“I should come with you,” Tong Wei said. His expression remained impassive but she knew that he worried about her safety in this noisy, crowded city of so many strangers. “Your brother would expect me to.”
“I want to be inconspicuous.” She gazed down at her gray promenade dress. Very English, it had been retrieved from a modiste yesterday. “Since you refuse to dress as a proper English footman, you cannot accompany me.”
They both knew that even English garments would not make Tong Wei into a proper-looking footman. His shaved brow and long queue, his round face and distinctive eyes, marked him as Chinese even more than the beautifully embroidered shafts of garnet-toned cloth that composed his exotic clothing today.
“Take Isabella with you,” he said. “It is not common to see women alone. Not ones of a high station.”
Isabella looked up. Her brush froze, poised over the paper on which she drew elegant images from her adventures. “I do not mind wearing my English clothes,” she said. “Tong Wei may think them barbaric, but I am not so pure.”
Isabella referred not only to her opinions. Half Chinese and half Portuguese, she was a hybrid of East and West. If Isabella now wore a loose qipao, it was for comfort as much as preference.
“I will only be at the Royal Exchange for a short while. I am merely going to see how this big trading house is organized, so that I can walk in with confidence another time. If it is similar to the factories in Canton, it will be so busy that no one will notice me.” Leona trusted it would happen that way. Her ensemble had been chosen to be subdued. There were times when she did not want to turn heads for any reason.
“What if you see Edmund there?” Isabella asked.
A little shiver of foreboding and excitement intruded on Leona's composure. The ambivalent reaction happened whenever Edmund was mentioned during this journey.
“I will not see him there. He was a gentleman, and they do not engage in trade.” She had realized, since coming to London, that Edmund had been a gentleman in the true English meaning of the word. She now comprehended fully what that meant in this world of her father.
Of course, a man could be a gentleman and still be what Edmund had claimed, a naturalist and adventurer. A gentleman could even still be a thief.
“Then maybe you will eventually see him again in one of the drawing rooms that you visit,” Isabella said.
It would be useful if she did. She suspected that one of her missions in London might be accomplished much more quickly if she and Edmund faced each other again. By the by, Edmund, just how big a scoundrel are you?
She checked her reflection again. Not really English, but English enough for today's purpose. The not-really-young and not-really-pretty parts should help her be invisible.
“I doubt that I will be gone more than two hours,” she said. “While I am away, Isabella, please see if you can encourage that cook that I hired to make a dinner that is not so bland.”
Bury Street was quieter than nearby St. James's Square. Much less expensive too. Leona still fretted that she had not chosen a good enough address, but she could afford nothing better.
The view in front of her door caught her up short when she stepped out of her house. She frowned and looked right and left.
Where was the carriage? It had been waiting here just a few minutes ago, before she put on her bonnet.
An impressive coach blocked her view of the southern end of the street. She rose on her toes and angled her head to see past it. Down near the next crossroad she spied her own carriage. She recognized Mr. Hubson, the coachman who had been supplied by the establishment where she had hired this conveyance for her stay.
Perhaps the arrival of this much richer equipage had required her own to move. She was not yet familiar with all the nuances of rank and protocol in this city.
She waved to Mr. Hubson and walked toward him. As she came abreast of the big coach, a man stepped into her path.
“Miss Montgomery?”
His address startled her. Young and blond-haired, he wore an expression of deference even as he interfered with her. A footman, she guessed, but he did not wear the livery of the other footmen accompanying this large vehicle. Those other two sidled away, taking stances out of view and far behind her back.
“Yes, I am Miss Montgomery. Who are you and what do you want?”
He gestured toward the coach's door. It bore an insignia. A crest. This presumptuous young man was in the employ of one of the lords of the realm.
“My lord requests your attendance,” he said. “We will bring you to his house, and return you here afterward.”
“Would not a written invitation have been more polite than having you accost me on the street?”
“Lord Easterbrook is somewhat unusual in his habits and impulsive in his invitations. No offense is intended, I assure you.”
Leona absorbed this revelation of the coach's owner. She had visited Easterbrook's house two days ago to call on his widowed aunt, Lady Wallingford. Most likely the marquess intended to remind the trader's daughter that she was not fit for his aunt's company. He could have communicated that in a letter, too, and not staged this little drama of power.
She would regret losing Lady Wallingford's connection before harvesting what fruit it might bear. That likelihood did not endear her to this Easterbrook any more than being summoned like a slave.
“I know the location of Lord Easterbrook's house. I will go in my own carriage, thank you. Please return to your master and inform him that I will call in due time.”
She tried to walk around the young man. He prevented that with a smooth side step.
“My lord commanded me to bring you, Miss Montgomery. I dare not disobey him. Please—” He held out his arm toward the carriage door, blocking her path all the more.
She looked past him, down the street. Her own coachman had disappeared, abandoning his equipage and her. She judged how far back her house was, and whether Tong Wei would hear if she called out.
She tried to hide her growing wariness. “Please give the marquess my regrets, but I have another invitation that will occupy me this afternoon. I will call on him tomorrow. Please move aside now.”
The young man glanced past her, to the two footmen. His expression caused the hairs on her nape to prickle.
A vise suddenly closed on her waist.
Alarm flashed through her. A shout rushed into her throat but panic stole her breath away. The street and houses spun and blurred.
She shook the confusion out of her head. She sat inside the coach now, with the young blond man. They sped down the street.
Her blood boiled. “How dare you! I demand that you stop this carriage and allow me to leave. If you do not I will report you to the magistrate.”
The young man lifted his finger to his mouth, telling her to be silent. Something in his eyes said that it would be wise to heed that advice.
The foils sliced the air with sharp whistling breaths. Christian parried the lithe moves of the fencing expert, Angelo, while testing his own ability to concentrate on the duel.
He had been fencing a lot of late. During the last year he had extended his apartment to take up the house's entire second story, above the public rooms. He had emptied the mistress's bedchamber to create this private room for exercise and sport.
Angelo's blunted foil made two swift feints, then lunged. The tip poked at Christian's chest directly at his heart. Satisfied, the fencing master stepped back, raised his weapon in salute, and bowed.
“Your expertise has grown significantly the last few months, Lord Easterbrook. I have rarely seen the likes of such rapid improvement.”
“I have been practicing.”
Angelo took a towel from the attending footman and wiped his brow. “It is not technique or practice that makes this difference, but something not easily named. A new alertness, perhaps.”
Christian did not supply the invited explanation. There was no way to do so without sounding mad, and the world suspected he
was half that already. Nor would Angelo comprehend the watershed that had been passed three months ago.
The focus and silence achieved in meditation had finally been transferred to physical acts. He no longer required the dark center to find peace. For a short while, when fencing with Angelo or running in a field or rowing on a river, a different breathing and a thoroughly physical absorption built walls that kept out the world's sad, silent noise.
This new control represented a freedom that Christian had worked a long time to attain. Years.
“Why don't you come to the academy, Lord Easterbrook?” Angelo helped himself to some of the punch waiting on the bare chamber's one small table. “There will be an exhibition next week. A contest. You could win. Do you not want to show your skill? No one knows of it except me and this footman, but you are almost my equal and that is most rare.”
“I have no interest in contests. I do not care if anyone knows I am your equal.”
“That is unusual. Most men take pride in accomplishments, and seek the fame of them.”
Angelo did not mean unusual. He meant suspicious. Odd. Eccentric. Christian knew that all those words were attached to his name. Angelo, like most people, used both caution and care with him as a result.
Angelo picked up his coats and quickly dressed, preparing to depart. Not quickly enough, however. Already the intentions and calculations of the man were vibrating through the air with their unwelcome revelations.
Angelo left the chamber with the footman. Immedi ately another man entered. He bolted the door, then strode across the bare wooden floor to where Christian stood.
“We have her. She finally left her house without the Chinaman.”
Christian poured himself some of the punch. “Did you avoid a public spectacle, Miller?”
“Barely. It was wise to bring the other two with me. She was getting suspicious so we had to move fast before she bolted or screamed.”
“She was not harmed, I trust. I will have to kill you if she was.”
Miller treated the warning as a joke, but his overweening confidence dimmed just enough to indicate he was not entirely certain it had not been a real threat. Since Christian was not certain either, he let Miller sweat a little.
“Only her pride suffered, I promise.”
Miller could not be blamed if he “moved fast.” His orders had been to fetch Miss Montgomery, and fetch her he had. Miller was useful that way.
Young, ambitious, smart, and not too encumbered by concerns for legal niceties, he served his current master much as he had served his senior officers while in the army during a brief commission—without questions. He did not execute his normal duties of a secretary nearly as well as the less traditional ones that he periodically received.
“She accused us of abduction,” Miller said.
“That is because you abducted her.”
“She spoke of going to the magistrate.”
“Where is she?”
“In the green bedchamber. We escorted her up the servant stairs, so Lady Wallingford is none the wiser.”
Christian would know if that were true as soon as he stepped out of this chamber. If his aunt was suspicious, that disturbance would resonate through the house.
He dismissed Miller. He glanced down at his shirt, breeches, and boots. He should probably make himself more presentable before greeting Miss Montgomery. He debated doing so for five seconds, then strode in the direction of the green bedchamber.
Leona paced back and forth in her opulent prison, simmering with vexation.
It was difficult to maintain one's dignity when one has been hauled off the street like so much lost baggage. Leona hoped that she had managed anyway.
She had spent the short ride to Grosvenor Square ignoring her captor and treating him like the lackey he was. Only once did she almost lose her temper, when she perceived that her young abductor found her pose of hauteur amusing.
A seed of worry sent out a vine to wind through her anger. While scathing scolds formed in half her mind, the other half assessed the implications of this insult. The Marquess of Easterbrook's treatment of her reflected his view of her lowly status. He had concluded that she deserved no better.
When others learned about this lack of courtesy they would imitate it. Nothing, not her mother's blood nor her letters of introduction, would help her cause now. Her plans here in London would be more difficult after today, and some of them might be nigh impossible.
She stopped walking. Her gaze took in the apple green silk bed hangings and drapes, and the elegant, fine-boned mahogany furniture. She noted the exquisite watercolor paintings lending rainbow hues to the cream-colored walls. Then she saw nothing at all of her surroundings, but only the mental image of her brother, Gaspar, smiling as his boat pulled away after he had transferred her to the ship at Whampao.
Gaspar had appeared so young to her that day—far younger than his twenty-two years. Perhaps his unquestioning trust caused him to look juvenile. He had agreed to risk everything on this journey. His patrimony and his future were at stake, but he had handed the fate of both to her.
His image faded and she again saw the luxury surrounding her. Her heart still beat heavily, but no longer due to insulted pride. Calm determination had replaced anger.
Her father had taught her that if one viewed adversity from a different angle, one could often see an opportunity hidden within it.
If one looked at this development from a different angle, one might see that she had just obtained an audience with one of the highest titles in the realm. A man of such consequence could be very useful. She might want to slap Easterbrook's face, but it would be wiser to win him over.
She walked to the dressing table and bent to see her reflection in the looking glass. Not really pretty, but hopefully pretty enough.
She removed her bonnet and set it on the table. She pinched her cheeks to make them flush.
“Primping for me, Miss Montgomery?”
The voice startled her. Her gaze shifted from her own reflection to that of the room behind her.
She saw high black boots and snug breeches in the shadows near the door. She dipped her head until the white billows of a shirt came into view, then the ends of very dark hair. The man who had intruded appeared to be a servant, and a lowly one at that if he worked in such informal garb.
Only he wasn't a servant. His confidence clothed him in nobility more than any garments could. His body stood in lithe relaxation, exuding assumptions regarding his rights in this chamber, and in the world outside its walls.
She straightened, and sought the kind of poise that might impress such a man. She turned to greet him with calm grace.
“Are you Lord Easterbrook?”
“I am.”
“Your invitation was unexpected, Lord Easterbrook, but I am delighted to meet you all the same.” She made a little curtsy.
He appeared to be waiting for something more. She could not imagine what it might be. Her smile began to feel odd and stretched.
Goodness, he looked for all the world like a pirate now that she saw him from head to toe. The boots were high quality but his general appearance was not fashionable. His hair fell in long lazy waves to well past his shoulders. They framed a face that, from what she could see, was younger than she had expected, and handsome enough to make his lack of coats and cravat romantic rather than crude. His dishabille was an insult, as had been her abduction and her entry up the servant's stairs, but she could not afford to dwell on that now.
He finally made a bow. “Please forgive the rude way that you were brought here. My only excuse was my impatience to see you alone.”
He walked toward her and the light from the windows found him. It made the black boots blacker and the white shirt whiter. His face also became distinct. Dark eyes appeared hawkish in their intense focus on her. An unexpected elegance softened the strong bones of his face. His wide mouth curved into a vague smile that could easily turn hard.
A strange sensatio
n stirred in her. It carried dark, deep caution, but not without a thrilling note. The way his body moved in his stride.…the tone of his voice.…those eyes.…
Suddenly her mind saw him with short hair and more proper garments and a younger, less severe face. Her confusion crystallized into shock. She squinted at him, peering hard.
“Edmund?”
CHAPTER
TWO
He enjoyed her astonishment. It amused him. Maybe she would slap Easterbrook after all.
Just how big a scoundrel are you?
A very big one, it seemed.
“I always guessed that you had deceived us. I did not realize the depths of it, however.” Her voice snapped with her anger. She felt a fool in more ways than she could list. Humiliation almost buried her girlish elation at seeing him again. Almost.
His amusement disappeared. “You know why I could not reveal that I was Easterbrook when I arrived in Macao.”
She knew, but there might be more to his deception than what he alluded to.
The potential implications of his true identity, to the past and future, to her plans here in England, jumbled together in her mind. They evoked a chaos of emotions, but nostalgia threatened to submerge every other reaction. She struggled to hold it at bay.
An awkwardness settled between them, one created by distance and time and the questions shouting in her mind. The silence made it worse. His proximity made it excruciating.
What a sight he was, with that long hair. The years had hardened him in all kinds of ways too. Echoes of his youthful brooding still spoke to her, but Easterbrook exuded none of the soulful pain that Edmund had carried.
“You have changed,” she said.
“So have you.” His appreciative gaze indicated that he found her changes pleasing.
He had always been too obvious about that. He had never had the courtesy seven years ago to pretend there was no attraction between them. He had deliberately made her blush and fluster. He still did, even if she refused to show her reactions. She warmed all over, as if he caressed her body with his gaze.
Her heart beat rapidly. The memories broke free. They flowed and an old, secret wistfulness soaked her.
The Sins of Lord Easterbrook Page 2
