by Cheryl Bolen
"Ho, there, Impertinence," Jack Ramsey's hearty voice interrupted her, the highwayman wheeling from his perusal of the confusion of the docks to swoop Beau up in a hard embrace. "I've been saddled with your mischief since you were a babe. It is his lordship's turn to keep you from getting your neck in a noose from now on. It is my advice, sir, that you populate your estates with armies of heirs. You'll need 'em, for no doubt Beau'll be losing them in the woods, or dropping 'em, or such."
Griffin's mouth compressed with such a steely lack of humor that Beau wanted to scream.
"I will not do any such thing!" Beau blustered, masking her hurt beneath a wave of indignance. But her face burned at the images Jack Ramsey had conjured—babes with Griffin's eyes, Griffin's mouth, tiny hands as perfectly shaped and long-fingered as their father's.
Yet even her vivid imagination failed her as she attempted to picture herself as her own mother had been, sweet- smiling, soft-voiced, gentle-handed in healing childish woes. She glanced at Griffin. A furrow marred his brow. She wondered what the devil she'd have to do to break through his abominable wall of silence.
"I'll not bloody lose my own babes," she insisted. "I might misplace 'em for a little—"
But it was Molly who rose, as ever, to her defense, leaving Charles's side long enough to loop one arm about Isabeau's waist. "At least they'll never be fearful of their own shadows, or shy, and—and they'll probably ride and shoot better than any other 'ristocrat babes in England."
"Such a comforting thought for my lord," Ramsey observed, chortling with delight. "Lord Griffin Stone's daughters in their satin petticoats holding their suitors at bay with German silver pistols."
Even Molly giggled at that, and Charles dissolved into laughter, but Griffin's eyes only narrowed with patent annoyance as they flicked about the crowd bustling around them.
"The upbringing of my heirs is not a subject I care to discuss in front of the whole of London, Mr. Ramsey."
"It seems the production of your heirs isn't a subject you care to act on of late either, your worship," Beau muttered under her breath. Griffin's eyes snapped to meet hers, a sudden flare lighting them then vanishing so quickly that she was certain she'd imagined it.
Damn it to hell, what was the matter with the man? Beau fumed inwardly. She knew he'd been hounded by a hundred duties, a hundred difficulties since they'd ridden in from Gethsemane, and she'd tried to be patient, though the Lord knew it wasn't in her nature. But she had been—well, frightened, blast it, in Malcolm Alistair's hell, afraid of losing Griffin and a life infinitely more precious than ever before because he was in it.
She had waited for him, wanted him in her bed. She wanted him buried so deeply inside her he could drive back the shadows from that horrible night. But he hadn't touched her, hadn't even kissed her since they'd left Gethsemane Abbey.
Why?
Sweet thunder in heaven, he couldn't be addle-witted enough to be angry about the things she'd said to him at Blowsy Nell's, could he? Even a thick-skulled, stubborn oaf of a man like he, she thought, should know that she hadn't meant a word of it. She'd been distraught with fear for Jack, and for the love she and Griffin had forged.
He should be elated that all had worked out in the end. Charles was safe, and Molly, and even Jack, free of the shackles that had bound him.
And if that hadn't been enough, at least the man should have had the good sense to dance a cursed jig when the insufferable dowager duchess had left Darkling Moor in such delicious high dudgeon. The devil knew Beau had practically been tempted to fling open the wine cellar's door and treat the entire household to a roaring drunk in honor of the occasion.
But Griffin had only viewed the happenings around him with stoic solemnity, seeming like a heartbreaking stranger to Beau.
She started, her dismal musings broken as she glimpsed a sniffling Molly withdrawing from Jack's arms. The highwayman had bid the girl who had risked so much for him a tender good-bye. Jack watched for a moment as Charles hustled Molly into the sheltering coach. Then Ramsey sauntered over to Beau and cuffed her gently beneath the chin. Her eyes snapped up to meet his merry gaze. "It is time for me to go, my sweet. It seems the captain is preparing to get underway."
Beau felt a swift, crushing sensation in her chest, her throat suddenly thick, her eyes burning as she looked, for what might well be the last time, into the dancing eyes of her mentor.
For an instant she wanted to cling to him, pour out her misery over Griffin as she might have when a child. But the expression on Jack Ramsey's face and her own stubborn pride stopped her.
Regret shone in Ramsey's eyes, still tinged with a bittersweet shading of love.
Beau hurled herself against him, squeezing him so tightly Jack gasped, but his arms closed about her just as fiercely.
"You'll take care of yourself," Beau pleaded into his frockcoat. "You won't—won't get shot by any jealous husbands."
"I shall endeavor not to get shot in the back, Isabeau. But it will be a much more difficult task without you to guard behind me. I shall miss you, Impertinence." His eyes darkened, gentled. "I'll try to forget how much."
Beau could feel the weight of Griffin's gaze upon them, and she moved away from Jack's embrace.
Jack hesitated for an instant, then kissed her on the cheek and strode up the gangplank. She watched him as he reached the top, then paused, oblivious to the sea of other passengers around him.
"Ho, Isabeau!" Jack shouted, doffing his dashing tricorn in most elegant fashion. "You've not heard the last of Gentleman Jack Ramsey, I vow!" His eyes clung to hers for a moment. Then he turned and rejoined the flow of the crowd.
She watched him until the jaunty red plume of his hat disappeared. There was a lump in her throat, a feeling of uncertainty tugging inside her.
Jack had been good to her, kind, her mentor, her friend. And yet with Griffin she had found the part of herself that could be gentle, the part that could be vulnerable, the part that could lean on someone else just a little.
Had she been a fool? Run blindly into the unsheathed blade Jack had warned her of so long ago? As she stared at Griffin's stiff, unyielding shoulders she felt as if he had somehow cut out a piece of her heart.
Furious with herself, she swiped an errant drop of moisture from her cheek, steeling herself against an unforgivable bout of tears.
Her sorrow might have battled its way to the surface despite her most vigilant efforts if she had not become suddenly aware of Griffin standing beside her.
She gritted her teeth so hard she was surprised they didn’t crack.
"So he is off," Griffin said, his voice strained.
Beau jutted her chin up, stubborn. "Aye."
"Then it seems we have but one more errand to attend to. I did not want to upset you earlier, since I knew you were already lamenting Mr. Ramsey's farewell. But I received word from Tom Southwood just this morning. It seems that he and his wife were riding in St. James the other day when they saw the dowager countess feeding the swans."
"The dowager countess?" Beau echoed numbly.
"Sophie Devereaux," Griffin said quietly. "It appears that she has returned from her travels on the Continent."
Beau reached out a hand to grasp the coach wheel, steadying herself, but she felt as if Griffin had dashed her legs out from beneath her.
... Sophie Devereaux... returned from her travels...
No. It had been daunting enough imagining meeting this noble relative when Beau had felt confident, felt the support of Griffin's love and approval. But to do so now, when she felt so infernally vulnerable, adrift...
Beau tried to swallow the panic clotting in her throat, but Griffin's next words solidified it into a lump of cold, sick dread.
"I sent word to her ladyship this morning explaining your situation," Griffin told her. "As soon as we leave Molly and Charles at the townhouse, Isabeau, we will go to wait upon your grandmother."
Chapter 24
Devereaux House was a historical treasure trove
with delightful keepsakes of the noble family displayed about the grand town house. Lances that had been wielded by knights of old were clasped in the iron gauntlets of the full suits of armor that mounted guard in the hallway while broadswords and maces were affixed to the wood-paneled walls. A cavalier's cuirass was set in a place of honor, testimony to the family's loyalty to Charles II generations ago, while a most intriguing collection of pistols adorned the space above the marble fireplace.
The house might have been considered gloomy were it not for the touches of bright color, statuettes and silk drapes and porcelains that were tucked on many glistening surfaces. Numerous portraits of earlier Devereauxs regarded the entire room from richly appointed frames.
This had been Lianna Devereaux's home. She'd been a child here; it was here that she had learned to toddle along, holding onto her nurse's hand. Beau closed her eyes, imagining her mother, young and laughing and filled with dewy-eyed, romantic dreams, dreams that had come true when she was presented at court. Dozens of handsome young men had flocked around this newfound angel. But none of those weak-spined fops had done for Lianna Devereaux. Nay. She had somehow met bold Robb DeBurgh, and he had stolen her heart away.
And then... then Lianna had been flung from this magnificent house, barred from her family. She'd been abandoned even when her beloved husband was killed and hanged in chains at the crossroads. And when she, too, had died, her heart broken, the babe she had adored had been left to the mercy of strangers.
And now that babe, a woman grown, was returning to Lianna's former home. To the family that had ignored the execution of Six Coach Robb, the death of their own daughter. The people who would have left Isabeau herself to die upon the streets.
Would they fling her out the door even now? Shamed as though she were a bastard babe, returned? No doubt it had not mattered at all to them that Robb had wed his lady love, given her what little he possessed—his name, his heart, his dreams.
"I should not have come here," Beau muttered to herself, pacing the length of the room for what seemed the millionth time. "I should thumb my nose at this grandmother who cared so little for me and my parents. I should tell the old hag to go straight to the devil."
And yet, was that not what someone as snipe-nosed, as aristocratic as Sophie Devereaux would expect her to do? Wouldn't she expect her to act like the ill-bred get of a highwayman and a runaway daughter?
Beau would surprise her. She would sweep into this woman's presence like a crown princess, elegantly scornful, majestically serene.
Although underneath she was absolutely terrified that she would somehow fail the mother she had loved and the father who had been so gallant, so brave.
Beau stopped before the portrait of a prim Elizabethan lady, the painted image seeming to stare down her long nose with disdain. It was bad enough feeling like a fraud in her finest without a blasted portrait affirming her worst fears. She half expected the woman to call out to the footman and have Beau tossed out on her hindparts for daring to breach the Devereauxs' hallowed doors.
With an oath Beau paced the confines of the drawing room, cursing Griffin for deserting her there. He had insisted he needed to talk to the dowager countess alone first, to smooth the way for the meeting. But Beau had felt hurt and had chafed beneath the suspicion that he was preparing Sophie for the shock of meeting her "highwayman granddaughter" for the first time.
Blood and thunder, Beau cursed silently. She already felt as silly as an actor who'd tripped on stage. When they had reached the Stone townhouse after Jack's departure, Molly had insisted upon rigging Beau up in the finest fashion. It had taken two hours of torture, but Beau had not had the energy to protest.
Even she had to admit that her exquisite dress of gold cloth embroidered with silver draped her slender figure to perfection. Her hair was arranged in the most elegant style: padded and puffed and stuck into place with so much pomatum it made Beau's scalp crawl. No wonder since there must be enough powder on her head to bake three loaves of bread.
Beau had worried her lower lip until it felt raw, an entire brigade of butterflies attempting to beat their way out from beneath her ribs. Even her most dangerous night raids had never spawned this awful, clawing dread within her. But on the king's highroads she'd acted instinctively, pistol in hand. The happenings in aristocrats' drawing rooms were far more dangerous and less predictable.
Unable to bear the wait another moment, she went to the partially closed doors, intending to peer through the aperture the servant had left. But just as she leaned toward it the door swept open, narrowly missing her nose.
Beau leapt back, stumbling over the hem of her gown. Only her quick reflexes kept her from tumbling backward into an ignominious heap.
Her cheeks went red as she stared at the stickpin in the footman's neckcloth. She hoped he hadn't noticed how flustered and unsettled she was.
"The dowager countess and Lord Stone await you in the Canton salon," the servant said. "If I might show you the way?"
Beau tried to stem the wave of panic washing over her. She held her fan in a death grip and swept out into the gallery of Devereaux House with all the regal grace she could muster.
She fidgeted with the trim on her petticoats, her palms damp. Always, when she had imagined this moment, she had imagined that Griffin would be at her side, that he would be giving her his sweet, secret smile. His eyes would be filled with love, daring her to be proud because she was his lady.
She had never expected to feel so abandoned, so alone and infuriatingly afraid.
Beau winced at the footman's booming voice as he announced her.
She hung back for a moment, but then the footman was brushed aside by a solemn-faced Griffin. His severe black frock coat and silver-embroidered waistcoat emphasized the lines that carved his handsome face. His hair was brushed to a mahogany sheen, the frills at his wrists and beneath his square jaw fixed to perfection. A diamond stickpin twinkled upon his chest, but no life, no joy shone in those blue-gray eyes that had once burned with love for her. Only a steely resolve.
"Isabeau." He took her chill fingers and looped them through the crook of his arm. With a courtly bow Griffin led her into the beautiful chamber room.
In what seemed an instant, the room whirled into chaos as at least a dozen tiny brown and white spaniels flung themselves toward her, yipping with joyful abandon. In the midst of the barking a woman of about seventy rushed forward, her iron-gray hair caught back in a fire-red ribbon, her gown of scarlet grosgrain set off by a formidable spray of diamonds and rubies, the skirts caught up to reveal a pair of boots the Devil's Flame would have envied.
Isabeau gaped as Sophie Devereaux swept her into a fierce hug.
"Child! My child! Can you ever forgive me?" the woman cried, drawing back until Beau could see the tears coursing down her age-quilted cheeks. "Look at you, my dear! The very image of myself at such an age! I vow if my dastardly husband was not dead already, I should be tempted to have Lord Stone here call him out! Put him in his grave for robbing me of your company all these years!"
"G-good morrow, my lady," Beau said, her head more muddled than it had been in her whole life.
"'My lady' me again and I'll set my darlings upon you! You are my granddaughter! Mine!" Sophie's gaze shone with an almost militant joy. "He told me you were dead, dead alongside your mother. A fragile, sickly child!" The woman's chin jutted up, her mouth thinning. "But I should have known better! Any child of my Lianna would be strong in spirit, for she had the courage to tell Theodore to go straight to the devil and married the man she loved!"
The old woman caught Beau's cheeks in her hands, if to assure herself this granddaughter was real. "Was she happy, my Lianna? Happy with her highway rogue?" Sophie asked tremulously. "After she left that was all I had to console myself with—thoughts of her joy."
Beau looked into those clear green eyes, so like her own, and felt her lips tremble. "She—she loved my father very much. And he her. I like... like to think that in the litt
le time they shared they loved more than most people do in a lifetime."
Sophie dragged out a lace-trimmed handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. "You are a good girl to tell me so. I prayed it was thus with them when I heard... heard that Lianna's Robb had been taken. I tried to find her, you know. Tried to help your father. But Theodore did all in his power to thwart me. And in the end it was too late. Robb DeBurgh was executed at Tyburn Tree, and Lianna... she lay dead as well. Yet most heartbreaking of all was my belief that you, too, had been swept into the grave without my ever having seen you, held you, rocked you in my arms."
The old lady turned away, overcome. Beau reached out, touching her frail arm. "Jack said that he came here after my mother had died, tried to talk to my grandfather."
"Oh, I doubt it not, but the stiff-necked wretch I was wed to was so choked up with pride he'd not have tossed you a crust to save your life. You see he knew I loved Lianna more than I had ever loved him, and that her child would be even more precious in my eyes. Sometimes I think he drove Lianna into Robb DeBurgh's arms, just to take her from me."
Sophie smiled, a smile weighted with strength and years of sadness. "How could he have believed he could take her from me when I carried her always deep in my heart? Your father, he smuggled this to me by the hand of a servant when you were but three years old." Sophie brushed her fingers lovingly across a miniature nestled in the fabric of her gown. "It was his way, I think, of assuring me Lianna was happy, well cared for. I have never gone a day without it pinned to my bosom."
The image was painted on porcelain, surrounded by a gold wreath of wild rose and thistle. In it’s midst was a laughing, bright-eyed girl child with flaming red curls, an impudent little nose, and lips pink as rosebuds. She was cradled in the arms of a golden-haired angel of a woman dressed in flowing white.
Beau stared into her mother's beautiful face, her throat constricting as she remembered the last time she had seen Lianna. Her fragile, angelic face had been twisted with grief at her husband's death and pain at Isabeau's childish fury. Beau had never called her mother coward, but Lianna had known how she felt. It had been in those melting, anguished eyes, those delicate hands that had clung to Beau's sturdy fingers, as if that alone could stave off encroaching death.