by Pamela Aares
“I’ve come to see your master,” Michael said with as much equanimity as he could muster.
Unlike Michael, Iago wasn’t a deportee due to any fault of his own. Working for Gabriel was just part of being a heavenly imp. If Iago performed well in his duties, he’d graduate in due time and become an angel. But that didn’t mean Michael had to like him. The imp had ratted on him during the Renaissance. Sure, it was the imp’s job, but he didn’t have to do it with such zeal.
Iago’s lips curved into a smile, and Michael thought he saw delight in his eyes. Why he would be delighted to see Michael, Heaven only knew.
“He’s in the library, sir. I’ll announce you.”
“Hardly any need for that.” Gabriel’s voice bellowed from the hallway. “That blasted knocker is enough to wake the dead.” He laughed at his own joke as Michael strode across the foyer to clasp hands with him.
“Well, well, well ... ” Gabriel grinned. “I can only imagine what might make you seek me out. In trouble again?”
“And hello to you, too.” Michael laughed. “Yes. Well, no. That is, not yet.”
Gabriel motioned him into an elegant library and away from the imp’s eavesdropping ears.
“Drink?” Gabriel asked as he poured himself a brandy.
“You know spirits and I don’t mix well, so I’d rather not.” He was used to Gabriel’s good-hearted teasing, but it irked Michael that in the earthly realm Gabriel nearly always had the upper hand. Except for one time last century. Michael smiled as he remembered rescuing his fellow archangel from near disaster during the Revolution of 1789. Gabriel owed him one.
“Don’t tell me ... ” Gabriel allowed a slow smile to spread across his face. “There’s a forlorn damsel in distress. And you need my help to set her world right.” He raised a brow. “That about cover it?”
Michael half groaned, half laughed. “They should reassign us—much farther apart and with no intersection. You’re coming to know me too well, my friend.” He dropped into a wing-backed chair near the window. “And yes ... there is a damsel, as you put it. But it’s not what you think.”
“It never is, my boy, it never is.” He swirled his drink and narrowed his eyes to a leveling stare. “And it’s usually not what you think either.”
Michael had to grant him that. The last time Gabriel had helped him, Michael hadn’t seen the truth of the matter. Not until it was nearly too late. For him. For all of them. Without Gabriel’s help the situation would have been a catastrophe. But he didn’t have to rub it in.
“This is different,” Michael said. “There’s a young soldier who hasn’t returned from the war. His fiancée will be forced to marry a man she doesn’t love unless something miraculous happens in the next few weeks. And the man her father has chosen is vile, deceptively smooth and charming, but evil to his core. I wouldn’t wish him on the devil himself.”
“The devil,” Gabriel said with a smirk, “might make good use of such a creature. Don’t underestimate him.” He frowned at Michael. “But the future, may I remind you, is not ours to toy with—you’re meddling yet again.”
“Would you stop saying that—it’s highly irritating.” Meddling. Gabriel said the word as if it had fangs and would strike. Michael stood and paced the length of the library, then turned back to Gabriel.
“I do need your help—though I’d prefer not to grovel.” Better to cut right to the heart of it. “I need you to disembody, transfigure yourself in Salamanca, and find one Lord Darcy Hathloss.”
“Unfortunate name.” Gabriel’s eyes flickered with amusement.
Michael smiled. Gabriel might be an archangel, but he had a sharp mind and an ironic sense of humor to match it. If Michael were to be honest, he’d have to admit he liked him. In either realm he worked in, Gabriel was one of the few beings who met him square on. One could get mighty tired of all the scraping and bowing and deference.
“And why”—Gabriel smirked—“would I want to go to all this trouble, not to mention, go to Spain? Wasn’t the Inquisition sufficient to put you off the region for at least a millennium? God knows it was for me.”
It was true. They’d had an awful time of it in Spain. “This would be a quick visit,” Michael countered. “No politics involved. Find the man and get him back here, that’s it. I’ll take it from there.”
Michael slid his gaze from Gabriel’s and looked out the window, staring into the street bustling with the activities of everyday life.
“Am I missing something?” Gabriel prodded.
“Besides being the right thing to do,” Michael asserted, “it would also make the damsel’s dear friend, Jane, exquisitely happy. Don’t ask me why, but I want her to know happiness.”
Gabriel let out a long, slow whistle. “This wouldn’t be Miss Jane Austen, the newly minted authoress, would it? You know how I love complications.”
Michael knew he didn’t. And he knew from Gabriel’s comment that he’d been monitoring Michael’s activities once again.
But since matters of the heart were Gabriel’s soft spot, Michael also knew he couldn’t resist getting involved. It was one of the reasons Gabriel hadn’t successfully charted a smooth course and returned heavenward, although Michael suspected that the key reason was probably Michael himself. Gabriel seemed mighty keen on mentoring him and though he sometimes needed help regarding earthly matters, Michael didn’t like being another angel’s assignment. He stared into the crackling fire and Jane’s face rose before him, a smile dancing in her eyes. Suspicion dawned as he stared into the flames. Perhaps she had more to do with his current assignment than he knew. He didn’t like that either. He’d never liked surprises.
“I’d prefer what little privacy I can claim,” Michael parried. “She’s hardly any threat to our work.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Gabriel said, pouring another drink. “Save the rest for the trip and our triumphant return.”
“Our return? You forget I’m not to leave England before the War Office mission is over.”
“A minor restriction that I assure you I can dispense with. Besides, I’m not leaving you here on your own. We go together or we don’t go at all.”
It occurred to Michael that perhaps Gabriel was as bored with waiting as he was. Then he realized the implications of Gabriel’s offer.
“Am I to understand that the War Office mission is still some weeks away?”
Gabriel nodded.
Michael stiffened. This was just one more example of information being kept from him. But if the mission had been delayed, at least their adventure in Spain would help to pass the time.
“If we do rescue this fellow,” Gabriel said, “it’ll take at least a couple weeks to get back. No matter how many times I ask, it’s an annoying reality that I still can’t dematerialize humans as I can angels and imps.” He grinned slyly. “Remind me to negotiate that before my next assignment.”
Gabriel knew as well as he did that negotiating such a power was out of the question.
“In any case,” Gabriel continued, “we’ll just have to bump along the carriage routes and cross that blasted channel. That raises the stakes.” He glinted the challenge at Michael.
“I know—I’ll owe you one. Another one.” Seasickness was one of the disagreeable aspects of embodiment for Gabriel. But not being embodied himself, Michael had never endured the experience. In fact, he’d never considered the sensations that came along with embodiment, pleasant or not. Hadn’t cared. Not until his unsettling encounter with Jane.
“Saving you in Paris should count for something,” Michael volleyed.
“Good try. Let’s just say we’ll see, shall we? In the interim”—Gabriel bowed with rare solemnity—“well, you know the rules.”
Michael knew the rules, knew them all too well. It was the keeping of them that gave him fits.
Chapter Five
Anderley was only two hours from Chawton, although the road was rougher than Jane remembered. In spite of Lord Baringdon’s well-sprung
carriage, the journey jolted her bones. Serena chattered all the way, her spirits brighter than Jane had seen since Darcy had gone off to war.
If only she might truly be of help. If only Mr. Grace’s relations could find Darcy and ... Well, it was too much to surmise. She’d tacked a note on the door of the cottage, stating where she’d gone, hoping that if he heard something, anything, in the interim that he’d send word to Anderley. And perhaps secretly hoping that he’d contact her no matter what. She was being completely ludicrous, acting like an ingénue from one of her novels. Perhaps it was a peculiarity of a writer’s occupation. Whatever the reason for her behavior and irrational hoping, it disturbed and perplexed her, and both emotions were unsettling.
***
When Serena and Jane stepped out of the carriage at Anderley, the house was already buzzing with preparations for the upcoming house party. Servants scurried about with armloads of flowers for the main salon and goods for the kitchens. The house staff carted piles of linens up the staircases to prepare the guest rooms.
Serena helped Jane settle into a set of chambers near her own and then hurried into the gardens to seek out her mother. She found her determinedly pruning her favorite pink moss rosebush.
“Childers told me of our surprise houseguest.” Her mother smiled and waved her pruning shears at Serena. “How wonderful, my dear, to have Miss Austen with us for our party. Though you should have informed your father that you were traveling to Chawton. He was most displeased.” She turned back to her pruning. “I don’t suppose we must keep Miss Austen’s authorship a secret any longer, must we? It would so enhance our occasion to have her read from one of her books while she’s here.”
Serena let out a frustrated breath. The only thing her mother sought to enhance in this and every instance was her own prestige and place in society.
“That is entirely up to Jane, Mother. Please don’t press her. She’s very private about such things, as you know.”
But her mother cared little for other’s feelings. If she did, she wouldn’t be supporting Serena’s father in his scheme to marry her off to the vile Lord Rendin. Serena looked out over the carefully manicured gardens of Anderley. She’d loved to wander them as a child, to lose herself in the mazes of flowers, thinking of nothing more than where the goldfinch might find its next delight. It was the one time she’d felt that her mother truly loved her. But that was before she’d come of age. And well before she’d fallen in love with Darcy. Since then, Serena felt more like a commodity to be leveraged for family advantage than a beloved daughter. Lord and Lady Baringdon, like many of her friends’ parents, approached marriage like a business transaction. The fact that Lord Rendin claimed royal blood made him irresistible to them.
“Well then, Serena,” her mother said in her signature dulcet tone, “you are the perfect person to ask her. Certainly she would do so for you.”
Serena bit back her exasperation. As usual, her mother attended only to her own plans and thoughts.
“We’ve only just arrived, Mother. And as I said, Jane is private about such things. I think it unlikely.”
Her mother was all Lady Baringdon when she narrowed her eyes and tightened her lips.
Before her mother could press her further, Serena slipped back into the house. She practically tiptoed past the library; she was in no mood to face her father.
***
Jane allowed Serena to entice her into a walk through Anderley Park. The afternoon light filtered through the beech trees and danced in the whisper of a breeze rustling the leaves. Both the view and the sound proved soothing. At least to her.
Serena was still agitated.
“When I’m out here, under the sky and walking in the forest, I feel a life apart from all their maneuverings,” Serena sighed. “I feel nearly free. For precious moments I can almost forget my parents’ obsession with having me ‘situated,’ forget that I feel most days like a picture waiting to be hung in a gallery. If only my uncle’s will had not stipulated that I marry!”
She intertwined her fingers with Jane’s and led her along the path.
“I wish I were like you, Jane—you’ve found a way to live free from having to live according to other’s designs.”
It was true. Jane had a freedom most women would envy if they ever tasted it. But freedom had its own challenges. And its price.
“It’s a curse to have such a vast inheritance, Jane. Particularly one with the marriage stipulation that mine has. When men look at me they see their brilliant, well-funded futures, not me. I can practically hear them calculating.” She leaned her head close to Jane’s. “I never felt that way with Darcy.”
Jane stroked Serena’s arm. “You’re too much a creature of the heart to live easily in this world, Serena.” For a moment Jane considered what might happen if Mr. Grace’s relations failed to find Darcy, her heart heavy at the thought. “Is it possible,” she said hopefully, “that Lord Rendin is not as bad as you think?”
Serena glanced over her shoulder. “You shall have the immediate opportunity to judge for yourself, dear Jane.”
Jane turned and saw a rider approaching. He had a handsome appearance. But he rode as though he and his horse had entirely different notions of a pleasant outing, as if their motions could not synchronize. He galloped toward them, kicking up dust and barely reining in in time to keep from running them down.
“Your father said I might find you here, Lady Serena,” he said as he leapt off the horse and dropped the reins to the ground. He assessed Jane with an impolite stare. “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your friend.”
Jane stiffened at his rude tone. And he’d said the word friend with a suspicious snarl, she noted. Or was her prejudice misleading her?
“Jane, this is Lord Rendin. Lord Rendin, Miss Jane Austen.” Serena didn’t bother to hide her irritation.
“A friend of Serena’s is a friend of mine,” he said, his bow perfectly executed.
Serena bristled, and Jane couldn’t guess if it was due to his unctuous manner or his use of Serena’s Christian name.
“I rather think not, Lord Rendin. That choice is Miss Austen’s to distinguish.”
“Oh, come now, my dear.” He flashed what was meant to be a disarming smile, but to Jane’s eyes it appeared spiteful. “Of course we shall be friends. There’s every reason.”
Jane surveyed the man before her. He was handsome, nearly perfect in form. His broad shoulders tapered to a slim waist and all was supported by firmly muscled legs. Legs shown off to advantage by tight buckskins that couldn’t have been painted onto him for greater effect. And though he had lustrous green eyes, vanity lurked in them, and she surmised that had there been a looking glass available, he would be speaking into it rather than to either of them. She saw the distress in Serena’s eyes and cast about for a way to dismiss him.
“It is a lovely day for a ride, Lord Rendin.” Jane half smiled, though the message under her words suggested that he take himself off for just that. Serena, biting her lip, tipped her head toward Jane, but Lord Rendin simply stood tapping his riding crop against his boot top, oblivious to Jane’s suggestion.
“Your father,” Lord Rendin said with an imperious toss of his head, “has requested that you and I join him in his library. I’ve been commissioned to fetch you.” He reached to take Serena by the arm, but she withdrew out of reach.
Fetch? Now there’s a romantic word. This match did not bode well. There was something insidious about the man, and she was determined to sort out what it was.
“I am rather engaged,” Serena said, stressing the word for effect. Jane noted Serena’s newly blushing cheeks. “You can tell my father I’ll see him once I’ve had a chance to show my friend around the park. If you’ll excuse us ... ”
She took Jane’s arm and wheeled her onto a path that angled off to one side, a path much too narrow and overhung for a horse and rider. But before they’d turned away, Jane had caught the icy look in Lord Rendin’s eyes.
�
�Do you see?” Serena exclaimed when they were out of earshot. “He’s beyond unbearable! Even if I weren’t promised to Darcy, I could not consider a life with such a man! I don’t care if I lose my uncle’s settlement—I’d rather die.”
“At the very least, he’s saved me the trouble of liking him,” Jane said, attempting to lift Serena’s spirits. She was quiet a moment, considering what lay before her friend. Though Serena could refuse to marry Lord Rendin, her family likely had the power to force her into it.
“We must devise a way to have him reveal the worst of himself,” Jane announced. “So clearly that even your parents cannot deny his loutish conduct. Surely if they saw what you perceive, they’d find it unconscionable to press the match.”
“I’m afraid you have a higher opinion of my parents than I do,” Serena said. “But we must try.” She shook her head, her long face looking defeated before they’d even begun. “However shall we do it?”
“That, my dear, you must leave to me.” Jane smiled, taking her friend by the arm and turning her back to the house. “An imagination can sometimes be a wily and useful beast.”
***
Later that evening when she retired to her chamber, Jane made notes of what she’d observed about Lord Rendin. He had a deceptively smooth manner and used clever, calculated flattery to secure the esteem of Lord and Lady Baringdon. She actually admired his near flawless command of himself and his ability to charm. He had a slippery method of dropping names of those royals to whom he was related into the conversation, weaving them with a subtle wile and turning every interchange to his advantage. By the time the ladies left the men to their port, she’d seen enough to convince her that the man’s high opinion of himself could be turned to his detriment.