Stormswept

by Sabrina Jeffries

  Darcy dismounted. That gave him an idea for another way to deal with this problem. He paused to think through everything, to consider every avenue.

  Then he turned to the innkeeper. “Here’s what I want you to do, my good man. Find some excuse for luring that scoundrel out here without telling my sister. My brother and I will deal with him.” He handed the innkeeper an ungodly amount of money and watched the man’s eyes widen. “That is yours, as long as you keep silent about whatever you see this night—and that includes not saying a word to my sister. Agreed?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As the innkeeper headed back inside, Overton growled, “We should go in and slit the bastard’s throat, the more public the better. Let them see what happens to the man who defiles our sister! ”

  “Aye, and let them hang us afterward. Father’s influence couldn’t get us out of that, I assure you.” Darcy’s mouth tightened. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plans for our Mr. Vaughan. When I’m through with him, we’ll never have to worry about him again.”

  Rhys walked down the hallway of the White Oak. The innkeeper had told him the coach had arrived and the coachman wanted to speak to him. Rhys hadn’t heard much noise coming from the inn yard, but then, he was having trouble concentrating on anything tonight.

  That came from bedding his lovely wife, no doubt.

  He smiled. Juliana was his in every way now. No more torturous nights lusting after her while he lay alone in his bed. No more torturous days wanting to speak to her and knowing he couldn’t.

  Their life ahead might be difficult, but he could do anything with her at his side. His lack of an estate made no difference, and tonight he thought he could even tolerate her family. Ah, the poets were right to say that love would make a man mad. It surely had made him so.

  But madness was pleasant indeed when shared with Juliana.

  Rhys walked out into the inn yard, then stood there blankly. There was no coach here.

  Suddenly something hit his head, and everything went black.

  When he came to, Rhys found himself lying on a cold earth floor in what seemed to be a cellar. Voices argued from beyond an open door, but he had a devil of a headache and couldn’t take in the words. He sucked in a deep breath and got a mouthful of rank-smelling air, and when he tried to stretch his cramped limbs, he discovered his arms and legs were bound.

  “Uffern-dân! ” How long had he been lying here?

  The arguing voices didn’t seem to hear him, but a voice beside him said, “Rhys? Devil take them, they got you, too?”

  “Morgan? What in thunder is going on?”

  “ ’Tis a press gang. While they were dragging me in just now, I heard them say they’re taking us aboard ship to serve in His Majesty’s Navy. The damned wretches.”

  Rhys’s blood ran cold. It couldn’t be. Only a while ago, he’d been making love to his new wife at the White Oak. But he had no idea how long he’d been lying in this stinking, dank hole. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know; they put a sack over my head when they took me. But I suppose it’s some tavern near the docks. They got me when I came home after meeting Lettice.”

  Rhys’s heart pounded. “It can’t be a press gang. They don’t take people like us—craftsmen, squires’ sons. They take sailors.”

  “And radicals.”

  “Aye, but what good could we be to them? I don’t know a sail from a bedsheet, and I’ll tell them, I will! ”

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Morgan muttered.

  But Rhys had already pushed himself into a sitting position. “You there, outside! I want to talk to you! ”

  Silence. Suddenly, the doorway was filled by a bulky man carrying a lantern. When he held it up Rhys saw his face, and shock went through him. It was Darcy St. Albans—Viscount Blackwood, heir to the Northcliffe title and Juliana’s brother.

  Had the viscount found out about him and Juliana? But how? And what in thunder had he done with Juliana?

  Rhys glared at the viscount. “What’s this all about?”

  The man fixed him with eyes as cold as the icy sea. “You thought you’d finally pulled it off—gotten Llynwydd in your clutches. Well, thank God you didn’t succeed.”

  What? Was the man referring to Rhys’s attempts to have the acquisition of Llynwydd investigated by the authorities? “I have no idea what you mean.”

  Blackwood’s face tightened. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know that Juliana owns Llynwydd. After my father won it from yours, he made it her dowry—even went so far as to deed it over to her.”

  “You’re lying. She’d have told me.”

  Confusion crossed Blackwood’s face before he masked it. “If she didn’t, I’m sure your solicitors did before you approached her.”

  “I knew nothing of it.” Rhys cast the man a glance of withering scorn. “I married your sister because I love her.”

  Blackwood’s expression hardened. “I doubt that. But it hardly matters. You won’t have Llynwydd after this night, to be sure.”

  Rhys tasted fear. If Llynwydd was indeed Juliana’s, there was only one way the bastard could take it. “You plan to kill me.”

  “Nay.” Blackwood set the lantern on a shelf. “ ’Tis what I ought to do, but Juliana begged me not to. My sister has a soft heart—even if she did want you out of her life, once she found out what being married to you would mean. And as usual, she called on me to clean up the mess.”

  Rhys gritted his teeth. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “Juliana and her penchant for getting into trouble, then leaving it to her family to extricate her. Only this time, she’s gone too far.”

  Rhys fought to ignore the man’s words. Juliana did tend to run away when she found herself in a sticky situation.

  “Sais yw ef Syn,” Morgan murmured.

  He is a Saxon, beware.

  Morgan was right. “She wouldn’t betray me,” Rhys growled.

  “Then why are you here?” Blackwood drew a snuff box out of his pocket. “By the time you two reached the White Oak, she realized she’d made a big mistake—that marrying you meant giving up any chance at a husband of title and great wealth. Even with Llynwydd back in your hands, you’d have to struggle to put it to rights.”

  Blackwood inhaled a pinch of snuff. “For some peculiar reason, she’d been blinded by your Welsh charm. Perhaps she’d even enjoyed your advances. But faced with the reality, she saw how foolish she’d been to marry a penniless Welshman who was only interested in her for her property. Juliana acts on impulse at times, but she generally comes to her senses afterward.”

  Memories swam through his head. Juliana’s skittishness after the wedding. How she’d been alone with the innkeeper while Rhys had gone back to get her gift. How she’d even wanted to leave him to fetch her gift for him.

  Worst of all, he remembered the night of his proposal, when she’d asked if he was marrying her to get Llynwydd. Had she mentioned then that it was hers? Surely he’d remember that.

  Then other images crowded in—their encounters in her room, the sweet way she’d accepted his proposal, her joy in their joining. No, he’d stake his life on her willingness to wed and bed him.

  “Juliana wanted our marriage. She’d never back out of it like a coward, and she’d certainly never send you to kidnap me! ”

  “Believe what you want,” the viscount said with a shrug, “but ask yourself how my brother and I knew where to find you.” He paused to let that sink in. “She had the innkeeper summon me as soon as you reached the White Oak. She probably thought to have us rescue her before you could—” He clenched his fists. “We were too late for that. But not too late to deal with her mistake.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Morgan said. “You know Lady Juliana would never be so fickle.”

  “Morgan’s right,” Rhys said. “And she’ll give you no rest when she finds out what you’ve done! ”

  The viscount snorted. “Once you’re aboard that ship
you’re as good as dead, for you’ll not escape His Majesty’s Navy. You’re lucky I didn’t just kill you, but in deference to her feelings I gave her the choice of impressment, and she agreed to that since it would allow her to be free of you in the least scandal-provoking way possible.”

  Rhys gaped at the bastard. There was no way in thunder Juliana would have had him impressed. Obviously her brother had thought this whole thing up himself. “Even the British Navy doesn’t allow men to be impressed solely at the whim of an English lord.”

  “Ah, but they do impress radicals to teach them a lesson. And after Juliana told me about what you and your friend there have been up to, printing sedition and passing it out in the streets, that gave me the perfect solution.”

  Rhys heard Morgan curse, and clamped down on the doubts Blackwood’s words were rousing. It would have been easy for the bastard to find out that Rhys had distributed the pamphlets. But there were other printers in Carmarthen and many in Wales. In fact, Blackwood had no reason to believe Rhys hadn’t had the pamphlets printed in London. So how could he have found out that Morgan had printed the pamphlets? Unless Juliana had told him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhys said.

  The viscount scrutinized his fingernails with a bored look. “Juliana told me about the meeting that you spoke at, and recounted all you said about the Welsh language. And she told me about the pamphlets you two printed up.”

  Could someone else have betrayed them? If so, who?

  “I was happy to oblige her,” Blackwood went on. “With you gone, no one need know about your havey-cavey wedding. We can arrange a proper marriage for her. And Llynwydd will be a plum for a more worthy gentleman.”

  “The bishop who performed our ceremony will have something to say about that! ” Rhys spat.

  Blackwood’s eyes narrowed. “Will he risk tangling with my father? I doubt it. He may be Welsh, but he still answers to the Church of England, and they might frown on a man giving a license to a known radical and a young Englishwoman. I don’t think your bishop is quite that brave. If he is, we’ll insist on an annulment. ’Tisn’t what we’d want, of course, but—”

  Rhys let out a roar that made Blackwood jump back a step. “This marriage has been consummated! ”

  “Ah, but if Juliana claims you were impotent and you’re not there to refute her, then everything is done. Over. Complete. She’s free to marry another, with a fine property to attract him.”

  Rhys gritted his teeth, wishing he could wipe the smug smile from the viscount’s face, wishing the man’s words weren’t so convincing. He made himself remember Juliana’s face as she’d sworn to love, honor, and obey him for a lifetime. She’d meant her words. He could swear she did.

  But someone had summoned her brothers to the inn tonight. It wasn’t likely that they’d figured it out on their own, for they hadn’t even known he was seeing Juliana, and she’d promised not to leave a note telling them about the elopement. He’d certainly told no one where they were going, not even the bishop. And she had been alone with the innkeeper while Rhys had gone back to the horses . . .

  He beat back his doubts. Whom would he believe—a black-hearted Englishman like the viscount? Or his sweet Juliana?

  His sweet Juliana . . . who’d always run off at the first sign of trouble . . . at the meeting . . . after her father’s threat to cane her . . . He’d heard Darcy tell her that day in the forest that he wouldn’t hide her anymore. And she’d relied on her mother to get her out of her caning.

  Yes, his sweet Juliana did have a penchant for acting impulsively, then doing whatever it took to avoid the consequences. If she’d thought that he’d somehow learned Llynwydd belonged to her, would she have balked at the marriage?

  Worse yet, she had known that Morgan had printed the pamphlets. And she was, after all, a pampered young English noblewoman.

  He cursed himself. He knew Juliana. Pampered she might have been, English she certainly was, but she wouldn’t run from their marriage. Would she?

  He fixed Blackwood with a threatening gaze. “I won’t listen to your lies about my wife. She will be my wife until the day I return, and I will return. You can be sure of that, you son of a bitch! ”

  “If you do, it’ll be your death.” The viscount gestured to Rhys’s neck. “I’ll make sure they hang you and Pennant as deserters! ”

  “If you won’t release me, at least release Morgan,” Rhys gritted out. “No matter what you think, he had nothing to do with those pamphlets. I had them printed in London. And if Juliana says otherwise, she’s lying.”

  A dark smile creased Blackwood’s face. “Is Lettice lying, too, then?”

  “You whoreson Englishman! ” Morgan exploded. “If you think to malign my woman as well—”

  Blackwood’s harsh laugh cast a chill on the already cold room. “You two are such fools. Women are cowards at heart. All I had to do after I brought Vaughan here was confront Lettice with what Juliana had told me. She confirmed it as soon as she realized what hot water she was in.” He gave Morgan a hard stare. “Once I knew for certain you’d been involved, of course I had to take you, too. We can’t have you radicals stirring up the Welsh—not with an election nigh. Lettice understood that.”

  “Nay, she would never betray me,” Morgan choked out. “She couldn’t—”

  “Of course she could.” Blackwood shoved the snuff box into his pocket with vicious energy. “When it came to choosing between her post and a Welsh radical, she certainly didn’t throw herself into poverty.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Morgan whispered. But his anguished tone said he might.

  The viscount drew himself up. “Well, that’s that. I’ve tarried here long enough. Now that you know why you’re being impressed, I hope you’ll not trouble the men with questions. They’ve been well-paid to ignore them.”

  Rhys felt as if a boxer had been pummeling him, each blow primed to hit his most vulnerable spots.

  The viscount turned for the door. “I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your thoughts. After all, once you’re aboard ship you won’t have much time for thinking, will you? And remember what I said. Return to Wales and you’re dead men. I’ll see to it myself.”

  With that, he was gone, leaving them in total darkness once more.

  “You know he’s lying,” Rhys said.

  “Did Lettice tell Juliana who printed those pamphlets?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she did know.” Morgan cursed under his breath. “I told Lettice not to tell her. She swore she’d not say a word to anyone.”

  An acrid taste filled Rhys’s mouth. “You know women. They can’t keep secrets.”

  Morgan’s breathing grew heavy. “Yes, but to tell Blackwood? If he didn’t find out from either of them, then from whom?”

  “A spy in our midst, perhaps? One of our compatriots?”

  “Our compatriots didn’t know who printed them. You even told them it was a London printer.”

  “Perhaps someone overheard us discussing it.” Rhys stared blankly into the darkness, praying that was the answer.

  But even if Blackwood had found out about the pamphlets through spies, that didn’t explain how he’d known where to find Rhys tonight.

  Rhys could explain how Blackwood knew about the Sons of Wales, and even why Juliana hadn’t told him about Llynwydd. Perhaps she hadn’t known it belonged to her. Perhaps Blackwood was simply lying about that.

  But Rhys couldn’t explain how Blackwood had known where to find him. That was the one piece of damning evidence that ate at him. And he couldn’t forget how nervous she’d been when they reached the inn.

  “At the moment, it hardly matters whether the women betrayed us,” Morgan said. “I don’t think we’re likely to get out of this. I have no weapon.” His tone hardened. “I was out courting.”

  Rhys thought of all he’d heard about the navy, which was forced to resort to impressment because conditions were so bad on a British man-of-war tha
t men died and deserted at alarming rates. Rhys had heard of the wretched food that bred disease, of the floggings ordered by tyrannical captains. Some prisoners, when given the choice of the navy or death, chose death. Juliana couldn’t have wished such a nightmare on him.

  “What do we do now?” Morgan asked.

  Rhys clenched his fists, the stone floor scraping his knuckles. “We survive. And one day we return. Because no matter what that son of a bitch Blackwood says, we will avenge this.”

  7

  I gaze across the distant hills,

  Thy coming to espy;

  Beloved, haste, the day grows late,

  The sun sinks down the sky.

  —WILLIAM WILLIAMS PANTYCELYN, “I GAZE ACROSS THE DISTANT HILLS”

  Nervous and tense, Overton rode beside his brother back to the inn. When they’d found Juliana sleeping upstairs hours ago, they’d decided to leave her there while they dealt with her husband. But now the sun had risen well above the horizon, because Darcy had insisted on waiting at the tavern until the ship pulled out of port.

  It worried Overton. The whole scheme did. “I hope you know what you’re doing. The press gang didn’t like taking a squire, even after you gave them all that money and said Vaughan was a radical.”

  “I don’t care. The blackguard carried off our sister for his own devious purposes. Don’t you understand? They consummated the marriage! That deuced bastard would have been our brother-in-law if we hadn’t acted. And once Juliana realized he desired her only for her property, she’d have been miserable. Is that what you wanted?”

  No. But this whole business didn’t seem right, especially with Vaughan being an Oxford man and a gentleman. “Perhaps he truly cares for her.”

  Darcy snorted. “The daughter of the man who stole his estate? I doubt it.” They rode into the inn yard. “Besides, Juliana deserves better. Trust me, if we’d let it go on, a week from now she’d have been regretting the marriage and asking us for help.”

  Overton remained silent as they dismounted. This just all made him bloody uneasy.

  As they approached the inn, Overton caught Darcy’s arm. “I heard those cruel lies you told Vaughan. The poor chap will suffer in the navy anyway, so why kick him when he’s down?”