Defiant Impostor

by Miriam Minger

  “You shouldn’t be saying such things to me,” she objected, trying to twist free of his grasp. “I’m married to another man, Dominick … in love with another man!”

  “Perhaps,” he said silkily, forcing her to face him. “But if anything should ever happen, Camille, know that I would still want you for my wife, despite that you broke my heart. I will always love you. Never forget that.”

  What did he mean … if anything should ever happen? Susanna wondered, although she had a terrible inkling she knew exactly what he was talking about. Fear clogged her throat again, not for herself but for the man she loved more than life.

  “You are very kind to think of me, Dominick,” she somehow managed to reply, hoping not to give him the impression that she suspected the true purpose lurking in his murderous heart. “But I really should be getting back to the house.”

  She wanted to run as fast as her legs would carry her! She wanted to find Adam at once and tell him what she had just heard, warn him, protect him. He had been right! Dominick was plotting to kill him!

  “Very well,” Dominick said with obvious reluctance, finally releasing her. “I’m so glad we had this time to talk … to share our deepest feelings. Again, my dearest, don’t forget what I said.”

  “I won’t,” she murmured, his frightening words burning into her brain.

  “Perhaps, then, you will want to enlighten me, my love. I seem to have missed much of your conversation while looking for you.”

  “Adam!” Her heart pitching in her breast, Susanna whirled to find him standing only a few feet from them. It was so dark she couldn’t read his face, but she could easily interpret his wide-legged stance, the set of his broad shoulders, and his furious tone.

  “A good evening to you, Mrs. Thornton,” Dominick said smoothly, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. “I enjoyed our walk immensely.” He didn’t deign to say a word to Adam but walked right past him toward the house.

  “Adam… I can explain,” she began, but he cut her off with a curt wave of his hand.

  “I already know. You were too warm so you came outside to get some air and who should you find but Dominick, right?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly what happened. I didn’t want to walk with him in the garden, but he took my arm and wouldn’t let me go—”

  “Save your lies, Camille,” he interrupted harshly, grabbing her forearm more cruelly than Dominick had held her. “I don’t want to hear any more. Remember? I know what a mistress of deception you are. I should have known that the moment you heard Dominick was at Westover you would conjure up some way to speak with him alone. And how expertly you accomplished it. You fooled even me. Now come on.”

  “Wh-where are we going?” she asked in confusion, running to keep up with him as he strode with her around the house toward the driveway.

  “Home to Briarwood. I’m sure Elias is waiting for us with the carriage by now, our bags loaded.”

  “But why, Adam? What about the ball … and the festivities tomorrow, the picnic brunch and then the horse races? The Byrds prepared a lovely guest room for us—”

  “I’m sure by now it’s been offered to someone else. I gave Mr. Byrd and his wife our excuses after I discovered Dominick was also missing from the game room. I told them you weren’t feeling well and that I thought it best we leave at once. I had already concluded that you were with that bastard, plotting against me. I had only to find you.”

  Thoroughly shaken by his irrational accusation, Susanna nonetheless attempted to reason with him as he hurried her toward their waiting carriage.

  “Adam, you’re not making any sense. I would never plot with Dominick against you!” She lowered her voice as they passed some guests strolling along the lantern-lit walkway in front of the house. “Please listen to me. He forced me into the garden. He told me how disappointed he was that I had married you, how I should have been his bride, not yours, and that he loved me.”

  “How touching.”

  “No, you don’t understand. He told me that if anything ever happened, he would still want me to become his wife. Adam, look at me! He meant that if anything should happen to you … you were right about him! I think he’s planning to kill you—”

  “And no doubt he assured you that it wouldn’t be long before you were freed from your forced marriage, didn’t he, Camille?” Adam lifted her into the coach with such anger that she fell hard against the seat. Joining her, he slammed the door with jarring finality as the carriage jolted into motion. “Is that what your precious Dominick meant when he told you so reassuringly not to forget what he had said … and you answered that you wouldn’t?”

  Susanna shook her head numbly, seeing that it was futile to argue with him. His fury had driven him beyond reason. She should have known that if he saw her with Dominick, he would think the worst.

  “Did you tell him that I was seeking revenge against him?” he demanded, not bothering to keep his voice down as the golden light spilling from Westover’s many windows and the merry strains of a country dance faded into the distance.

  “No.”

  “You’ve never believed a thing I’ve told you about Dominick, have you? Not a single blessed word. No doubt you think I earned the scars on my body from my own insolence and disrespect for my gracious, aristocratic employer!”

  Susanna couldn’t answer for the sudden tears choking her. How could she ever have believed Adam might grow to love her? His behavior now proved that he hated her. Why else would he say and think such terrible things about her?

  “God help me, woman, you will see on Monday that I have told you the truth! You’re going to accompany me to Raven’s Point with my attorney and witness the downfall Dominick Spencer has brought upon himself through his wretched excess and incalculable cruelty. Then perhaps you will finally understand that plotting alongside that monster and harboring any hope that he might yet become your husband would have brought you nothing but ruin!”

  As tears tumbled down Susanna’s flushed cheeks, Adam drew her roughly against him, his hard lips covering hers in a crushing kiss. Desire flared hot within her as acute as the bitter pain in her heart, and when he lifted her skirts and dragged her onto his lap so that she now faced him, her stocking-clad legs spread wide and straddling him, she knew that he meant to take her right there in the carriage.

  His tongue ravaging her mouth, his panting breaths as ragged as her own, she heard the impatient tearing of fabric as her lower body was made bare to him. She felt him working at the flap of his breeches, the back of his hand brushing her inner thighs. Then he guided his massive arousal to that slick, hot place that despite his callous haste was crying out for him, and lifted her to receive him, impaling her body.

  “Dammit, woman, you are my wife. No one else shall have you!” he swore against her lips, thrusting inside her even as she desperately bore down to meet him.

  Their thunderous, shared release was instantaneous and overwhelming, their cries of ecstasy and anguish drowned out by the sharp clattering of hooves and the deafening rumble of wheels upon the road leading back to Briarwood.

  Chapter 23

  “Look at it, the place hasn’t changed at all … not even after five long years,” Adam said, speaking not so much to a pale, silent Susanna or to William Booth, his equally silent attorney, as he was to himself.

  His body tense and his pulse racing, he stared out the window as the lumbering carriage approached the huge, columned house which stood at the center of Raven’s Point, each sight and sound sickeningly familiar.

  He took in everything. The small slave children hoeing weeds in the tobacco fields alongside adults, their infrequent cries of hunger silenced by sharp cuffs from fearful parents or neighbors. The overseers on their snorting horses, cracking their whips.

  The slaves’ tattered clothes and half-starved forms, and as he could imagine so well even though the poor wretches were too far away to be seen clearly, their gaunt faces and hauntingly empty eyes. An eerie familiar silence hung
like a funeral pall over the main grounds as the coach eased to a stop in front of the mansion. All around them slaves with bowed heads and wearily sagging shoulders were going about their daily tasks, each one as afraid as the other to make a sound for fear of drawing attention to himself.

  Only one thing was different, Adam noted, drawing a deep, steadying breath as he mentally prepared himself for the long-awaited moment of his revenge—that hollow rattle of chains as a line of shuffling convicts made its way to the fields. Yet their anxious silence was the same as that of the black slaves whose endless toil they shared.

  “Are you ready, Mr. Booth?” he asked grimly, turning his attention to the bespectacled attorney whom James Cary had long trusted with important matters of business and upon whom Adam now relied.

  “Quite, Mr. Thornton. Eager to see this matter set upon its course.”

  “As am I,” Adam replied under his breath, his gaze moving to Susanna who sat directly across from him, her eyes downcast. Noting her pallor against the azure blue of her silk brocade gown, he felt resentment flare inside him.

  He imagined her wan cheeks were due to her fear of what was about to happen to Dominick, which probably also explained why she had hardly spoken to him since they had left Westover so abruptly late Saturday night. No doubt her hatred of him had multiplied tenfold, far outweighing her pity, because she had made no more efforts to win his favor.

  They had scarcely seen each other until this morning, Susanna confining her activities to the house and he spending most of his time in the fields surveying the crops and then sleeping alone in his office, although he had longed for at least the sensual comfort of her body. Even that he had denied himself, deciding resolutely that he would not hold her in his arms again until he sensed she fully realized that everything he had told her about Dominick Spencer was true.

  “I can imagine you might prefer to remain in the carriage, Camille, but I’d like you at my side,” Adam told her as a young footman hurried down the steps to meet them. “We won’t be going into the house. I see no need for any pretense of civility with Mr. Spencer.”

  When Susanna just nodded, he wondered what the attorney must think of the strained silence between them, then he shrugged it off. He had explained to the man while at Briarwood that she wanted to come along today, believing that what he was doing was right, but that she might appear upset by the unpleasantness of the proceedings. That should suffice. And besides, he had other things to concern himself with right now.

  Adam turned to the footman who had swung open the door. “Is your master at home?”

  “Yes, but he’s still abed.”

  “No matter. Tell him that Mr. and Mrs. Adam Thornton are waiting for him outside, along with my attorney, Mr. Booth.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Thornton.”

  As the boy disappeared into the house, Adam helped Susanna down, and Mr. Booth followed. Imagining that Dominick would choose to keep them waiting a good while just to spite him, Adam was surprised when the planter walked outside the front door a short ten minutes later, eyeing them suspiciously where they stood at the base of the broad stone steps.

  If Dominick had been abed when informed of their unexpected arrival, his well-groomed appearance gave no evidence of it. His attire was impeccable, every curl in his full powdered wig in place. Adam surmised that the planter had made all haste for his wife’s benefit, and with that thought came fresh resentment.

  “What a surprise,” Dominick said, making no move to come down to greet them. His chilling blue eyes flickered over them one by one, settling appreciatively upon Susanna. “You look particularly lovely this morning, Mrs. Thornton. It is a pleasure to see you again so soon, although I cannot say the same for your husband.”

  Adam squeezed her arm as a reminder for her to say nothing. He hated the way Dominick’s icy gaze was raking slowly, almost possessively, over her. Infuriated, it was all he could do to keep his voice steady.

  “This is not a social call, Spencer. Perhaps you have met my attorney, Mr. William Booth?”

  Affording the slightest nod to the lawyer, Dominick replied, “I held no illusion that your visit was of a friendly nature, Mr. Thornton. State your business and then get off my land.”

  “Not your land for much longer,” Adam stated bluntly, his blood drumming hot through his veins. At last the goal that had consumed and driven him for so long was come to fruition! “Within the last twelve days I have bought up the entirety of your debt from your many creditors. You now owe me a very substantial sum of money—”

  “You’ve what?” Dominick cut him off incredulously, his posture stiffening and his face gone a sickly shade of white. Clenching his fists, he advanced a step toward them. “What insane game are you playing?”

  “No game. Mr. Booth?”

  The attorney stepped forward, producing several documents from his leather valise.

  “Mr. Thornton is hereby suing you for full and complete payment of that amount, Mr. Spencer. The information is all here, if you would care to look at it.” When Dominick made no motion to take the papers held out to him, the attorney simply continued. “If Mr. Thornton does not receive the amount owed to him by noon tomorrow, you will be summoned before the county magistrate and your situation made public knowledge. I have every expectation that the court will find judgment in Mr. Thornton’s favor and sentence you to debtors’ prison, your possessions forfeited to him as payment.”

  His face now flushed in outrage, Dominick blurted, “You can’t do this to me—”

  “I can and I have,” Adam interrupted bitterly, “and don’t think that selling Raven’s Point will save you. Even if you auctioned everything—slaves, land, horses, even that emerald necklace—it wouldn’t be enough to repay what you owe me. You might have been able to stave off your separate creditors with such a ploy, and perhaps keep yourself afloat until you found some gullible heiress to wed” —he glanced angrily at Susanna— “but nothing will save you now, Spencer. Nothing. Your single debt to me is too large.”

  “You forget I have friends,” Dominick said, descending another few steps. “Very powerful friends who serve with me on the governor’s council and in the House of Burgesses. They’ll grant me loans.”

  “You deceive yourself,” Adam scoffed. “Once it becomes known how much you owe me and what a notorious spendthrift you are, your so-called friends” — he spat out derisively— “will soon realize they might as well toss their money down a bottomless hole, for it will never be returned to them.”

  “What of my tobacco?” Dominick added, desperation creeping into his defensive tone. “It’s the best crop I’ve grown in years. It should bring me the market’s highest price—”

  “Which still won’t be enough to save you. Fool, look at the figures cited on those documents! You seem to have conveniently forgotten how much altogether you owed your creditors. I’m surprised they hadn’t already sued you for payment, but they probably assumed a gentleman of your high standing could always produce the money. And I’m sure none of them realized how much you had already borrowed from other shipping firms. If they had, you would never have received another penny! Once the magnitude of your indebtedness is made public, I can expect they’ll be thanking me profusely for paying them what you owed!”

  Dominick’s enraged voice rose to a fever pitch. “Damn you, Thornton, you’re leaving me no way to redeem myself!”

  Adam had never known a more grimly satisfying moment, his hatred for this man so acute he was almost quaking from its intensity.

  “Exactly. You’ll get no mercy from me. That’s what you offered my father when you whipped him to death for stealing food for his family, and my mother when you raped her, destroying her will to survive, and the countless slaves you’ve murdered out of sheer malice.” His throat became so tight he could barely finish. “That’s what you offered me, you goddamned bastard, each time you brought your studded whip down across my back. I haven’t forgotten your laughter when you cut off part of m
y foot and threw it to the hounds who’d tracked me.”

  Her head pounding, Susanna gasped, sickened. She glanced at Adam in horror, but his burning gaze was on Dominick, and she couldn’t help thinking if expressions could kill …

  “So it’s revenge then, is it?” Dominick demanded.

  “Call it what you will,” Adam answered with deadly quiet. “I prefer to think of it as justice.”

  A dangerously charged silence ensued, and then Dominick drew himself up, his eyes leveling on Susanna.

  “It appears you’ve been sorely fooled, my dear. You thought this common scum married you out of love, but you can plainly see what he’s been doing with your money. You’re nothing but the instrument of his petty vengeance. You would do well to remember that along with everything else I told you the other night.”

  Suddenly loathing this man with every ounce of her being, Susanna lifted her chin and met his eyes.

  “Is it any worse, Dominick, than what you would have done to me had I married you? Sold my estate to pay your debts and then wantonly gambled away whatever of my fortune remained? That would certainly have been an interesting way to demonstrate your own professed love. No, if I have been used for revenge against a lying monster like you, I consider the money very well spent.”

  As the planter’s perfect features contorted with incredulity and rage, Susanna felt the warmth of Adam’s gaze upon her. Overcome anew by the anguish she had suffered since Saturday night, she desperately hoped her words had finally convinced him that she would never have plotted with Dominick against him.