The Rogue's Return

by Jo Beverley

  She turned to look down at him. “But we should get up.”

  “Why?”

  She laughed and kissed him. “Just because.” She escaped the bed. Despite last night, she couldn’t feel comfortable about dressing in front of him and went behind the sheet. When she took off her nightgown, she saw a bloodstain. Only then did she feel a heaviness inside. She blushed with embarrassment. Was there a stain on the bed?

  And her cloths were in her chest, which was out in the room.

  At least her valise was here, so she had a fresh shift. But how was she to wash the other? She couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, let Treadwell do it, even if a gentleman’s valet was supposed to do such things.

  Dressed but without her drawers, she emerged and unlocked her chest. She dug around until she found her cloths and the sling that kept them in place, and then stood to retreat behind the sheet again.

  Simon was looking at her. He knew.

  “There’s a blood spot on the sheet,” he said. “I’m sorry if you’d rather not talk about it, but I think in this situation it would be rather difficult. No child, then.”

  A touch of sadness in his voice made her ask, “Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not. As you said, you don’t want to be with child during an ocean voyage. But our children will be welcome when they come. Will you have a hard time of it?”

  “No, but . . . Never mind.”

  “What is it?” he asked, so prosaically that she told him.

  “I can’t imagine how to discreetly wash my nightgown and cloths. And Treadwell will see the sheet.”

  “I can’t do anything about that, but as for your nightgown and cloths, throw them away.”

  “That would be a sinful waste!”

  “Slave, your pasha commands. Throw them away. The cloths, at least. If necessary, buy more in Kingston or Montreal.”

  “But . . .”

  “I can, I believe, afford rags for my wife. I’m not rich, but I’m not a pauper.”

  “You don’t know the meaning of rich and poor. You have no idea!”

  “Oh, don’t I? Hal’s laying out most of the money for this journey.”

  She opened her mouth to score a point, but he quickly added, “But I’m not so poor that my wife needs to launder her monthly rags.”

  “And your wife’s not so foolish that she’ll throw money away!”

  They glared at each other, but then Simon asked, “What are we arguing about?”

  She straightened. “I’m sorry. I get short-tempered at this time.”

  “And I’m impatient with pain and frustration.”

  “Didn’t you sleep well?”

  “I don’t think I’ve had a decent night’s sleep since the duel. I’m not complaining, given the perils I’ve avoided, but it’s wearing.”

  “I have some laudanum. Playter forbade it because pain would keep you still, but surely your ribs are mostly knitted by now.”

  “It’s tempting,” he said. “Perhaps too much so. My friend Lord Darius is apparently addicted to opium because of being given too much for too long when injured.”

  “A dose of opium to help you sleep is scarcely the same thing.”

  “No, but the pain is easing.”

  She couldn’t insist, so she went behind the sheet and fixed her pad in place. “I’m sorry for being a fishwife.”

  “Simply a wife. I rather like it. Marital bickering and apologizing. We’ve had no chance to be a normal married couple, have we? Imagine if we’d married in England in the usual way—we might never have had a time like this. I’d have my valet, you your maid. We’d have separate bedrooms and dressing rooms and only see each other at our best.”

  Jancy tied the waistband of her drawers.

  The usual way. Would they really have to live separated by servants? She didn’t want to be slave to some haughty maid who knew far more about fashion than she did.

  When she was dressed, she emerged from behind the sheet. “I’ll get Treadwell for you.”

  She put on her cloak and gloves and went on deck. She’d once traveled toward a wilderness that had proved to be not at all as wild as she’d thought. She could only pray that the luxury at the end of this journey would be not so grand. Simon’s descriptions of cheerful, crowded Brideswell didn’t fit with the cold, servant-ruled life he’d outlined. He must have been teasing her.

  She found Treadwell and then sat in Simon’s chair to watch the forested shore flow by. Trees, trees, trees. Habitations were few, though an Indian in a canoe glided by at one point, ignoring their existence. What had this land been like when lightly populated by people and without the complexities that Europeans took for granted?

  Then an eagle circled, plummeted, and rose with a flapping silver fish in its talons. It had been wild, and still was.

  She shivered in the nippy air, out of sorts. She should have expected her monthly, but now she was realizing that there’d be another visit halfway across the ocean. She prayed that she wouldn’t be seasick at the same time. And how was she to manage it all discreetly now she had a husband and servants?

  Throw away her cloths? It went against every frugal instinct drilled into her by Martha, but she was Jane St. Bride now, who would soon have a terrifying lady’s maid. Heavens above, that terrifying maid would have to know about her monthly visitor and perhaps deal with her cloths.

  If being a good wife to Simon meant she had to get used to having personal servants, however, then she would do it. She would become as haughty as Mrs. Humble if she had to. As Hal had implied, it was hardly a hellish fate. Most people would love to have servants at their beck and call.

  Treadwell emerged from the cabin. “Mr. St. Bride suggests you and the gentlemen eat in the cabin, it being cold today, ma’am.”

  She went in, finding he’d lit the stove, as well as arranged boxes by the small table as extra seats. Soon the other men joined them for a cheerful breakfast. Then Norton let out a curse, blushed, and apologized, and she was aware of being a solitary woman in the company of three handsome men.

  Were there female pashas with male harems?

  It was such a wicked thought that she blushed, which made Norton think she was deeply embarrassed, so she assured him she wasn’t but then worried that gave the wrong impression.

  Laughing, Simon extricated her with a new topic of conversation. Jancy drank her tea, sure that a true lady would not think the idea of a harem of men even slightly exciting.

  Of course she actually wanted no one but Simon, but even so, the idea of surveying a group of men like this, all with different charms, and saying, “That one. Bring him to my bed tonight,” made her want Simon even more.

  In thinking that, she’d looked at him. Their eyes met and it was as if he knew. She looked away, blushing even more hotly, and then stole a glance to find his eyes dancing at her. Perhaps that was why the other men excused themselves, leaving them alone.

  “We can at least kiss,” Simon said, so she sat beside him, and they did.

  “Care to share with me what put that sparkle in your eye?” he murmured against the corner of her mouth.

  “No.”

  “Ah-ah. Something wicked. Tell me. Perhaps I can make it come true.”

  She chuckled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Now you really have to tell me. I promise not to be shocked.”

  “How can you promise that?”

  His brows rose. “That outrageous? My imagination is running riot. You’d better tell me before I assume worse than the truth.”

  She pushed him playfully. “Oh, you. Very well then. I was wondering . . . I was there with three fine gentlemen. . . .” His brows rose again, and some bold part of her wanted to shock him. “I was imagining a woman with a harem of men.”

  “Jancy, you treasure! Of course I’d never permit it any more than you’d permit me a harem of blushing damsels, but you are full of surprises beneath your sober plumage.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No
. I like it. You’re like a set of puzzle boxes. Each day a new delight, and one day I’ll reach the secret heart of you.”

  Jancy smiled, praying that never come true.

  She soon realized that it wasn’t going to be easy to keep her secrets. Simon grew stronger every day, but many movements still hurt and he preferred to sit most of the time, either in the cabin or on deck. Hal and Norton joined them for cards but also frequently left them together. Sometimes he read to her as she sewed, but often he wanted to talk—about her.

  “Was it strange to move from a large house to a small one?” he asked one day.

  The sun was shining so they were on the deck, warmly dressed, watching nature’s colorful display pass by.

  She had to think how it might be. “We had our own rooms, and Mother and I rarely entered the school proper.”

  “Didn’t she have care of the boarders?”

  Help. She’d never thought about these things. “I suppose so. But she didn’t take me. I was only just ten when my father died and we left for that smaller house.”

  “I saw a picture.”

  She looked a question at him.

  “In your room, when I took in wood. Your cousin was very skilled.”

  Jancy suddenly wanted to talk about Jane, even if in deceitful terms. She missed her so much. “Yes, but houses and landscapes weren’t her forte. She loved portraiture. She created quite a stir last year. Our chapel—we attended the Evangelical chapel, not the Anglican church—decided to raise money for soldiers wounded by the war. We held a summer fete, and the minister persuaded . . . Nan”—Be careful! She’d almost said Jane—“to do portrait sketches at two shillings a time.

  “She took some persuading, for she was shy, but she also had a most generous heart.” She smiled at him. “She raised over five pounds, because those who could afford it gave her much more. It was for a good cause, of course, but people were truly delighted. I do believe she could have made it her profession, but as I said, she was shy and then Aunt Martha fell ill.”

  “Aunt Martha?”

  Ice ran down Jancy’s spine. “Her Aunt Martha.”

  He seemed to accept that. “When did she come to live with you?”

  Still shocked by her mistake, Jancy hunted through her answer for traps before saying, “When I was ten. She was nine, but our birthdays were only four months apart.”

  “And she was an orphan from Scotland? No Otterburns up there to take her in?”

  This was becoming an inquisition. Did he suspect?

  “I assume not. Why do you ask?”

  “I merely wondered.”

  Jancy grabbed on to the well-practiced lie that Martha had drilled into her. She’d lived this story so much that in a way it seemed true. “I gather Nan’s father was a black sheep. He gamed and drank himself into disaster, so his family cast him off, and her mother had died when she was young.”

  “So they sent the ‘bad blood’ to England.”

  The words “bad blood” sank into her stomach like a stone.

  Simon was enjoying this drifting time apart from life. He grew stronger by the day, and his ribs pained him less. Now that they had leisure, he was learning more about Jane and his old feelings of mystery seemed foolish. He might have seduced her if she hadn’t been in her courses, but as it was, he was content to wait, talk to her, and simply look at her.

  Not that there weren’t problems ahead.

  Though she hid it, she was clearly unhappy with the distant prospect of becoming a countess, and not even comfortable with Brideswell. She’d probably prefer a small home like the one she’d had in Carlisle, which made no sense to him.

  She was as frugal as a miser. At this moment she was setting neat stitches that made a hole in her coarse stocking almost invisible. Admirable in a cottager’s wife, perhaps, but he was used to women wanting to marry into wealth and position, not fearing it.

  He looked away and saw a vee in the sky. He pointed it out and smiled at Jane’s excited pleasure as the honking geese flapped overhead, heading south. Driven on their appointed course—as were they all. His course was to property, duty, responsibility, and a place in the heart of his world. Her course was now to be by his side.

  He didn’t want to compel her to anything, but he hoped she’d agree to a new wardrobe soon after arrival in England. She’d be more comfortable if properly dressed. If she wished, she could wear the muted shades of half-mourning, but he longed to see her in sky blue, clear green, and buttery cream.

  Or out of them . . .

  She turned to him then, and something in her parted lips showed that she’d picked up a message from his eyes. Her lovely blush rose like dawn.

  “I hope you never stop blushing,” he said.

  “I only blush because you’re a very wicked man.”

  “I hope I never stop being a very wicked man. Blame it on the hair.”

  “The hair?” she asked.

  “I must have told you of Black Ademar’s hair.”

  She nipped off her thread with her teeth and rethreaded her needle. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Another ancestor. Ademar de Braque was a Gascon adventurer who found favor with the young Edward I by his brilliance at jousting. The king was inordinately fond of jousting, and thus Ademar became rich and a great lord and married a fair lady. But he was famous for his ‘devil’s hair’—black shot through with red, like mine.”

  She cocked her head at him. “Was he wicked, then?”

  “Trust me, my love, any nameless adventurer who rises to fame and glory is wicked. But it’s the adventurousness that comes with the hair. Whenever the devil’s hair appears in our family, it means the child will be a wild wanderer.”

  “Like you?” She slid her stocking off the smooth wooden lump she used to sew against and glanced up to tease. “What happens if your fiery hair falls out?”

  “Cruel woman.”

  “Or goes gray?”

  “Perhaps that’s why we devil-heads tend to cool with time. So, would you want children with the hair?”

  She colored again at the mention of children. Their children.

  “I hope they all have sunrise hair,” he said softly. “A different, gentler fire.”

  “Or they could be little Trewitts,” she pointed. “Solid and brown.”

  She meant it to disconcert him, so he smiled. “That would be perfect, too.”

  That night in bed, Jancy lay spooned against Simon’s back, pretending to sleep.

  Trewitt blood. Ademar’s devilish hair. Hereward’s urge to fight for justice.

  Blood will out.

  Blood will out.

  Children did take after their parents, or their parents’ parents, or their ancestors. She ought to tell him the truth.

  But she never would.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jancy rose the next day to find they were approaching Kingston, where they changed to a shallow-bottomed boat that could pass through the tricky water upstream. The talk on the Kingston wharf was all about the harsh weather, and people who had come upriver from Quebec or the Atlantic carried rumors of an early freeze.

  A captain reported that the Eweretta had been in Montreal five days ago, but ready to sail. Jancy had hoped to visit the shops here for supplies not available in York, but they decided to leave immediately.

  The boat could navigate the rapids, but she persuaded Simon to walk around them with her. He appeared recovered, but she knew he still felt some pain and still had trouble sleeping in the night because of it.

  “You don’t want to risk an accident that could set you back.”

  As they watched their boat hurtle and swirl through the rapids, she was grateful for their decision but a little wistful, too.

  “Jancy,” Simon said with surprise, “you wish you were on that.”

  She glanced at him. “A folly, but yes.”

  He grinned. “So do I. I’ve shot rapids for the sheer excitement.” When she frowned at him, he shrugged. “It’s the hai
r.”

  “I think I’ll pluck out every red strand.”

  “Confess, you wouldn’t really want me tame.”

  She pretended to glare and they walked on, picking their way over rough ground. She didn’t want him tame, but she didn’t want him plunging into any more dangerous adventures, either.

  As they passed between more densely populated shores, getting close to Montreal, a flurry of rain turned to hail. Jancy felt everyone’s tension. Even though they had passage booked, the Eweretta would not risk being trapped by ice.

  The tin-roofed city came in sight, startling Jancy with its size. As they approached the harbor, Simon called out to a passing vessel. “Has the Eweretta sailed yet?”

  And the blessed reply was “Non, monsieur.”

  Jancy hugged Simon—carefully—for joy.

  “Not many ships left, though,” Simon said, scanning ahead.

  The harbor looked busy to Jancy, but she supposed there weren’t many grand oceangoing vessels. “I hope we have time to buy some supplies.”

  “No matter if you can’t. The Eweretta is famous for providing well for its passengers.”

  As they worked their way closer, weaving between other boats, she pointed to a tall monument. “What’s that?”

  “In honor of Lord Nelson. Strange, don’t you think, that they’ve positioned him looking inland? But then, he apparently was plagued by seasickness.”

  She squinted at him, wondering if he was joking. “Nelson was? Then why become a sailor?”

  “It would seem his love of the sea outweighed the pain. Love frequently drives men mad.”

  He clearly meant nothing by it, but it felt like an ill omen to her. She’d pinned the rightness of her actions on love, hers and his, but was it enough?

  They pulled into the riverbank and a rough plank slammed down onto the muddy earth. They climbed carefully down it.

  “I wouldn’t mind an hour or two on solid ground,” she said.

  But Simon took her hand. “Come on. Once we’ve announced ourselves, perhaps we can explore the city.”

  They’d already decided that she and Simon would walk to the Eweretta, while Hal, Norton, and the servants took care of their possessions.