Not that he regretted it.
“We’ll be leaving for London in an hour,” she called to Jerrod. “Please have Lisette repack my things.”
“Yes, my lady. I will inform the staff.”
Jerrod moved away as silently as he had come. James stood in the summerhouse door and watched the proper man walk carefully through the greenery, as if every leaf and flower hid an adder that might rise up and bite him.
“So, are you coming with me?”
James turned at the sound of her voice and watched as she made short work of putting her gown back on. She sat down and began to draw her stockings up her legs. He moved to kneel beside her then, his hands caressing her calf and inner thigh as he tied her garter.
“And spend another dozen nights in your bed? I wouldn’t miss it.”
He listened to her breath catch as he slid his hands up her skirt, running his calloused fingertips over the inside of her knee. He tied her second garter, and she shivered.
“You would undo me, Captain,” she said, standing up.
He stood with her, drawing her close. “Gladly.”
He kissed her lightly, fleetingly, and she tasted of chocolate and bread, of warmth and desire.
Angelique slid her little hands down from his waist to cup his buttocks. She pressed the full curves of her body against him.
“I may need you for longer than twelve nights.”
His mouth was on hers then, and her lips opened beneath his. He explored her with his tongue as her hands shifted over his backside. He came up for air and laughed a little. “So you like the goods then, countess?”
“Not enough to buy, but a long-term rental sounds divine.”
He laughed louder and swatted her sweet, round ass as she walked away.
***
James could not face two days in a carriage with Angelique’s maid and new bastard ward, so he rode her stallion, Spartacus, all the way to London. The brute tried to live up to his name, but despite his years at sea, there was not a horse born that James couldn’t ride. He did not try to persuade the mount, but simply showed him that they were both men of action, and that their lives would be smoother if they worked together.
When Spartacus realized that James could not be intimidated, he settled down, and only tried to throw him once every other hour.
Even from his horse, James could hear the women talking in a mélange of English and French over the long road to the city. When they stopped for the night, he cared for Spartacus himself, both to bond with the beast and to keep any errant stableboys from getting bitten.
He slept in Angelique’s bed, while Sara and Lisette shared a room. He snuck out before dawn so that Angelique’s ward might not notice. But he saw that the ruse was pointless as soon as he sat down to breakfast with the women. The girl had been raised in an inn and was too shrewd to fool. But still, James did his best to behave with discretion, and only stole a kiss from Angelique when the girl was out of the room.
When they finally arrived in London, James entered Angelique’s town house and followed the ladies into the drawing room for tea. None of them seemed interested in resting after their long journey, but all three seemed ready to run a mile after being confined in the carriage for two days. Lisette stole a tea sandwich, then went upstairs to supervise the unpacking and the arranging of her mistress’s things. Sara and Angelique settled down with the tea cart between them. James was pouring a shot of whisky into his Darjeeling when Anton appeared.
“My lady, there is a gaggle of Scots at the door.”
James slipped his flask back into his coat pocket. He left his teacup in its saucer on the table beside him.
His father came into the room then, and his mother and two of his sisters were not far behind.
“Jamie!” Constance cried. “We’ve looked for you everywhere!”
His eight-year-old sister ran across the room to him, heedless of manners or of her mother’s restraining hand. James stood up just in time to catch her as she leaped into his arms. He held her close, her thin frame as delicate as a bird in his hand. “I missed you, Jamie. Where have you been?”
“I was on the sea, moppet. But I’m here now.”
She snuggled down into his arms, and he breathed in the scent of her honey hair. His oldest sister, Margaret, was on him then, hugging him close before drawing Constance out of his arms. She was seventeen and treated Constance as if she were her own. Unfortunately, Connie did not always care for having two mothers.
“No, Maggie, I want Jamie!” Connie cried.
Margaret kissed his cheek before stepping away and setting her sister down. “Behave yourself, Connie,” she said. “Mother wants to greet him.”
James turned to his mother then, who had curtsied to Angelique almost as an afterthought before making a beeline to him. He was six feet four and a man grown, but his mother drew him down into her arms as if he were still in short clothes. She caressed his hair, mussing the ribbon. She clutched him close convulsively for a long moment. It had been months since he had made it home to Aberdeen.
“Jamie,” she said. “It is good to see you.”
“And you, Mother.” James kissed her, aware for the first time how soft her cheek was. Martha Montgomery looked good for a woman of five and fifty, and James saw that her love for him was part of her beauty, and always would be.
“We left Charles at home,” his mother said.
“Someone had to run the shipping business, since Father’s here,” James answered.
“Exactly!” John Montgomery crossed the room to him and wrapped him in a bear hug. His father was as tall as he was and twice as broad. James lost his breath until his father let him go.
“I looked for you all over London and Greenwich, Jamie. A kind gentleman at the club said you were out of town but that when you came back, you’d be here. I’m happy to see he was right.”
“Father, that kind gentleman wouldn’t be Victor Winthrop by any chance?”
“Yes indeed, Viscount Carlyle himself. Exalted company you keep, boy, since you came in off the sea.”
James’s father bowed low to Angelique as he said that, and she smiled at him. She rose from her place on the settee beside Sara, who sat frozen, staring in awe at James’s boisterous kin. Angelique turned her smile on his family. “You are all welcome here. Please, sit, and take tea with us.”
Martha Montgomery said, “We wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, your ladyship.”
“No trouble at all.”
Anton and three footmen were bringing in a second tea tray and more chairs from the sitting room. The tea things were added to the cart, and in a moment, Margaret had served Connie and her mother, pouring tea with as much grace as she would in her own house. Angelique sat back and let her, smiling all the while. Sara watched the older girl with wide-eyed wonder as she replenished the tea in her cup.
“One lump or two?” Margaret asked.
“Two please,” Sara answered. James’s sister obliged and smiled on the younger girl before taking a cup of hot tea to her father.
John Montgomery accepted the drink but did not look pleased until James passed him his flask. He caught his father’s eye and saw that his family was not down to London on a pleasure jaunt. His father wanted something badly enough to come all the way south and to bring some of his women with him as an inducement. James wondered if his father wanted him to come into the family shipping business. They had had that argument fifty times since he had turned eighteen. He hoped they did not have to have it again.
Margaret was sitting with Angelique, talking about London fashion as if she took tea with a countess every day. Connie sat quiet by her mother as she ate her weight in cakes and scones, but James knew that as soon as she was done, she would be back at his side again.
As if she knew his thoughts, Connie interrupted her sister’s talk of
bonnets to shout, “Jamie, we came to London in a sloop! All the way from Aberdeen! It took three days on the water! I only got sick once!”
“Good girl,” James said, toasting his little sister. His father, still clutching James’s flask, put another dollop of whisky into his now-empty cup.
“We’ll talk of the sloop later,” his father said, downing his renewed whisky in one gulp and rising to his feet. His mother stood, as did Margaret. Connie took two scones, one for each hand, and made a curtsy to Angelique.
“Thank you for tea and scones, miss,” she said.
“My lady,” her mother whispered.
“My lady,” Connie parroted, curtsying again.
Angelique smiled, rising to her feet. “You are very welcome. Please come again. My home is always open to any of James Montgomery’s kin.”
John and Martha beamed at her, and at him. James pocketed his flask, knowing that he needed to discover what his parents were up to and why they thought they needed to bring two of the girls along to assist in whatever scheme they had hatched to take over his life.
James bowed over Angelique’s hand, as proper as if they were in church. “I’ve got to see what’s going on here,” he said, speaking low so that only she could hear him. “I’ll come back tonight.”
Angelique smiled her formal smile, but her eyes were lit with the same desire he felt. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
James checked over his shoulder to make sure that his mother and sisters were out of sight in the hallway before he leaned down and kissed Angelique’s soft lips. He drew her closer to kiss her again, his hands starting to wander, but she pushed him back.
“Your other women are waiting,” she said.
“Does that mean you’re one of them?”
“Come back tonight and find out.”
He laughed then, heading out to the entrance hall to follow his family back to the town house his father always rented in St. James Square.
Twenty-five
Angelique and Sara sat alone in the wake of James’s family, the tea cart a wreck, cups abandoned around the room. Angelique looked at her ward and started to laugh.
“I like them,” Sara said. “They remind me of home.”
“I like them, too,” Angelique said.
They sat together in comfortable silence for a long moment before there was a loud knock at the outer door.
“Maybe they forgot something,” Sara said.
But it was not Sir John or her butler Anton who stepped through her drawing room door, but the Duke of Hawthorne.
Angelique was on her feet in the next moment, placing herself between the duke and her ward. She was not quick enough though, for Hawthorne’s cold gaze was on Sara in an instant, skewering her. A hot flame seemed to take light behind the ice in his gray gaze, and Angelique swallowed hard.
“Sara, go upstairs and find Lisette.”
Geoffrey’s daughter knew more of the world than Angelique had given her credit for. Sara’s eyes hardened as she took in the duke’s imposing form by the door. The girl flanked her as if she would not leave her alone.
Hawthorne’s eyes took on a sickening gleam. He seemed to have a taste for defenseless women, the younger, the better. The sight of his lust made Angelique want to retch, but she held on to her self-control. Her voice did not waver when she said again, “Sara, go upstairs.”
Geoffrey’s daughter obeyed her then, but reluctantly. The girl had enough sense to give the duke a wide berth as she slipped from the room, but there was not enough space in the house, much less in the drawing room, now that Hawthorne had seen her. Angelique felt as if she and the girl both had been covered by the slime of the duke’s regard. She wished for one fleeting, irrational moment that James was still there.
Hawthorne did not comment on the girl, but once Sara had gone, he turned the sickening gray of his gaze on Angelique.
“Since you have returned to London with such alacrity, I assume you got my letter.”
Angelique forced herself to breathe deep, but her nerves would not be calmed. They jittered beneath her skin as they had for the last two days, except when James loomed over her in bed.
“I received your note. It was a bit cryptic, Your Grace. I did not understand your meaning.”
“Did you not? I thought my lawyer was quite plain. Well then, let me be more blunt. Your interference between me and Arabella Hawthorne ceases as of this moment, or every contract you currently hold with cotton suppliers both in the Empire and abroad will be rendered null and void.”
“I have not stepped between you and Arabella. I don’t know where she is.”
“Do not lie to my face, Lady Devonshire. I know for a certainty that you tried to make me believe, falsely, that Arabella had traveled with you into Shropshire. I know just as well that she did not. I also know that between you and the Lady Westwood, you have made a concerted effort to undermine the rumors I started and fed about Arabella’s benighted honor.”
“The lies you spread, you mean.”
“They were lies when I started telling them, I grant you. But now that she has run off to parts unknown with her old lover, Pembroke, Arabella is a whore in truth.”
Angelique would have slapped him for his effrontery, but he was too far away. And like an adder, he was always poised to strike. Angelique did not want to get close enough to feel his fangs close on her throat.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
Hawthorne’s gray eyes narrowed. “Do not lie to me. I have taken all the insults from you that I can bear.”
“Even if Arabella has fled with Pembroke, it doesn’t mean she is a whore. It only means that she does not want to marry you.”
“She will do as she is told!”
His voice was like thunder in the small sitting room. Angelique almost expected to hear the crystal on the mantelpiece shatter. She did not retreat but held her ground. She had spent all of her adult life dealing with men like him. She would be damned if the likes of Hawthorne ever saw her flinch.
“Let me be clear, my lady, for I am a busy man with little time to waste. If you do not return Arabella Hawthorne to my side within the week, your shipping contracts will not be worth the paper they are written on.”
“You do not have that power.”
“I assure you, I do. No man worth his salt wants to come down on the wrong side of this dispute. The Prince Regent may not know that I dabble in trade, but everyone in the City does. I own controlling stock in enough shipping interests between here and the former colonies in America to squelch any deals you currently have and any deals you might make in the future. And don’t think of trying to go to India for the cotton you need. I have cut that road off to you completely.”
Angelique stared at him. She thought of the men she knew in the cotton trade and of how long it had taken her to get any of them to trust her. Even now, she had a cargo full of rotten cotton in her warehouse, a stunt no supplier would ever have tried on any man of her acquaintance. Since Anthony had left her, the insults had gotten worse. Now, with Hawthorne and his forces arrayed against her, she would be hard-pressed to bring a shipment of cotton into port, much less sell it afterward.
“The cotton mills of Leeds are displeased with your supply as well, you’ll find. They’ll be buying their cotton from me from now on.”
Angelique reeled as under a blow. She did not know what to say. She did not know whether to move forward or back. Her father had been an honest man and had taught her to deal honestly with her business associates. If honesty had been trumped by a duke’s power, there was little she could do.
She thought of going to Anthony for help and discarded the thought just as quickly. She thought of asking the Prince Regent for assistance but knew that she would not be able to stand joining the groups of people dependent on him for their living. The only reason she
had ever enjoyed her time with the Carlton House set was that she depended on none of them, not even the prince. Not to mention, Hawthorne had the prince in his pocket.
Her finely woven world was unraveling, and she did not know what she would do to stop it.
Hawthorne answered her unspoken question. “Bring Arabella Hawthorne back to London, and I might be persuaded to allow one or two of your old contacts to supply you with cotton. The mills of the North are closed to you, but you might always sell your cotton to me. For half the usual price, of course.”
The duke strode toward the door, taking up his walking stick from where he had laid it on a mahogany table. “You will not hear from me again, Lady Devonshire. I tell you now, and for the last time, bring my Arabella back to me.”
“She is not yours,” Angelique said. “She will never agree to come, even if I ask her.”
His gray eyes passed over Angelique like a curse. “You think her consent necessary? I hold the purse strings. Once you return her to London, I will deal with her. Like any bitch, she will come to heel.”
He smiled then, and the slime of his gaze made her wish for a bath.
“If by some chance Arabella refuses to come home to me, and I ruin you completely, I’ll be happy to take that little piece I saw here earlier under my protection.”
“Stay away from Sara,” Angelique said.
“Sara…is that her name? She’s Geoffrey’s bastard, is she not? She has the look of him.”
Hawthorne left then, and Angelique stood in his wake, her stomach churning. She shook with the need to be ill, but she forced her bile down. She sat on her purgatorial settee, knowing that she needed to send for Smythe, to make plans, to see what might be done. But before she could ring the bell to call for Anton, Smythe had arrived on her doorstep.
Her man of affairs came into her sitting room after Anton had shown him in, looking as pale as she had ever seen him. He carried a great sheaf of papers, but they were in disarray, as if he had been going through them for days and had found nothing that might help her.
Much Ado About Jack Page 15