The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  Naturally the dogs’ first and most instinctual reflex was to go after the food. As soon as the second dog’s tail disappeared inside the shack, Jack and Lord Serling closed the doors and pressed their backs against it. As there appeared to be no latch or lock of any kind to secure the door, Lord Serling held it shut while Jack pulled over two heavy bales of hay and pushed them against the door.

  Amanda gave a sigh of relief. At least the dogs were taken care of. She suspected that as well as being trained as guard dogs, they were behaving especially aggressively because they were hungry.

  Hungry. Like her little brother or sister might have been in the last few months after her father’s money quit coming.

  Amanda slowly turned around and looked at the house that had been home to her brother or sister.

  Poverty. The sparse furnishings, threadbare curtains, bare floors, empty cupboards, and cold grate screamed of poverty. It was a small, cramped hovel of a place, and Amanda couldn’t imagine a child flourishing in such a cheerless atmosphere. She would have thought that the amount of money her father sent would have supported them in better comfort than what she saw evidence of today. It made her suspicious as to exactly how Mrs. Grimshaw spent the ready.

  Her eyes filled with tears as she began to walk slowly about the small room that combined a sort of parlor with the kitchen. She trailed her hand over the scarred top of a chest, expecting her fingers to be dirty from several months’ worth of dust built up on the furniture. But to her surprise, though her fingers were dusty, they weren’t that dusty. Dashing her tears away, she looked about her in a more alert and inquiring manner. If the house had been abandoned months ago, there would be more cobwebs in the comers and the dust would be thicker.

  She turned quickly to inspect the fireplace. Though it was empty of wood and quite cold, the ashes looked undisturbed and were, therefore, probably only a few hours old. A hope began to blossom in Amanda’s chest.

  With her heart beating rapidly, she hurried to the only inside door in the small house and opened it. As she expected, it was a bedchamber. And the bed looked as though it had been recently slept in! A much-mended multicolored quilt was thrown rather haphazardly over some rumpled sheeting and a small pillow.

  Amanda was much encouraged and hurried into the parlor when she heard Jack and Lord Serling reenter the house.

  “Jack!” she cried, rushing forward and grabbing hold of his hands. “I don’t think they’ve gone for good. The bed looks recently slept in, and the ashes on the grate are new. Someone is still living here!”

  Jack smiled uneasily and gave her hands a returning squeeze before letting go. “Yes, that’s very encouraging, Amanda m’dear, but if someone’s still living here, what the deuce are they eating? There’s not a morsel in the house. And where’s that piebald nag and the rig the innkeeper described?”

  “Maybe Mrs. Grimshaw went into town to procure more food,” Amanda suggested hopefully.

  “We’d have ran smack into her,” Jack said reasonably. “The innkeeper said that poor excuse of a road was the only way in and out of the place. And where’s the child?”

  “I don’t know, Jack,” Amanda said, unable to keep the desperation out of her voice, “but I can’t just leave without knowing! I need to stay here till I know something for certain. I want to at least spend the night and see if someone shows up.”

  When Jack frowned and cast a disparaging glance about the room, Amanda squeezed his arm and said, “Oh, you do understand, don’t you, Jack? You’d do the very same thing if you were in my shoes, I daresay!”

  Jack was silent for a moment as he looked into Amanda’s pleading eyes. Then his expression softened, and he said, “You can’t stay here without food, Amanda. We’ll have to send Theo back to town to procure something for all of us to eat.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Lord Serling said decisively. “I want to make inquiries about town … discreetly, of course. There may be people who know more about this Mrs. Grimshaw and her comings and goings than the innkeeper at the Bull and Bush seemed to know.”

  Amanda turned to the marquess. “You’re so good to help me,” she said feelingly. “I don’t know what I would have done without both you and Jack along to help out.” She laughed shakily. “I daresay those dogs would have had me for dinner and buried my bones by now.”

  “Speaking of dinner, I’d better go,” said Lord Serling, moving to the door. “Theo won’t be thrilled to undertake that wretched road again … nor will I. But I’ve no notion of going without my dinner, and I’m sure Theo hasn’t either.” He raised a brow and looked at Jack. “I’m sure you’ll take care of things in our absence, little brother.”

  Then he was gone.

  Suddenly finding herself alone with Jack for the first time since she’d summoned up all her willpower and crept out of his bed that morning, Amanda was overwhelmed by sudden shyness.

  She moved to the window and pretended to be watching Lord Serling’s departure. It was growing darker outside by the minute, with the last rays of the sun well below the distant horizon, and she could barely make out Lord Serling’s tall, shadowy figure as he conversed with Theo, then climbed inside the carriage. But she was only half registering the scene, anyway. She was all too aware of Jack standing behind her. She could almost imagine she felt his heat radiating toward her … drawing her closer.

  As the shadows lengthened and the room darkened by the instant, the window became like a mirror. The carriage drove off, but Amanda hardly noticed it leaving because she was too transfixed by Jack’s ghostly reflection in the black glass.

  He was watching her. He was moving closer. He lifted his hands, and her eyes drifted shut as she anticipated his touch.

  His hands fell lightly on her shoulders. He’d touched her before that day, but the little hand squeezes and shoulder hugs were supportive gestures. This was different. She knew it and he knew it.

  Next she felt his chin press into her hair, then his warm breath as he dipped his head and skimmed his lips across the nape of her neck. Involuntarily she sighed and slumped against him, his hard chest a wonderful prop for her drooping shoulders.

  “Amanda, darling,” he murmured with his face buried in her hair and his hands sliding along her collarbone. “You’ve had a wretched day. Lean on me, sweetheart. Lean on me.”

  His words were a soothing balm to her shattered nerves, his strength so comforting. His arms around her were like another visit to the Angel Inn, which was Amanda’s idea of heaven on earth….

  Then she remembered. The man whose charms she wanted desperately to give in to at the moment was Jackson Thadeus Montgomery, Viscount Durham, not the John she’d traveled with and fought with and nursed through the fever … the John with no last name, no title, and no life beyond the present.

  Maybe Jack didn’t have a wife, but he had a past and a future, a life back in London, and a high place in society. Jack’s world—and indeed her world, too—was a different existence than the one they’d created in that small enchanted room at the Angel Inn. In the real world there were structure and rules and things one did and didn’t do.

  And one thing you didn’t do if you were a respectable, unmarried female was make love with a man … particularly if that man had no desire to exchange his bachelorhood for matrimony.

  And Amanda knew that the sooner she began playing by the rules of the real world, the easier it would be to let Jack go.

  She pulled away.

  Jack looked at Amanda, and by the distraught expression in her soft blue eyes, he knew she wasn’t going to let him touch her again. “So, that’s how it is, eh?” he said.

  Amanda bit her lip and folded her arms around her waist in a poignantly protective gesture. It was all Jack could do to keep from grabbing her and clasping her against his chest. “That’s how it has to be, Jack, from now on.”

  He threw her an aggrieved look. “Just because my brother shows up and I’ve suddenly got a name doesn’t mean everything has to change.” Bu
t he knew his words had a hollow ring.

  “I expected you to be out of my life this morning, Jack. Last night we enjoyed a few wonderful, beautiful, stolen hours. But now we have to get back to our real lives, Jack. The longer we play at this … this fantasy affair between us, the harder it will be for me to accept it for the fairy tale it is and get on with reality.”

  “It wasn’t fantasy, Amanda. It wasn’t a fairy tale. The feelings between us are genuine. I know mine are.”

  Amanda’s mouth curved in a sad, wise smile. “Yes, I believe you. I do believe you care for me … a little. And you’re right in another respect, too.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You insist that our night together was no fairy tale. I agree with that assessment wholeheartedly, Jack, because one of the hard and fast rules of a fairy tale is that it must have a happy ending. Our little story won’t have a happy ending, will it, Jack?”

  She didn’t have to say the exact words. Jack knew what Amanda was asking him. He’d made it perfectly clear to her that he couldn’t make her any promises, couldn’t offer her anything binding or lasting in return for sharing her love with him last night. But now that his brother had showed up and he’d been given back his identity, Amanda was probably wondering if there was a chance Jack wanted to take back those cautionary words and perhaps embark on a real courtship with her.

  The truth was, as far as Amanda was concerned Jack didn’t know what he wanted. He knew he cared very much for her, that he desired her, respected her, and admired her more than any other woman. He knew he’d lay down his life for her if need be. But if Charlotte could miraculously disappear off the face of the earth and make Jack a free man once more … would he willingly turn right around and get himself betrothed again?

  He didn’t think so.

  On the other hand, once he’d discovered that Amanda was a virgin, if he’d been free to do it, he would have proposed marriage. He had compromised her, and it was the honorable thing to do in such a case.

  But all that was a moot point. The fact of the matter was, Jack was in a muddle. He would marry a woman he didn’t love and hurt a woman he probably could love quite desperately … if things were different.

  Amanda broke into Jack’s brooding reverie with a soft sigh. “You don’t have to answer, Jack,” she said softly. “I know there won’t be a happy ending, and I do understand.”

  Jack wanted to scream that she didn’t understand. He wanted to tell her he’d offer her marriage if he was free to do so, but it was far too late now to confess that his memory had returned. If he confessed, he’d also have to admit that he was engaged to be married and had been well aware of that fact when he took her to bed. In other words, he’d compromised her knowing full well he could never do the honorable thing because he was already promised to another.

  More than ever before, Jack felt himself desperately in the wrong. He was a first-class cad, and he must never touch Amanda again. He owed her that much. The best thing he could do would be to allow her to believe whatever she wanted to about him, then gradually … and hopefully sooner than later … forget his very existence. After all, the truth was worse than anything she could come up with to explain his reprehensible behavior.

  “You must be exhausted, Amanda,” said Jack, keeping his hands to himself but unable to keep the concern and affection out of his voice. “Why don’t you go lie down on the bed till Julian returns with the food.”

  “Maybe I will,” she said, chafing her arms.

  “I’ll build a fire and get the place warmed up in the meantime, all right?”

  “All right,” she said, sounding uncharacteristically tired and defeated. She walked to the door leading into the bedchamber and turned to look back. “You’ll let me know if you see or hear anything, won’t you?”

  He smiled. “Of course.”

  She went into the bedchamber and shut the door. Jack sighed, called himself every kind of miserable name, then went outside and found enough wood to keep a fire going for the rest of the evening. He built it up to a substantial blaze, then lay down on the moth-eaten old sofa in the parlor and closed his eyes.

  He didn’t expect to hear anything or see anything that would make Amanda feel any less tired or defeated. He thought she was grasping at straws by believing that there was still a chance Grimshaw and the child would return. He was very much afraid that Amanda would never find anything out about her half-sibling and would have to go through her entire life never knowing what had become of the child.

  He closed his eyes and listened to the beginning patter of returning rain. He dozed off, hoping the rain that would surely seep through the decrepit roof would not land on him.

  Later, Jack awoke with the distinct sensation of cold water dripping on his head … and cold, hard steel pressed against his throat.

  He opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with a dirty youth in a tattered riding cap, with two black dogs foaming at the mouth on either side of him. A rifle muzzle was pushed against Jack’s Adam’s apple.

  “Who the deuce are you?” the skinny lad demanded. “And what th’ bloody ’ell are ye doin’ in my house?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jack stared up into eyes that were exactly like Amanda’s; almond-shaped, finely lashed, and a clear, true blue. Hair, more the color of a golden guinea than Amanda’s pale blond, escaped the disreputable cap in the front in a riot of damp curls. The face was thinner, the features a little sharper than Amanda’s, but he’d no doubt at all that this lad was the half-sibling she’d come to Thorney Island to fetch home.

  The lad was certainly no child, but by his narrow shoulders, his only moderate height, and the obvious lack of muscle on his thin frame, Jack judged him to be barely in his teens.

  “Did you hear me, mister?” said the youth, giving Jack’s throat another jab. “Who the bloody ’ell, are you? Speak up or I’ll blow you t’ bits!”

  “Here, here,” said Jack, lifting his hands in a show of capitulation. “There’s no need to shove that muzzle down my throat. I’ve no objection to telling you who I am, but it would be easier to do so without that quite unnecessary pressure on my tonsils!”

  The lad sneered, but he pulled the gun back an inch. “All right then, empty yer budget. There’s nothin’ hurtin’ your pretty throat now, is there?” he mocked. “ ‘Cept maybe that white-as-snow necktie what’s stranglin’ you.”

  Jack raised an imperious brow. “My name is Jackson Montgomery. And you are…?”

  “Makes no never mind who I am! I’m not trespassin’! What are you doin’ ’ere?”

  Jack dropped his hands and folded them over his chest. The boy watched his every move, his finger poised on the trigger. Jack didn’t believe the lad was a killer, but there was no point in taking chances. He didn’t want either of them getting hurt because Jack’s impatience had egged him into an unwise move.

  Besides, those dogs looked like they could easily finish what the boy couldn’t, particularly as they might hold a grudge from earlier. Jack debated for as long as he dared on what to say, then decided fatalistically on the truth.

  “I’m here because I escorted a young woman to these premises looking for her sister … or brother.”

  The lad’s brows furrowed as uncertainty flickered in his eyes.

  “What young woman?” He jerked his head around, trying to look behind and next to him without taking his eyes off Jack for more than half a second. “I don’t see no woman.”

  “I believe she’s sound asleep on your bed. Otherwise,” he added wryly, “I’m quite sure she’d have leaped into the fray by now.”

  Jack could see the boy’s chest rise and fall with rapid breathing. His head swiveled toward the door leading into the bedchamber, then back to Jack. He guessed the boy was at least as much afraid and excited as he was angry. “She’s got no business sleepin’ on my bed, no more than you got any business breakin’ into my house and lockin’ my dogs up in the barn!”

  “They we
ren’t behaving in a very friendly manner,” Jack explained with a smile, briefly lifting his fingers off his chest in an apologetic gesture. “But you don’t set them a very good example, do you? You ought to be grateful that—”

  “Grateful!” the boy spat. “About what? I ain’t never had nothin’ and nobody t’ be grateful fer in my whole stinkin’ life!”

  Jack could easily believe this to be true. “That’s going to change, my boy. Your sister’s come to fetch you home.”

  The astonishment on the boy’s face was almost humorous. His mouth fell open and his eyes widened to the size of saucers. Without the scowl or the sneer, his face was quite handsome. Almost pretty. When he recovered, he gasped out, “I don’t know what kind of gammon you’re tryin’ t’ pitch, mister, but I’m no bufflehead. I ain’t got no sister. All I’ve ever had was an old witch caretaker by the name o’—”

  “Grimshaw,” Jack finished for him.

  Again the boy’s reaction was of extreme astonishment. “How do you know her name? You’ve been talkin’ to folks in town, ’aven’t you?”

  “I would be very happy to explain everything to you, young man, but I shouldn’t like to carry on such a lengthy conversation at such a disadvantaged angle. May I sit up, please?”

  The boy shook his head. “No,” he said gruffly. “You just stay put. You’re lying to me! I don’t know why you’re here. Lord knows I ain’t got nothin’ t’ steal, but—”

  “I told you why I’m here. I brought your sister to—”

  He shook his head faster, more vehemently. “No! I’m a bastard. Grimshaw said I was a bastard with no family to care whether I lived or died! And now that Grimshaw’s gone, I got nobody at all … not that Grimshaw was anything worth cryin’ over when she up and left in the summer. All she ever did was cry and complain into ’er cups o’ gin.”