Defiant Impostor

by Miriam Minger

  As a collective gasp went up from the assembled gentlemen, she jumped up from her chair, her lovely, treacherous face gone white.

  “Dear God, no! What are we going to do?”

  Adam grabbed her arm and began to pull her through the crowd. “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to get there …” He glanced over his shoulder at Matthew. “We’ll take your carriage, Grymes, but I’ll send it back to you as soon as we get to Briarwood.”

  “All—all right, Mr. Thornton.”

  “Yes, yes, of course!” she agreed, hastening beside him. “Oh, this is terrible!”

  “Yes, it is,” he said, knowing his grip was cruelly tight upon her arm.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Thomas Dandridge called out, easily catching up to them on his long legs while the other gentlemen were still gathered in shock beneath the willow. “We could ride along—”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” Adam said, keeping up their frantic pace as they rounded the corner of the house to the driveway, which was lined with carriages. “The fire’s been put out, but Miss Cary should be there. Some of her servants were injured—”

  “Oh, Adam, no!” she cried. “Who?”

  “We’ll talk about it on the way. Just get in,” he ordered, his loud voice jarring awake the Grymes’s coachman, who had apparently been napping inside the carriage. As Adam swung open the door, the sheepish man jumped down with a mumbled apology and scrambled into the driver’s seat while she was lifted up into the coach.

  “Let’s hurry then, Adam. Oh, please, let’s hurry!”

  “We will,” he replied grimly. He wheeled on Thomas, who stood helplessly nearby, while some of the other gentlemen were now rushing around the house toward them, Matthew in the lead and, not surprisingly, an openmouthed Celeste bringing up the rear.

  “Tell everyone what I told you, Dandridge. The situation is under control, the fire is out. There’s no need for anyone to leave the races. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mr. Thornton. I’ll tell them.”

  “Good. Please give our regrets to the Tates.” He glanced in the shadowed interior of the carriage to find the object of his wrath sitting at the edge of the seat, her face stricken, then added, “And give Miss Cary’s regrets to Mr. Dominick Spencer. I believe she might have been expecting him today.” Hearing her startled gasp, Adam shouted to the driver as he climbed into the coach and slammed the door shut. “Briarwood! With all haste!”

  The coach jolted into motion and he was almost thrown against her, but he regained his balance and took the opposite seat, breathing hard.

  “Wh-what did you mean … that I was expecting Mr. Spencer?” she asked in alarm.

  “Only a rumor, really,” he said tightly, even in his fury aware of how truly beautiful she was in her exquisite gown.

  “Rumor?”

  “Yes, something about a betrothal announcement.”

  She blanched, and he could see in her strained expression her effort to maintain control. Yet her gaze held more than a glimmer of fear, and he knew then that she suspected he had discovered the truth.

  “You … you are mistaken, Adam. We’re going to announce our engagement next Saturday at Briarwood.”

  “Funny. The rumor I heard was that you and Dominick Spencer were going to announce your plans to marry today. Oh, yes, and something about you spending several hours with him yesterday at Raven’s Point to make the arrangements—”

  “That’s a lie!” she cried. “Surely you don’t believe it, Adam. Who told you? Celeste? She would fabricate something so absurd.”

  “Perhaps Elias and Corliss can enlighten us further when we arrive home,” he said, knowing he was tormenting her and thinking how much she deserved every bit of it, and more. “No wonder they seemed so unusually quiet after your long day of shopping in Yorktown. It’s unpleasant when one is forced to lie for another. Of course, you know all about lying, don’t you? You seem to be a master of it.”

  “Adam, I can explain,” she said, tears swimming in her eyes. “I can explain!”

  “Say what you will, but don’t cry for me again,” he said bitterly, hardening his heart against her. “I promise you, such a ploy will not work with me this time.”

  “I—I went to his house to return the emerald necklace, that’s all. You must believe me! I knew how much you wanted me to be rid of his gifts, and I thought that that would please you. I just didn’t know how to tell you that I had gone there. I know you don’t like him.”

  “No, I don’t like him,” Adam agreed, “and I might have believed your pretty story if you had told it to me yesterday. But I’ll never believe anything you say again … Susanna Guthrie.”

  Her mouth fell open in stunned surprise. She remained silent for a long time, the carriage wheels rumbling and hooves thundering along the road the only sounds around them. Then she asked him in a small, monotone voice which he barely heard above the din, “Why did you call me that? I’m Camille. Camille Cary.”

  “That’s the last lie I’ll grant you, Susanna. Ever. Now, I’m going to have the driver stop this carriage on a side road off the main thoroughfare and we’re going to get out and take a walk. I want to hear every single word you have to tell me, and God help you, woman, it had better be the truth! If not, there’s a prison nearby in Williamsburg that would welcome a lying impostor like you with open arms.”

  Again she paused, clearly in shock, only to ask after another few interminable moments, “What … what of the fire? The servants who were injured?”

  “I lied,” he said, then, in shock himself, he began to laugh. The ragged sound held only raw pain.

  Chapter 17

  Susanna hurried with a grimly silent Adam past a densely wooded bend in the road, the Grymes’s waiting carriage and the bewildered coachman vanishing from view.

  She scarcely noticed the prickly brambles snagging her silk gown, or the birds overhead twittering nervously at their sudden appearance. Nor did she feel the warmth of the early-afternoon sun, which was intense despite the dappled shade and light breeze. All she knew was that her careful deception had suddenly been revealed and she was going to pay.

  She had no idea what was to become of her. Would Adam turn her over to the county constable in Williamsburg, as he had threatened in the coach? What would they do to her when they determined her crime? Lock her in the pillory where she would be pelted with sticks, stones, and rotten eggs? Whip her at the post until her back was striped and bleeding? Hang her?

  “This is far enough,” Adam said, his harsh voice causing her to flinch as he caught her arm and abruptly stopped her. “The coachman can’t hear us this far away.” His expression was deadly serious, although his arresting brown eyes were filled with torment. “Camille died aboard the Charming Nancy, didn’t she, Susanna?”

  How strange it was not to be addressed as Camille, she thought, remaining dazedly mute. Yet it was almost a relief to be herself again. She had always known deep in her heart that her masquerade had only a slim chance of succeeding, that someone might discover she was an impostor. She had done her best to fulfill her promise to Camille … but then again, had she?

  How had she given herself away? Everything had been going so perfectly up until this morning, when she had sensed that something was bothering him. Had he known her real identity even before he heard about her and Dominick?

  “Dammit, Susanna, answer me! Did Camille die from the fever or did you murder her to suit your own selfish ends?”

  “What?” she exclaimed. Fierce indignation swept her at this preposterous charge. “How … how dare you ask me such a thing! Camille Cary and I were friends, the best of friends!” Realizing she had just admitted to him that she was an impostor, she clamped her mouth shut. Yet, astonishingly, she didn’t regret the revelation. She hadn’t felt so much like her true self since she’d arrived in Virginia.

  “Friends have killed friends, and scheming servants their hapless employers for much less than what you had to gain,” he co
untered. “The richest tobacco plantation on the York—”

  “Is that what you’re going to tell the constable?” she demanded, finding it exhilarating that she could finally vent her feelings after weeks of keeping them to herself. Considering the bleakness of her situation, what did it matter? She had nothing left to lose…

  Except, perhaps, her life.

  “I might if you don’t start talking, Susanna,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Now answer my question.”

  “Of course I didn’t murder her,” she replied, her resentment tempered not so much by his threat as by her recollections of those last terrible days aboard the Charming Nancy. “Camille died from the fever. She was sick for over two weeks… and then she was gone.”

  “How was the death recorded?”

  “I gave them my name, Susanna Jane Guthrie. It’s what Camille wanted me to do.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “A few days before she died, she asked me to take her place in Virginia if anything happened to her. She must have known how sick she was …” Susanna sighed heavily, remembering their painful conversation as vividly as if it had taken place only yesterday. “She wanted me to become Camille Cary, to inherit Briarwood for her. She insisted we looked so much alike her plan couldn’t fail. I tried to tell her that it wouldn’t work, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She made me swear.”

  Adam snorted in derision, his expression incredulous. “You expect me to believe that? Why would anyone give such a vast inheritance to someone who wasn’t even a family member? You’re nothing but a common waiting-maid, for God’s sakes!”

  So that’s all she was now in his eyes, Susanna thought, his callous words cutting deeply. It was obvious his professed love had vanished the instant he realized she was not Camille Cary. Oh, if only her own overwhelming feelings for him would fade so quickly!

  No, it was just as well this way, she amended vehemently, berating herself for ever having believed he might care and shoving away any thoughts of love. Bastard! It was about time they started looking at each other from the same level … hired man to lady’s maid.

  “I told you Camille and I were friends, almost like sisters,” she insisted, her outrage mounting anew. “Camille truly cared about me, cared about what would happen to me if she didn’t make it to Virginia—”

  “How touching,” Adam broke in sarcastically, trying to forget what Polly had told him about the woman she thought had been Camille weeping so miserably at the burial. “But I don’t believe you. When you realized that Camille wasn’t going to recover, you saw an opportunity that you couldn’t resist and you took it! The chance for a lady’s maid to become a real lady.”

  “That’s not true! It wasn’t like that at all!”

  “It must have been! No one would give away so much wealth to a servant—”

  “Camille would, and she did! She was the most gentle, the most kind and generous person I’ve ever known. She never thought about herself. That’s why she got struck down with the fever. One of the rare times she left our cabin, she tried to help a little boy who had taken sick, but then she caught it herself. The boy died, his parents … and then Camille.”

  As Adam briefly pondered Susanna’s impassioned words, he had to admit that, however farfetched her story sounded, everything he had heard from James Cary about Camille’s sweet and giving nature indicated that she very well might have done such a thing. Then another thought struck him.

  “What of Lady Redmayne? She’s the rightful heir, the only one remaining. Surely Camille realized that Briarwood would go to her aunt if she died—”

  “Of course she did!” Susanna interrupted him, her brilliant eyes flashing emerald fire. “That’s the other reason why she wanted me to have her inheritance, probably the most important one. Camille thought she was being selfish, but she wasn’t. She came up with such a plan out of love for her father, knowing how hard and long he and her grandfather had worked to build Briarwood out of Virginia’s wilderness and how much they had loved the land. She knew that her aunt hated the colonies and would never come here to live. If Lady Redmayne ever inherited Briarwood, the plantation would be sold outright!”

  That much was probably true, Adam grudgingly granted her, having heard from James Cary of the deep resentment harbored against the planter and his late father by Lady Redmayne. James had told him that the stubborn baroness had refused his every invitation to visit Briarwood, saying she would rather die than ever set foot in such a vile, uncivilized place.

  “I was Camille’s only hope to save everything her family had worked and struggled for,” Susanna continued, her chin raised defiantly, “but now Lady Redmayne’s going to find out the truth, and where will that leave you and your own schemes, Mr. Adam Thornton? You won’t have Briarwood, that’s for sure—not that I would have let you have it, even if you hadn’t discovered who I was. Either way, you’d find yourself soothing your grasping ambition with some lesser planter’s daughter, like Celeste Grymes!”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded, stunned by her vehemence.

  “Surely you can imagine! You’re an intelligent man to have come so far! Did you really think that I, as Camille Cary, could have ever married you, a hired man, a paid worker, a former indentured servant? Perhaps, as a high and mighty crop master, you might be good enough to wed some other planters’ daughters, but not one who owned the richest plantation on the York!”

  Adam felt as if he had just been slammed hard in the chest, the tide of their heated exchange suddenly turned against him. “I had James Cary’s permission, his wholehearted approval of the match—”

  “So you say. But how do I know you didn’t seize upon Mr. Cary’s death to better your own station in life? A hired man becomes one of the Tidewater’s wealthiest planters. What a coup! How do I know that everything you told me wasn’t a lie? You have no proof that he gave you his blessing, Adam, as I have no proof that Camille wanted me to have Briarwood. Now, where does that bloody well leave us?”

  She was right, Adam thought grimly as a charged silence rose between them, broken by the distant restless neighing from the Grymes’s matched bays. He had no proof.

  Yet had she really believed that everything he had said to her was a lie? Even that he loved her? No, that couldn’t be true! He would have sworn that she cared about him … he had seen a softness in her eyes whenever she looked at him. He had felt it in the way she returned his kisses, melted in his embrace, called his name at the height of her passion

  What the hell does it matter now? he railed at himself, attempting to repress his powerful feelings. He had obviously been wrong about her.

  This manipulative, calculating wench was incapable of love, incapable of thinking of anyone but herself. He didn’t believe her story for a minute. Any woman snobbish enough to reject him just because of his background would be too insensitive to honor the wishes of a dying heiress. Susanna’s greed lay at the heart of this charade, and nothing else. She might have been an actress born to the stage, she had deceived him so completely. Well, there were ways to make her pay, to hurt her as much as he was suffering right now. It was time to think of the revenge that might still be within his grasp.

  Yet one agonizing question still burned in his mind. He had to know the answer before their discussion went any farther.

  “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt at the beginning, rather than accept my courtship and play me for a fool? When I think of all the time we spent together …” He swallowed hard, his anger almost choking him. “Dammit, woman, you let me kiss you! Hold you! Touch you! You led me to believe that you wanted to marry me, that you might even lov—”

  Adam caught himself just in time, knowing he had revealed too much already. He swore in that moment that the last thing he would ever tell her again was that he loved her, even when he knew that he still did. It didn’t seem to make any difference to his heart whether she was an heiress or a waiting-maid. God help him, he still wante
d her, and not just for his revenge. That made him an even bigger fool.

  “Everything you said to me, everything you did was a lie,” he went on harshly when she still hadn’t answered him, her eyes large in a lovely face grown pale. “Your promises, your kisses, your tears, the other night in your bed … Damn you, why did you lead me on? Why?”

  Unsettled by the pain in his eyes, Susanna nonetheless told herself that it was just his male pride which had been sorely bruised and nothing more. How could it be? He had made it clear he didn’t care about her, Susanna Jane Guthrie, a common waiting-maid. In fact, he seemed to hate her for what she had done to him. He probably had every intention of throwing her in prison no matter what she said.

  “I had no choice,” she finally replied. “I didn’t know anything about tobacco or running a plantation, and until I found the proper husband, I needed someone to manage the place. If you had known the truth, you would have left Briarwood.”

  “It’s as simple as that?” he asked, his tone incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  He gave a short laugh, but it held no amusement. “So you chose Dominick Spencer for your proper husband.”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “He’s wealthy and respected. One of the governor’s councilors. Lady Redmayne taught Camille that she must marry someone who would enrich her fortune, and since I was here in her place, that is what I fully intended to do. Marry wisely, like Camille asked me to—the richest, most prominent gentleman I could find. I knew I didn’t have much time, especially when you began to press me. That’s why I went to Raven’s Point yesterday and arranged with Dominick to announce our betrothal at the Tates’. He had already said he wanted to marry me.”

  “And when did he do that?” Adam queried, a tic flashing along his jaw.

  “At my welcome ball, during the first dance.”

  “How like him not to waste a moment in pursuit of his unsuspecting quarry,” he muttered.

  “I … I imagined that hearing the news today might upset you. I always sensed that you didn’t like him, probably because you used to work for him. But there wasn’t any way to spare you …”