by Trisha Telep
“Why . . . why would you ask me such a thing?” she stuttered. “Of course I would do anything to protect my child.”
“Then we shall deal very well together,” he said, not bothering to hide the triumph in his voice.
She gasped, swaying in her chair. He launched himself up from his desk and caught her by the shoulders as she began to slide off the polished seat.
“Damn it, Marissa!”
Anthony kept a firm grip on her shoulders, letting her head rest against his stomach. Guilt lanced through his gut. He clamped down hard, resisting the compulsion to sweep her out of the chair and into his embrace.
Her slender body trembled under his hands. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t even tell if she had actually swooned. The rim of her bonnet not only obscured his view, it was poking him in the gut.
Carefully, he slid her across the polished seat of the chair to rest against the high ladder-back. With a quick tug, he untied her bonnet and dropped it to the floor. Her corn silk hair, coiled around her head in tight braids, gleamed in the dull November sunlight coming through the window. Like her simple pelisse, her grey kid gloves and her sturdy reticule, her glorious tresses were as neatly contained as her emotions.
Until he had made his thinly veiled threat against her daughter, that is.
He hunkered down before her, taking her hands in a gentle clasp. “Would you like a brandy? It will help to revive you.”
She gave a small shake of her head. “No. Please give me my reticule.”
He plucked it from the floor by her chair, where she had dropped it. “What do you need? Smelling salts?” He began to rummage around in the voluminous bag.
“My handkerchief, please,” she said in a thin voice.
Pushing away the growing remorse that threatened to destroy all his exacting plans, he dug around in the overstuffed reticule until he felt a square of starched linen. “What in God’s name are you carrying around in this thing?” he grumbled as he extracted the handkerchief. “You could store a frigate’s cargo in here.”
She ignored him, keeping her eyes closed as she blotted her forehead, cheeks and then her full, ripe lips.
His mouth suddenly went dry. He remembered those lips very well. They could take a man to heaven. “Marissa, are you sure you don’t want a brandy?” Of its own accord, his voice had fallen to a deep, husky note.
She opened her eyes. A gaze as hard as diamonds – and just as cold – stared back at him. She jerked her hands from his loose grasp. “I did not give you leave to use my name, Captain Barnett. Do not do so again.”
The treacherous warmth stealing over him fled under her withering look. Anger – his daily companion – took its place. He welcomed it.
He rose to his feet, resuming his perch on the edge of the desk. “Now, Marissa,” he chided. “We’re the oldest of friends. Why should you stand on ceremony? You never did before.”
“I was young. I didn’t know any better,” she retorted.
Her temper brought the roses back to her cheeks and the heat back into her eyes. For the moment, the ice maiden stood in no danger of fainting.
“And neither did I,” he said in a hard voice. “But you came to me, remember? You begged me to save you from marriage to Paget. You swore your undying love. Your eternal devotion if I eloped with you to Gretna Green.”
“I was only seventeen,” she protested.
“And I was but eighteen.”
In the world’s eyes, Anthony had been a man when he and Marissa lost their virginity to each other. But he had been so sheltered, raised by his widowed father in a small country parsonage. When he was ten, his father had died and Anthony had been dispatched to live with his distant cousin, Lord Joslin, and his family. He spent the rest of his youth on their estate in Yorkshire, deep in study, preparing to follow in his father’s clerical footsteps.
Through those years, he had also fallen in love with Marissa, and she with him. Or so he had always thought. Anthony’s mouth twisted into a sour smile, remembering how young and foolish he had been. In many ways, Marissa had always been more worldly than he.
“Do you want to know what happened that night?” he asked. “After Edmund discovered us together in my bed? After your father horse-whipped me and drove me from Joslin Manor?”
She blanched and, for a moment, he thought she might faint after all. But she took a deep breath and regained her composure.
“I don’t know what kind of cruel game you are playing, Captain,” she replied with quiet dignity. “But if reciting your tale will bring this tawdry scene to a conclusion then, yes. I do want to know.”
Anthony gave her a humourless smile. “I’m sure you’ll find my tale of woe edifying, Lady Paget.”
He pushed up from his desk, tasting the bitterness in his mouth and throat. It was always thus whenever he recalled those months after he first arrived in London – those months spent waiting for her to come and find him. Those months of back-breaking work and near starvation, his life barely a step up from the mudlarks who scavenged along the Thames.
“After discovering us naked in each other’s arms,” he said, prowling around his office, “your brother ran straight to Viscount Joslin. Your father had two grooms hold me down, then he beat me until my back was shredded raw.”
Marissa made a choked sound, but held her tongue. What could she say to soften such a painful and humiliating memory?
“Did you know Edmund stood there grinning while he watched your father beat me?” he asked, curious to find out how much she knew about the scene that remained burned into his memory.
“No,” she said, her eyes betraying her shock. “And Father forbade me to ever mention your name again.”
He resumed his prowl around the room.
“After he beat me half to death, your father threw me out of the house without a shilling to my name. Thank God the housekeeper took pity on me and gave me some coin to make my way to London. Her brother was a clerk at Nightingale Trading. She said he would find me work if he could, or at least give me a few days’ shelter while I looked for means to support myself.”
“Was there no one else you could turn to?” she asked, looking miserable.
“I had no friends who could be of assistance. As for relations,” he said dryly, “that would be your family. The Joslins were the only relatives I had left in the world after my father died. Not that the Viscount had wanted me. He only took me in because your mother insisted.”
She gazed down at her lap. “I’m truly sorry.”
Anthony paused, surprised by the heartfelt sorrow in her voice. Perhaps she did regret betraying him after all.
But he hardened his heart. Marissa had always been able to twist him around her little finger. He wouldn’t let that happen again, not when he was inches away from his vengeance against her and her pig of a brother.
He resumed his pacing. “I made my way to London – some of it on foot, by the way. From Yorkshire.”
She winced, but he kept ruthlessly on.
“I came to Wapping, and to the housekeeper’s brother. He found work for me on the docks. It wasn’t steady, but it gave me enough to rent a garret and to eat. Not often, mind you. And never enough. But I had something else to keep me alive. Something to give me hope that things would get better.”
With a quick step he moved in front of her, reaching out to grasp the back of her chair, caging her in with his body. She gasped and shrank away in startled retreat.
He lowered his head until he could stare directly into those amazing eyes. Her pupils dilated, her breath coming in rapid pants. She smelled sweet, like sugar plums and mint.
“Do you remember your promise to me?” he whispered.
Her lips opened on another gasp, and he watched fascinated as the tip of her pink tongue slipped out to wet her lips. His groin took notice, as did every other part of his body.
Soon, he promised himself. He would take her – body and soul – and slake his never-ending thirst.
“I know you remember,” he breathed, hovering just inches from her pretty mouth.
She ducked, sliding out from under his arms. In a flash, she was by the door to his clerk’s office, her ridiculously large reticule clutched in front of her like a weapon. Which, given how heavy it was, it very well could be.
He let out a reluctant laugh. She had always been as quick as a lark spiralling over a meadow in springtime.
“Obviously, you do remember,” he said. “You made a promise – a vow – that you would never abandon me. That we would never abandon each other. No matter the separation, you would find me, or I, you.” He paused, waiting for a response. But her face was a blank, revealing no emotion. “I waited for you, Marissa. For months. Certain you would find me. I worked like a slave, putting away every shilling I could against that day. I thought that when you finally found me, we would leave England for America, where we could start a new life.”
An acid taste rose in his mouth as he thought of the idiotic boy he had been.
“There was nothing I could do,” she replied in a bleak voice. “Father made sure of that. I didn’t know where to look. What to do. And then . . .” She trailed off.
“And then you married Sir Richard so you could be the pampered wife of a wealthy baronet, didn’t you? Only four weeks after I was run off like a mangy cur. But I didn’t hear of the wedding until six months later. Six months spent slaving on the docks, going hungry, saving every coin I earned for you – for us.”
The old sense of loss rushed in on him, squeezing his chest with iron bands. Suddenly, he found he had backed her into the corner of the room.
Her back stiff and straight against the wall, Marissa tilted her head to meet his gaze. The coldness in those blue depths thrust leagues of distance between them.
“What would you have me say?” she challenged. “That I’m sorry? Of course I am. More than you’ll ever know. But I can’t do anything about it, nor can I erase the terrible things that happened to you.”
He shrugged, feigning indifference. “No, you can’t, and thank God for it. When I heard you were married and had been for months, I realized what a fool I was. That I meant nothing to you. All those expressions of undying devotion were meaningless – just smoke in the wind.”
This time she did flinch, turning her head away. He waited for her to say something, but her lips remained pressed together in a thin, unforgiving line.
Anger and an odd sense of disappointment pulsed through him. What had he expected? That she would profess her undying love for him? After all these years? Disgusted with himself, he retreated behind his desk and sat.
“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story?” he asked, affecting a bored voice.
Without a word, she walked to the chair and sat down again. Her weary eyes seemed full of shadows and ghosts.
After a short struggle to repress a stirring of pity, Anthony resumed his tale. “After I learned of your marriage to Sir Richard, I had no more reason to stay in London. I signed up as a deckhand on one of Nightingale’s ships. Oddly enough, I discovered I had an aptitude for the sea, and I moved up quickly. The company made me captain of a frigate by the age of twenty-six – their youngest ever. Nightingale Shipping prospered, especially during the war years. By twenty-nine, I was rich, and able to buy out Thomas Nightingale when he was ready to retire.”
He turned, looking out the window at the sea of masts on the river. “Those beautiful ships are mine,” he said with intense satisfaction. “And Nightingale is one of the finest trading companies in all of England.”
Her soft voice held a wistful note. “You’ve done well, Captain. I’m happy for you.”
He swung around, putting her directly in his sights. “But that’s not the best part, My Lady. As you can imagine, I never forgot what your family did to me. To my regret, your father died before I could settle with him, but your brother will stand in quite nicely. After all, it was he who betrayed us to your father in the first place. Because of him, I lost everything.”
She stiffened, her lovely face now wary. “What do you mean, ‘settle’?”
He smiled, showing his teeth. “You didn’t think I would forgive and forget, did you? I have thought of all of you constantly since I was driven from Joslin Manor. Two years ago, fate and circumstance showed me the way.”
He opened a drawer and pulled out a sheaf of notes, tossing them on to the polished desktop. “Edmund never did have a head for commerce, did he? After your brother came into his inheritance, he invested very poorly, particularly in high-risk trading ventures.”
“Which I’m sure you knew all about,” she interjected in a hard voice.
He bowed his head in silent acknowledgment, enjoying the furious snap in her ice-maiden eyes.“Edmund’s financial bumbling forced him to take out substantial private loans to cover his losses. I won’t trouble you with the details. Suffice it to say that I’m now the sole holder of those notes.”
He waved a negligent hand over the papers on his desk, as if it were not a great matter. As if it had not taken months of horse trading, greasing palms, and one or two carefully applied threats of business reprisals to get his hands on every last note. But it had been worth every shilling, because it gave him what he wanted most – control over Marissa.
She grew still, as understanding dawned. “How much does my brother owe you?” she asked in a hollow voice.
“Fifty thousand pounds.”
She took in a huge breath, working to pull the air into her lungs. Her eyes seemed to blur, as if she couldn’t focus on anything but the thoughts in her head.
Anthony drank in the moment he had worked so long and hard to achieve. Marissa would be his, and she was now beginning to realize it.
A full minute, measured by the casement clock, ticked by. Neither of them broke the silence.
Then she stirred, an alabaster statue coming to life. “You want your revenge against my family for what they did to you.”
He hesitated, puzzled that she didn’t include herself with the rest of the Joslins. Then again, why did it matter?
“Revenge is an ugly word, Marissa. I prefer to call it justice.”
“As I said, I did not give you leave to call me by my first name,” she snapped. “You will not do so again.”
He smiled, sprawling back in his chair. Anger made her even more beautiful – driving the blood to her face. It made her flushed and ripe. Within a few days, he would be taking all she had to offer, and then some.
“You’ve given me leave before, Marissa. In fact, you gave me a hell of a lot more than that, as we both know.”
In her frustration, she actually bit down on her plump lower lip, like an actress in a melodrama. He became hard thinking of all the ways he was going to put those lips to good use.
“I prefer not to recall the past,” she said in a haughty voice.
He let out a harsh laugh. “Indeed. So would I, but that luxury has been denied me. There is, however, one thing I don’t mind remembering, and you know what that is.”
She glared back, refusing to respond.
“How you felt beneath me,” he purred. “I remember your naked body squirming in my arms. You were slick and hot, and so very tight. All softness and silk, and begging me to take you.”
Perspiration misted her face. She turned from him, pressing a gloved hand to her brow. “Anthony, please,” she said in a suffocated voice.
A sharp wave of pleasure took him at the sound of his name on her lips. “Ah. That’s better. You actually brought yourself to use my name.”
She jumped up from her seat and slapped a hand on his desk. “Enough of this! What do you want from me?”
He rose slowly, feeling the power uncoil within him. She would be his war prize – his by right – and he would no longer be denied. “I thought it was obvious, Marissa. I want my revenge, and I want it now.”
Marissa had never forgotten Anthony’s eyes. How could she? A pair exactly like them gazed up at her eve
ry day. Her daughter Antonia had eyes like Russian amber – golden and full of fire.
Antonia had Anthony’s eyes. Her father’s eyes.
Eyes that could blaze with emotion, as Anthony’s were right now. His gaze swept over her, burning so fiercely Marissa half expected it would scorch the clothing from her body.
Tamping down her frustration and fear, she answered him in the same calm voice she used with her daughter. “Perhaps I misunderstood you, Captain. I thought you were seeking justice, not revenge.”
He strolled around the desk, closing the distance between them.
Ignoring the urge to flee, she held her ground. Anthony had always been tall, but now he was also brawny from his years at sea. A man, when she had only ever known the boy. And this particular man – with his dark hair, rough-hewn features and broad shoulders – was so intensely masculine that it made her tremble.
“In this case, justice and vengeance are one and the same,” he answered, his voice a dark, menacing purr.
She shivered, sensing his implacable will, but was irresistibly drawn to his sensual power. That hadn’t changed. As a young girl she had been madly in love with Anthony, willing to do anything to be with him – even turn her back on the family and elope with him.
If only she had.
Marissa took her seat, keeping her spine straight and her hands folded neatly in her lap. If a long and unhappy marriage had taught her anything, it was how to mask her emotions. And ever since Anthony’s note arrived yesterday, Marissa had been trying to hide everything she felt – from Edmund, from Antonia, even from herself. But deep inside she could hardly breathe, swamped by waves of emotion she had repressed for years, and secrets long stashed away.
Too many secrets, ones Anthony would never forgive. Not after all he had suffered and lost.
Her insides twisted with anxiety, but she calmly met his gaze.
“Again, what do you want from me?” she asked.
He loomed over her, his face a grim, brooding mask. It hurt to look at him, for no trace of the sweet boy who had loved her remained. Her father and brother had destroyed that boy’s life, just as they had destroyed hers.
