Rebel Dreams

by Patricia Rice

  The chemise fell to the floor. Strong arms transported her to the bed. She tried to remember if she had ever needed a nightgown since gracing her husband’s bed, but that thought dissipated as he began to kiss her all over. His words had succeeded in producing an aura of enchantment that was too beautiful to dispel, and she floated in ecstasy as he came down beside her.

  “Do you really think you might need me just a little?” she asked as his lips found a particularly vulnerable spot.

  “I really think I need you a whole lot. I really think I have needed you all my life. I really think you had better stop doing that or our dozen daughters will spill all over the sheets.” He moaned this last against her hair as she stroked him.

  Evelyn laughed. “One at a time is quite sufficient. And I believe the prospects of the next being a son are quite good.”

  “The Cranville heir, of course. We will need two or three or half a dozen of those also,” Alex said as he knelt between her legs and found his goal. Her welcome momentarily robbed him of the power of speech.

  “Your daughter now, a son in September, and maybe another daughter—” Evelyn quit talking, lost in the frantic rhythm of his movement.

  Not until Alex had achieved satisfaction for both of them did the import of her words sink in. Bracing himself on both arms above her, their bodies still joined in the melting heat of their lovemaking, Alex stared down into his wife’s contented expression. “A son when?”

  Evelyn’s eyes opened, and a worried look creased her brow. “In September. Is there something wrong?”

  “September.” Alex did mental gymnastics. This was mid-February. By September. That meant . . . He gave a whoop of joy and rolled over to release her from his heavy weight— forgetting that he had been too impatient to seek the center of the bed earlier.

  He tumbled to the floor with a crash. His cry brought worried calls from their servants, and it was Evelyn who whooped as she bent over the edge of the bed to observe her lordly husband sprawled across the cold floor, grinning.

  Chapter 33

  The debates in Parliament over the colonial Stamp Act reached furious proportions, and Alex was gone most of every day and night, twisting arms and pleading his case. Franklin stopped by a time or two to congratulate Evelyn on her husband’s valiant efforts, but he could offer no assurances that past wrongs would be righted. The prospect of putting the upstart colonists in their place by declaring war seemed to tickle the fancies of the more militant members of the government.

  Evelyn carried her pregnancy easily. The heart-stopping smile that only Evelyn knew her husband was capable of appeared more frequently now, even when he returned to his home to find it in an uproar.

  And uproars were more common than not. The plumbers were still piecing together the bathing room in Alex’s suite, while carpenters began to tear apart a room in Deirdre’s suite to provide the same for her. Evelyn discreetly entertained politicians and their families throughout the confusion, providing a forum to discuss the issues at stake.

  And in and around this mass confusion, Margaret made her presence felt, volubly protesting the stays required for her fashionable new attire, exuberantly racing through the halls after a stray cat she acquired, and throwing a tantrum to match Alex’s when confronted with Lady Barton’s spiteful ill humor. Alex’s mother had refused to leave the comfort of the earl’s home.

  Alex rolled his eyes heavenward and clutched his walking stick like a weapon when entering one evening to the less-than-musical harmonies of grandmother and granddaughter sharpening their tongues on each other. But he smiled as Evelyn hurried toward him, her arms outstretched to take the hug he offered. He wrapped her in his embrace, and ignoring the stares of servants, his weariness, and the harsh sounds of discord, he plied her face with kisses.

  “Let’s hide upstairs where no one will find us. I want to see how baby tyrant is growing, and then I want to take mama tyrant and…” He whispered suggestive phrases that caused his wife to blush and whisk from his grasp.

  She headed for the steps, however, and threw a knowing smile over her shoulder. “You’re no gentleman, Alexander Hampton. I’ll have your dinner brought to your room, but I’ll not be on the menu.”

  He strode after her, swinging her up in his arms “That’s ‘Lord Cranville’ to you, wench. Has no one warned you that we noble dragons devour saucy Yankees for supper? You will be nothing more than a pleasant memory and a full stomach by morning.”

  His growl brought shrieks of laughter as he ran up the stairs with her. The argument in the upstairs library halted at the sound. Servants once terrified of Alex’s uncertain moods grinned.

  Reaching the second-floor landing, Alex ignored the urgent knock at the front door. The naughty creature in his arms had pushed aside his vest, unfastened his jabot and part of his shirt, and was tweaking the hairs on his chest. His weariness had fled beneath a surge of lust.

  Alex blithely disregarded the opening front door, the shout of the butler, and Deirdre’s anxious inquiries. Only Evelyn tensing in his arms registered sufficiently for him to notice that a footman dared to stand in his way.

  His black glare would have sent the man scurrying at another time. Evelyn’s presence gave the servant courage to stand at attention before Alex’s most forbidding stare.

  Shirt gaping, Alex lowered his wife but kept a possessive arm about her waist. “By Jove, I’ll have you hanged from the chandelier, Ames, if this is not important.”

  “The messenger said it was urgent, m-my lord,” he stuttered. “It just came from the colonies. He carried it from Plymouth direct from the captain of a colonial ship.”

  Evelyn caught her breath.

  Alex took the sealed paper from the platter. “Is a reply requested?” He didn’t open the letter, but waited for an answer.

  “No, my lord. The messenger has already gone.”

  “Thank you.” Dismissing the footman by simply walking past him, Alex steered Evelyn toward their chambers.

  “Are you not going to open it?” Evelyn demanded.

  “You are so eager to hear bad news that you would deny me the comforts of my home to have it? Fie on you, my lady. What can a few more hours matter when it has already taken weeks to reach here?”

  Alex entered their chamber and bolted the door behind them. He threw the letter on his desk and began to divest himself of coat and vest. Evelyn kept glancing at the letter.

  Alex stalked across the carpet and located the lacing of her bodice. In a few short minutes he had the velvet off her shoulders and was untying the tiers of skirts and petticoats and hoops. His fingers impatiently grazed her stays. “You will have to stop wearing that damned contraption, my dear. I’ll not have my child born with his head bent in the middle to please your vanity.”

  “I do not even have a belly yet, Alex. There is time before I have to hide myself behind closed doors.” She took over the task of unhooking and untying.

  “I’ll not hide you behind closed doors. I want you in the gallery when the vote comes on the Stamp Act tomorrow or the next day. I want you by my side when we go to Cornwall to direct the spring planting. I am quite prepared to display you before half the population of England between now and September. That’s my child you’re carrying, and I’m damned proud of the fact.”

  He accompanied his words with the shedding of his own clothes while Evelyn extracted herself from the complexities of hers. Throwing aside his boots, Alex swept her unencumbered figure into his arms again. Only his breeches and her chemise protected their decency.

  Evelyn wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laughed low in her throat. “I should be a pretty sight walking the fields with my stomach protruding past my feet. Perhaps I should have forced you to earn the profit I so readily give you.”

  “I have a feeling I’ll spend the rest of my life earning it.” Alex laid her back against the sheets. Sprawling beside her, he propped his head on one arm and ran a proprietary hand over her still-slender curves. “Do you hav
e any regrets, Evelyn? I tried to offer you a choice, but I fear my need for you did not make that very clear.”

  Evelyn stroked his hair from his forehead with one hand while holding his palm over her belly with the other. The spread of his fingers encompassed the whole of her abdomen and the life within. She would give him what others had not, and she smiled up at him.

  “I have no regrets. I’m no fool, Alex. I knew my choices. My only concern was that I make the right one for you. I didn’t want you saddled with a wife you didn’t want. There never was any question of your being the husband I have always desired. I just didn’t know if I could be strong enough to make you love me too.”

  Alex didn’t smile. He wanted to believe she had chosen him above all others, that she would have continued to refuse him against all odds had she not loved him. This was what she was saying to him, and softened by the knowledge that she had come to him first, his heart opened enough to trust her words. Their nights together could not be a lie. The child between them might be proof of his prowess in bed, but Evelyn’s promises of a life together were the proof of her love. He needed no more than that.

  Bending over, Alex kissed her cheek, then her brow, then nuzzled softly at her ear. “Heaven help me, but I think I believe you, little tyrant. I cannot imagine what you see in an ogre like me, but for what it’s worth, I love you too much to ever believe otherwise. Make a fool of me as you will, my lady, you have the power. My love is too mad to believe any ill of you.”

  Evelyn closed her eyes in an expression of relief. Then a smile formed as she touched his jaw and arched to welcome him.

  They succumbed to temptation, no longer fighting the love and the need that had brought them together. It was a long time before either one of them remembered the unopened letter on the desk.

  Lying with one hand behind his head and the other around his wife, Alex stared up at the posts of his Yankee bed and wondered if he must open the missive before morning. For the first time in his life, he felt complete, and he had no desire to disturb this sense of belonging. He rubbed at Evelyn’s soft breast, and she sighed and snuggled closer to him.

  Only the memory of the charges against her and the retribution they had defied by running away kept him uneasy. Justice was slow, and he had not yet succeeded in forcing a court of appeal to consider the case. What if the letter were some kind of warning?

  Evelyn grumbled when Alex extricated himself from the covers. Pulling the cover to her chin, she propped herself on one arm and watched as he lit a branch of candles and perused the letter. He passed the letter to her. “I’m sorry, Evelyn,” was all he said.

  The words blurred and jumbled together at she read them. She forced herself to reread the warehouse manager’s meticulous penmanship until she better grasped the missive’s contents. Then she folded the letter and laid it beside the candles.

  “Why, Alex? My uncle never liked me. Why would he stand before a troop of his majesty’s soldiers and refuse to let them confiscate my warehouse?”

  In answer, Alex crossed the room to the desk, pushed a hidden mechanism, and opened a concealed panel. Producing a packet of papers, he returned to the bed and handed them to her before climbing back in bed and wrapping his arms around her.

  “Guilt, I imagine, love. He knew he was responsible for your arrest. He didn’t wish you to lose the one thing that belonged to your father after all he had done to you. Perhaps loneliness gave him a conscience at the last. I’m here to admit that it can gnaw at a man’s insides.”

  Evelyn opened the packet he’d given her and glanced at the summary of the contents, then at the names and signatures on the contracts and certificates that proved the ownership of the companies shipping the illegal goods. “My uncle and my lawyer. They did this to me. Why?”

  Alex removed the evidence from her hands. “I don’t think they meant for you to get involved. They just wanted you out of the way so they could continue their profitable smuggling operation. But you proved more intransigent than they anticipated. I am fairly certain they’re the ones responsible for tricking us into the inn. Once we were married and out of the country, they thought they would gain the control they needed.”

  “They had me arrested,” she said bitterly. “I’ll never forgive the humiliation. Why did you not tell me sooner? I thought Thomas was my friend. Why didn’t you warn me?”

  Alex pulled her down against the pillows. “I tried to warn you, but I didn’t want to turn you against your family. I know what it’s like to be without family. I think I had convinced your uncle to get out of the business. There seemed no point in involving your aunt and cousin in scandal and possibly losing all that they possessed. And I knew Everett had the power to have your charges dismissed eventually. Just holding the evidence seemed a deterrent to further illegal activity. I didn’t foresee the Admiralty going so far beyond its authority as to confiscate a child’s trust.”

  “And Uncle George died trying to prevent that? I can scarcely credit it. What can we do now?” Weary, sleepy beyond measure, Evelyn curled into her husband’s embrace and accepted his high-handed methods of protecting her. She would have done the same.

  “The apoplexy could have taken him anytime. I think your aunt will be proud to know that he died trying to protect your interests. We’ll not tell her the rest. But the evidence in that packet should be sufficient to convince any court in the land of your innocence, or at least establish reasonable doubt as to your guilt. The warehouse may be tied up in legalities for a while, but it will belong to Jacob one day. You need not fear that.”

  “They will go after Thomas and the rest of the men on that list,” she murmured as she slipped down beside him.

  “They’re not our concern. Go to sleep, love.” Alex pressed a kiss to her brow as her eyes closed. “I will send messages to your mother and aunt in the morning.”

  “Will you send someone for me too when the time comes for the vote on the Act? I want to be there.” Sleepily she kissed his shoulder.

  “I shall hire a stable of message boys to gallop about all day. Go to sleep or we’ll wake junior.”

  “Alexander Hampton II,” she whispered.

  “Brat.”

  She replied with a giggle.

  ***

  Alex was gone before Evelyn woke the next day. She suffered none of the nausea that she had been warned about, but she indulged in lethargy until she remembered the letter. She had better write to her mother with more details.

  Alex had left the packet with the evidence on the desk. Evelyn wondered if Thomas had really thought her so lacking in sense that she would not read these papers before handing them over to him. Or did he not believe his guilt was traceable?

  Pulling out the papers, Evelyn read them over again. The name Thomas Henderson appeared in several places, usually with her uncle’s name. As her uncle’s attorney, Thomas would be expected to draw up and witness many of these documents. That didn’t mean he necessarily knew that the operations were illegal. He was partial owner of several of the businesses involved in smuggling, but there were many other owners.

  If her uncle ran them, as she suspected he would, then it was possible his attorney was innocent. Her uncle had been the customs officer. The various ship owners and captains represented here would know the illegality of the goods they carried. A lawyer would normally be left innocent of their nefarious dealings. Her father had trusted Thomas, and she had never seen him commit a dishonest act in all the years they had worked together.

  She owed him a warning.

  Returning the packet to the desk, Evelyn went down to breakfast. She explained the contents of Alex’s urgent correspondence to Deirdre. The dowager agreed a letter should be sent to Mrs. Wellington. She wasn’t quite so happy about one to Thomas Henderson but conceded just a note should be harmless.

  Evelyn thought if he were innocent, he might call on Alex for information. If he were guilty, well, he had stood by her side too often not to give him a fair chance. It was more than
she had been given, but she had room in her heart to be indulgent these days.

  She whipped out a hasty warning.

  It had not occurred to her that Thomas would plead for an audience. A few hours after she’d sent her note, Evelyn stared with dismay at his message begging to talk with her. As a friend and countryman, she simply couldn’t ignore Henderson’s request. Smuggling was practically considered a legitimate trade in the colonies.

  Sighing, she penned a reply assigning a place and time to meet. Alex didn’t want the man in the house, and she understood that. So, she would bring Margaret into town with her. They could have tea and some of those delightful bakery cakes the girl loved. When Thomas arrived, it would take but a minute to explain she could be of no further help.

  Margaret was eager for the outing. The weather was still cold, but a hint of sun dispelled the dreariness of old snow and gray clouds of chimney smoke. They had heavy mantles for warmth and high wooden pattens to keep their shoes from the mud.

  Families were returning to the city for the spring season of parties and routs, but the streets weren’t yet crowded. The Hampton carriage with its noble crest halted behind a black hackney outside the bakery. Evelyn instructed the coachman to return within the half-hour.

  When the landau pulled away, Evelyn took a deep breath to steady her nerves. The scents of fresh-baked cakes kindled her appetite. She was learning to enjoy having the leisure to come and go as she pleased. The work Alex brought home for her was interesting but left time for shopping when the mood took her.

  Strangely content despite the unpleasant news from Boston, Evelyn smiled at her stepdaughter and started across the street to the bakery.

  In the next instant an arm like a steel bar wrapped around her neck. Margaret screeched and attacked Evelyn’s captor with reticule and parasol, but the man seemed impervious to her trifling blows. He closed a hard hand over Evelyn’s mouth. She feared for the safety of her throat when he yanked her backward toward the hackney.