

  The cadence of his voice made her shiver. The burr of his accent from Aberdeen ran over her skin like hands, making her long to be alone with him. She thought of how much she had wanted him inside her as she lay on the purgatorial sofa in her sitting room. She remembered how he had pleasured her in the Prince Regent’s Blue Velvet Room, laid out on the damask divan.

  She wanted what he wanted. Why not let them both have it?

  “I’ll see you at my house, then, Captain. Anyone in the village can give you the direction.”

  James said nothing but bowed to her. His frown was as electric as his smiles had been. She felt light-headed, almost giddy, more like the woman she had been ten years before. She could not remember the last time she had played with fire. All men she had spoken with since Anthony had left her were so predictable as to be somnolent.

  Perhaps that was why she kept letting him return to her after she had already dismissed him. James Montgomery was not a man who would allow himself to be dismissed.