The Ravishing One

by Connie Brockway

  The swarthy man’s jaw bulged in frustration. He raised his hand to deliver a backhanded blow to Thomas’s other cheek but Thomas caught his forearm, stopping him.

  “Don’t do it,” Thomas advised coldly. “She’s not worth a broken wrist, let alone your life.” To emphasize his point he tightened his grip until he felt the man’s bones grind together.

  The dark man’s brows snapped together in startled pain. Helplessly he tried to yank free, but Thomas’s grip had been honed holding his own weight one-handed from a yardarm fifty feet abovedeck while he secured a sail with the other.

  “I will not tolerate your insult of this lady!” the man panted, fear causing his voice to break.

  “Thomas, desist!” James commanded as harsh exclamations erupted around them. Faces grew livid. Feet shifted.

  “Stop it!” Fia’s voice rose above the rising clamor. “Let him go!”

  Thomas turned on her with a snarl. “Don’t fret, madam. Your conscience will not be marred on my account.” He looked at the man twisting angrily in his grip. “You can call me out as many times as you like, sir.” His gaze swept over the rest of them. “Any one of you can, but you won’t find any satisfaction. Not now, not ever. Enough blood has been spilled because of her and her own. And from the look of you pitiful fools”—he included James in his scathing scrutiny—“more will be. But not mine. Never mine.”

  With a muttered oath, Thomas released the man’s wrist. He snatched it to his chest, backing away.

  Thomas waited, sure the fool would retaliate. Thus he did not hear or see Fia move. But he felt her suddenly, close behind. He swung around. She stood less than an arm’s span away, her blue eyes brilliant and fierce and gorgeous.

  “If anyone calls you out, Lord Donne, ’twill be me,” she promised in her low, vibrant voice.

  “And that,” Thomas retorted as he turned his back on her and her coterie of sycophants and panderers, “is one challenge I might accept.”

  He strode from her chamber and down the hallway. And so did not hear her whisper in a voice so low even those nearby did not make out her words, “En garde!”

  Chapter 4

  Have the coach wait. I shan’t be long,” Fia said upon alighting from the carriage. “Gunna, if you would wait here, please.”

  “But, lass,” Gunna protested sharply, her Highland accent further distorting the inflection her deformed jaw gave all her words. She disliked the thought of Fia opening herself to yet more rudeness. “If his family has been listening to all the gossipmongers, they might—”

  “Please wait, Gunna.”

  The tiger—a black lad of eight years with more snobbery than half the bucks in London—jumped from his post atop the back of the high-sprung carriage and scooted up the stairs to a modest front door. He sniffed, clearly disgruntled at knocking at so hopelessly middling a sort of door. His rapping soon produced an answer.

  “What? Who? Oh, my!”

  A flustered-looking serving girl stood in the doorway, her jaw loosened in surprise at the ducal carriage at the curb—the carriage being on indefinite loan from Lord Stanley, one of Fia’s more distinguished admirers. The girl’s gaze slowly traveled to Lady Fia. “Oh, dear.”

  “Tell your master Lady Fia is here to convey her concern and her sympathy for Master Leighton,” the tiger pronounced.

  The girl bobbed her head, gulped, and backed hastily into the hallway. “Right away! If you’d be pleased to enter, I shall inform the family at once.”

  “So certain I shall be admitted, then?” Gunna heard Fia murmur. The sad, ironic tone never revealed itself on Fia’s face, which remained composed as she mounted the few steps. But Gunna saw the rapid rise and fall of the black lace covering her bodice. The evidence of her fear and her refusal to show it caught at Gunna’s gruff heart. She offered up a hasty prayer that the Leightons would be kind.

  A short time later Fia emerged from the house. Gunna glanced at the watch fob pinned to her bodice. Less than ten minutes. The fools had expelled her! The door to the carriage swung open and Fia entered. She did not meet Gunna’s eye.

  “Did they disrespect ye, then? Ye didn’t care what the lot of them thought, now, did ye?” Gunna asked.

  “They were surprised.”

  “And the boy?”

  Fia’s brilliant blue eyes rose. Gunna had once seen an iceberg. Deep within the heart of it, it had been so intense a blue it had seemed hot. Fia’s eyes were like that.

  “He can move his hand and arm freely. But he’s very weak.” She offered no more.

  “He was happy to see you, though.”

  “Oh, yes. Most glad.”

  “Then I’d say that’s all that matters,” Gunna said, pulling back the velvet drape covering the window as the driver called out to the horses and they lurched into motion.

  She hated Fia’s life. Hated that each day Fia seemed to grow ever more inured to her role as a Jezebel. Only Gunna knew how much that role cost the lass and fretted over how much of her soul Fia had left to spend before she … Gunna scowled, refusing to let such thoughts take root.

  “Ye’ll see the boy agin a few more times,” she muttered to herself. “Bring him a book, a lock of yer hair, and pet his hand. Soon enough he’ll be back at yer feet—”

  “No.”

  Gunna looked up, startled by Fia’s vehemence. Fia was shaking. Fia, her little statue, her sphinx. The old woman darted across the carriage and slid next to Fia, wrapping her arms around the girl’s taut form.

  “No, I will not,” Fia said roughly. “I should never have befriended the boy. I should never have let him in when he came calling. But …”

  “But what, Fia?” Gunna asked softly.

  Fia turned. Raw vulnerability had whittled away much of the mask she habitually wore. Such pain. Such hurt. Gunna rocked her gently.

  “It’s just that he reminded me so of Kay,” Fia whispered. “He treated me so naturally and I … missed that and so I … God help me … I encouraged him to visit.” She gave a little laugh, which was half a sob. “ ’Struth, I fear my selfishness might be his death!”

  “Oh, my dear.”

  “They didn’t want me in their house,” Fia said in a stark voice. “But they didn’t know how to ask me to leave. I shouldn’t have been there. I only brought embarrassment to them and false comfort to him.”

  “There now,” Gunna said, stroking Fia’s midnight-hued hair. “He’s a boy and boys are always doing what they can to inspire their own deaths. Weren’t it you, it would be some other …” She faltered, looking for a word.

  “Some other jade,” Fia finished.

  “Some other woman,” Gunna corrected her.

  “He told me I should have left Pip alone.” Fia’s forehead had smoothed. Her face stilled. The last signs of her vulnerability disappeared and Gunna lamented their absence. It had been months since Gunna had witnessed some honest emotion in the girl. Each incident grew more rare. “He all but said that I couldn’t resist ensnaring every man I saw.”

  “Who said this?” Gunna asked.

  “Thomas Donne.”

  Gunna’s breath caught. Years ago, Thomas Donne had been Carr’s guest at Wanton’s Blush. He’d shown Fia an absentminded sort of courtesy and halting interest. Fia, young and achingly alone, had become smitten with the tall Scot. Small wonder. He’d been one of the few men she’d known who was neither a leering rake nor a scraping sycophant.

  Her infatuation had ended abruptly. Gunna had never known what Thomas had done or said, but overnight Fia’s puppy love had turned into cold enmity. Fia had grown up after that. Before, her shell of cynical sophistication had been a thin one hiding a confused and passionate girl. After Thomas Donne, both the cynicism and worldliness had become real.

  “Where did you see him?”

  “He came to my rooms this morning. He confronted me.”

  “Curse him for a righteous ass. He’s wrong.”

  Fia lifted her head. Her eyes shimmered brightly, but her mouth w
as hard. “No. He is correct, Gunna. But being correct does not give Donne the right to judge me. His soul is easily as black as mine.”

  Gunna scowled, confused.

  “Remember when Ash was at Wanton’s Blush and Rhiannon Russell disappeared?” Fia asked tonelessly. “ ’Twas Thomas Donne who brought Ash the news that Rhiannon had left him and nearly broke Ash in that telling. He had something to do with it, I vow. I was there. I saw them, Carr and Ash and Thomas Donne. No bearer of hurt looked better pleased to be speaking than Thomas Donne.”

  Gunna drew back. Thomas Donne had never seemed the sort to her to take pleasure in another’s anguish.

  Fia straightened. Only her words betrayed the depth of the emotion driving her. “I swear, I’ll bring him to his knees before I’m done.”

  Fia mounted the curving staircase to the second floor, passing a housemaid polishing the railing and a footman replacing the candles in the crystal chandelier. The shining silver bowl on the table at the top of the stairs held fresh red roses that filled the corridor with their exotic aroma. The landing window above sparkled. She barely noticed any of it.

  She opened the door to her boudoir, where the new French style of decor found expression. A bombé-shaped chest stood against one wall, a new Meissen snuffbox had been added to the collection crowding its surface. Opposite this sat an inlaid dressing table, the mirror above draped in crimson damask. More deep crimson damask covered twin settees.

  She walked across the room without feeling any pleasure in its beauty. None of it was hers. All of it, the town house, the furnishings, the decor, her clothing, the servants, and even the food, Carr had rented, bought, employed, provided for, and maintained. All for one purpose, to lure wealthy and well-connected suitors.

  Fia pushed open the door that led from the boudoir to a small antechamber, where she went directly to a delicately fashioned writing desk. She stopped before it and pulled out the gilt chair tucked beneath it. Despite her outward calm, her heart raced. She needed to be careful.

  Carr employed all the people in the house, with the exception of Gunna and the butler, Porter. All of them were his spies and agents and sneak thieves.

  With a few deft movements of her hands, Fia removed the padded seat from the chair. In a small hollow area beneath lay a slender packet of letters. She smiled, a smile that in no way resembled any of those she wore outside this room. It bespoke an honest, easy, and uncomplicated pleasure.

  They were letters from her brothers and their wives, collected over the past five years, eight each from Ash and Raine, five from Favor, and six from Rhiannon.

  With the air of a connoisseur she selected one of the thin envelopes from her stash and gingerly unfolded it. It had been read so often that the folds had grown thin with wear and the edges frayed.

  It was two years old and from Raine, sent all the way from his sunny estate in northern Italy. For months after it had first arrived she’d imagined she could smell the nectarines her brother had once described.

  My dearest sister,

  Glad news! This morning Favor was delivered of a daughter, as beautiful as her mother and, I quite proudly own, just as vocal. We have named her Gillian Charlotte, after no one because, as Favor so succinctly says, she must be our future and we shall not look to the past.

  My lovely wife, as you can see, is not much of a sentimentalist. But she did ask specifically to be remembered to you in this letter, so perhaps there is hope for the frightful wench yet.

  I wish you and Gregory well. Perhaps the day will come when you, too, will begin a family. I own I, with all of nine hours’ experience, am utterly besotted of the experience.

  With my deep regard, your brother,

  Raine Merrick

  Fia carefully refolded the letter and returned it to its envelope. She hesitated a second before replacing the seat without reading another, wanting to dole them out judiciously so that the pleasure of reading them might stay fresh and alive for years to come.

  Gillian. Gilly. And a year later a son had been born, Robert. Ash, too, had fathered a son, a redheaded boy to inherit his Cornish horse-breeding enterprise.

  Fia shook her head in wonderment. Her brothers were either far more fearless than she was or far less fearful of the suspicion that had ruled her. Or perhaps they had simply forgotten whose blood ran in their veins—God! If only she could!

  But then, what did she know of her brothers? They had been virtual strangers to her when she’d been growing up, and she’d always assumed they’d had no feelings for her. Too late she’d come to realize that Carr had manufactured the distance between her and her brothers.

  Heat stung her eyes. The control she donned each waking moment slipped. Reflexively she shored it up, forcing herself to confront those thoughts that threatened to undermine her self-discipline. It was an exercise she always insisted of herself.

  There was much she’d discovered late and she recalled too clearly the day her naivete had ended. She’d been a pitiful, lovelorn little girl who’d sneaked out of the castle to follow her hero, the handsome Scot, Thomas Donne, and the lovely Rhiannon Russell.

  It had begun storming, hard. She remembered how he’d held himself to take the brunt of winds, protecting Rhiannon, while Fia had hunkered down, drenched by the downpour, contemptible and pathetic, straining her ears to hear his words. She’d heard, all right.

  “Carr killed his first wife then killed the next two.”

  “He left his sons to rot.”

  “Fia is nothing but Carr’s whore.”

  There, Fia thought with satisfaction, her gaze fixed impassively on her fingers. No trembling. Not even a hesitation. The memory no longer had the power to set her heart racing and her body shaking. She had healed even harder than she’d originally been. But crooked, like an ill-set bone, flawed and twisted. Sometimes she wondered if, like that ill-set bone, another break could set her right. Not that it mattered.

  Yes, she was tainted with Merrick blood. But even that could be put to use. Who else besides she, raised from birth to be his accomplice, could anticipate Carr? And if she could use the poisonous gift of her upbringing to checkmate him, then she would get down on her knees and thank God for the stigma of being Carr’s favored child.

  A knock sounded.

  “What is it?” she called.

  “A gentleman to see you, madam. A Mister Do …” Porter’s voice lowered discreetly.

  Her pulse began to race. “Mister Donne, did you say?”

  “No, madam,” the answer came back. “A Mister Dolan.”

  Her shoulders slumped—nay, relaxed. “Tell Mister Dolan I am not at home.”

  “As you wish, milady.”

  Her thoughts turned to earlier this day. She’d been immersed in her role of seductress, painstakingly feeding her own legend with lurid, salacious, and ultimately false stories. It kept the choicer suitors from seriously considering offering for her hand. And if no one asked for her hand, how then could Carr give it?

  She’d known who stood over her before she’d ever raised her eyes. And when she did, she’d wished she hadn’t. Thomas had worn the face of a guardian-warrior, devoid of compassion or uncertainty. He’d never been overcome by the enemy within or any enemy without. Thomas Donne did not know defeat.

  Tall, lean, and broad-shouldered, he bore little resemblance to the indolent roué who’d gamed at her father’s tables.

  He was even more arresting now.

  His dark rumpled hair was salted with gray. His body looked harder and more powerful. His skin was so dark and weathered that no amount of powder or cream would ever conceal the evidence of years spent on a ship deck or erase the lines that fanned from the outer corners of his clear gray eyes. His lips were carved wide and hard, his jaw square and lean.

  For a moment she’d been a girl again, helplessly in the throes of a deep infatuation, hopeful for his notice, desperate for his good opinion, and deep down within, wishing that his power and ferocity were on her behalf and that he’d
come to vanquish her foes.

  But she’d been the foe he’d come to vanquish. Amazing that it should have hurt so much when he’d accused her of practicing her wiles on Pip—that poor, decent boy. The phantom of the girl she’d once been had shuddered and died all over again. Abruptly she’d remembered who she was and what.

  She wasn’t a good woman. She’d married Gregory MacFarlane because he was rich and malleable, but most of all because he’d been Scottish and when he died she’d inherit his estate. But things had not worked out the way she’d planned. Once more she was her father’s puppet. But it hadn’t been a role of her choosing.

  She lifted her chin and walked through to the boudoir. She had little left to recommend herself except a perverse and deep-rooted pride. It had served her well after she’d discovered what her father was; it had driven her to elope with MacFarlane. Pride had seen her through her marriage and her husband’s ever increasing dependency on her father, and pride had allowed her to meet unbowed the news of MacFarlane’s death and her renewed subjugation to Carr. Pride had kept her from giving up and yielding to her father’s machinations.

  And pride was at the root of the vow she’d made—and meant to keep—to Gunna in that closed carriage a few hours ago.

  If Thomas Donne thought her bad—well, she would show him just how bad she could be.

  Chapter 5

  Come with us, Tom. You can’t spend every hour playing nursemaid to that ship of yours,” Robbie urged.

  “Heed him, Thomas. Robbie’s an expert on reckoning the exact amount of gaiety a man must have to maintain his vigor.” Francis Johnston approached the table at which Robbie and Thomas sat and pulled out an empty chair. He motioned for the proprietress to bring him a cup of coffee, and groaned. “Three o’clock in the afternoon and I’m still not awake. However shall I conspire to revel this evening?”

  “You might try forgoing the revelry for once,” Thomas suggested dryly. He tilted back, lacing his fingers across his flat belly.

  “And miss attending the Portmann’s masque?” Francis’s blond brows climbed. “Never! ’Twill be the event of the Season. They expect a horrible crush and to accommodate it they’re said to have erected special venues in the fields behind the house.”