The Ravishing One

by Connie Brockway

  “Ah,” Thomas said, smiling lazily. “If it isn’t Tunbridge, by Jove. Tunbridge, do beg pardon of the lad so we might enjoy more songs. ’Tis too early in the eve to contemplate a duel.” Neither his drawl nor his insouciance was as smooth as they’d once been but Tunbridge did not seem to notice.

  “I’d take it as a personal favor,” Thomas added.

  A flicker of startled recognition awoke in Tunbridge’s sunken eyes. When Thomas had first returned to England seven years ago, he’d fashioned himself the persona of a dissolute, expatriate Scot. Tunbridge had been a central figure amongst the gaming hells, pleasure houses, and taverns he’d frequented.

  Thomas’s goals then had been to first befriend and then destroy Carr’s son Ash, on his way to doing the same to Carr. He’d nearly achieved his goal—and found that the role of Judas had damaged him more than Ash. Soon after Thomas had left England.

  “Who’s this? Donne, isn’t it?” Tunbridge’s eyes narrowed. “Chased out of the Highlands when you refused to fight for your Bonny Prince, wasn’t it?”

  Thomas continued to smile. He’d put the story out himself, as part of his masquerade.

  “I will have my apology, Lord Tunbridge!” Pip declared in mounting indignation.

  Drat the boy. Tunbridge would have forgotten him if he’d remained mum.

  “Eh?” Tunbridge half turned his head, his eyes flickering uncomfortably over Thomas’s gently smiling face and hard, toned body. “What? An apology? But of course. Sorry. No offense meant …”

  Pip scowled. “Well, I most assuredly took—”

  “None was taken,” Thomas interjected. He gripped Pip’s arm in an iron clasp that belied the casual gesture. “I daresay we all mumble things we regret. Don’t we, Robbie?”

  Robbie’s compressed mouth relaxed. “Quite right. Men are always making asses of themselves over women who won’t spare them a glance.”

  The barb missed its mark, however, for Tunbridge had backed away from the group, eager to be off. Probably scuttling off to inform Carr of something or other. Tunbridge had ever been Carr’s creature.

  Pip tried to pull away and follow but Thomas refused to release him and the other gentlemen, unwilling to allow the boy to throw his life away so effortlessly, immediately interposed themselves between Pip and the departing Tunbridge.

  “ ’Sblood,” Robbie said, clapping Pip on the back, “if I were to account for every thoughtless remark I’d made, I’d be filling ledger books for months!”

  Johnston had an even better notion of how to distract the ruffled youngster. “Will you look at that? More lads have entered Compton’s box. Begad! They’d best watch out lest the damned thing break free of the wall and crash down on the cits!”

  Thomas followed Johnston’s amazed gaze. His eyes narrowed on the gilt box. “Hand me your binoculars, Robbie,” he murmured, scowling.

  He took the ivory set and raised them to his eyes. As though guided by fate, he found himself looking directly into her eyes.

  Fia Merrick’s eyes.

  He could not be mistaken. She’d flitted like a beauteous wraith at the edges of his imagination for years, a phenomenon he’d never allowed himself to examine too closely. But now … His breath caught in his throat.

  She was, had always been, the most ravishing creature he’d ever seen. She was even more ravishing now.

  The passage of six years had only refined her luminous, otherworldly beauty. High, exotic cheekbones, pure expanse of smooth forehead, the jut and delicate angularity of her jaw, time had only sculpted them more resolutely.

  The creamy white skin clung with more conviction to the bones beneath. Her eyes, always crystalline, looked bluer and harder than gemstones. Her mouth was both fuller and softer. Against all of fashion’s dictates she wore her unpowdered hair down and loose, black cascading ringlets of it, its darkness devoured by the black, daringly low-cut bodice.

  “Fia,” Thomas murmured.

  “You know her?”

  “Fia Merrick?” Thomas lowered the binoculars. Pip didn’t stand a chance if the likes of her had beguiled him. “Aye.”

  “Not Merrick any longer, old son,” Johnston said. “ ’Tis MacFarlane.”

  So she’d wed. Not surprising. Carr had been grooming her since infancy to adorn some power broker’s arm. Though the name MacFarlane was not familiar.

  “Which one is her husband?” Thomas could not think why he asked the question—except he wanted to know what the man looked like who could afford Fia Merrick.

  “None of them,” Robbie answered. “Ah! I forget you’ve been gone a year. You see, Lady Fia ain’t got a husband. That is to say she had one, but she’s hasn’t anymore. He died.… Seems to me ’twas over a year ago. But then, if it had been that long, she’d have abandoned mourning, wouldn’t she?”

  “Why should she?” Johnston asked softly, eyes on Fia. “When she wears black better than night itself?”

  Robbie chuckled. “Did you hear that, Donne? Lord spare us if Johnston ain’t come all over poetical!”

  But Thomas was not attending. Carr had had a nasty habit of losing spouses. Did Fia too? “Her husband is dead, you say?”

  “Yes,” Robbie answered, his smile fading. “Didn’t know him meself. Older fellow. Stolid Scottish merchant. Caused quite a stir when Lady Fia ran off with him.”

  “She eloped with him?” It made little sense. Why would Fia have eloped with a Scottish nobody?

  “A short month after her arrival,” Johnston said, “and I know for a fact that she’d received three offers before MacFarlane took off with her.”

  “He was a wealthy man?” Thomas asked sardonically.

  “Exceptionally wealthy.”

  Pip swung about. He’d apparently been listening after all. “There is only one reason a lady of Lady Fia’s quality would elope. Obviously she was in love.”

  “Obviously.” Johnston’s head bobbed in innocent agreement.

  “Without a doubt,” Robbie concurred.

  Pip nodded gruffly and went back to studying Fia.

  “How did Carr take the news of his daughter’s elopement?” Thomas asked.

  “Carr?” Robbie’s nostrils flared delicately, as though scenting tainted meat. “Can’t recall. Though later MacFarlane and he became boon companions. The two were inseparable.”

  “Lady Fia must have been relieved there was such accord between her father and her husband,” Thomas said.

  “One couldn’t say,” Johnston said. “Lady Fia never came to town. Quite withdrew from society once she’d wed. Spent five years marooned at MacFarlane’s country house. Lord, she must have hated it for—” Johnston leaned forward, glanced circumspectly at Pip’s back, and whispered, “—to be perfectly blunt, she came back into society months before her mourning period was officially over.”

  “Who can blame her?” Pip cast about angrily.

  Johnston sighed, looking upward as though to ask heaven how the lad’s hearing could be so keen.

  “A beautiful young woman like that?” Pip continued. “Kept in some heathenish backwoods when she should be celebrated, admired, and revered? Why, ’twas abominable of MacFarlane to keep her there!”

  “Precisely!” Robbie agreed.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Johnston nodded vigorously.

  Thomas did not want to ask but the suspicion forming in his mind would not let him remain silent. “Was she able to comfort MacFarlane in his final hours?”

  “That’s the tragedy of it!” Pip flung out his hand. “He was in town and she was in the lowlands.”

  She hadn’t killed him.

  “That’s right,” Johnston agreed. “MacFarlane was here, with that … with Carr. The man ought to be brought up on charges of murder.”

  Murder. A knot abruptly tightened in Thomas’s stomach. “Why is that, Johnston?”

  Johnston’s eyes flashed. “Carr led him on such a dance through society’s hellholes that MacFarlane’s old carcass finally just gave out. Drinking, gor
ging, gaming, wenching, up for days on end, week upon week. You could actually see MacFarlane deteriorate. It was vile.”

  “Whatever Lady Fia’s father’s infamy, it should not be allowed to reflect on her,” Pip exclaimed. “She is innocent.”

  “Quite right,” Robbie said.

  But was she? Thomas asked himself. Or was she simply more circumspect than her father? No, his hatred of Carr biased him. ’Twas probably no more than it seemed, an elderly man chasing recklessly after his youth until his heart gave out.

  Pip inclined his head with bitter exactitude. “If you gentlemen will forgive me, I must pay my respects to Lady Fia.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Johnston said. He swung his arm around the younger man’s shoulders, shepherding him through the crowd and keeping up a bright line of chatter as he went. As they were about to exit to the outer lobby he glanced back and waggled his eyebrows.

  Robbie burst out laughing. “Quite a young hothead you’ve taken under your wing there, Donne. He’d best learn to control his temper, though, especially if he’s going to become infatuated with the likes of Lady Fia.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The woman is a notorious heartbreaker. Half of society won’t let her through their door whilst the other half besieges her with invitations. Gads, Donne, will you please drag yourself off the docks on occasion and pay heed to what’s going on around you?”

  “Forgive me,” Thomas said. “Here I thought I had been attending—your cargo, if I remember correctly.”

  Robbie grinned. “Well, in that case, I shall make an exception for you and apprise you of the pertinents. The fact of the matter is that in the last month the Black Diamond has been at the center of no less than four duels. Four!” Robbie said.

  “Well, now that you tell me that, Robbie, I see your point. I shall tell young Pip to be more discriminating as soon as he returns,” Thomas vowed ironically.

  Robbie sighed. “You’re right, of course. When does a young man heed advice when it comes to his … to matters of the heart?” He shook his head. “Do you remember your first infatuation, Donne? I’ll never forget mine. Lyssie Carter.”

  Thomas didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He’d been imprisoned when he was thirteen for having taken up arms against Lord Cumberland’s troops when they’d come north to teach the Scots the meaning of the word “reprisal.” His older brother John had been hung, drawn, and quartered for the same crime of treason.

  Because of Thomas’s youth he’d been spared, sent first to prison, then to a transport ship, and finally to a cruel bondmaster in the West Indies. There had been no fetes, card parties, no masques or dinner table flirtations for him. The only females he’d known had been those as desperate as he for a few hours of physical release from their wretched lives. But even then Thomas had never confused desperation with love.

  The simple fact was, he’d never had a “first” love. He’d never had a “love” at all.

  “Your reluctance to name names shames me,” Robbie said, dismissing the topic and looking around. “Ha! Your young friend has managed to shoulder his way to his goddess’s side.” Robbie chortled. “Though it looks more like he’s trying to throw himself prostrate at her feet.”

  Thomas raised his opera glasses to his eyes. Fia had engaged Pip’s hand, either taking pity on the lad or, Thomas thought cynically, realizing that the boy’s imminent fall from the box might cast a pall over her party’s spirits.

  Her unique smile deepened and her eyes lit up in welcome. Johnston was right. There was nothing overtly seductive in either her attitude or her expression. Indeed, one would swear that she greeted Pip in the same manner as she would a friend.

  Thomas’s eyes narrowed. What could she think to get out of her association with Pip?

  As Thomas watched, a man’s tanned hand appeared in his binoculars’ view and touched Fia’s shoulder. Thomas raised the glasses.

  It was his partner, James Barton.

  On the opposite side of the opera house, another pair of opera glasses had long been raised as Ronald Merrick, Earl of Carr, languidly scanned the crowd. Stilted conversation hummed behind him, though it was a travesty to call it conversation; that art had apparently been lost to London society during the long years Carr had been relegated to the Scottish Highlands.

  Carr’s gaze continued idly roving the crowd. It was a testament to his superior nature that he’d found worth in his early misfortunes. If he hadn’t gone to Scotland, he wouldn’t have married Janet McClairen, whose fortune had become the basis for his own. He glanced over his shoulder, wondering if Janet’s ghost was here—one never could tell when she would appear; once he’d seen her at Covent Garden picking through cabbages.

  “Looking for someone, Lord Carr?” his host, Sir Gerald Swan, asked. Swan was a member of Parliament who’d been elected on the basis of a reputation for personal integrity. Carr, however, had in his possession a document that quite put the lie to that integrity nonsense.

  Carr regarded Swan placidly. Carr was no fool. He knew better than to tell anyone about Janet. It might begin a rumor that he’d become a spiritualist. As if he would align himself with such idiocy! Accepting that ghosts existed and believing that they mattered were two separate things entirely.

  “No,” Carr drawled. “I was simply hoping to find something to distract me from an encroaching ennui.”

  Society, Carr had long since decided, was simply no longer what it had once been. In fact, over the last few years he’d decided that ruling society was much like leading apes in hell—a rather fruitless and low occupation for one of his stamp.

  Of late he’d set his eyes on a new prize. Since he no longer wished to rule society he would rule England. To do so, he would achieve power as men since time immemorial had, through the accumulation of other men’s power. Little men. Like Swan.

  Swan cleared his throat. “I see Lady Fia is in rare good looks tonight.”

  Carr’s brows rose. “Is she?” Fia hadn’t told him she would be attending the opera tonight. “Where is she?”

  “In Compton’s box. The third tier on the far side.”

  Carr brought the glasses up to his eyes. It took him a few seconds to find the correct box, but when he did he immediately recognized Fia’s exotic features and her long, unpowdered …

  Carr frowned. Good Lord, he hoped society did not take to brushing the powder from their wigs because of Fia. He touched his elaborate powdered periwig. Beneath it his hair, once golden, had begun to fade. He didn’t think a black wig would suit him. What with the scar on his face … No, he would simply look too unapproachable.

  He readjusted his opera glasses. Fia was chatting amiably with some puppy. As Carr watched, a broad-shouldered, thickset man entered the box and pushed his way to Fia’s side. He looked familiar. Ah, yes. ’Twas James Barton, captain of some merchant ship, if he recalled correctly.

  A long time ago, Carr had been on the cusp of adding Barton’s name to the list of people who could be counted upon to do him favors. Somehow things had gone awry. It didn’t matter. Barton had only been a struggling seaman. But now, studying the ruby winking from the man’s neckcloth and the intricate gold embroidery decorating his cuffs, Carr regretted he’d not pursued the association. A huge diamond sparkled on Barton’s rough hand—Carr checked and stared—the same rough hand that descended on Fia’s bare shoulder.

  Carr’s mouth flattened. She couldn’t be so stupid. She must know he would never agree to her whoring for some … nobody! Not now. Not when he was so close to deciding who would be her next husband!

  He dropped the binoculars, vexed beyond repair. Was it not enough that society considered her just this side of the pale? Just. And she knew it. She purposely fed the gossips, promoting the ribald stories about her, the result being that her more illustrious suitors had yet to come up to scratch. Which was just exactly what she counted on, Carr thought grimly.

  Carr glared, willing her to feel his wrath. She didn’t. Even if she did, he
knew her too well to believe she’d acknowledge it. Fia never gave anything away. Not since that day he’d met with her at … what was the name of that damned house he now owned? Babble House? Brummel?

  “Lord Carr,” a hoarse voice spoke. He turned around. Tunbridge stood in the doorway. Behind him, Janet ducked behind a potted palm.

  “What is it, Tunbridge?” Carr asked, wondering if he should find a priest to perform some sort of exorcism. Ever since Janet had fled Favor McClairen’s body—or had she never actually been in Favor’s body? He was still a little vague on that—she’d been pestering him. It wasn’t frightening; it was annoying.

  Tunbridge sidled closer. “There’s a man here you ought to know about. Thomas Donne.”

  Donne? Carr lifted his binoculars again and trained them where Tunbridge pointed. Begad, Tunbridge was right. There stood the tall, broad-shouldered Scot, his face as dark as a savage’s, his pale gray eyes raised to—Carr moved his glasses upward—Fia. And with such an expression of cold condemnation. Now that was interesting.

  Poor Fia. Donne was the one man whom, to Carr’s knowledge, Fia had ever wanted, and here Donne stood studying her with as much approval as he would give a fanged serpent. Carr smiled.

  Thomas Donne, né McClairen: the last laird of the McClairen, the dispossessed son, and the exiled chieftain. Carr had known Donne’s real identity for years. As far as he knew, he was the only one who did. He’d assumed that Donne remained safely off English soil. It was interesting that he’d returned.

  Carr dismissed Tunbridge with a wave of his hand, and the thin man dissolved back into the shadows.

  Casually, Carr put away his binoculars and rose to his feet. He secured the silver-tipped walking cane he’d needed ever since the night Wanton’s Blush had burned to the ground, and prepared to quit the box. Thomas Donne—formerly McClairen—interested him. More so than the opera and certainly more than Swan.

  “Lord Carr?” Swan stumbled to his feet. “Can I get you a refreshment? Is something wrong?”

  “No, Swan, nothing is wrong,” Carr said with honest surprise. “I would never allow it.”