by Ruth Owen
“Me? Odds fish, no. Dunno a thing about the blighter, save that he’s quite a devil with the rapier. Like me in my younger days, what?”
Meg and Juliana shared a smile. Commodore Jolly might have had the size and strength to be an accomplished swordsman, but his kind heart would have made him useless in a fight. Though he made friends easily and had moved steadily up the ranks of the Admiralty, there was little evidence that he had ever been in a battle. Currently, he worked at Whitehall in an office with a large window and a small desk, where he did, in the words of Juliana’s father, “as little as humanly possible.”
But while some may have disputed Commodore Jolly’s wit, there was no one in the Upper Ten Thousand who doubted his heart. What he lacked in cleverness he made up for in compassion, and as Juliana watched he gave Meg’s hand a fatherly pat. She thought how lucky they both were to have such a kind-hearted guardian, even if he was somewhat vague on facts. A devil with a rapier, my eye. The dear man couldn’t harm a beetle.
A commotion on the far end of the room caught her attention. The music died and the dancers stopped midstep, looking perplexed until they saw the velvet curtain begin to part. The Archangel had arrived! Commodore Jolly and the two girls stepped toward the curtain along with the other guests. As they advanced, the crowd pressed around them, pushing and jostling the trio with an almost stifling closeness. Jolly tried to squire his charges through the throng, but the crowd closed around him and cut him off. Meg and Juliana pushed after him, but at the same time a tipsy, rotund gentleman stumbled forward and fell into Meg’s back, knocking her so violently that her spectacles fell off and clattered to the wooden floor.
“No!” the girls cried in unison, for Juliana knew Meg could not see a foot in front of her without her glasses. Juliana glanced around for Jolly but she saw only patched and powdered strangers in various stages of dissolution, who dismissed her entreaties with an irritated shrug as they hurried toward the parting curtain.
Breathing a sailor’s curse, Juliana urged Meg to stand still and knelt down, prepared to brave the stomping crush of well-polished bootheels to retrieve her friend’s spectacles. But before her knee touched the floor she felt a firm hand grip her arm and draw her back to her feet. “Leave me be. I must—”
Her protests died as a figure dove down and scooped up the spectacles. As he straightened, Juliana got her first good look at the fellow. He appeared to be in his late twenties and wore the gaudy gold livery and stark white wig of the earl’s footmen. But while Morrow’s servants were generally clean-shaven as polite society prescribed, this man sported a bushy, black, and exceptionally well-groomed mustache. The comical image of the dark mustache contrasting with the snow white wig brought a smile to Juliana’s lips, but the smile changed to a surprised frown as she watched him lift Meg’s hand with a very unservantlike familiarity and tenderly place the glasses on her open palm.
Meg gave a delighted cry. “Oh, thank you.”
The footman held her hand a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, then stepped back and gave a smart bow. “Je vous en prie, my lady,” he replied, then disappeared like quicksilver into the crowd.
Meg put on her spectacles and searched for a glimpse at her savior. “Julie, did you hear? He was French.”
“Yes, and too forward by half. If I see him again I shall give him a piece of my mind. No English servant would have taken such liberties.”
“I am hardly ruined,” Meg replied dryly. “The man did me a kindness. Honestly, sometimes I think you are growing as stuffy as old Mrs. Jolly.”
Was she? The commodore’s bedridden mother had once been a high stickler of the first stare. Iron was less rigid than her opinions on class and social custom. Juliana had originally scoffed at her absurdly proper notions of how a lady did and did not behave, but she had to own that it was largely Mrs. Jolly’s tutelage that had made her the darling of the haute ton. By following the older woman’s instructions, Juliana had gained a place in the politest of polite circles, a position of prominence that had made her father proud and would no doubt secure her a satisfactory alliance. But in her heart, Juliana knew that her prominence was a sham. No matter how hard she tried to become the poised and elegant creature whom so many worshiped and admired, there was a secret part of her that longed to strip off her expensive silks and run barefoot on a stretch of sun-washed beach. Sometimes she felt as if two entirely different people lived inside her, each pulling in an opposite direction. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever find a place where she truly belonged.
Meg gasped. “Look, there he is!”
Two men had stepped out from behind the curtain—the portly earl of Morrow and a taller, younger man. He wore a dark coat and a plain white shirt bereft of the lace and jewels that normally accented a gentleman’s clothing. Yet he seemed more suited to the role of command than any at the privileged gathering. He stood with his feet apart and his hands clasped behind him, his lean, powerful form as out of place in this fashionable assembly as a fox in a henhouse. No wig adorned his ragged, sun-bleached hair, and no powder disguised the long scar that scored his cheek. He made no attempt to hide what he was, no attempt to apologize for his ruthless appearance. He surveyed the crowd with the disdain of a king for his lesser vassals, and his pale blue eyes were as cold and pitiless as the northern sea.
Meg gave Juliana a nudge. “No eye patch. And there is not a peg leg in sight. I daresay he is one of the handsomest gentlemen I have ever seen. It appears you were quite wrong about his looks, my dear.”
Juliana didn’t answer. She could hardly breathe. She had been wrong about the Archangel’s appearance, far more wrong than even Meg imagined. There was no mistaking the tall form, the bright hair, and the deep-set eyes that had once looked into hers with so much love. There was no mistaking the face that had turned her dreams to nightmares.
Connor Reed.
“It cannot be. God in heaven, it cannot be.”
Meg craned her neck to get a better view and glanced at Juliana in annoyance. “Stop whispering. I am trying to hear Morrow. I believe the earl just said that his name was—”
“Reed,” Juliana supplied dully. “Connor Reed.”
“Do you know him?”
“I did. When I was younger. He—” Juliana bit her lip, barely able to stifle the unexpected sob that rose in her throat. She had put Connor and his betrayal behind her long ago. Until that moment she hadn’t known whether he was alive or dead, and she’d been certain that she didn’t care either way. Connor Reed was no longer a part of her life.
So why did she feel as if someone had fired a rifle ball straight through her heart?
Panicked, she grabbed Meg’s arm and started to pull her away from the crowd to the front vestibule. “We must leave. At once.”
But Meg planted her slippered feet on the floor. “Don’t be silly. The only reason we came to this affair was to meet the Archangel, and now that we know he is your friend—”
“He is not my friend. Years ago he worked for my family, until he proved to be the most deceitful, lying jack who ever lived. I have no intention of meeting him now, or ever. He … broke my father’s heart.”
“Your father’s heart,” Meg repeated slowly. Pushing her spectacles up on her nose, she gave her friend a thoughtful look. “Of course we shall leave if you wish it. In truth, I am not so keen to meet this Archangel now that I know he is so thick with the likes of Morrow.”
Juliana was having some difficulty pairing the two as well. The Connor she knew would sooner have embraced a bushel of week-old cod than a pompous dandy like the earl. But then, the Connor she knew would never have stolen money from her father, or pledged his heart to her while keeping a mistress on the side.
She shook the memory aside. “We will ask one of the servants to find Jolly for us. I’ll say I have a sick headache—Lady Woolrich used the same excuse last week at Vauxhall and everyone thought it was quite the thing. We’ll be out of here before anyone discovers we have lef�
�”
“Lady Juliana, suwrly you are not leaving!”
Renquist. Juliana stiffened, but continued walking. “Alas, I fear I have come down with a bit of a headache. Miss Evans was kind enough to offer to accompany me home.”
Lord Renquist glanced at Meg as if she were a fly that had landed in his custard. His gaze returned to Juliana, taking on its veneer of adoration. “But my deaw, this is the event of the Season. You will never fowgive yourself if you leave before meeting the Archangel. And I shall never fowgive myself if I let you.”
And with that he gripped her arm in a surprisingly firm hold and steered Juliana back toward the crowd.
The admiral is going to pay for this, Connor thought as he shook the hand of yet another simpering lord. Slack-jawed lobcocks, every one of them. And all gaping at him as if he was a puritan at a prizefight. God’s teeth, he’d rather face a ship with full cannons than this rum-togged bunch. But everything depended on his being in this place, on this night, at this moment.
“Allow me to introduce the duke of Peasford,” Lord Morrow announced at his side, giving him a smile that managed to be both obsequious and patronizing at once.
Connor did not return Morrow’s smile. There were some things he wouldn’t do, not even for the admiral. He shook Peasford’s well-manicured hand and wondered if his aristocratic admirers would be so eager to meet him if they’d known he’d grown up fighting wharf rats for scraps of meat. Probably add to his carnival attraction, he thought grimly.
For an instant he recalled the shame he’d once felt at their genteel and refined rejection. But the once-unbearable pain meant nothing to him now, a tiny pinprick lost among so many newer, deeper and far crueler wounds.
“Baroness Fairvilla,” Morrow intoned.
The baroness pressed closer than convention demanded, giving Connor an ample view of her stunningly displayed bosom while she breathlessly described her adoration. Connor’s heavy mood lightened considerably. A gentleman might have looked away discreetly, but Connor was no gentleman. And, from the low-cut gown and the wordless but unmistakable invitation in the woman’s eyes, he suspected that the baroness was no lady.
On another night he might have acted on the tempting overture. But tonight he was playing a game, far deeper than any of the powdered and patched swells imagined. For four years he’d been through every kind of risk and danger, but he’d never stood closer to the gallows’ noose than he did at that moment. He looked out over the assembly. Raoul should have finished by now. Where the hell is he?
“Lord Renquist.”
Still searching the ballroom, Connor barely glanced at the lord who stood before him. He was vaguely aware of the man’s tedious, lisping speech and didn’t even realize he was being introduced to the lord’s companion until she was shoved in front of him. His attention elsewhere, he noted only that she was too tall and too thin, or at least she seemed so after the substantially endowed Lady Fairvilla. If her name had been announced, he hadn’t caught it.
Dutifully Connor took her hand, intending to bow over it and drop it as quickly as possible. But something unexpected happened. Her slim fingers felt like ice, but they sparked a strange heat inside him. Puzzled, he raised his eyes, taking in the narrow waist, the elegant carriage, the sweetly rounded shoulders, the swanlike column of her throat. Memories stirred inside him, weaving together into a taut pattern that ached with beauty and with pain. Like a man in a dream he lifted his gaze to her face, knowing even before he saw it that her hair would be the color of sunset and her eyes would be as green as the sea. A softness he hadn’t felt in four years and several lifetimes touched his lips as he said, “Hello, Juliana.”
Four years had gone by, four years that had changed her from an impressionable girl to a cultured and celebrated woman. And yet, as she watched his mouth curve into a ghost of his laughing smile, and felt his hand possess hers with its strength and surprising gentleness, she felt the years drop away. Once again she was sitting beside him in her father’s moonlit garden, listening to him profess his undying devotion, her heart so full of love for him that it nearly made her weep.
But his voice shattered the spell. Rough and ragged, it was as far from Connor’s light, breezy lilt as night from day. Juliana’s spine went stiff as she recalled the rest of her memories, none of them tender in the least. The man was beyond redemption. He should have appeared contrite. Or made at least a halfhearted attempt to pretend not to know her. Instead, his pale eyes took in every detail of her form, then met her own with a bold, completely unrepentant familiarity.
All at once she was glad that Renquist had dragged her here despite her protests. It gave her an opportunity to tell Connor Reed exactly how much she despised him. She squared her shoulders, intending to deliver a set-down so brilliantly stinging that it would be repeated at garden parties for months to come, but Morrow spoke first.
“Why, do you know our Lady Juliana, Captain Gabriel?”
Gabriel? Juliana glanced around, wondering if another naval officer had joined them. But the earl still looked straight at Connor. “But Lord Morrow, his name is not—”
“Not one the lady expected to hear at tonight’s party,” Connor finished quickly as he stepped between them. “We have known each other for years, but I fear my identity is as much a surprise to her as it is to the rest of you. I can only plead that I was under orders not to tell a soul. Come, forgive an old friend his deception.”
Connor’s icy eyes were bright with unspoken warning. But if he thought a mere look would silence her, he was very much mistaken. Four years of anger boiled up inside her, four years of buried humiliation. “Friend?” she repeated, seething. “How dare you? How dare you even speak to me after what you did? I’ll have you in irons—”
Her words ended in a yelp as Connor tromped on her foot.
“Heavens, look what I’ve done,” the captain said, though to Juliana’s ears his distress sounded as false as his name. “Lord Morrow, could you fetch a doctor? I fear I might have injured this poor lady.”
The poor lady feared it as well, but she wasn’t about to let Connor get the upper hand. Balanced on one foot and biting her lip against the pain, she growled, “Reed, you slimy son of a—”
“And delirious, too,” Connor interrupted. “She believes I am someone else. Quick, Morrow. Fetch the doctor!”
The earl scuttled off to find help. Juliana turned to the rest of the crowd, determined to tell someone who this man really was, but Connor scooped her up in his arms and carried her behind the curtain. He called over his shoulder to the people who hovered nearby, saying the lady needed some breathing room. Alarmed, Juliana saw the crowd back away before the heavy curtain fell behind them and blocked her view.
Beyond the curtain was a narrow, deserted hallway that led to the rear of the house. Connor carried Juliana to the servant’s stairs, where he deposited her on the bottom step. “Did I hurt you?”
“ ’Tis a bit late to be asking that,” Juliana fired back, barely able to speak. She’d thought his detestable actions of four years past were beyond compare. Apparently she’d been wrong. He’d compounded his already unforgivable behavior by stomping on her foot, sweeping her up, and carrying her off like a common barmaid. Had the man no shame? She bent forward and nursed her injured foot, burning with an emotion she told herself was simple fury. “I would not be surprised if you have crippled me for life.”
Connor’s hard mouth ticked up in relief. He’d wounded her pride, but nothing more. “No doubt,” he agreed as he sat on the step just below her. He drew up a knee and leaned back against the wall, taking an unaccountable pleasure in watching her fuss over her abused foot. “It is your own fault. You should have heeded my warning glance.”
“Captain Gabriel’s warning glance,” she corrected. “Where did you come upon such a ridiculous name?”
“It suits my purpose as well as any. Here, you are only making your foot worse by doing that. Let me.”
Before she could protest,
he took her foot, stripped off her flimsy slipper, pushed her skirt up to a scandalous height and started to massage the injury. Juliana wanted to jerk away, but she couldn’t deny that his ministrations made her feel better. Much better. His strong, gentle hands seemed to magically draw the pain from her body. Anger and propriety told her to pull away, but her practical core reminded her that if she did so, she would be the one in pain, not Connor. With great reluctance she allowed him to minister to her ankle. At least, she told herself it was with great reluctance. “I am allowing this only because I fear permanent injury.”
“Of course,” he said as a hint of his old humor crept back into his voice. “You were not so angry the first time I stepped on your foot. Do you remember?”
How could she forget? She had been ten and Connor fifteen when her father had put into the Indian port of Bombay for repairs on their ship. Bored by the stuffy English children she’d been sent to play with, she’d stolen away to explore the back streets on her own. Wide-eyed, she’d wound through the narrow alleys, piling wonder on wonder as she took in the festive sights and rich, mysterious smells of the exotic Hindu city. Somewhere in the midst of the adventure she’d come nose-to-nose with a hissing cobra. She’d stood transfixed in horror as the creature rose up and unfurled its killing hood.
Then, out of nowhere, Connor appeared. He put himself in front of her, inadvertently stepping on her foot while driving the snake into the shadows. Afterward it did not matter to Juliana that her toe was black and blue for a week, or that the cobra turned out to be a harmless family pet, or that her father had to bribe the owner to keep Connor from being handed over to the authorities for reckless mischief. All that mattered to her was that Connor had again risked his life to save hers.
She shut her eyes, fighting a stab of pain that had nothing to do with her injured foot. “That was a long time ago, and it was entirely different from your cowardly action tonight. Be assured that I still mean to tell everyone who you really are.”
