Colin strained to hear what bit of information his wife was giving up, but her voice faded beneath her footfalls. He watched Mercedes and Jonna disappear into the library before he turned to Decker. "How the hell did you get her here?" he asked.
"I told you. I abducted her."
The answer didn't raise a smile this time. Colin studied his brother's face critically. There was no easy grin evident, and the light blue eyes were remarkably cool and remorseless. "You're serious," he said.
Decker nodded. "Half the Remington warehouse burned to the ground," he said. "She was almost killed in the fire. I had no choice but to get her out of Boston."
Colin's look sharpened. "No choice? That's a slim explanation. What's the rest?"
There had never been any intent on Decker's part not to tell his brother everything. "Later," he said. "When I know we won't be interrupted. We should join Mercedes and Jonna now." He didn't wait for Colin's reply but began walking in the direction of the library. Just outside the doors he paused and quietly asked the question he had been turning over in his mind. "Is it true about Jonna being afraid of the water?"
"Yes. She won't put her toe in anything larger than a tub, and she can't swim a stroke. Her father drowned at sea. As near as I can tell she's been afraid of it all her life, at least since I pulled her out of Boston Harbor."
"But she was just a baby then," Decker said. "How could she—"
Colin shrugged. He placed his hands on the doors to the library but didn't part them. "Who's to say how she remembers? She just does. Ask her about it." His look was frank. "You didn't know, did you?"
Decker shook his head. "She never let on."
"Did she come topside even once while the ship was out to sea?" Colin asked.
"No."
"Then she was telling you," he said, shaking his head slowly. "You just weren't listening." There was something close to disappointment in his eyes as Colin opened the doors and stepped inside.
Decker followed but not immediately. Jonna had called herself a prisoner once, and he had dismissed that assertion out of hand. Now Colin had confirmed it was exactly what he had made her. Decker felt a certain hollowness where his heart had been. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then steeled himself to face her.
* * *
It was Mercedes, not Colin, who took Jonna on a tour of Rosefield. In construction it was similar to the manor at Weybourne Park, and Mercedes was quite comfortable answering Jonna's questions about the architectural layout and the use of the rooms. Although much of the house was rarely visited by guests, no part of it had been allowed to go uncared for. The conservatory's flowers and greenery thrived, and the spinet in the music room was tuned. The ornate, gilded frames that held family portraits and scenes of the English countryside were free of dust. The furniture was uncovered in all but a few of the bedchambers, and the woodwork gleamed warmly from frequent polishing.
Many of the rooms had fires laid in them, inviting company to linger near the marble mantels. "I can't abide a drafty home," Mercedes told Jonna as they entered the long gallery. "Colin thinks I'm foolish for wanting to keep Rosefield ever at the ready, but I know what it's like when a house falls into disrepair. I don't want to see that happen here as it did at Weybourne Park."
"It's hard to believe that you choose not to live here," Jonna said.
Mercedes's smile was serene. "That's only because you haven't visited the Park, though I admit to a particular bias, of course. I was born and raised at Weybourne, and it will always be dear to me. Colin has no particular attachment to Rosefield so it was an easy decision for us."
Jonna stood back from the portraits on the wall and studied them individually, then as a group. "Family has always been important to Colin. I can understand why he wouldn't want to sell it." She laughed lightly at herself and glanced at Mercedes. "I suppose I've shocked you with the talk of selling. Decker says I'm a thorough Yankee."
"So is Colin," Mercedes said. "For all that his roots are here in this room, he spent too much time with—"
"Me and my family?" Jonna interjected, one of her dark brows rising archly.
"I was going to say with Jack Quincy," Mercedes said.
Jonna felt her prickles fade. "Forgive me," she said softly. "I fear I'm too sensitive."
"Just Yankee proud." Mercedes's smile was gentle now. "I love Colin for it." She paused, sighing. "And for any number of other reasons."
Jonna was silent. Mercedes's words confirmed what Jonna had already observed in the exchanges between Colin and his wife. In Mercedes's burgeoning figure she saw further tangible evidence of their love. Jonna turned her attention back to the portraits. They were a dour group of ancestors, with austere countenances and rather grim smiles. "It's hard to imagine Decker sprouting from this family tree," she said dryly.
Mercedes laughed, as much at Jonna's tone as her observation. "You are so very right." Stepping back, she gave the portraits the same critical attention as Jonna. "Not a rogue among them, though perhaps that's not fair to Ponty."
"Do you always call him that?" Jonna asked. "It's a ridiculous sort of name."
"I doubt he hears it that way. Mere gave it to him."
"Pardon?"
"Mere," Mercedes repeated. "Marie Thibodeaux. His mother." Out of the corner of her eye Mercedes watched Jonna begin to scan the portraits again. "You won't find her there. Even the mother who bore him isn't among these paintings, and Marie wasn't that mother. She and Jimmy Grooms are the ones who took Decker from the workhouse. You know about Cunnington's Workhouse, don't you?"
Jonna nodded. "Colin told me some things. That's where Jack Quincy found him."
"That's right. All three boys were taken there after their parents were murdered. Lord Fielding, the earl here, had been estranged from his son for years. Colin's father, his wife, and the boys were on their way to Rosefield, when their carriage was stopped by highwaymen. The children survived but none of them, not even Colin, knew enough about their journey to say where they were going. There was some attempt to find relatives, as you probably know, but nothing came of it. Greydon left the workhouse first, still a babe in arms. Ponty was next, then Colin. Lord Fielding searched for the boys for years, much as Colin searched for his brothers, but in the end it was mostly serendipitous events that brought Colin and his grandfather together."
Jonna's eyes studied the portrait of the former Earl of Rosefield. He was in his middle years in the painting and there were fine lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. None of them seemed to have been earned through laughter. He had a narrow jaw and fine, aristocratic features. His hair was covered in a powdered wig, but his brows were dark. He was not a startlingly handsome man, but he was not unattractive. There was a certain authority in his features, or perhaps in his carriage, that she had long associated with Colin but only recently with Decker.
"Tell me about Marie," said Jonna. She felt Mercedes's hesitation, and she added softly, "Please. Decker says so little about himself."
Mercedes's nod was slight but knowing. "Colin can be that way. And he uses his eyes to keep distance and privacy. Ponty manages it with a smile. It seems welcoming at first, then you realize he's as remote as the moon."
Jonna's gaze dropped to the floor. Her hands were folded in front of her, fixed and still. "Sometimes," she said softly, in the manner of someone making a confession, "sometimes I want to slap him when he smiles at me like that."
Mercedes wasn't startled by the sentiment, only that Jonna admitted it. She managed to keep her own smile in check. "Marie and Jimmy were accomplished actors," she said. "But they were even better thieves. Decker has never really been clear on which calling they enjoyed more. They traveled off and on as part of a troupe; sometimes they struck out on their own. They posed as missionaries to take Decker from the workhouse, but what they taught him to do was pick pockets. He worked the crowd while they performed, and by all accounts—mostly his—he was quite good at it."
Jonna remembere
d the way Decker had deftly removed her necklace. "Yes, I believe that."
"I think the odds finally conspired against them," Mercedes went on. "The three of them worked together for eight years, and Ponty became every bit their son. He has nothing but affection for them. For all intents and purposes, Mere and Jimmy were his parents, and when they were gone he never worked with another partner or attached himself to another family."
"What happened to them?"
"They were hanged."
Jonna's eyes widened. "Hanged?"
"You were expecting to hear they were transported, I suppose. I know that's what I'd first thought had happened to them when they were caught. Decker never told me, nor did Colin, the whole of it. We only know that Marie and Jimmy were arrested in London for stealing. Decker somehow escaped, but he was in the crowd that saw them hanged three weeks later."
Pale as salt now, Jonna concentrated on the portrait of Lord Fielding. His expression did not soften. She imagined he could have watched the hanging without flinching. She, on the other hand, had only to think about it and her knees threatened to buckle.
Mercedes was watching Jonna closely, gauging her reaction. "When Ponty left Weybourne Park for Boston he told us he wanted to make his own way, but he'd been doing that for years. From the time he was twelve he'd lived by his wits on the London streets and had managed to avoid the fate of Marie and Jimmy. I don't think he was ever arrested until he was a young man."
"I never knew how much to believe in that regard. There were rumors that he had been in prison."
"Several times, I think. Colin never shared any of this with you, even after Ponty began working at Remington Shipping?"
"No. For months I didn't know there was any relation between the two of them."
"That would have been at Ponty's request," Mercedes said. "Colin's not ashamed of his brother or anything Decker's done. After all, it was Decker's stealing that brought us together." She caught Jonna's questioning glance. "Oh my! Colin has been much less informative than I thought. Whatever does he write you in those long letters?"
Jonna found she had it in her to smile. "In one way or another they're mostly about you. He writes about his life at Weybourne Park, managing the property, the politics, the taxes. He speaks fondly of your cousins and lovingly of your two little girls. I know about the thoroughbreds he is raising and crop rotation, but he failed to mention that you were expecting another child."
Amusement made Mercedes's gray eyes bright. "That's because he's hoping for a boy and the less said about it, the better."
Jonna watched Mercedes's hand linger lightly on her swollen abdomen. "You're the lens through which he views his life now, and there's little he writes that doesn't reflect your influence. Oddly, it doesn't take anything away from who he is. He seems a richer person for it. I never thought I would say this about Colin, but I find I can state it with complete certainty: He is truly, deeply happy."
It meant a great deal to Mercedes to hear this from Jonna. "He's not alone," she said.
Jonna nodded. "Yes, I can see that." Her next thought was left unspoken as that very happy man entered the gallery.
Colin eyed the two women suspiciously. "Dare I hope you're comparing me favorably to the ancestral line?"
"We weren't talking about you at all," Mercedes said, taking immediate exception. She looked at Jonna for support. "Really, why do men think that if women are engaged in conversation, it must be about them?"
Jonna's expression was carefully neutral. She found she very much liked Mercedes. "I suppose it's because they think they're so terribly interesting."
Colin held up his hands, palms out. The gesture was less to ward off his wife's advance and more in the nature of complete surrender. He kissed the cheek that Mercedes offered him and placed one arm around her back. "Would you mind keeping Decker company while I show Jonna the grounds?"
"The grounds?" Mercedes asked. "Colin, everything is knee deep in snow."
"She's a Boston girl," Colin said.
Mercedes protested. "That doesn't mean she has ice water in her veins."
Not any longer, Jonna thought. And not for some time.
* * *
Jonna sat at her vanity and idly pulled a brush through her hair. The maid who had drawn her bath and offered to assist with the bedtime rituals had been dismissed. The reflection in the mirror and in the black-leaded panes of glass was Jonna's lone figure.
Outside it was snowing again. Had Jonna moved to the window and peered closely through the white curtain of flakes, she would have seen that the trail she and Colin had made crossing the gardens was disappearing. Their path to the stables and their ride along the southern wall of the property was similarly being obliterated. The evidence that they had passed by a hunting lodge or paused in the clearing in front of it was also gone. The white woods would not give up the route they took. All traces of the time spent with Colin that afternoon were being erased everywhere but in Jonna's heart.
There, those hours in his company were deeply engraved, not for what she'd learned about him or his brother, but for what she'd learned about herself.
She put the brush down. Her face was lightly flushed, but her skin was cool. She stared at her reflection. It was no beauty she saw looking back at her. The oddly colored eyes were too frank, the jaw too defined, the mouth too wide. Drawing her hair over one shoulder, she began to loosely plait it.
Colin and Mercedes were gone now, though not before they had extracted a promise from Decker and Jonna to visit Weybourne Park. Jonna wished they would have stayed the night. It would have made it harder to set out on the course she had planned, perhaps impossible. In Colin's eyes she had been like a younger sister. Jonna had to accept that he might never see her as a woman grown.
She stood. Behind her on the bed was her robe, but she didn't put it on. Her feet were bare, and when she stepped off the carpet the wooden floor was cold. She picked up the lamp from the bedside table, adjusted the wick to give her a sliver of light. Her nightshift was plain white linen, and the hem brushed her ankles as she walked to the door. The material caught the draft in the hallway, flickered with the same motion as the lamplight.
Had it not been for Mercedes's tour that morning, Jonna would have had no idea where Decker might be found. They had come across his bedchamber as they were going from room to room. Jonna had been startled by the proximity to her own chamber, but Mercedes, if she'd noted it, was kind enough not to comment. Jonna had reasons to appreciate Decker's arrangements now, though she didn't believe he had made them for her convenience. She doubted he was expecting her.
In that, she was wrong.
Decker's hair was still damp from his bath. A few strands of it curled darkly at the nape of his neck as he knelt in front of the fireplace. Orange and red flames seemed to dance across his glistening shoulders. He was wearing only a pair of drawers, and they rested low on his hips. There were two small dimples at the base of his spine. Jonna was narrowly caught staring at them.
Decker rose slowly. "I thought I might see you tonight," he said.
That gave her pause. It was not only that he had anticipated her, but that he did not sound particularly pleased that she had proved him right. "Should I go?"
"No." He motioned to her to shut the door. "Not now. Not before you've said what's brought you here."
"You don't know?" she asked. He seemed to know everything else.
He didn't answer her. Instead he picked up his dressing gown and shrugged into it. He belted it, then pointed to the wing chair in front of him. "Are you going to hover there where it's cold or come closer to the fire?"
Jonna did not mistake his words for a real welcome. There was nothing inviting in his tone. The lamp trembled in her hands as she crossed the room. Decker relieved her of it before she sat down, then placed it on the mantel. "Aren't you going to sit?"
"I'm comfortable standing, thank you." His words were clipped, and there was no characteristic amusement in his eyes. They were
ice blue now, and they pinned Jonna back in her chair.
She cleared her throat. She had not given any thought to what she actually might say, nor to how it might sound. "It has always served me in business to speak directly," she said. "May I do so now?"
"Is this business?"
"Yes," she said. "Yes, it is."
He made a small flourish with his hand. "Then by all means..."
Jonna started to come out of her chair, but Decker motioned her back. She felt the disadvantage keenly. "It's occurred to me that a man may have a mistress," she said. "Society hardly blinks an eye at the convention as long as the thing's managed discreetly. I thought there might be instances where the reverse is true. I mean, that a woman might take a lover. If the woman is wealthy then she could provide for him, set him up in a residence or even a business, and the two might reasonably agree on what favors would be exchanged. He would be faithful to her, of course, as long as they were each satisfied with the arrangement. In the event that was no longer the case, then either of them would be free to leave. He would have some settlement placed upon him, and she would have his assurance that he would not speak of this particular association with her to anyone."
There was a small lift to Decker's mouth, but his smile had an icy edge to it. "And I thought you just came here because you've finally realized you can't have my brother."
Jonna's head snapped back. "What?"
"I expected that seeing him with Mercedes would make your heart bleed," Decker said coldly. "I didn't anticipate it would open that tight little Yankee purse." He couldn't resist adding, "The one you carry on your wrist or the one between your legs."
Jonna shot to her feet. Except for her glittering violet eyes, there was no color in her face. She stared at him for a long moment before she turned to go.
Decker caught her elbow. "Never say you're leaving."
She tried to shake him off, but he held her fast. "I intend to do exactly that," she said. "Let me go."
"Don't you want to hear my answer?" he asked. "Although you didn't strictly ask a question, did you? It was more of a proposal, nevertheless one deserving of a response. Do you know what mine is?"
Jo Goodman Page 17
