The Impostor

by Lang, Lily

  Sebastian smiled. The traitor, wearing Jane Cameron’s face, had arrived.

  The hunt was on.

  Three years before, on a hot summer night in July, while the British army had camped on the south banks of the Tormes River, Lord Wellington had conjured up a storm.

  For reasons that Tessa had never understood, the British general always conjured up a storm in secret before a battle. It was as though he wished to remind the half-dozen Gifted members of the Omega Group who served on his staff that he, too, was not without psychic powers.

  The rest of the British army, unaware of the secret activities of the Omega Group and at a loss to explain the sudden storms, called it Wellington weather—violent tempests that caused the rain to fall in sheets, soaking their blankets in mud. That night, as the British prepared to face Marmont’s army, lightning bolts had torn apart the sky, causing the cavalry horses to rear and break their tethers in terror. As the horses ran, they had trampled their half-drowned masters underfoot.

  The general’s Gift was not a particularly powerful one. He had little control over the storms that he called. This one had eventually overwhelmed him, and as the thunder and lightning raged outside and the first white light of dawn had touched the horizon, he had collapsed in his tent.

  It had been Tessa’s father who had called her to Wellington’s bedside. The general had looked frighteningly frail and old, but when he had spoken it had been in his own strong accent. It was imperative, the general had informed her, that he should be seen on the field of battle in the morning. If the men knew that their leader was ill, they would panic and all would be lost.

  Tessa had understood immediately what he wanted of her. Ever since her father had informed the general of her particular Gift, he had often asked her to take on the appearance of others—a French staff officer, a Spanish peasant, a noblewoman in the Madrid court of Joseph Bonaparte. She knew that now, he wanted her to ride into battle in his guise and lead his men into battle.

  She had agreed to the deception. Her father, Edward Ryder, was a staff officer whose particular Gift was for telepathy, and he had ridden at her side, communicating psychically with Wellington, who remained sequestered safely behind the lines. Sebastian had been at her side too, a calm, commanding presence, and Tessa had been unafraid.

  But now Tessa was alone. And she was afraid.

  She stood in the center of a drawing room furnished entirely in gold, gazing around her at the glittering crowd of England’s elite. The night was perfumed and warm, and inside, a thousand chandeliers illuminated the extravagantly furnished hall. The candlelight glowed over the elegantly garbed men and women below. A large supper table ran the whole length of the room and straight through to a conservatory on the far end.

  To her astonishment, an actual stream flowed above the middle of the table from a silver fountain. Flowers spilled in fragrant profusions from silver bowls and vases. A uniformed band played at the far end of the room, though the chatter of the crowd was so loud Tessa could hardly hear the music.

  The pounding of her heart had calmed since her arrival, but thus far she had discovered little to help her find Sebastian. She could only pray that her flimsy plan would work and that this was not all for naught.

  After an hour, she had learned nothing of use from any of the people who approached her. Instead, she had spent the evening fending off Jane Cameron’s admirers. Fortunately, as always, the faint traces of the actress’s memories had lingered.

  Now, as a man Tessa did not recognize bowed to her at the foot of the stairs, she nevertheless knew his name, a whisper in her mind accompanied by a sharp feeling of dislike.

  She had hoped Sebastian would be here tonight. She should have known better. The research she had conducted on Sebastian’s life after his return to England had indicated he did not go about much in Society, but the Prince Regent’s ball was one of the great events of the Season, and with no other scheme in mind, Tessa had no choice but to try.

  As one of Jane’s admirers hurried off to fetch her lemonade she did not want, someone called out from not far behind her, “Jane!”

  She turned. A vivacious, richly gowned woman beckoned to her. The woman was not beautiful, but her sharp, clever features had some indefinable appeal. A distant wave of affection swept through her, an echo of Jane Cameron’s feelings. Her mind produced a name.

  “Hello, Harriette,” Tessa said easily, bending to kiss the rouged cheeks.

  “You look absolutely ravishing, Jane!” exclaimed Harriette Wilson. “The parure—that way of dressing your hair—you must have your maid show mine how it is done! So simple and yet so elegant—I always forget how very beautiful you are, my dear.”

  She swept Tessa along, chatting easily.

  “It’s a perfect crush, is it not? It’s taken me ages to find you.” Her smile widened as she gazed at Tessa. “You see, Jane—the Gargoyle has been looking for you.”

  Tessa blinked, wondering if she had misheard. “The…gargoyle?”

  Harriette rolled her eyes. “Grenville, my dear. Have you forgotten the man completely already? He did you give you that necklace.”

  Grenville. He was here. Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach dropped. “Yes, of course,” she said, faintly.

  “I promised I would bring you to him if I chanced across you. This is simply too delicious, Jane. I wonder what the Gargoyle has to say to you, after the perfectly odious note he sent you with that parure?”

  “I have no notion,” said Tessa truthfully.

  Why was Sebastian seeking out Jane Cameron? From what she had gleaned, his association with Jane had ended months ago, and though the actress had put it about that she had been the one to end the affair, it was an open secret Sebastian had been the one to hand Jane her conge. What reason would he have for speaking to the actress now?

  Though Tessa had been seeking Sebastian, she had expected to need to approach him, to seek some way of gaining an audience with him. Her stomach curdled unpleasantly like soured milk, and her heart beat faster.

  In the next moment, she squelched the feeling, reproaching herself for her own foolishness. Sebastian had no reason to suspect anything. She had confided her plans to no one.

  “He was here just a moment ago,” said Harriette, craning her neck to peer over the crowd. “Fortunately, he’s tall as well as being excessively ugly. It should not take long to find him… Ah, yes.”

  Tessa looked up sharply. A tall man in precisely tailored evening clothes stood on the far side of the room, conversing casually with three brightly garbed women.

  Her first, dazed impression was that Sebastian had not changed much in the last six years. His dark hair still curled carelessly over his cravat. His face, the memory of which she had never permitted her father to take from her, even when its recurring appearance in her dreams devastated her anew each time, was still as dark and harshly compelling as it had been when she had first known him in Portugal and Spain.

  Only the long thin bayonet scar that bisected his left cheek was new. She had known he had been injured at Waterloo, but she had not known it had been in the face, and her heart clenched at the thought of the pain and agony the wound must have given him.

  For a moment, the room spun around her; she was eighteen again, in love with a man she would never—could never—have.

  At the last instant, she felt the transformation slipping, and she recalled herself to the present with an effort. Maintaining the form of others was not difficult, but it was an active process, much like sucking in the stomach. The moment her concentration faltered, the disguise would vanish, and she would only be herself.

  “He’s coming this way,” Harriette whispered, as Sebastian made his way through the crowd, his gait measured but sure. “I must say, Jane, I don’t know how you did it. Grenville is monstrously wealthy, I suppose, and your new carriage is most elegant, but there is that scar and that dreadful limp.”

  “He was a hero during the war,” said Tessa coldly.
<
br />   “There is no need to get snappish with me, my dear,” said Harriette, looking surprised. “I know how you suffered during the duration of your time with him! I do not forget our conversations. You are the heroine, my dear.”

  Tessa was saved the necessity of replying as Sebastian reached their sides. He bowed deeply.

  “Good evening, Miss Wilson.”

  “Good evening, my lord.” Harriette dipped a light, graceful curtsy and gave her hand to Sebastian, who kissed it, then turned to Tessa.

  “Miss Cameron.”

  Tessa sank automatically into a curtsy. “My lord,” she said.

  He brought her gloved hand to his lips. Tessa stood very still at the faint, warm pressure. He was close enough for her to catch a whiff of his familiar scent, the well-remembered masculine notes of sandalwood and ambrette that had always signaled safety and comfort and warmth to her. Standing before the man she loved in the guise of another woman, Tessa fought back an agony of heartbreak and longing so intense, she thought she would die of it.

  She had not seen Sebastian in over six long years. The smile he now gave her, the warm light in his eyes, was for another woman, a woman he had chosen for his lover, a woman he might even have loved.

  Tessa knew, too, that when she revealed her identity and the reason for her deception, he would not even recognize her. She had seen to that years ago, the last time they had met, when he had waited for her in the looted palace at the Escorial, and the sky had burned scarlet over the delirious city.

  But the memory of the last time he had kissed her, his hands gentle in her hair as he held her close, still had the power to pierce her with the force of a bullet to the heart.

  “Do you care to dance, Miss Cameron?” Sebastian asked.

  “Of course,” said Tessa automatically.

  The long, stunned silence that followed this pronouncement told Tessa she had made a mistake. Harriette Wilson stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

  She realized why when Sebastian led her onto the dance floor. The instinctive revulsion that rose in her was Jane Cameron’s. The actress disliked dancing with Sebastian, disliked his crippled leg, his scarred face too close to her, but she always agreed to these odious requests because Grenville was rich and generous, she had to please him, just smile at him and pretend that she liked him, that she liked the feel of his rough hands on her body. Because it had been asked of her.

  Jane’s thoughts made a wave of fury rise within Tessa.

  Forcing herself to remember to retain Jane’s form, she took the arm Sebastian offered her and followed him to the next room and onto the dance floor. The orchestra struck the first faint, delicate notes of a waltz, and he led her to the center of the room.

  Tessa, who had never known what it was like to be beautiful and admired, felt the eye of every man in the room upon her as he drew her into his arms. Their stares made her skin crawl.

  To distract herself from her disgust, she focused instead on the music. The waltz began slowly, gently, each measure soft and lingering, and Tessa, leaning back to gaze into Sebastian’s eyes, could feel her heart breaking anew.

  But then the music gathered strength and speed, and they swirled together in an irresistible whirlwind of light and color and sound. Giving in to the intoxicating magic of the waltz, Tessa forgot everything but that she was once again in the arms of the man she loved.

  They had danced thus in the barns of the Portuguese countryside, the peasant cottages of Frenada, the ballrooms of Madrid, in the glow of tallow candles, with the snow falling outside, or the summer wind whispering through the trees.

  They had danced thus, as the drums sounded and the trumpets played. They had danced thus on nights when they had not thought to live through the next day, and their feet had been as light as thistledown and snow.

  Sebastian’s gait was a little awkward, but she moved easily with him, following him unhesitatingly as he checked and reversed through the throng of dancers. Her feet—not Jane Cameron’s perfect feet, the feet that had never known calluses or blisters from long marches through the most treacherous terrains of Spain and Portugal, but her own, the feet that had followed Sebastian into battle and into hell—remembered the precise moment to step, to turn.

  And resting her hand lightly against the broad, solid shoulders of the man she had never stopped loving, Tessa closed her eyes and gave herself up to the soaring melody. The golden music swept through her soul like a wind, and she shivered in his arms, wishing this waltz might last forever. But the melody rose, arching toward the climax; Sebastian turned her faster and faster, and then, with a final perfect phrase, the music came to an end.

  Tessa stood perfectly still in the center of the dance floor, staring up at Sebastian as her heart beat a heavy tattoo in her breast. She could only hope her expression did not match her feelings—stricken, stunned, dazed.

  She could not bear to look at him any longer.

  Bowing her head, she curtsied.

  Sebastian would have known that the woman with whom he had just danced was not Jane Cameron, even if Francis had not warned him.

  It was not that she did not behave as flawlessly and correctly as his old mistress. But he would have guessed the truth the first moment the impostor had offered to dance with him.

  Jane had always hated dancing with him, and when pressed to do so, had always moved very carefully, as though he could not be trusted to support her weight. But this woman had danced with him as though they were one, and despite the strangeness of it, he had known, as he held her in his arms, that he could not remember ever desiring a woman as much as he had desired the false Jane Cameron.

  What sorcery had she used, what unnatural seduction?

  In an attempt to clear his brain, he recalled what Francis had told him about her. Her name was Tessa Ryder, and she was the daughter of a telepathic captain on Wellington’s staff. Sebastian had never met Tessa Ryder before, but he remembered her father, Edward Ryder, a short, round, balding man whose unprepossessing exterior hid an incredibly powerful Gift. They had served together on Wellington’s staff during the Peninsula campaign, but Sebastian had not seen the older man since the British occupation of Madrid in 1812.

  Francis had not been able to tell him a great deal about Tessa Ryder. Her Gift, as tonight proved, was shape-shifting. According to records of war dispatches kept at Whitehall, Francis had ascertained that she had carried out missions in both Spain and Portugal, though Sebastian, racking his brain, could recollect no such woman. Her missions must have been of the highest secrecy.

  Remembering Edward Ryder, Sebastian found it difficult to believe the man’s daughter could turn her back on her father, not to mention her country, but Francis had indicated that Tessa was the lover of the Gifted French agent Pierre Sevigny, a man responsible for the deaths of countless good men during the war.

  Looking down now at Jane Cameron’s face, he wondered what the true Tessa Ryder looked like beneath the mask of her Gift.

  He bowed, and she sank into a low, graceful curtsy.

  “My lord,” she said. “I need to speak with you.”

  Chapter Three

  As they departed the dance floor, Tessa automatically took the arm Sebastian offered her, clinging to him as though to a lifeline.

  “I am at your service, Miss Cameron,” said Sebastian. His voice sounded odd and a little rough.

  “Not here,” said Tessa. “Alone.”

  When he did not answer, she looked up at him. He watched her with an intense, unreadable gaze, and Tessa, her heart clenching, wondered if he knew that she was not Jane Cameron, if she had not given herself away, dancing with him.

  But he merely gave a brief nod of his head.

  “If that is your wish, Miss Cameron.”

  He looked neither right nor left as he pulled her through the crowd. Once or twice one of Jane Cameron’s friends or admirers would recognize her, but Sebastian looked so forbidding that no one detained them for more than a few moments. A muscle
twitched in his jaw as a tall, portly young man attempted to pay his compliments to Tessa. As they swept through the gold drawing room, she caught a brief glimpse of Harriette Wilson’s stunned face.

  Tessa glanced uncertainly back up at Sebastian. His eyes were very black. The grip of his hand on her own was so hard it was almost painful.

  They paused only once, to retrieve their cloaks and Sebastian’s thin ebony walking stick from a footman at the door. The elegant black and gold Grenville carriage was already waiting for them as Sebastian led her out into the warm night and down the steps of Carlton House.

  She had never ridden in such an expensive contraption, but she was too nervous to do more than glance at the sumptuous interior as Sebastian handed her up. He followed her inside, and then one of his liveried footmen gently shut the door of the carriage, which gave a little lurch as the horses trotted forward.

  They were alone in the cool shadows.

  She twisted her gloved hands together, wondering how she might begin. The speech she had rehearsed so carefully and so often over the past few weeks escaped her mind.

  But before she could decide upon a course of action, a thin silver blade flashed as it sliced through the darkness. He moved so quickly that she hardly realized what had happened until it was too late.

  The sharp edge of the sword he must have withdrawn from inside his walking stick rested just beneath her left ear. She swallowed, feeling a thin hairline of blood trickling down her throat.

  “Who are you?” came Sebastian’s cool, dark voice from the other side of the carriage. “Who sent you here?”

  She was a fool. She had walked directly into a trap. Sebastian had known she was coming. She sat very still, drawing in shallow, careful breaths, wondering how it had come to this moment, Sebastian gazing at her with a stranger’s eyes, holding a sword to her throat, as his elegant carriage raced through the darkened streets of London at midnight.