Angel In My Bed

by Melody Thomas

  Melody Thomas

  Angel In My Bed

  For my wonderful mother, Faye Joann.

  I love you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  On a gust of biting wind, David Donally walked into…

  Chapter 2

  “It is freezing out here.”

  Chapter 3

  Leading the steeldust mare up the hill, Victoria took a…

  Chapter 4

  David danced through the master’s wheel with the same precision…

  Chapter 5

  Victoria stood in David’s dressing room, grateful for the hearty…

  Chapter 6

  David stood aside, allowing Meg to pass into the corridor…

  Chapter 7

  David reined in his horse at the top of the…

  Chapter 8

  “He’s been out there most of the evening, mistress,” Doyle…

  Chapter 9

  “Peepaw says I should wear spectacles in places of poor…

  Chapter 10

  “I’ll fetch His Lordship at once, mum.” David’s stoic butler…

  Chapter 11

  Victoria struggled to push herself up on her hands, raising…

  Chapter 12

  When David stepped into Meg’s room, he knew immediately that…

  Chapter 13

  “Good gracious, child.” Esma met Victoria as she entered the…

  Chapter 14

  “I’ve never seen fabric this beautiful.” Bethany pressed the blue…

  Chapter 15

  David reined in Old Boy just past the cemetery, peering…

  Chapter 16

  “On your guard, Donally!”

  Chapter 17

  As twilight settled over the hills, David reined in Old…

  Chapter 18

  Victoria awoke slowly, stretching languorously against the downy comfort of…

  Chapter 19

  A fire burned in the hearth. Victoria lay in bed,…

  Chapter 20

  An image of a buxom mermaid swung from a sign…

  Chapter 21

  Victoria arrived upstairs from the servants’ entrance. Gripping the edge…

  Chapter 22

  “Did you or did you not go to the town…

  Chapter 23

  “Get away from me!” Victoria pressed her palms against his…

  Chapter 24

  Victoria stumbled as her father pulled her beneath a tree.

  Chapter 25

  The carriage stopped near an isolated cemetery. Victoria looked out…

  Chapter 26

  Victoria came awake with a gasp to uncertain darkness. Cocooned…

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  England

  Autumn 1873

  On a gust of biting wind, David Donally walked into the Wild Boar Tavern, his cloak swirling about his calves, a whisper of dead leaves trailing in his wake. The frigid weather was as volatile as his mood as he remained like a shadow in the arched doorway of the common room. His towering height gave him the advantage, and he surveyed the length of the room filled with smoke from a roasting pig sizzling over the open stone hearth. He felt the eyes of the patrons this night and let them look their fill, knowing most contemplated what wealth he carried on his person.

  His sweeping cloak concealed his black trousers, shirt, and riding boots. A full cowl covered his head and face, his beard all that the eye could distinguish of his features. A cynical smile shifted the line of his mouth as his gaze moved over a room rumored to cater to murderers, smugglers, and thieves. A stiletto braced his calf inside one boot, a cutlass at his side, his weaponry no more than an extension of his own dangerous temper.

  Tonight, he was the hunter.

  And hunt he would.

  “What be yer pleasure, guv’nor.” A pale-haired whore slid one fingernail across his beard before he wrapped his black-gloved hand around her delicate-boned wrist. Her once pretty mouth slipping into a pout, she sidled against him. “I’ll be whatever pleases ye tonight.”

  “Point me to Stillings,” he spoke, making his disregard of her obvious as he returned his attention to the crowd. “I believe he is here.”

  “You’ve come to trade, ’ave ye?” She tossed her thick hair, for his dark eyes had fallen on her again. This time he let them linger. Caution seemed to replace some of the fire in her eyes. Nodding toward the man sitting in the corner watching David, she shrugged. “’As soon throw ye in the river as trade anything ye got to offer.”

  David smiled crookedly from the shadow of his cowl and, pressing a half crown in her palm, leaned nearer to her ear. “I’ll take that as a much-appreciated warning,” he said with a hint of Irish in his voice.

  She gazed up at him with the bluest of eyes. “In case ye be needin’ a quick exit there’s a door down that corridor.”

  Surveying the darkened hallway, he nodded. She squealed as someone behind her wrapped an arm around her hips and pulled her to a nearby table. David watched as two men fought over her. He began pressing through the unwashed bodies toward the back wall. The smell permeated every breath that filled his lungs. Disgust made him grimace. He had come to this tidewater town on the shores of the Cuckmere River for one purpose, and he was as unimpressed by the bloated show of force among the locals as he was by the depravity of their nocturnal habits.

  Sipping froth from his ale, Stillings watched his approach like a military man who sensed a new enemy at his gates. Stillings wore a sleeveless leather vest over a blue woolen shirt unbuttoned at the throat. But for the narrowed eyes that took his measure, any naïve fool might have considered the man’s face friendly enough.

  David came to a stop next to the table, blocking the light behind him, his height forcing the man’s chin up. “Stillings, I presume?” He didn’t extend his hand.

  Shoving the toe of an expensive boot against the man sitting at the table with him, Stillings snapped, “Off with you, Franks. Can’t you see we have a distinguished guest in our midst?”

  David accepted the proffered chair and sat with his back against the planked wall.

  “I’m the sheriff,” Stillings said, leaning forward on his elbows. “Appointed by the most noble Nellis Munro himself, magistrate and protector of these humble shores. He owns most of the land in these parts. Or is about to.” With a flick of his hand, Stillings brought a harried barmaid to the table. “Your pleasure, guv’nor.”

  It would please him to bathe the stench of this place from his clothes. David softened his next statement with a smile. “I believe we have business to attend. The sooner we finish, the sooner I can attend to my own pleasures.”

  “Naturally,” Stillings complied, sending off the girl. “But a man like you wouldn’t last five minutes in this town.”

  His slow grin affable, David took note of Stillings’s men moving around the room. Though David kept his face void of expression, he had the distinct impression that the sheriff expected him to be afraid. “Why is that?”

  “Because it’s a dangerous place for outsiders,” the man challenged with an air of amusement.

  Only one thing had brought David out of retirement, out of seclusion, and back to England.

  He slid a red velvet pouch from within his cloak. Drawing open the string, he dumped the trinket onto the table. A bloodred ruby and diamond earring rolled into the sphere of golden candlelight. Light glinted from the brilliant stones, an open invitation for every greedy eye in the room to stare.

  “I’ve traced this earring back to here,” David said. “I’m willing to pay a handsome sum for the necklace that matches this bauble.”

  “Forgive me.” Stillings scr
atched at his chin. “Where did you say you were from?”

  “The pawnbroker who had this earring directed me here.” David leaned away from the candlelight, the hilt of a stiletto in his glove. “Claimed to do business from around Alfriston. Said if anyone would know about the bauble’s previous owner, that man would be you.”

  “Did he now?” The sheriff folded his massive arms over his chest. “Why would I know such information?”

  “You are the sheriff. He must have presumed that you knew everyone in this area. This particular earring came from an unsolved theft in India some years ago.”

  “India?” Stillings regarded David with a hint of new interest in his brown eyes. “I’m not saying I know there is a necklace that belongs to this bauble,” he clarified, lest David construe his obvious greed for anything except what it was. “But I am wondering how you would know of such a necklace’s existence, if ye don’t mind me asking?”

  “Truly, Sheriff.” He used the title loosely. “What difference can it make how I know? I’m willing to pay for the object in question. A thousand pounds to be exact,” he said, knowing many a man would sell his own family for that kind of wealth. “The people I work for are willing to offer a cut of the profit to any man who will help locate the necklace.”

  Stillings’s eyes sharpened. “A thousand pounds, ye say?”

  In truth, the necklace was considered priceless—part of a decade-old theft of artifacts stolen from the Calcutta royal treasury. A theft that had cost him the life of a friend and his very soul. No one knew why a single earring had turned up after all these years. Nine years ago, the stolen cache was believed to have been on board a steamer that went down off the coast of Bombay, along with everyone on board.

  “A theft ye say?” The big man rubbed a finger across his clean shaven chin. “Maybe it’s not the necklace you’re after. Maybe you are a thief after a thief who has something more that you want,” he said, before finally surrendering his full attention to the ruby and diamond earring glittering on the table. “If that earring is any clue to the value of the necklace, methinks it is worth more than you say.” Stillings reached out a gloved hand to claim the earring.

  David slammed the stiletto into the trestle table just in front of his grasp, startling the man’s hand back. “This earring belongs to me, Sheriff.”

  Stillings’s eyes narrowed as if he had made a mistake in dismissing David as no threat. “Do you question my authority to pursue this as a legal matter?”

  “Come, Stillings.” His tone and smile belied the odds of his capture. “You do not mean to take what belongs to me. I’ve offered to pay well for the information I seek.”

  A confident smirk lifted one corner of Stillings’s mouth as he stood. “I can see we have a problem.”

  “Then we have something in common.”

  “Seize him!” the sheriff shouted.

  David reached beneath the table and, with both hands, heaved it over. Mugs, plates, and silverware spilled over the planked floor, splattering food and ale over unsuspecting patrons. In the same motion, he sprang to his feet and leaped atop a second table. Tossing out a handful of coins, he threw back his cloak and swung around, revealing the sword at his side.

  “Another day, Sheriff.”

  Men and barmaids dove for the shillings in a clash of screams, teeth, and flailing limbs. A call rang out. “Don’t let him escape, you fools!”

  David leaped to another tabletop and strode its length, his boots scattering trenchers and mugs. Shouts ensued as more men joined in the fray. Glass shattered, a bench overturned. David stepped onto another table, turning to check the sheriff’s progress, and saw him fighting through the tangle of limbs, barely missing a collision with a punch as he scrambled to recover the earring David had left him on the table.

  His cowl billowing around his shoulders, David dropped onto a bench before touching his boots to the floor and striding out the door into the black chill of a bright moonlit night.

  Chapter 2

  “It is freezing out here.”

  Setting a crate of jelly jars into the cart, Victoria Munro turned at the sound of her stepdaughter’s voice. Seventeen-year-old Bethany stood in a shaft of moonlight, her arms folded tightly over her torso. With only an eleven-year age difference between them, they had always been more like sisters than stepmother and stepdaughter.

  A lone lantern sitting in the barn’s doorway cast light over Bethany’s white wrapper. “Whatever are you doing at this hour? And on a night like this?” the girl scolded.

  “We are helping your grandfather deliver these to his patients tomorrow.” Glass rattled as Victoria set a second crate in the cart. “Since his illness, he can no longer—”

  “Cousin Nellis was here again tonight. I saw you arguing with him in the garden,” Bethany said, running to Victoria and wrapping her arms around her. “That awful man will see us driven from our land won’t he? And Peepaw can do nothing.”

  As Sir Henry’s closest male relative, Nellis wanted Bethany’s grandfather declared incompetent, a fact that was bound to occur if Sir Henry’s illness weakened him further. Victoria would fight Sir Henry’s sneak thief of a nephew every inch of the way before she sat back and watched Nellis become the family’s benefactor and take over their holdings.

  Victoria covered the cart with a canvas tarp and bent to secure the fastenings. She was confident they would make it through winter and still have a roof over their heads come spring, despite Nellis’s illegal machinations, but she was not so sure of next year.

  “’Tis a dangerous duel you play with Nellis, Victoria. He’s getting more persistent with you about his desires. How can you not be afraid?”

  “Bethany…” At seventeen, her stepdaughter was too naïve to understand real evil. But Victoria was neither young nor naïve—and she understood evil too well. She could handle Nellis, she told herself. “Would you rather we concede?”

  Bethany tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear and looked away. A velvet canopy of stars lay over the countryside. Behind her, the tree swing creaked in the steady autumn breeze. “It’s just…you make me afraid when you fight Nellis the way you do. He won’t care now if you marry him or not. He wants this estate.”

  “Your cousin isn’t a nice man, Bethany. Both your grandfather and I will fight him before either of us surrenders anything to him, and that includes this estate. Besides, even if I wanted to do such a thing as wed, I could not.”

  “Because you don’t love him?”

  Victoria absently fastened the iron rings that rimmed the cart, her cloak doing little to shield her from the chill.

  Moving to this cottage down the hill from Rose Briar should have proven to Nellis that she would not relent in her decision. Could not relent. But he had become even more obnoxiously persistent in the last few months, and she did not understand why. She had managed to save the plot of land on which this cottage sat with the income she and Sir Henry earned from their medical practice, but they were not going to be able to save the ancestral home on the bluff or the three thousand acres of nearby farmland. Nellis had already put everything on the block for unpaid taxes. No one would dare purchase the estate for fear of reprisal, and Nellis would get it for nothing. In a few weeks, everything but this cottage would be in Nellis’s hands. After that, he would be going after guardianship of her son.

  “Come,” Victoria beckoned. “You can help me finish tying down the tarp. With Nathanial still with your cousins in Salehurst, you and I will be too busy to worry about anything else for the next few weeks.”

  “Oh, look.” The younger girl pointed a slim finger at the sky. “A shooting star. Did you see? Make a wish. Hurry.”

  Victoria’s gaze moved across the trees and over the land that had been her home for the last nine years. Closing her eyes, she made a wish before the tail of the star fizzled in the sky. The people most important to her lived here. She wished for a miracle that would help her fight Nellis, and discovered she would bargain with t
he devil himself.

  A black cat leaped on the cart, and Victoria lifted the purring feline into her arms. “Where have you been, Zeus?” She nuzzled the cat. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous for you out here at night? An owl lives in our barn. Nathanial would never forgive me if I allowed you to get eaten.”

  She missed her son. He’d been gone since the hops harvest began in September. This was the first year she’d allowed him to go, and had done so because one of his best friends had moved to Salehurst last year. Nathanial was almost ten years old, after all—the age at which many of his friends were already being sent to boarding schools.

  “Victoria?” Bethany’s small voice came from behind her. “Riders are approaching.”

  “Get inside,” she said as a group of darkly clad riders crowned the hill above the cottage fifty yards away.

  “But why would they be coming here?” Bethany whispered. “We have a full moon tonight. Smugglers don’t—”

  “I said go inside, Bethany.” She continued to hold the cat. Sheriff Stillings should not be calling tonight, and she wondered what foul luck brought him her way. “See that Sir Henry doesn’t awaken.”

  Her stepdaughter turned away and, in a billowy cloud of white, ran across the yard and into the cottage. Oaks pillared the drive, and Victoria’s gaze touched the canopies made more eerie by the silver light filtering through their limbs. She would not have expected this particular crowd to be out roaming the woods on a cold night when they could easily have found warmth and entertainment in town.

  A rider separated from the group. Sheriff Stillings rode directly toward her and pulled up his beast of a horse just before he ran her down. Gravel sprayed her and sent the cat in her arms into a frenzy.