“Aunt Lucia, what are you doing awake at this time of morning?” Angelique, still in her gown but wearing a man’s frock coat over it, her ebony hair down over her shoulders, closed the door behind her. “Are you ill?”
Lucia rushed toward her, taking both her hands. “Sapphire never came home last night. I hoped she was with you.”
“With me?” Angelique drew back. “Certainly not. I was with Henry. We went back to his parents’ home. He had this ridiculous idea to tell them he was marrying me with or without their consent.” She pulled away from Lucia and walked toward the kitchen, tossing the man’s coat on a chair as she went by. “Or mine, apparently, for that matter.”
Angelique pushed through the swinging doors into the small utilitarian kitchen and Lucia followed her. They ordered most of their meals out from the cookshop down the street, so it was perfectly adequate. Though Avena had become an excellent ladies’ maid, a cook, Lucia had quickly learned, she was not.
Angelique opened a cupboard and poked around, finding a plate covered in cheesecloth. “I’m starved.”
“Have you any idea where she might have gone? I’m worried sick. Could she possibly be with Charles?”
Angelique plucked the cloth from the plate to find a slab of yellow cheese. She drew a knife from a drawer and sliced a piece off. “With Charles? I think not. We saw him around three at a pub near Westminster, and I must say he was in a foul mood.” Leaning against the wooden table beneath the cupboard, she bit into the cheese. “Apparently they had some sort of row. He wouldn’t say what had happened, but I can tell you he was not pleased with her. He kept asking me what she had told me and finally, when I convinced him we’d not spoken since the ball, he began to ramble about not believing anything she said. About her being intoxicated and misinterpreting his intentions.” She fluttered her hand. “It was all a bunch of nonsense and I had no idea what he was talking about.”
“Dear me.” Lucia sighed, drawing her hand to her mouth and glancing away. “I can’t imagine where she’s gone, then. This isn’t like her. She’s never stayed out all night before.”
“Actually, it could be my fault.” Angelique sliced another piece of cheese, hesitating. “She and Charles left rather quickly, a result of a commotion Henry and I inadvertently caused at Lord and Lady Harris’s ball last night.”
Lucia lifted an eyebrow.
“Don’t listen to the gossip. None of it is true.” Angelique raised a slender, bare shoulder. “Most of it isn’t, at least.”
“You think Sapphire could have run away?”
“Run away? Certainly not. Where would she run to? You don’t give her enough credit, Aunt Lucia. Our little Sapphire has a mind of her own and she can take care of herself. Everyone seems to forget she was the one who saved me from those wild dogs all those years ago.” Taking the last of the cheese, she walked out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Lucia called, following her into the parlor.
“To bed.” Angelique turned to her. “Where you should be going.”
“I couldn’t possibly sleep.” Lucia worried her hands. “Armand left her in my care and now—”
“Aunt Lucia.” Angelique grasped her shoulders. “You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. Who knows?” She released her. “Perhaps she met up with the dashing Lord Wessex. She’s half in love with him, you know, and he with her.”
“I know no such thing!”
“Well, do what you like, but I’m going to bed. Henry said he’d be here by noon.” She flashed a grin over her shoulder. “Though he’ll probably be here closer to three. I told him to sober up and apologize to his parents. I’ll not have him penniless.”
Lucia glanced up at her. “Is that unfair? He will apparently have you penniless.”
“I’m not penniless. I have what Sophie left and my own devices.” She chuckled and gave a wave with the piece of cheese, disappearing down the hall.
Lucia shook her head at her adopted niece, who knew less about love than she thought. It came so seldom in life. She just prayed Angelique wasn’t missing it right under her nose. Despite Henry’s immaturity and blithe attitude, Lucia could tell that he truly did love Angelique, and she hated the thought that Angel might let true love pass her by. But Angelique had been uncontrollable since childhood—as uncontrollable as her Sapphire—and right now she was most concerned about Sapphire. Turning, she went into her room, grabbed a cloak and her reticule and hurried out of the house, hoping it wouldn’t take her long to find a hackney so early on a Sunday morning.
“Lucia, love, what’s wrong?” Meeting her in the front hall, dressed in a silk nightshirt, Jessup opened his arms to Lucia.
“It’s Sapphire,” she cried, her eyes filling with tears as she threw herself against him. “She never came home!” She peered up at Jessup, knowing now that she was more distraught than she had realized. “I’m so sorry to wake you, but I didn’t know where else to go, who else to turn to.”
“There, there, don’t be ridiculous.” He ushered her down the hall and into the parlor. “Malcolm,” he called to his butler who had let Lucia in and was now lighting lamps as fast as he could. “Have Ella put hot water on for tea.”
“I believe she’s not come in yet for the day, sir. It being Sunday.”
“Then put it on yourself! Now here, darling, sit down.” Jessup guided Lucia to his favorite chair in front of the fireplace, an old, down-stuffed brocade that had seen better years. “Look at you in your nightclothes,” he said, perching on the footstool at her feet, covering his knobby knees with the old, thin flannel dressing robe he wore. “You should have sent Angelique or Avena.”
Lucia frowned. “Angelique thought my worry heedless.” She met his gaze. “But this is so unlike my Sapphire.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He rubbed her hand between his. “There’s a chill in this room, don’t you think?” He turned to call over his shoulder. “Malcolm! Get us a fire going in here at once!” Jessup turned back to Lucia as he ran his fingers through his thin gray hair. “You say she never came home last night, and am I to understand that Angelique doesn’t know where she is?”
“Sapphire went to the Lord and Lady Harris’s masquerade ball with Lord Thomas but he never brought her home.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, my dear,” Jessup said carefully, “but do you think she could have…gone home with Lord Thomas?”
“Certainly not! I told you, Jessup, that was a ruse from the beginning.” She dropped her hands to her lap. “And it was all my idea to begin with. What if something’s happened? I could never forgive myself if—”
“Lucia, listen to me.” He captured her hands again. “Nothing has happened to her. I’m certain there’s a logical explanation and I mean to get to it at once.”
“You’ll find her?” Lucia asked in relief.
Jessup rose and leaned to press a kiss to her forehead. “Of course I’ll find her. Now you sit here and have a cup of tea and I’ll get dressed.”
“I’ll go with you.” She started to rise.
He pushed her gently back into the chair that smelled of him and his pipe tobacco, a comforting scent to Lucia. “No, you won’t. Unless, of course, you’d like me to take you home. You look as if you haven’t slept a wink.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t, but I couldn’t possibly go to bed.” She clasped her hands. “Oh, Jessup, do find her.”
“I will, my sweet.”
After a great deal of jostling, a carriage ride and being carried again like a side of meat for what seemed like hours, Sapphire finally felt Blake drop her unceremoniously onto a bed. The moment he released her, she scrambled free of the tangle of bedclothes. “You can’t do this,” she cried, quickly taking in her new surroundings.
They were in a small room that was crudely paneled in knotty pine and she was resting on a narrow bed meant only for a single person, built into the wall. Beneath her, she felt the floor shift slightly and she knew that what she had been pray
ing wasn’t true was indeed true. The moment he’d stepped foot out of the carriage she had thought she smelled water, and she knew now that she was on board a ship. He was kidnapping her and taking her to America!
“Do you hear me?” she yelled, rising to her knees, ignoring the pain that shot through her right ankle.
Blake stood at the closed door of the small cabin, one side of his mouth turning up. “Honestly, it’s hard to listen to anything you say when you’re putting on such a spectacular exhibition, my dear.”
Sapphire glanced down to see that she had dropped the corner of the blanket to reveal one bare, pink-tipped breast. “Oh!” she cried as she jerked up the blanket to cover herself, so angry that tears welled in her eyes. “You cannot be serious about taking me with you.”
“I am entirely serious.” He walked to a built-in desk and slipped the leather case off his shoulder, dropping it onto the surface. “You wanted a protector, and now you have one.” He raised both hands matter-of-factly.
“I wanted you to acknowledge me as Lord Edward Wessex’s daughter!”
He opened the case and began to remove several books and a worn leather-bound journal. “You know, we would get along much better if you would give that notion up. Obviously I’m not going to fall for it. You are what you are, Sapphire, a beautiful young woman trying to make your way in the world. I’m not the kind of man to see anything wrong with that in a mistress. I congratulate you, in fact. You have the right idea, you know—a man generally treats his mistress far better than his wife.”
Sapphire sat with her back against the bulkhead to relieve the pressure on her ankle. She could not believe what he was saying, could not believe the situation she found herself in. “A fortune hunter! You still think I’m a fortune hunter?”
He considered her words and then nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh,” she cried again, her shoulders slumping against the cool wood of the bulkhead.
Sounds outside the cabin suddenly caught her attention. She could hear shouting, footsteps, and feel the unmistakable sensation of the ship moving. “We’re sailing?” she asked. “We can’t be! I can’t—my Aunt Lucia, she won’t know what’s happened to me. Please,” she begged.
When he made no response, she glared at him. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she accused, fighting her tears. “You’re…you’re kidnapping me!”
“Not really. The door’s unlocked. We’ve already pulled away from the dock by the sound of the commotion outside, but you could probably dive over the side and swim to shore. Someone would fish you out, I suspect. You can swim, can’t you?”
“I was raised in Martinique—of course I can swim,” she said, drawing herself up indignantly.
“Then be my guest.” He gestured toward the door.
“But I’m naked,” she protested, staring longingly at the door.
“Yes, you are.”
She looked at the door for a moment and then, with a groan of frustration, threw herself facefirst onto the bunk and drew the blanket over her head.
“It’s fine with me if you take that attitude,” she heard him say, the sound of his irksome voice muffled by the blanket. “It could be a long trip, depending on the winds, but it’s up to you, really.”
Sapphire could hear Blake continue to unload his bags.
“You can spend the next two weeks sulking under that blanket or we can enjoy each other’s company, nice dinners with the fine wine I’m transporting, chess, reading…and then there are other activities we could amuse ourselves with.”
Even through the blanket she could hear the huskiness in his voice, and knew what he meant.
She lifted the blanket and hurled at him a curse word she’d never dared to utter before.
As she dropped the cover over her head again, his laughter ran though the cabin.
After Jessup had gone and she had taken a cup of tea, Lucia decided to accept at least half his advice and try to sleep. Instead of returning home, though, she climbed the stairs of his comfortable town house and crawled into his bed, where the sheets smelled of Jessup and offered at least some comfort. If the butler, Malcolm, thought it odd that she was there in his master’s bed, he gave no indication.
To Lucia’s surprise, she drifted off to sleep almost at once and didn’t wake until she heard someone in the room. Her eyes opened. “Any word?” she asked, as Jessup entered his bedchamber, still in his overcoat.
He shook his head. “I went to the Lord Thomas’s London house.” He removed his coat and then hung it on a hook on the back of the door. “Not terribly welcoming, that family. I say Sapphire’s done herself a favor if she’s cut ties with that young man.” He approached the bed. “I could barely make heads or tails of what Charles was saying, but apparently he attempted to escort her home and she threw some sort of temper tantrum and got out of the carriage right on the street.”
“Sapphire, a temper tantrum?” Lucia sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes. “I find that difficult to believe.”
Jessup perched on the edge of the bed and looked at her. “As do I.”
She took his hand, peering up at him. “You think Charles was lying?”
“I think he was not telling me the entire truth. Apparently, your wild colt, Angelique, and Lord Carter put on quite a spectacle at the masquerade ball last night.”
She gave a wave of dismissal. “Yes, yes, she already told me.”
He raised a bushy eyebrow. “She told you what she did?”
“Not exactly, but I don’t I care. What I care about right now is finding my Sapphire. I want to speak to that upstart Charles at once! How dare he allow her to get out of the carriage alone in the middle of the night! Has he no idea what kind of danger can befall a young woman, unescorted on the streets of London at night?”
“Darling.” Jessup took Lucia’s hand in his. “I’ve thought of one possibility.”
“And what’s that?”
He hesitated.
“Please,” she begged, squeezing his hand. “If you know something else, no matter how terrible, you must—”
He smiled kindly. “Are you always so dramatic, my love?”
“I am and that’s why you love me.”
“What I wanted to say is that Lord Wessex sailed for America this morning at dawn.”
“Lord Wessex!” She exhaled the words as she glanced down at her hands, which appeared more wrinkled than she remembered. “Angelique mentioned the American, as well.” She looked up into Jessup’s kind, brown eyes. “Do you think he could have had something do with her disappearance?”
He shrugged. “You did say that you thought they were attracted to each other, only you weren’t certain either one was aware of it.”
“But if they were going to go away together, my Sapphire would have come and told me. She would never have run off like this.” She inhaled sharply. “Do you think he could have taken her against her will?”
“I find it hard to believe anyone could force your Sapphire to do anything against her will, but…” He stopped.
“But what?” She continued to gaze into his eyes.
“Blake Thixton is a man used to getting what he wants.”
She clasped her hands. “I only pray that she is with him and that she’s all right. Do you believe he will do right by her—I mean, if she has run off with him on some impulse?”
“You mean marry her?”
She nodded.
He thought for a moment before replying. “I can say honestly, my dearest,” he told her, taking her hand in his, “that he is one of the most honorable, respectable men I have ever had the privilege to meet.”
“So you think she’ll be all right?” she asked softly.
He smiled, drawing her hand to his lips. “I think she’ll be just fine.”
16
Sapphire lay on the bunk with her head under the blanket until it got stuffy and perspiration began to gather above her upper lip. At first, as the minutes ticked by and she listened to Blake move
about the room putting things away and settling at the desk, all she could think of was what an awful, hopeless situation she had found herself in. But as her self-imposed prison grew warmer and warmer, the wool blanket itchier against her bare skin, her self-pity blossomed into anger.
How dare he? How dare Blake Thixton do this to her!
Sapphire didn’t care if he’d gone to Boston’s Harvard, she didn’t care what a successful businessman and entrepreneur he was, or that he was the Earl of Wessex and her father’s heir; she wouldn’t have cared if he was the king of England. He had no right! He had no right to kidnap her and take her from her family and she did not have to submit to such treatment. What was he? An American. Nothing more than a merchant masquerading as a gentleman. Who was he to think he could treat the daughter of an English nobleman like a common strumpet?
Sapphire flung the cover from her head and scrambled from the bunk, ignoring the pain in her ankle. As she hit the floor on her one good foot, dragging the sheet behind her to cover her nakedness, Blake looked up from his desk. “You have no right!” she shouted as she hobbled the short distance toward the desk.
Blake rose, obviously startled, but he still had that ridiculous smirk on his face.
“I don’t want to go with you, do you understand?” she yelled, grabbing a book off the corner of her desk and hurling it at him. “I don’t want to go to America!”
He ducked and took a step back. “You’ll get used to the idea. Boston is a wonderful city, very different from London but exciting in its own way. As my mistress, you’ll accompany me to the theater, to the symphony, to dinner parties with the richest, most successful men and women in the United States.”
“I don’t want to be your mistress. I will not be your mistress,” she shouted, grabbing another book and heaving it at him.
This time, either her aim was better or he wasn’t quick enough, and the missile struck his shoulder before hitting the polished wooden deck with a thump.
“You’ll get used to the idea. I can really be quite charming.” His eyes sparkled. “Some say I have a way with women.”
Sapphire Page 19
