by Fran Baker
Chapter 7
She woke as grey as the morning mist. A dreary drizzle veiled the world beyond her window, precisely matching her own dismal mood. As she donned her serviceable blue muslin, Antiqua tried to purge the disquieting dregs of her dreams from her thoughts.
Through the long night, Thomas Allen’s death-mask had haunted her while she was locked in an impassioned embrace with Jack Vincent, an embrace which led over and over again to a tantalizing kiss . . .
That she found it tantalizing merely to dream of Vincent’s kiss did nothing for her waking humor. Antiqua had snapped at her maid three times before a tall pot of steaming hot chocolate arrived to revive her spirits. She offered her sincere apology to Lucy and was sitting by herself sipping the last of the cocoa when Lucy reappeared carrying an enormous bandbox. It said a great deal for the state of Antiqua’s mind that she spared her maid only a cursory glance over her cup before resuming her gloomy study of the etching on the silver cocoa pot.
A brown cloak of heavy woolen covered Lucy’s shapely figure and a large bonnet with impossibly bright yellow ribbons perched proudly atop her red curls. A broad smile stretched over her mouth as she set the box upon the bed and lifted the lid.
“Just wait ’til you see this, Miss Antiqua! It’ll pick your chin up off the floor or m’name’s not Summers!”
Antiqua did pick her chin up long enough to glance in Lucy’s direction and thus saw her maid reach into the box and spin around to display her surprise. She held a modish cherry red pelisse so stunning that several seconds lapsed before Antiqua was able to speak. Her eyes widened as they took in the gold frogging running down the front, the thick black fur trimming both the collar and ankle-length hem. Then they flew back to Lucy’s face.
“What on earth! Where did you get that?” she demanded.
“Oh and Miss, just look at this!” Lucy ignored the ominous note of Antiqua’s question. She laid the pelisse down and withdrew from the box two items which she presented in either hand. The first was a huge square fur muff, which when held at the waist would surely reach to one’s knees; the second was the most fetching hat Antiqua had ever seen, with a high, red-and-white striped crown and wide red silk ribbons.
As charming as this confection was, however, Antiqua was not to be distracted from her object. “Lucy,” she said in a foreboding tone, “where had you these things?”
The maid faltered. Hat and muff were hesitantly put forward and then back. “It was Master Vincent as said—”
“I knew it!”
Lucy finished what she had started. “As said you ought to be well protected on the crossing, what with the cold weather lingering so long this spring.”
“But I cannot accept such a gift!” Antiqua declared.
“Why not?” inquired a deep voice behind her, freezing her where she stood.
Antiqua felt Vincent come up behind her and drew a quick breath. “Because it passes all bounds!”
“As my fiancée, Brown-eyes, your acceptance of such a practical gift is quite within bounds, I assure you.”
Her eyes flared at his lazy tone, but she said nothing as she slowly pivoted to face him.
Vincent’s gaze traveled leisurely over the blue dress she had worn the night they met. “I believe . . . yes, I am certain,” he drawled, “that I much prefer your previous style of leaving those buttons undone.”
Her hand darted up to the row of pearl buttons firmly fastening her gown up to her neck and her bosom swelled with indignation. A smile flashed in his sapphire eyes, evidencing his enjoyment of her wrath and incensing her further still. A nod toward Lucy brought the pelisse instantly to his hand.
With a provoking air of assurance, Vincent held the garment before the resentful young lady. She lifted her chin haughtily, but turned her back to him, letting him gently drape the pelisse over her shoulders. Antiqua would then have moved away, but he kept his hands clamped on her shoulders, forcing her to face him once more. She suffered in disdainful silence while he secured the cloak at her neck. With the lightness of a passing cloud, his fingers brushed against her skin. She fought to ignore the tingling sensation aroused by his touch. He stepped away and she sighed.
“Oooh, Miss, it’s ever so lovely,” Lucy breathed, thus deepening Antiqua’s frown.
“With the exception of the frightful scowl, Lucy, I believe you are right,” Vincent agreed.
“If you two are quite finished with discussing the merits of my appearance, may I suggest we depart?” Antiqua said in voice laden with sarcasm.
Without awaiting an answer, she swept majestically from the room, an exit only marred by her immediate return to snatch up her reticule before again marching out. As Vincent this time held the door for her, his lips curved with amusement, the effect cannot have been said to be as impressive.
It was not long before Antiqua was to be seen, complete with bonnet and muff, gracing the deck of the Blue Angel. Impervious to the small crew’s frank stares and curious sidelong glances, she stood watching with interest as they busied themselves with a bewildering complexity of ropes and riggings. With his dark hair blowing in the wind and his pantaloons shoved into the top of his three-quarter boots, Vincent looked every inch the captain of his ship. He had left her to Fawkes’s care while he directed his crew’s efforts, and she was bemazed to note how the rough-looking men were sent leaping in response to his quiet commands.
As his gaze swept the deck, Vincent suddenly caught sight of Antiqua staring wide-eyed at one scarred old salt swearing roundly and with vivid imagination, at a younger one.
“I suggest, Fawkes, that you see our passenger and her maid to my cabin without delay,” he said before moving on.
Antiqua had not been allowed to protest; Oliver led her down the steep companionway to the lower deck before she could do so much as mention her desire to remain above.
“’Twould only put you in the way, Miss,” he said, not unkindly. “You’re best settled down here, where ’tis warm and cozy.” He ushered her into a commodious cabin which had the understated elegance seeming to surround everything connected with Jack Vincent.
A wan-faced Lucy entered behind her mistress. She staggered directly to the bunk which occupied the length of the bulkhead and sank upon the edge with a groan, her first utterance since coming up the gangway some minutes previously. From the moment she touched the deck, she had been turning a fine shade of green.
Having known from the instant she had seen the state of the troubled waters, with the waves clawing for the sky, that Lucy would not make the crossing on her feet, Antiqua set immediately to work. She shed the detested pelisse, casting it carelessly upon a chair bolted to the floor, then collected a large ewer and placed it by the bedside in preparation for the worst. Next she removed Lucy’s cloak and forced her to lie back on the bunk.
As she undid the first few buttons of Lucy’s gown, Antiqua felt the lumpish wad reposing there. With a swift, guilty glance toward the closed door, she drew the leather bundle out of her maid’s dress. Lucy, eyes skewered shut and lips pressed tightly together, paid her not the least attention.
The ship heaved as they weighed anchor and Antiqua lurched in her progress to her cloak. With a smile of satisfaction, she slipped the packet securely within the lining of her muff. Fighting her own squeamish feeling by then, she weaved her way back to Lucy.
She had no idea how many hours passed by as she contended with her maid’s misery and fought her own susceptibility to the wicked rolling of the ship. Sounds of furious activity floated faintly down to her, but it was not until a series of stamps and shouts was followed by a rushing clatter of chains that she had any notion of what was going on. Several jolts and then unbelievable stillness assured her that they had indeed anchored. They had reached England.
Within minutes the cabin door opened. If Antiqua experienced a pang of disappointment that the figure standing there was Oliver Fawkes, she did not show it. She merely gathered up her pelisse, hat and muff while he gathered he
r maid, then followed him mutely up the companionway.
A heavy rain was falling, but she did not seem to notice. She simply stood on the deck, gazing at the shoreline in astonishment.
“But this isn’t Dover!” she finally exclaimed.
“No, Miss,” Fawkes said. “The storm forced us to land south. This is Morcastle, Miss, and as ’tis well past noon, we’d best not delay.”
As he steered her down the gangway, Antiqua looked back over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of rain-glistened dark hair clinging damply to Vincent’s forehead. He returned her regard without expression. Then she was whisked into a waiting carriage where Lucy, still wobbling drunkenly, finally regained her speech, vowing never to set foot off England again, no, not even if Miss was to marry one of them heathen foreigners.
Some hot soup and the stability of hard ground did much to restore Lucy’s spirits, but Antiqua realized with a sinking heart that it would be impossible to keep to her plan of escape. Not only did Lucy need to rest before setting forth, but Antiqua reluctantly admitted that she did as well.
They were settled into a small, but clean and cozy chamber of the Golden Lion Inn. Antiqua was too tired to either know or care where Vincent might be. Listening to the rain pounding the roof with the hammers of the devil’s anvil, she fell asleep. When she awoke, she learned he had bespoken an early supper in a private room belowstairs.
When she entered this parlor some time later, Vincent had not yet arrived. Candles glowed, adding their light to that of the snapping fire, for though it was still early evening, the dark and stormy skies had necessitated the lighting much earlier than usual.
Light and shadow entwined over the white of her gown. The dress was the same one she had worn the previous night, and it was her best. Poor Lucy had not felt well enough to refurbish it, and Antiqua’s attempts to do so had failed to entirely eliminate its rumples and creases.
But Antiqua had no thought for the condition of her gown as she paced nervously before a rectangular table laid for two within the center of the modest room. Looking at it accusingly, she knew she would have to endure one more session alone with her enemy. Tonight she was determined not to forget he was just that—an enemy, a traitor, a man never to be trusted.
“A penny for your thoughts, Brown-eyes.”
“Oh!” Antiqua started at the soft statement and faced Vincent with every presentiment of guilt. “You startled me!”
“So it would appear.” He strolled up to her. His impeccable appearance did not evidence in the least his hours on the stormy sea. Every dark hair was brushed into place while his fitted gray jacket and black pantaloons were creased only where they ought to be. A fresh smell of soap told her he had bathed.
Gazing at this immaculate vision, Antiqua felt more crumpled than ever. Her eyes fixed upon the pleated lace trimming his snowy shirt. She sought for something to say, for she could not say she had been thinking of his own downfall at her hands.
He took pity on her and came to her rescue. “You were perhaps wondering what was taking me so long?” he suggested softly.
“Yes, yes, that was it exactly,” she agreed in relief.
“You must accept my apologies, my dear. I have been procuring a special license and can only now hope that our wedding day dawns brighter than our last night of singlehood.”
Antiqua blanched. She struggled to make a response. In the end she contrived in a strangled voice, “License?”
Seeming to enjoy her befuddlement, he held a chair out for her. “You cannot think I mean to marry you out of hand?”
She took the chair and found a measure of confidence returning. “No, Mr. Vincent, of course I thought no such thing. In point of fact, I truly did not think you meant to marry me at all.” Seeing his brows snap together, she added, “What I mean, is that I rather thought by now you’d have realized we need not get married at all.”
“By which you mean to say,” he returned as he took the seat angled next to hers at the table, “that you thought I had by now sobered.” Her vivid blush admitted the truth of this. He continued in a somber tone, “You must come to understand how greatly you would suffer if we did not marry. My own reputation is such that to have it known you were with me would quite thoroughly destroy your own. There is no alternative. Believe me, my dear, I have searched for one.”
She must remain calm, reasonable, she told herself. She must not blurt out that she knew this wedding was not for reputation, but for treason, a trap to keep her locked within his control. Tightly gripping her hands together, she fought to keep her emotional upheaval out of her voice. “But I do not see—”
“Antiqua, I would not harm you,” he said in a tone as gentle as a kiss.
The entrance of two servants forestalled any reply. For that moment, Antiqua wanted desperately to believe him. The look in his blue eyes even more than his husky tone as he said her name struck her, as it always did, with a longing to forget what she knew of him, with a yearning to discover what she did not.
They spoke of inconsequential matters throughout the meal, giving Antiqua time to regain her composure, time to search for a method to delay his plan of marriage. During a brief respite when the servants were absent, she said on a sigh, “I had always wished for a large wedding, you know.”
“If you so desire guests, my love,” he said amiably, “we could fetch Miss Sullivan from Dover.”
“Oh, definitely,” she returned without a pause. “But I’d have liked having other dear friends, friends such as the Allens. Particularly William Allen.”
If she had meant to surprise him, she succeeded in full measure. Vincent set down the glass he had placed to his lips and stared at her with such a look of astonishment that Antiqua squirmed. With a shade of defiance, she added, “Mr. Allen is a particular friend of mine.”
The methodical movement of the room’s porcelain and gilt clock tolled loudly. Vincent studied her with an expression so odd, Antiqua first colored, then went whiter than her gown. When he finally spoke, however, he merely said, “I am glad to hear it,” in a voice without inflection.
A servant wafted in to set a fruit tart before her. Feverishly, she wondered just what she had said wrong. There was nothing to be learned from Vincent’s face for he was once again as collected as ever. Her only course was to brazen it out.
With impatience, she pushed her dessert aside and, the instant the servant again vanished, inquired in what she hoped was a casual manner, “Have you something against Mr. Allen? You didn’t look at all pleased to learn of our friendship.”
“I am only sorry that your particular friend cannot be at our wedding.” He sipped his wine in a leisurely fashion, then looked from his glass to her face. “By the way, my dear, does Balstone know of this friendship of yours?”
She eyed him warily, suspecting a trick, but unsure which way the trap lay. “Why, no,” she said slowly. “Should he?”
He smiled as if at a joke. “I would have only thought that as Balstone and William Allen are one and the same, he would have been apprised of your close friendship.”
Her mouth worked several times without emitting a sound. At last she took refuge in anger, realizing that he must have known all along she was lying and had led her on for his own amusement. “How—how dare you!” she sputtered.
“Do not fret, Brown-eyes,” he rejoined in his contemptibly cool way. “We can still arrange for your dear friend, Miss Sullivan, to be present when we are wed. We shall journey to Dover in the morning and be married there.”
“Kindly rid yourself of the notion that I’ll be marrying you,” Antiqua said flatly. “I shall not. Not ever! What is more, I think you are—are utterly abominable!”
Her chair was sent flying back and she was on her feet. Vincent watched her stand quivering, then slowly rose to face her. “And as you, my little love, are given to play-acting and story-telling, we shall make a fine pair. Hold me in aversion, if you will. It makes no odds, Brown-eyes, for tomorrow you will be given the p
rotection of my name, whether you wish for it or no.”
She whirled to leave, but her wrist was entrapped by a strong hand. She stared at it wide-eyed, feeling the brand of his bare touch travel up her arm like heated sparks.
“Come, Antiqua, if you are in some trouble, or have some problem, do not hesitate to tell me. We could deal well enough together if you could bring yourself to confide in me.”
This was it, she realized. This was his attempt to cozen her into telling him about Allen, the packet and everything. And gazing into those beautiful blue eyes, she was tempted, dear God in heaven, she was tempted to tell him whatever he wished to know.
“I have nothing whatever to confide in you, sir,” she said in a shaking voice. “If you will have the kindness now to release me?”
Vincent’s grip tightened. “If you cannot bring yourself to be a confiding wife, my sweet, may I advise that in future you strive at least to be an honest one? I will not tolerate falsehoods and I strongly suggest that you remember that.”
She stood glaring at him, hating herself for wanting to throw herself into his arms, hating him more because of it. After a tense moment which Antiqua thought she could not endure, Vincent at last freed her. She remained immobile, her eyes refusing to take in the red marks encircling her fine-boned wrist. Then, speechless, she twisted and fled to the door.
“Antiqua.”
He hadn’t raised his voice, but the directive was still there in his hard tone. She stopped and turned to look at him.
“Do not keep me waiting in the morning,” he warned her.
Antiqua found she had no voice with which to inform Mr. Vincent that he would be waiting until a certain hot spot froze over, so she exited wordlessly.
Chapter 8
“Did I not tell you he meant to serve me a trick?” Antiqua demanded of her maid. “He knew! He knew all the time that Viscount Balstone was William Allen. That is why he braved the storm to cross to England! That is why he insists we be wed immediately! Well, he’ll soon discover he’s not dealing with some namby-pamby miss who is all complaisance!”
