Much Ado About Jack

by Christy English

George Smythe stood staring at her from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “The duke has been here already,” she said.

  “I am sorry, my lady. I am going to keep trying…”

  “But no one will see you. None of my business associates want to deal with you anymore, and by extension, with me.”

  “No, my lady. I’m sorry.”

  Angelique sat adrift on an endless sea. She had been her own mistress her whole adult life, since her husband died. She had made her way in a man’s world, and now that way had been cut off, with no road forward or back.

  One thing was certain. If Hawthorne did not know where Arabella was, he soon would. Arabella would have to leave Derbyshire, and quickly. Angelique needed to go to her and warn her. The duke was an open maw, with an appetite for destruction that could not be sated.

  “It’s all right, Smythe,” Angelique said at last. “You’ve done your best. That’s all anyone can do. Give me a few days. I’ll think of something.”

  Twenty-six

  James and his father took a hired coach to Greenwich, where the family sloop was moored.

  “She’s not a huge ship, but she’s only the first. If this goes well, I’ll build the fleet slowly, until we’re doing all our own shipping and won’t need to depend on others for the quality of the cotton we buy.” John Montgomery caressed the rail of the ship he stood on. The crew had been given leave, save for a few left guarding the ship, all of whom stood by the gangplank, and one high in the crow’s nest. James took in his father’s pride and joy and could find no flaw in it.

  “I’m going to buy a ship of my own, Father.”

  Sir John waved his words away. “Hear me out, son. Leave your money in the bank for now and think. If you come into business with your brother and me, you won’t have to establish new supply contacts. We have them all. You only have to step in and take over the shipping. As easy for you as rolling off a log.”

  “Father…”

  “If you won’t come in on my say-so, buy into the business then. It’s a damned fool thought, since the business is half yours already, or will be when I’m dead, but if it pleases you, give us a few thousand pounds. We’ll buy another ship with it.”

  James smiled. “I need to think, Father.”

  “I expected you would. Take this ship on its next voyage. A weeklong journey to Aberdeen and back. See how you like the crew. See how she handles. Then, in another week or two, you might take her as far as Malta to pick up a shipment I’ve got coming in from Egypt. All small potatoes for now. If you find the ship, and the business, to your liking, then you can invest.”

  “I can’t live in Aberdeen,” James said without thinking. “My life is here now.”

  He said that last without thinking either, but as he spoke, he knew it was true.

  “I saw that this afternoon. Your mother said as much. Your countess is a lovely woman and worth staying in the South for. You can do your work, and ship out, from here.”

  “Angelique is not my countess,” James said.

  Sir John waved his hand in dismissal. “She’s yours if you want her. You’re your father’s son in that regard, my boy, and no mistake.”

  James laughed. He saw for the first time where his natural arrogance had come from.

  “Take the ship out tomorrow morning with the tide. See how she sails. Then decide.”

  James extended his hand, and his father took it. “Fair enough. We’ll try it your way, Father. For now.”

  John Montgomery beamed. “Your mother will be pleased.”

  “Which is really all that matters,” James quipped.

  “When you’ve been married for over thirty years, boy, you’ll see how true that is. Life goes smoother when the women are contented.”

  “That’s why we won’t let women onboard ship. They’re too much trouble,” James repeated the old adage, though he no longer believed it.

  Sir John looked at him sideways. “No women? What fun is that?”

  ***

  Rather than taking his dinner with his family, James came home to Regent Square instead.

  Angelique thought of it as him coming home, but she knew he had not. He did not live with her, or she with him. He had a life beyond her, just as she did, and his family was a reminder of that. They had been kind to her, but they could not possibly approve of him taking a mistress. Though the Montgomerys were the opposite of every story she had heard about dour Scots, they still could not be pleased.

  James did not mention his family but to say they sent their regards, before he kissed her and poured himself a whisky from his own flask.

  “I’ve asked Anton to acquire some. What is the name of yours?”

  “Islay whisky is the only Scotch worth drinking,” James said.

  Angelique laughed. “Then it will be the only whisky I keep.”

  James kissed her as a reward, and she tasted the oak-laced flavor of his Scotch on his lips. It was becoming one of her favorite flavors in the world.

  She knew she should tell James about her visit from Hawthorne, but she put it off. Maybe after dinner, when Sara was in bed.

  When Sara came down to dinner, Lisette’s influence was revealed. Her hair was combed back, not in country braids but in a sleek chignon. While not a style that Angelique would have chosen for a girl of thirteen, it suited her fine-boned face.

  Her gown was new, simple white muslin covered with blue cornflowers that matched Sara’s eyes. The long skirt and high waist suited the girl’s thin frame, giving her an air of elegance. Angelique had no idea where Lisette had found such a lovely dress, and on such short notice. Her French maid was nothing short of a miracle worker.

  “Lisette has been teaching me some phrases in French,” Sara said.

  “All clean I hope,” James quipped. Angelique shot him a dark look.

  Sara frowned. “She hasn’t taught me words about cleaning yet,” she answered. “But she taught me how to say hello and thank you and Vive l’empereur!”

  “That last one you can forget,” James said.

  “She’s been reading to me, too.” Sara’s smile threatened to split her face as she ate her creamed turnips with her salad fork.

  “Not Mrs. Radcliff, I hope,” Angelique said.

  “I do not know that author, my lady. She read The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. She said I can learn to read poetry in English first, but that the best poetry is in French.”

  “I am fond of poetry, too. Perhaps tonight after dinner we might sit and read some together.”

  “I would like that.” Sara’s smile grew ever wider.

  Angelique felt an unaccustomed joy rise in her breast at the sight of Geoffrey’s daughter, safe and well, eating creamed turnips at her table. She felt that joy mix with fear. She knew in that moment she would do anything to keep that girl safe, now and every day after.

  Her hand shook as she drank her Burgundy, and James reached for her and touched her arm. “Are you all right?” he asked low when Sara had gone to the sideboard to look at the silver chafing dishes laid out for breakfast tomorrow.

  “Of course,” Angelique said.

  She stood then and led them both into the drawing room for tea and cakes. She felt her lover’s eyes on her and knew that he would not let the matter drop. How she would keep him from knowing of her disaster, she was not sure. Part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him everything, though she knew that there was absolutely nothing he could do.

  She listened to James read from Sir Walter Scott, his accent from Aberdeen lending the poetry extra credence and lyricism. Angelique tried to lose herself in the wash of sensation, her joy at seeing Sara so happy, the pleasure she felt knowing that the handsome man reading to her by candlelight would soon be in her bed. She did her best to forget the fact that Hawthorne existed at all. And for a few minutes together, she almost succ
eeded.

  ***

  “I must leave in the morning,” James said.

  Lisette had taken Sara upstairs to bed, and he and Angelique lingered in the drawing room while he finished his whisky. She stiffened at his indelicate declaration, and he tried again.

  “My father has a ship, and he wants me to sail it to Aberdeen. I’ll be gone a week. And after that, he needs me to pick up a shipment of cotton on Malta.”

  “He buys his cotton from Egypt then?” Angelique asked, her voice detached.

  “He gets a bit here and there under the table,” James answered. “It’s cheaper than dealing with the East India Company.”

  She laughed, and her shoulders relaxed a little. “Your father wants you to be a smuggler then?”

  “Only on this trip. We deal with the East India Company too, when we have need.”

  “So you’re going into business with your father?”

  “I’m thinking about it, very seriously.”

  She moved to him and kissed his lips. “I am happy for you. If I had a father, I would do the same.”

  James laughed under his breath. “If your father was with us, not only would he let you nowhere near his shipping interests, he would have shot me already.”

  It was Angelique’s turn to laugh. “Fair enough.”

  James wanted to take her in his arms there in her drawing room as he once had done in the Blue Velvet Room at Carlton House. He would draw her down onto her delicate sofa and make love to her against its soft velvet cushions.

  The alabaster skin of her throat beckoned to him in the light of the candles. He wanted to press his lips there and work his way slowly down to the curves of her breasts, barely hidden by the gown she wore. But Sara might come downstairs again, or Anton might see. He did not want to humiliate her in front of the people who depended on her.

  Instead of bringing her beneath him on the drawing room rug, as he wished to do, James took the hand she offered and led her upstairs to her bedroom suite. He did not take a candle but walked with her up into the dark. His eyes adjusted quickly to the feeble light that came in from the open window at the end of the hall.

  The moon was up and shed a little light on them as he climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Angelique walked beside him in silence, her hand in his.

  She turned to him and pressed herself against him, not importuning him, not begging him to stay, but in the simple joy of desire, in the warmth of the passion they found together whenever they were alone.

  He brought her before the fireplace but did not touch her save for his hand on hers. He stood staring down at her, watching her breasts rise and fall with her breath beneath the blue silk of her gown. He studied it for a moment and found the tie that bound it. With only a few tugs, it fell open, and her breasts were revealed to his gaze in the firelight.

  She wore nothing beneath the silk: no stays, no chemise, no drawers. As the royal blue gown fell away, Angelique stood naked before him, wearing only stockings tied just above the knee and jeweled slippers trimmed with diamonds.

  The creamy expanse of her skin gleamed in the firelight, but still he did not touch her. He stepped close enough to breathe on her and to watch as her nipples tightened in response. Her breath turned shallow, but she still did not speak.

  He ran his hand over her body in the shadowy firelight, his calluses snagging on the smooth skin of her belly, of her breasts, of her thighs. Angelique did not move, but stood still and let him touch her, almost as if she were a goddess accepting worship from a man who had never before seen the divine.

  It might be a month or more before he had her again. He planned to make the most of it.

  He followed the path of his hands with his lips until he was kneeling before her, spreading her thighs so that he might taste her, so that his tongue might delve into the smooth warmth of her. Angelique moaned when he did that, her knees giving way. He caught her as she slid down to join him on the floor and laid her on the Turkish carpet before the fire.

  He ran his tongue over her belly, before delving again between the sweet apex of her thighs. She moaned but would not speak his name as he explored her with his tongue, lips, and teeth. He nipped at her and watched as she bit her bottom lip to keep herself from screaming. He raised one hand to cover her mouth, her breath hot on his palm; he rode her with his tongue until her passion rose like the crest of a wave, her pleasure shuddering through her body like a hurricane hitting dry land.

  She wept with the pleasure he gave her, and he wiped her tears away. But still, she did not speak. He raised himself over her then, unfastening his breeches before he slid into her, filling her body completely. Her body clasped him like a fist, flexing around him as he rode her, sliding in and out of her depths, his own pleasure consuming him as it never had before.

  ***

  Angelique lay awake in his arms all that night. She listened to the evenness of his breathing, which to her ears did not sound like sleep. The hours of the night moved past her as the shore moves past a ship going down the Thames, slowly at first, then quickly as the ship comes to the mouth of the river and moves out to sea.

  She had not told him about Hawthorne, and she wasn’t sure why.

  There was nothing he could do. That was one reason, and it was a good one. And after meeting his sweet family, after watching his youngest sister, Connie, devour her tea tray, after talking poke bonnets with his eldest sister, Margaret, after meeting his bluff but charming parents, she knew that she could not bring the wrath of Hawthorne down on them.

  It would take little for the duke to ruin them, as he was ruining her. And she would not have that.

  So she stayed silent as he slept beside her.

  He rose before dawn to leave her. Afraid that she might do something foolish, or womanly, and ask him to stay, Angelique did not reveal that she was still awake. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing even as James caressed her cheek once, very lightly, his touch as soft as a butterfly’s wing, so insubstantial that had she not been completely attuned to his movement, she would not have felt it.

  It did not take him long to dress. He was quiet as he moved around her bed, picking up his discarded clothing, but her ears were filled with the whisper of linen as he drew on his shirt, as he tied his cravat.

  His bag was packed and waiting for him in the hall. She knew this because she had ordered it done. As he unlatched the door to her bedroom, she listened to the pause in his quiet steps as he saw the bag waiting for him. She did not open her eyes even then, but waited until the door clicked quietly shut.

  Perhaps by the time he came home, she would have solved her own problems. As it was, she would do her best to keep him untouched by them. Hawthorne was a formidable enemy.

  She missed James with a strange and palpable longing, as if she had mislaid something that she desperately wanted back. Her heart actually ached as she lay alone in her suddenly too-large bed. She knew that if he were there, he would tease her for being sentimental.

  She ran her hand over the place where he had slept, burying her nose in the pillowcase that still bore his scent. Cedar and leather filled her nostrils, and she wished for him, though he had not yet been gone an hour.

  She was in love with him then. God help her.

  ***

  Angelique and her ward ate together in the sunny breakfast room that overlooked the small town garden behind the house. She buttered her brioche before passing the jam to Sara, who sat beside her. The girl had been uncommonly quiet that morning, looking surreptitiously at the door, no doubt expecting James to walk through it.

  “Captain Montgomery has gone away,” she said at last.

  Sara did not answer but fiddled with her butter knife, smearing bits of broken bread onto her plate. She did not eat anything but stared down at her untouched food.

  “Is he coming back?” the girl asked.

 
Angelique felt the blade of truth press into her heart, taking her breath. She did not lie to the girl or to herself. “He’ll be back in a month. Maybe a little longer.”

  Sara looked at her then, for it seemed she heard the pain hidden in Angelique’s voice, the pain she so desperately wanted to hide. The girl looked over her shoulder at the footmen standing by, but neither of them met her gaze or gave any indication that they were listening to the discussion at all. Still, Sara frowned at them before hunching low over the table in an effort to lean closer to her guardian.

  “Do you miss him?”

  Angelique did not answer, but only took a sip of coffee from her demitasse cup.

  “Do you love him?” Sara asked.

  Angelique almost choked but managed to set her china cup down. She met the girl’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I love him.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  Angelique smiled. “No, I did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Sara did not speak for a long moment, but neither did she eat her brioche. She tore the bread into little pieces until buttered crumbs were scattered across the porcelain of her plate. “He didn’t say good-bye.”

  The girl’s voice was very soft, so quiet that Angelique almost could not hear her.

  “He left early, before dawn. The tide was turning, and he had to go.”

  Sara began to tear apart another piece of bread. Angelique sighed. When Cook saw her good bread wasted, Anton would have a great deal of trouble calming her down. Cook prided herself on her fresh bread.

  “My father left me,” Sara said. “Before I was born. Before my mam died.”

  Angelique sat poised as on a knife’s edge, not certain whether to move forward or to go back. Geoffrey was a subject she never discussed, not with anyone, not even Arabella. But Sara raised her blue eyes, eyes that were so like his. Angelique swallowed her pain and forced herself to speak.

  “Your father left me, too,” she said. “I was going to have a baby, and he left me for an opera dancer in London. He died while he was with her.”