Rebel Dreams
Page 4
“I wouldn’t say it’s so obvious, Miss Wellington. I generally demand a good deal more explanation than that when someone thumps me in the gut. But if you insist upon behaving as a hysterical female, I can see where it might be useless to continue our discussion.”
“What discussion?” she cried in frustration. “I’m the one who discovered the illegal brandy. I’m the one who came up with the names. And so far, I’m the only one who has come up with any ideas as to how to catch them. All you have done is snipe at me with masculine bigotry. I hit you in the stomach, Mr. Hampton, because that’s what a man would have done in my place.”
She wriggled to the end of the blanket, trying to escape his unrelenting hold and dark mask of anger. She had reacted instinctively, not with any smidgen of common sense at all. Any fool could see he was twice her size and capable of great harm. Even another man would have thought twice before doing what she had.
To her surprise, he regarded her with a calm lift of his eyebrow and dropped his hold. “I see. Instead of calling me out, you prefer fisticuffs. You are a most unusual woman, Miss Wellington. I’m not certain how to proceed.”
“You may proceed by climbing on your high horse and riding out of here, Mr. Hampton. I no longer require your assistance.”
“If that harebrained scheme of yours is how you intend to catch a wily band of smugglers, Miss Wellington, you need my assistance more than you can imagine. If this is any example of how you generally conduct your business, it is a wonder your father did not marry you off long ago to some brute of a husband who would beat some sense into you.”
Evelyn’s muffled scream of outrage gave fair warning this time. Alex caught her by the waist and flung her back against the blanket before she could launch another attack. She was up in a flash, but he caught her shoulders and held her down again.
Instead of giving her the tongue-lashing she deserved, he stared into furious violet eyes. Her lush, rose-colored lips should never be tainted with the curses currently passing them. Reacting to the soft, supple curves beneath his hands, Alex leaned over and swallowed her accusations with his kiss.
Lightning careened through him. Heat melded his mouth to hers. Her lips melted, and instead of struggling, she let him explore. The physical sensation of two bodies cuddling in the warmth of a summer day recalled pleasant memories.
With mindless lassitude, he parted her lips and taught her the forbidden pleasure of his tongue.
She panicked, clamped her teeth closed, and beat at his arms with her fists. He moved his exploratory kisses to the corner of her mouth and along her cheek, but she continued to fight, tossing her head back and forth.
Alex pushed himself up and stared into her terrified face with anger and puzzlement. “You do not like that manner of kissing? Or did I mistakenly eat garlic for lunch?”
“Of all the arrogant, presumptuous, dunderheaded, mindless jackasses of men I have ever had the misfortune to meet . . . Let me go!”
It was a severe temptation not to comply. She had returned his kiss with a passion Alex recognized. Even now he could see her breasts rising against the confinement of her cotton bodice. He knew he had only to touch the erect tip pushing against the thin material to persuade her back into his arms. Her face was flushed with pleasure and beautiful with her desire.
But he was no longer sixteen and didn’t need to exhaust his lust with every available female. He sat up and began to brush himself off.
“My mistake. I rather thought you enjoyed it too.”
Before she could deliver a scathing reply or scramble down the haystack and away from him, the barn door creaked and a sliver of light pierced the gloom.
“Miss Wellington? Is that you? I can explain about the hay—” The man entering stopped abruptly as he caught sight of them sliding from the stack. Then, staring at the floor, he finished hastily, “I’ll be removing the hay shortly if you have need of the storage. Good day, Miss Wellington. Sir.”
The color had drained from Evelyn’s face by the time the man departed. Her eyes were huge wafers beneath sable lashes, and Alex experienced a guilty pang at how vulnerable she suddenly seemed. He had thought her as strong as he, he realized. That was an entirely idiotic notion, considering the differences between their ages, sex, and experience.
“I am sorry. Is he likely to carry tales?”
Evelyn squeezed her eyes closed. “I don’t know. I don’t know him that well.” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. I am twenty-one and responsible only for myself.”
Alex gave her a skeptical look. Any young lady of his acquaintance caught in such a compromising manner would be screaming marriage, particularly since he had initiated the action. Despite her occupation and hoydenish behavior, he could not believe that she was the type of woman who had no reputation left to damage. Her pompous uncle would have packed her off to China if that were so.
Deciding he had only himself to blame for falling into such an obvious trap, Alex shrugged off the incident. He wasn’t the type to cry marriage either. Perhaps she had learned her lesson. “Very commendatory of you, my dear, but perhaps I ought to take you home now before anyone else steps in.”
“Yes, go on. I’ll walk. Perhaps you might just tell me your suggestion to our problem sometime at the office. Or send me a letter. I don’t care. Go away.”
Amused by her sudden abstraction in comparison with her normally clipped, precise thinking, Alex shook his head. “I’ll admit to being a cad, but I do try to keep up appearances. I will accompany you home, and to hell with your neighbors. Now, come on.”
Evelyn jerked her elbow from his grasp and glared at him. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day? I am accustomed to walking. It is not that far. I don’t need your charity or your company.”
“What you need is a little more respect and a little less spite, but I won’t hold my breath,” he grumbled. “You will either ride out of here under your own volition or I will pack you out of here over my saddle. If that doesn’t convince you, think of your mother. How will she feel if the gossip reaches her, and she hasn’t even met me?”
It was obvious that she hadn’t considered that. Tightening her lips, she marched out into the sunlight as if to her own hanging.
Alex threw her up on the swaybacked nag that it had been his misfortune to rent, then joined her before she had a chance to change her mind. Her hair beneath the silly hat was all tousled, and he plucked a straw from it. Mischievously, unable to resist the temptation of her slender curves in his arms, he nibbled at her ear. “You look like you’ve been rolling in the hay, Miss Wellington.”
“Stop it. Just stop it, or I will jump down. I will never be so glad to see a man leave this town as I will you. When do you sail?”
Her words were low and choked, and he guessed he had touched the impervious Miss Wellington a little more than anticipated. He had ever been prone to overindulgence.
Taking up the reins, he held her waist with one arm and sent the nag into a jarring walk with the other. “The Minerva sails when I tell it to. That won’t be until I find out who dares to use me as a pawn in his rotten game. So you might as well become used to my irritating company. Your office is my best source of information.”
She muttered something that sounded like a particularly pithy curse and remained silent the rest of the way into town. By the time they reached the house on Treamount that she said was hers, Alex could appreciate her penchant for walking. If he were to stay here much longer, he would have to buy a real horse.
He helped her down from the ancient nag and took her elbow to guide her toward the house. The modest brick structure sat practically on the street, with only a small picket fence and a trim of flowers to call a yard. By the standards of the neighboring houses, it had a look of comfortable means, although it was not as pretentious as her uncle’s three-story structure. The front steps led directly into the front room, he discovered as Evelyn brought him inside.
“Is that yo
u, Evelyn? Could you come here, please? Jacob seems to have been fighting again.” The voice held a mixture of concern and resignation.
Evelyn sighed and discarded her hat. “If you will have a seat, Mr. Hampton, I will see what Jacob has broken this time, and my mother will be right out to meet you.”
Instead of obeying, Alex followed on her heels. At her questioning look, he shrugged. “I daresay I have rather more experience in dealing with the results of fisticuffs than you do, Miss Wellington. I might as well take a look at the boy and make myself useful.”
She gave him a shrewd look, but she held her tongue.
Mrs. Wellington looked up in surprise as they entered the spacious kitchen. Jacob glared defiantly through the swelling of his eye. “Billy started it,” he said.
“Looks like Billy ended it too.” Alex inspected the gash above the blackening eye. “I don’t think it will need stitches, just some ice for the swelling. I’ve suffered enough of the same to know the treatment. The bully I used to fight always aimed for the head first. How did Billy go about it?”
He had removed his hat in the front room, now he ran his hand through a loose strand of hair and discovered straw dust. He discreetly brushed it out while straddling a slat-back kitchen chair to listen to the tale of a street fight.
Miss Wellington looked as if she’d prefer to crawl under a table. She crossed the tiled kitchen floor to pump water into a glass.
“Well, Billy said something nasty first, so I hit him in the stomach. That’s when he popped me in the eye and ran.” Jacob awaited the verdict on this conduct.
“What did he say that was so bad that you had to hit him, Jacob?” Unconcerned by the methods of the fight, his sister sought the cause while handing Alex the glass of water.
He’d prefer ale, but he’d take what he could get while caught in this uncomfortable family scene.
Jacob squared his shoulders and drew up his ruffled dignity. “He said Uncle George was a no-good bloody Tory who ought to go back to England where he belonged.”
Alex caught the worried look on Evelyn’s face. He wasn’t certain how to interpret this conversation. He’d always considered the colonists to be English subjects. Jacob’s words delineated a difference he hadn’t properly recognized. Alex knew the colonists tended to be more of the Whig persuasion than the landed upper classes, but eleven-year-old boys in England seldom came to cuffs over their fathers’ politics.
“Uncle George is a Tory,” Mrs. Wellington replied, applying a chip of ice to Jacob’s eye. “A Tory is a man who supports the king. There is nothing wrong with that.”
Alex felt the exchange of looks between the family and knew he was being excluded from something that the locals didn’t wish him to know. This grew interesting, but now was not the time to probe into politics. He gave the boy an unsympathetic look.
“If you intend to lead with a blow to the stomach, then you have to follow up with another to the chin or you’ll get beat every time.” He threw Evelyn a mocking look to see if she registered this information. Her return glare assured him she would remember the advice. “Or if you do happen to let your opponent get off a blow to the head, you must block him, like this.” He raised his arm in an example of blocking a blow while bringing up the other hand in a fist.
Jacob’s eager look and his mother’s frown brought Alex from his chair. Sketching a bow, he apologized. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wellington. The house is no place to teach boxing. You will forgive me?”
Pepper-and-salt hair pinned and capped into the tight coif of an earlier era, Amanda Wellington wiped her hands on her apron and regarded him with approval. “Take him behind the house and teach him your tricks, Mr. Hampton. Evelyn and I will have dinner ready shortly. You must stay and have a bite.”
“That is kind of you, ma’am, but I could not impose—”
“Nonsense. I always cook too much anymore. There is plenty, and I pride myself that you will appreciate the fare more than a tavern’s. Go on with you. Jacob will never forgive me, elsewise.”
Not understanding why he did so, Alex nodded his acceptance and gestured for Jacob to follow him.
Chapter 4
Alex scowled at the angry slashes of ink on the letter from Evelyn’s uncle. Folding the expensive vellum, he shoved it into his pocket, and lowered his chair in the Minerva’s cabin.
“I don’t think the brandy’s entering England by legal channels,” Alex told his captain, heading for the gangway. “I’ve written a letter to Cranville and Maclean asking them to trace it on their end. When I go through the warehouse’s files I’ll have a better idea of what else needs to be traced. Whoever’s doing this knows that as an English merchant I’m much less likely to be searched than a colonial.”
Jack Ruggles walked with him up to the deck. The heat had broken, but the stench of raw fish and sewage still permeated the air. There were few ships in the harbor, and the normal clatter and hammer of shipbuilding was ominously quiet. Ruggles pulled a pipe out of his capacious pocket.
“You think someone’s using us to cover a larger operation,” he concluded.
Alex nodded. “As I understand it, the Maclean’s smuggling operation used to deal with people he knew. He unloaded in secluded coves, avoided customs, and left the problem of storage to his buyers. The Navigation Acts would have put him out of business if he tried that now. Now, smugglers need to obtain ownership papers through customs. They have to use honest merchants who have proper papers to store goods. Once they have those, with a little forgery, a switching of crates, or whatever, they can move anything. A really large operation would need a warehouse and easy access to both legal and illegal shipping. It’s more complicated than before, but still profitable.”
Ruggles nodded. “You saw that grand house on the hill? That’s Thomas Hancock’s. You want to see what kind of profits a little evasion of the laws can net, you take a good look at that place. These Yankees ain’t dumb. You’d be better off turning the whole thing over to the court and sailing out of here. It ain’t none of your affair.”
Alex set his mouth in a tight line as he recalled trusting violet eyes and innocent kisses. If he could believe Evelyn’s complicity in this operation, he would sail away without a second thought. Until he had met his cousin Alyson, he had been incapable of believing innocence in a woman. Now, he was forced to be fair.
He stared over the water to the clutter of houses and shops along the harbor. If Evelyn were truly innocent, she was in way over her head. She was a fighter, but she had little chance of winning on her own. He’d run away from fights before; he wasn’t the heroic type. But he was easily bored, and this promised to be an entertaining puzzle. With the tantalizing prospect of a grateful female wrapped in his arms as the prize, the challenge could be rewarding.
With passionate kisses to look forward to, Alex climbed down into the dinghy. Bent on self-destruction, he signaled the sailors to begin rowing. He had a damn good notion why George Upton was summoning him. He’d best have all his defenses ready.
***
Alex’s defenses didn’t last much longer than the sight of Evelyn’s tear-ravaged face in Upton’s ostentatious library. Someone had turned that striking beauty into washed-out shadows and hollow angles, and rage built before anyone said a word.
He turned a cold gaze on the bewigged and garishly garbed gentleman behind the desk. “There is some explanation for this?” Alex threw the vellum summons on the desk.
If he thought to intimidate Upton, he failed. The man didn’t even look at the scrap, but boldly returned his gaze. “Were you any gentleman at all, you would have been here without my summoning you. I demand to know your intentions toward my niece. “
Evelyn’s husky voice lost none of its seductiveness even through tears and anger. “Please ignore him, Mr. Hampton. He has no right to do any of this. He is related to me only by marriage. We neither of us owe him any explanation.”
Alex turned to her skeptically. “Then why are you here?”
“I will leave with Mr. Hampton and not a moment sooner.”
Her belligerent tone answered Alex’s question. She had stayed to protect him! He would have been amused had the situation been less grim. Realizing their escapade in the barn had become gossip, Alex prepared for a siege. Without permission, he appropriated what looked to be a comfortable leather chair, sat down, and propped his shoes on the edge of the desk.
“So it seems we are both at your disposal, Mr. Upton. What can I do for you?”
His insolence caused Upton’s face to take on a purple hue beneath the perspiration. “Your arrogance in this matter does not help your cause, Hampton. Perhaps you can get away with your rakehell manners at home, but not here. Wellington is a respected name in Boston, and I intend for it to remain that way. Rumors of your dalliance with my niece will halt upon announcement of your engagement. As a gentleman, you must recognize there is no suitable alternative.”
***
Evelyn watched in terror as Mr. Hampton shrugged his broad shoulders. He was unpredictable, and she could not presume to guess his reaction. She prayed it would be sensible. Judging by the calm look on his dark countenance, he wasn’t exceedingly concerned by her uncle’s hysterics.
“I don’t remember introducing myself as a gentleman, Mr. Upton.”
Evelyn almost sputtered at this unexpected response. Admittedly, she had to concur with his assessment. No gentleman would have done what he’d done this afternoon. Of course, neither would a lady have returned his kisses.
“On the contrary, I have made no pretense at being any other than what I am,” Hampton continued. “Had you made any inquiries at all, you would have been well apprised of that fact. I have no intention of marrying your niece over the exchange of one or two kisses. Are there any other questions?”