“My poor girl, my poor girl,” Alicia Lindell kept saying, while John Lindell harrumphed! and said “Now Alicia” several times. The “poor girl” altered to a litany of “it’s over now.”
“Oh, I’m so very glad to see you again,” Angela said at last, and discovered that she truly meant it. If she could not be with Kit, she at least had her loving family around her. Gently disengaging herself from her mother’s clasp, she turned to include Emily in their circle. “We are both glad to be back,” she said pointedly, and Emily beamed when Mr. Lindell put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze and a gruff “Welcome home, Emily.”
A light rain began to fall, and Mrs. Lindell scurried toward the waiting carriage, calling to them to join her while their trunks were fetched. In a very short time, the elegant landau rolled away from the docks.
Angela gazed out the window, paying only the scantiest attention to her mother’s chatter about friends and acquaintances who would be thrilled to have her home again. Rain spattered against the windowpanes in trickling rivulets, diffusing the familiar landmarks. They passed the Mansion House, where the lord mayor of London resided, traveled down Cannon Street past St. Paul’s Cathedral, then crossed the intersection where Blackfriar’s Road changed to Farringdon. With St. James and Piccadilly soon behind them, they entered the fashionable district of Mayfair, where John Lindell had built a most comfortable residence ten years before.
As the carriage turned up their street, John Lindell said into the growing silence, “My circumstances have grown even better since you left us, Angela.”
Dragging her attention to her father, she murmured, “How nice for you, Papa.”
“Yes, yes, quite so. Only a month ago, I was approached by an important man—well, perhaps not the man himself, but one of his barristers—who made me a most lucrative business offer. Of all the men in London he could have chosen, he chose me.”
Angela managed an interested smile. “I’m certain he made the wisest choice.”
“I like to think so.” Mr. Lindell sat back with a satisfied smile. “Rubbing elbows with Charles Sheridan is not something one does every day, you know.”
Frowning, Angela tried to recall where she had heard that name. “Charles Sheridan? Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because,” Lindell leaned forward to say with an even wider smile, “he is the Duke of Tremayne. Imagine—we have been invited to a soirée at his home. We shall be in company with nobility, if you please.”
Alicia Lindell fanned herself briskly and said in a faintly breathless tone, “I cannot imagine what I shall say! Or wear. Oh my—it is so fortunate that you have returned from your perilous voyage in time to join us, Angela.” Her wide blue eyes narrowed slightly as she regarded her daughter. “That time shall, of course, be explained with a most prosaic article in the papers. Your father has already attended to it, so we shall not mention it again.”
Angela gazed at her mother. Alicia’s fan moved rapidly back and forth. So, her capture by pirates was to be explained with a—prosaic—article. Kit Saber’s name would never be coupled with hers in any fashion, because that would be too detrimental to her father’s career. And her mother’s social life. She swallowed a tart reply, and turned her attention to the rain-wet street outside the carriage window. It was as it had always been. Not that she minded, really, for she had expected little else from her parents. She was being unfair. They loved her and wanted to protect her. But she was expected to adhere to society’s rules with no volition of her own. At least she knew what was required of her. And she knew they wanted only to shield her from cruel gossip and snubs. It would never have occurred to either of them that she might want anything else.
But she couldn’t help wondering if her mother had any interest in knowing what had really happened these past two months. Would she care that her only daughter had fallen in love with a pirate? Or that she missed him horribly and wondered if he ever thought about her? Somehow, she didn’t think it would occur to her mother to ask those questions.
Morning sunlight streamed through the windows of the breakfast room with a cheery glow when Angela entered the next morning. Her father looked up from his daily paper and smiled at her.
“You are radiant as always, dear,” he said as she took a chair at the table. “I cannot tell you how much you’ve been missed.”
Angela returned his smile. A good night’s rest had restored her pleasure at being with her family again. “Thank you, Papa.” She unfolded a snowy linen napkin over her lap while a servant offered her food from silver chafing dishes. John Lindell had gone back to reading his newspaper, but looked up again when she asked if there was anything of note in the news.
“The usual. Napoleon and his machinations are wreaking havoc over half of Europe. I cannot imagine why Parliament has signed a treaty with him when they must know he will break it as soon as is expedient. Humph. He has spies everywhere. Everyone knows they are spies and still entertain them blatantly. It’s foolish and ridiculous.”
Amused, Angela said, “If spies are being entertained, there must be a good reason for it, Papa.”
“Hah! Some men will allow a beautiful woman to get away with anything, even political treachery. Foolishness, I say, pure foolishness.”
“A beautiful spy, Papa? I’m fascinated. Whatever are you talking about?”
“This Frenchwoman, La Diabolique. Diabolical is an astute term for her, I admit. Rumor has it that she’s devastatingly beautiful. Raven hair, blue eyes, and skin like Devonshire cream—it’s pathetic. She must be forty if she’s a day, yet men fall at her feet like sparrows in a hailstorm.” He leaned forward, shaking his paper angrily. “It was even said that Pitt entertained her, and if that should happen, government secrets would never be safe!”
“But you know how rumors are. Few of them are true and are often so well embroidered with fantasy that they bear little resemblance to the truth. Perhaps this La Diabolique only requested an audience with the Prime Minister. Out of that could have come this fantastic tale of an alliance.”
“True enough, I suppose,” Lindell said grudgingly. “Still, I say she should be put on the next ship across the Channel. The infernal woman is everywhere, I’m told. At soirées, royal balls—the prince made an absolute cake of himself by tailing after her all one evening and engaging her in earnest conversation. But what can one expect from a prince who married Mrs. Fitzherbert? Dear God. What a mess this country is in.” He leaned forward slightly. “That is why I am so impressed with the duke. He has vision.”
“The duke?”
“Tremayne. I told you—Charles Sheridan. He is very adroit not only in business, but in politics. The man casts a long shadow, and I am most impressed with some of his ideas.”
Not at all interested in the machinations of the government at the moment, Angela asked if her mother would be joining them for breakfast.
“Alas, no. She has one of her headaches and took a powder to soothe it.” After a short pause, he added, “I think it was the excitement at seeing you again. We were so worried, you know.” Another pause. Then, “When the captain of the Scrutiny told us that you had been taken by pirates . . .” He let his voice trail into a pregnant silence, and Angela tensed.
“The captain of—do you mean Captain Turnower?”
“But of course. How else do you think we knew about it? When everyone else was either taken prisoner or murdered by those beastly pirates—it was a miracle Turnower escaped—he was all that was left to tell of your fate. Oh, we agonized so many nights, wondering if you were still alive and unharmed.”
Her fork clattered to the edge of her plate with a brittle clink. “Captain Turnower is a coward and a liar.”
John Lindell stared at her. “Whatever do you mean?”
“He would have left us tied to the mast of a burning ship rather than give up room in the lifeboats to two women he did not want aboard his ship in the first place. If the pirates had not taken us, we would have g
one down with the Scrutiny.”
“That’s a rather hard accusation, Angela.”
“But true.” She took a deep breath. “I was there, Papa. I know what happened.”
Lindell’s hands crunched the pages of his paper with a loud rustle, and his face took on a hard expression. “If this is true, then I shall see that Turnower is properly punished.”
“If this is true?” She stared at him. “Do you doubt my word?”
“No, no, not at all. But I had heard . . .” He stopped and looked down at his plate.
“You heard what, Papa?”
He looked back up at her, sighing. “I heard that you were taken by the pirates, not rescued. There is a vast difference, and I assumed—Angela, I never told your mother about it. She knows only that you were picked up by a passing ship when the Scrutiny went down, and it has taken you some time to get back to England.”
Gesturing to the newspaper he still had wadded in his fists, she asked carefully, “And the article released about our rescue? Does it go into lurid detail, or is that only for those adept at reading between the lines?”
His mouth thinned into a hard line as he murmured, “It states that you have been abroad for a holiday before your marriage to the baron.”
“Marriage!” Shocked, she stared at him for several long moments. The faint clatter of dishes in the steward’s pantry behind closed doors indicated that the servants were craning their necks to listen. Angela smothered the burning desire to shout her defiance and said calmly, “And who am I to marry?”
“Baron Von Gosden-Lear, of course. I am well aware that you did not marry your Royalist. His letter arrived here two weeks after you had gone.”
“And you read it.”
“Of course. Angela, I was frantic. I would have read the king’s correspondence if I had thought it would give me information about your welfare.”
Slightly shamed, she nodded. “Very well. I understand. But I do not understand your insistence upon my wedding the baron. Has it not occurred to you that I am well past the age where you may force me into such an action?”
“Naturally. But in light of the scandal that your disappearance could have caused, what else was I to do? I had to concoct a plausible explanation that would not damage your reputation and render you unfit for marriage to any proper suitor. Surely, you understand.”
“I know, Papa. But I am back now and all is well.” Pushing at a coddled egg with the tines of her fork, Angela knew he was trying to maneuver her into doing as he wished. But not for nothing had she managed to survive aboard a pirate ship, and she looked up at him after a moment and said softly, “I refuse to wed the baron. It is useless to pursue that course. Should you persevere, I will think little of telling the truth about the past few months of my life.”
John Lindell just stared at her without speaking, until the silence dragged on unbearably. Finally he gave a helpless shrug and said, “Do as you will, Angela. I cannot fight both you and your mother. I have too much else on my mind at the moment.”
It was not the most auspicious way to begin her first day back in England. Angela had the dismaying thought that she would have much preferred remaining aboard the Sea Tiger with pirates. At least the battle lines there had been clearly drawn.
Nineteen
Alicia Lindell grasped her daughter’s arm tightly. “Just look,” she whispered. “So many earls and dukes . . . why, even a baron is of little consequence here.”
Rather chagrined by her mother’s reaction to the elegant drawing room filled with guests, Angela whispered, “Of even less consequence is an untitled banker.”
Her mother shot her a frown. “Don’t be impertinent. Are you not the least impressed by the assemblage here?”
Truthfully, she had to admit to a certain awe. Where else but in London could one find such a vast and glittering array of jewels and nobility in one gigantic room? Ornate gold pillars and wall coverings embroidered with birds in flight and leafy palm fronds provided an elegant background for the sumptuously garbed guests that danced beneath five—no, six—massive crystal chandeliers that held several hundred candles apiece. It was all very impressive and ostentatious. Appropriate, Angela thought with a trace of cynicism, for a duke said to dabble in politics and profit.
In the two months since she had been back in London, she had heard more than enough about Tremayne. Urbane, sophisticated, witty, his present held as many mysteries as his past. Rumors flocked about many of the peerage, but Tremayne seemed to have gathered more than his share of gossip. His first wife had died under mysterious circumstances, it was said, and his second wife had succumbed to a fever several years before. Neither wife, rumor held it, had been very pleasant.
Then there was the matter of his only son and heir. It was whispered that there had been a violent quarrel and the duke had killed his own son. The cause of the quarrel was said to be a woman, which lent spice to the rumors. No one had seen or heard from the heir in years. All portraits of him had been removed from the walls, and if mention of him was made, the duke refused to respond. It was as if he had never existed. Few could even recall his name, and those who did forbore repeating it. It was as if he had disappeared off the face of the earth.
“Very mysterious,” John Lindell had agreed testily when she confronted him, “but hardly sinister. If the boy died, it must have affected the duke greatly. Is it any wonder that he avoids mentioning him?”
Angela’s efforts to determine the exact nature of the business between her father and Tremayne had been futile. Lindell was as close-mouthed as a clam, as Dylan would say.
“Look dear,” Alicia whispered excitedly, “here comes the duke with your father . . . oh, my, he’s going to introduce us!”
Turning, Angela saw a tall, handsome gentleman with silver-flecked dark hair at her father’s side. She had the thought that he looked exactly as a duke should—austere, reserved, and aristocratic. He carried himself with the air of a man who knew his own worth and did not have to flaunt it. Angela had never met him or anyone like him. Dukes had not frequented her social set. Yet there was something about him that was vaguely familiar.
The duke’s steady gaze was unnerving, and made her much too self-conscious. She hid a tremor of nervous reaction with a graceful curtsy when her father made the introductions. Childhood hours of deportment classes came to her rescue, so that she was saved from embarrassing herself.
“Your Grace,” her father was saying, “may I introduce my wife and daughter . . .” John Lindell sounded as if he were about to burst with self-importance as he made the introductions, and Angela kept her gaze trained downward while the duke spoke to her mother.
“I believe we have corresponding ties, Mrs. Lindell. My mother was by way of being your mother’s fourth cousin, is that not so?”
Hand fluttering at her throat, Alicia stammered, “Why, I . . . I never knew that, Your Grace.”
“A small tie, to be true, but a tie nonetheless.”
Then Charles Sheridan bent forward over Angela’s hand, his voice low and well modulated. “It is a very great pleasure to meet you, Miss Lindell. I see that the rumors about your beauty have not been exaggerated.”
“You are very kind, Your Grace,” she murmured, and met his eyes with a small sense of shock. They were a deep blue, thick-lashed and penetrating, seeming to see through her to the very marrow of her bones.
“No, not at all,” he replied with a faint trace of amusement. “Many things may be said of me, but never has the appellation of kind been applied to my character. Truthful to the point of tactless, perhaps, but not kind.”
Floundering for a polite reply, Angela was saved from the necessity by her mother’s intervention.
“Your Grace, we are so pleased that you honored us with an invitation this evening. It is a lovely affair.”
Bowing slightly in Alicia’s direction, the duke released Angela’s gloved hand at last. “I am pleased that you are enjoying it. So often, these things can be such a
bore.” Raking Angela with another searching glance, he turned to her father again. “Would it distress you, John, if I were to ask your daughter to honor me with the first dance?”
Shocked, Angela heard through a buzzing in her ears her father’s delighted acceptance, then the duke took her hand again in a light grip.
“Miss Lindell, it would give me great pleasure if you would accompany me on the dance floor. It is customary to begin with a minuet.”
“I . . . I would be honored, Your Grace,” she managed to say. Dear Lord. She had not danced in months. What if she stumbled, or forgot the steps?
But the painstaking drills of the dance master her mother had insisted she have as a child came in good stead, and when the musicians began the stately strains, Angela found herself in the middle of the vast dance floor with the Duke of Tremayne. Other couples danced beside them in the slow, elegant steps of the old French dance. She could feel sidelong glances and open stares and knew most of the guests were wondering who she was. John Lindell may have been well known in business circles, but this was an entirely different matter.
When the dance was over and the duke had returned her to her mother’s side, he left with a formal bow and murmur of appreciation. Angela could feel her mother trembling with excitement.
“He has effectively ensured your acceptance,” Alicia whispered in Angela’s ear. “I cannot believe our good fortune. Look at the way everyone is staring at you and whispering.”
“This is ridiculous,” Angela murmured. “I feel like a porcelain doll in some grotesque masquerade. Do you suppose we could sip punch for a few moments, then steal away without being noticed?”
Giving her an astonished glance, Alicia asked, “Why, ever would we want to do that? Your arrival into the ton has just been secured.”
Capture The Wind Page 29
