“Then you do not know the facts.”
“I gather you’ve already done your worst.”
“Then you have deluded yourself twice.”
He stared down at her as if he might skewer her on the end of the blade concealed in his black lacquered walking stick. The silver knob gleamed in his gloved hand, and she wished she had a weapon of her own.
Of course, she did.
Her face slid into the lines of her old seductive mask, the one she usually kept for Prinny’s benefit. “We might come to a different arrangement,” she said.
The duke’s gray eyes narrowed, taking on a calculating gleam, as if she were a sum of figures he was trying to add up. “Our current arrangement suits me fine.”
“My business is gone, unless I sell my cotton to you, yes?”
She shrugged her shoulder the way her mother always had, so that the shoulder of her gown slipped just a little to reveal a bit more skin.
“It is.”
“Perhaps if I were to draw the Earl of Ravensbrook into our discussion, you might see things differently.”
Hawthorne seemed to pale in the sunlight. He swallowed hard, and she knew she had struck her mark. She had no arrangement with Ravensbrook, but Hawthorne did not know that.
“You would hide behind your old lover then?”
“To keep from doing business with you, I would dance with the devil himself.”
Something caught Hawthorne’s eye beyond her, and his focus shifted. “Think on that a while longer, Lady Devonshire. Ravensbrook might be able to help save your business affairs, but he won’t give a tinker’s damn for Devonshire’s bastard daughter. Think long and hard on what might happen to her if you defy me again.”
He smiled then and Angelique felt the bile rise in her throat. “Remember our bargain. You keep your shipping, some of it, and I get Arabella.”
“I made no such bargain.”
“I followed you from London. She’s here, and you led me to her.”
Hawthorne was gone, his long strides crossing the green, leaving her as abruptly as he had come. She had so many reasons to curse him: the fact that he had called her bluff about her imagined alliance with Anthony, that he had ruined her shipping in the first place, that he had used her to find Arabella without her knowing it. Of course, he might have heard of Pembroke and Arabella’s time in Derbyshire from some other source, but his accusation gnawed at her like acid on her skin.
She did not have time to think of the wrongs Hawthorne had done her, or of ways to thwart him, for Arabella had wandered down from the great house and was standing alone on the green. And now, Hawthorne was with her.
Angelique moved quickly and came to her friend’s side. She wanted to step in front of her, to block Hawthorne’s view of Arabella, but she had the distinct impression that to do so would only draw him deeper into the confrontation. For all their mocking exchange only minutes before, his desire for Arabella went beyond power. He might push her aside and carry Arabella off in front of the ton and the village both.
She cursed under her breath, wondering where the devil Anthony was now that he could be of some use.
Arabella was intent on the duke and barely nodded to Angelique. Hawthorne, far from casual about his designs on Arabella, seemed set to devour her friend in one bite where they stood. Angelique could not tell if the gleam in his eye was twisted lust or some kind of true madness. Arabella did not seem flummoxed by it, but spoke as calmly as if she were out for a stroll on a beautiful summer day and had come across an unwelcome acquaintance, not the man who had tried more than once to destroy her life.
“I thank you, Your Grace, for both your kind words and for your concern for my well-being,” Arabella said. “As you see, I traveled to Derbyshire without mishap. No brigands greeted me along the road. I arrived quite unharmed.”
Angelique blinked at the veiled mention of one of the duke’s early threats, that he would have Arabella killed along the roadside as she traveled through Yorkshire to his family seat if she did not toe the line and marry him.
“What good fortune,” the duke said. He opened his mouth to speak again, but to Angelique’s shock, Arabella interrupted him. Clearly her friend had grown claws and was learning how to use them.
“Indeed, Your Grace. The roads from London to Derbyshire are a good deal safer than the roads in Yorkshire. I stopped here, and I will stay here for the rest of my life.”
Angelique was so intent on watching her friend face down her adversary that she did not see or hear Pembroke approach until he came to stand beside Arabella. To Angelique’s ears, Pembroke’s friendly hail-fellow-well-met tone sounded forced. “Good afternoon, Hawthorne. What brings you to Derbyshire?” Pembroke asked. “Come to see our production, I suppose. I had no idea that you had a taste for Shakespeare.”
Hawthorne smiled then, looking down at Arabella as if Pembroke had not spoken. Angelique felt her shudder. She took Arabella’s arm as if to help her walk away, but it seemed her friend would not back down and leave Hawthorne in possession of the field. It looked as if Arabella, angry and adamant for the first time since Angelique had known her, was in the mood to confront him head on.
“Hawthorne, it was good of you to come,” Arabella said, addressing the duke as a man would, as an equal. “But once you have signed over my property, our business together is done.”
“But you have no property rights on the Duchy of Hawthorne,” he said. “As soon as you marry another man—this Sunday the banns said”—Hawthorne looked to Pembroke then raised one inquiring eyebrow—“the Hawthorne lands revert back to the estate.”
Arabella did not bow beneath his contempt; she did not blink in the face of his implacable will. It seemed she had found her backbone and that she had a will of her own. “You will turn over my money to me directly,” Arabella said. “And then you will go back to London, and I will never see you again.”
Angelique held her breath, certain that such a blatant challenge would send the duke over the edge of reason, but Hawthorne only smiled. “What a charming story. You sound almost as if you believe it. But I will not let you go.”
Anthony chose that moment to appear from wherever he had been hiding, and his young wife, Caroline, followed a step behind, bringing their son, baby Freddie, in her arms. Angelique wanted to mutter, “Well, it’s about bloody time you showed up,” but she held her tongue.
Freddie, like his father, seemed not at all intimidated by the foreboding duke. He took one look at the man before dismissing him, turning to lay his head on his mother’s shoulder, where he promptly fell asleep.
Anthony Carrington did not smile nor did he speak, but he stepped between Arabella and the Duke of Hawthorne, staring the man down as if he were a member of the French cavalry, as if Hawthorne were a man he meant to kill. Caroline stood at her husband’s back, cradling Freddie, flanking Arabella. Angelique noticed an equally cold assessment going on behind Caroline’s eyes, as if she might draw a dagger and carve the duke up like a Christmas goose. Angelique wondered for the first time if all the rumors about the Countess of Ravensbrook being addicted to knife play were actually true.
Anthony’s tone was cool, but his calm took nothing of the menace from his voice. “As charming as it is to see you, Hawthorne, I know that you will not be at liberty to attend the performance,” he said. “I do hope you managed to bring the paperwork we spoke of when I was last in London. The papers that the duchess needs to sign in order to accept a lump sum in lieu of her widow’s portion before she marries.”
Arabella swayed a little, and Angelique’s grip stayed firm on her arm. Pembroke drew close as if to shield her from the piercing dagger of Hawthorne’s gaze.
Hawthorne ignored them all and kept his attention focused on Anthony. “Indeed, Ravensbrook. It is kind of you to mention our last meeting. I have the papers with me. I will send them up to Pembroke Hou
se with my man as soon as it is convenient.”
Angelique blinked as the men around her took in this absurd statement as if they actually believed he spoke the truth. She opened her mouth to challenge him, but Anthony shot her a quick glance of reproof and she fell silent. Surely these intelligent men knew better than to think that Hawthorne would give up so easily and let his chosen prey go.
***
Angelique spent the afternoon at Arabella’s side and watched as Hawthorne’s man did indeed bring papers to the house, and as Arabella signed them, accepting the money he settled on her in lieu of her dower portion. Angelique tried in vain to catch Anthony’s eye, for surely he was not naïve enough to believe that the likes of the Duke of Hawthorne could be dispatched with the flick of a quill.
Pembroke surprised her even more, however, when he signed a second document turning over all of Arabella’s wealth to his wife-to-be. For the first time in her life, Angelique met a woman who would keep her money intact after her wedding vows were spoken.
Angelique pored over the document, looking for a flaw or a loophole, but found none. She wished Smythe was in the village, that he might go over it as well, putting his lawyer’s mind to the task. Anthony looked on, disapproving, and Angelique knew he had counseled Pembroke against such a gesture.
Angelique met Pembroke’s eyes with a new respect. “You let her keep her money.”
“Yes,” Pembroke said. “I don’t want her for her money. I want her for my wife.”
Angelique felt a lump rise into her throat, and she swallowed it down. Arabella took Pembroke’s hand, raised herself on her toes, and kissed him gently. “Thank you, my love. It is the best wedding present a woman could ask for.”
Anthony harrumphed and turned his back on the scene. Caroline went to his side and touched his arm once, and his look of censure softened. Still, he was not best pleased. Angelique swallowed her laughter, if not her smile. She could see the wheels in her old lover’s head turning: If men started letting their wives keep their own property, what was the world coming to?
Angelique left for her cottage to dress for the play, musing over the wonder she had just witnessed. If the Earl of Pembroke broke with law and precedent and let his wife keep her own money, perhaps Angelique might make the same arrangement, if James Montgomery ever offered for her.
Why she kept harping on thoughts of marriage when she had barely known the man a month, she was not sure. Still, the thought lingered as long as the midsummer twilight.
Thirty-two
Angelique stood staring into the full-length looking glass that Lisette had insisted they pack in one of the three trunks her groom Sam had driven up from London in the baggage cart. Her midnight blue gown gleamed in the lamplight. The sun still coming in through the bedroom window caught the sheen of silver along the bodice and the hem.
“You are a vision, madame.”
“Thank you, Lisette.” Angelique turned, taking in the curve of her hip beneath the silk, watching the fall of the bodice pulled tight over her generous breasts. “You don’t think it too much for the country?”
“Mais non, madame. I say, let us give them an eyeful,” Lisette said.
Angelique laughed, her eyes meeting her maid’s in the glass. “Indeed, why not?”
She walked to the village green accompanied by Sam. She knew better than to walk out alone, though a part of her longed to. With Hawthorne lingering somewhere nearby, she would be a fool to take a chance like that, even in this quiet, bucolic place.
Sara had asked to come down to see the play, and Angelique had been forced to refuse. She could not keep an eye on the girl herself, and with Hawthorne loose in the village, she could not vouch for her safety. Sara had gotten that stubborn, wall-eyed look that Geoffrey had often worn, and she had glowered even more when Angelique told her she looked like her father.
Angelique met Arabella and Caroline walking toward her beneath the great trees before the stage, and Angelique nodded to Sam, who took a few steps back. He moved a discreet distance away, but she knew that he would keep his eye on her, his pistol under his coat. He had served under her father’s command on the Diane many years ago, and now in his retirement from the sea, Sam watched over her.
“Well met, Lady Devonshire,” Caroline said, shifting baby Freddie on her hip. “I hope you will sit with us. The vultures are circling, and we need another woman with her wits about her to keep them off.”
“Nonsense,” Arabella said. “There are a few people here from London, but they have come to see the play. They don’t care a fig about me.”
Arabella smiled as if she had not a care in the world. She glowed with the certainty of a woman in love that all would indeed be well.
Angelique exchanged a look with Caroline over Arabella’s head. They both could hear the whispers. It was time to give the ton something else to talk about.
Angelique smiled warmly at her old enemy, going so far as to lean close and kiss her cheek. If Caroline was startled by her sudden show of loving kindness, she did not show it. Anthony’s wife did not even blink as she kissed Angelique back as if they were French peasants. Angelique heard the tide of whispers rise almost to a crescendo, and she smiled.
The Carlton House set, along with the rest of the London elite, considered the two of them to be mortal enemies. All knew how they had fought each other for the love of Lord Ravensbrook. Caroline had won that war, and the fact that she now stood casually and calmly so close to her old rival caused a great stir of gossip. That news, on top of the talk of Angelique and Anthony’s meeting that afternoon, would go a long way to distracting the poison mongers from Arabella altogether.
Angelique walked on one side of the oblivious Arabella as Caroline paced beside her friend on the other. Like a guard of honor, they escorted Arabella to her seat before the stage, flanking her on either side. Angelique wondered where the devil Anthony was. It was not like him to leave his wife alone even for the space of fifteen minutes. They might use him to fan the flames of scuttlebutt.
Angelique, never one to shrink in the face of public notoriety, reached across Arabella and took baby Freddie onto her lap. The baby cooed and cried out with joy to see her, wrapping his fat fists in the necklace at her throat. She pried her diamonds out of his grasp, turning to smile over the assembled company as if holding her ex-lover’s child was the most natural thing in the world. The tide of whispers rose again in a great wave, and Caroline laughed under her breath.
Anthony appeared in that moment, stepping out of the public house where he had been speaking with Pembroke. Like his wife, Lord Ravensbrook did not shrink from gossip, but neither did he acknowledge it. Anthony strode across the village green as if he were Mars crossing a field of war. He looked neither right nor left but sat down beside his wife, kissing her on the lips for all to see.
An audible gasp rose from the assembled ladies, and the local villagers applauded to see the earl greet his wife with such open affection. Anthony did not acknowledge the approbation of the locals, but Caroline smiled and waved to them as if she were a queen greeting her court.
Angelique laughed under her breath, keeping her focus on baby Freddie. Anthony did not look at her even to glower at her. She was disappointed, hoping that leading the Londoners to think the three of them had begun some kind of bizarre ménage à trois would throw Hawthorne’s destructive plans into complete disarray. No one would care what a widow might do, a staid widow who showed no sign of wildness save that she loved the Earl of Pembroke. As colorful an on-dit as a fallen widow made, a torrid affair between Anthony, Angelique, and Caroline was far tastier.
As she listened to the talk all around them, Angelique feigned fascination with the baby on her lap, who had started babbling at her in earnest as if he were imparting knowledge of great import. He really was quite handsome and had more charm than any baby on earth should. If he played his cards right, when he was grown
, Freddie might rule the realm with a smile and a wink without half trying. The House of Lords would never stand against him. Prinny had better look to his crown.
In the next moment, a tall, well-built man came to sit at Angelique’s side. She felt the length of his shadow pass over her in the torchlight, and she knew before she turned that James Montgomery had come back. She took in the smell of the sea on his clothes, along with the sweet smell of cedar, and felt for one blessed moment that she had come home.
She gave him a sideways glance and a smile. If it was possible, he was more beautiful than she remembered. She felt as if it had been longer than two weeks since she had seen him. His long auburn hair was tied at the nape of his neck with military precision, and his Royal Navy uniform gleamed dark blue and gold in the slanting sunlight.
Aware of the company around them, and not wanting to fully acknowledge their relationship in public, Angelique nodded to him somewhat coolly, raising one eyebrow. “Good evening, Captain. I see that you have left the sea behind yet again. I thought the tide was turning and that you must needs be gone.”
“The tide is always turning, my lady. Wait twelve hours, and it will turn again.”
His voice was deep and sweet, like mulled cider with honey mixed in it. Angelique shivered against her will at the sound of it, and she wished all those around them, her friends and foes alike, might disappear and leave them alone.
She had been so worried about Arabella for the last weeks, even more worried than she was about her own shipping business. But with James Montgomery present, all her recent worries, Hawthorne included, were momentarily swept away.
A wave of pleasure in the sound of his voice rose to swamp her, and she clutched baby Freddie closer. The child frowned at her but did not cry to return to his mother. Instead, he settled close to her ample breast and leaned his head against her.
Angelique spoke to him, keeping her voice low so that no one else might hear. “Shall I introduce you as Captain Jack of Trafalgar fame?”
Much Ado About Jack Page 20