Where was Dominick? she wondered with growing agitation. It had taken the Grymes’s carriage only an hour and a half to reach this plantation, situated on the James River a few miles south of Williamsburg. She knew Dominick had a greater distance to travel from his home, but he had said he was also planning to leave at nine o’clock, which should have ensured his arrival by now. It was almost noon.
Could it be that some unexpected business at Raven’s Point had prevented him from leaving on time? Maybe he wasn’t going to make it at all. That would mean their betrothal announcement must wait until another day. Oh, bloody hell, she hoped not!
She couldn’t bear lying again to Adam. Not when things had taken such a drastic and impossible turn between them. His words of love haunted her memory. No, she couldn’t bear another night listening to him say such things to her. She just couldn’t!
Glimpsing Adam standing beside Celeste not far from the oval racetrack that lay just beyond the lawn, Susanna felt an incredible rush of warmth when she noticed that he was watching her, and she quickly looked away. Her hand trembled as she lifted the cup to her mouth, and she hardly tasted the cider, knowing his eyes were still upon her. It seemed he was always looking at her, no matter where he was or with whom. Yet today there was a difference in the way he regarded her, although she couldn’t define it.
He had been strangely silent during the journey this morning, no matter how Celeste had tried to coax him into joining their conversation. He had scarcely spared a glance for the clinging young woman, keeping his gaze fixed upon either Susanna’s face, studying her as if he might somehow divine what she was thinking, or out the carriage window.
At times she even had the oddest sensation that he was angry with her. She imagined he must simply be frustrated with their continuing charade and Celeste’s constant attention. Well, thank God, much of her deception would soon be over. That is, if Dominick ever arrived—
“You’re so quiet today, Miss Cary,” the ever-present Thomas Dandridge said to her. “Is it too warm for you? We could move further into the shade—”
“No, no, it’s lovely here,” she said, flashing the lanky young man a brilliant smile. Deciding that it would help to keep her mind off Dominick’s absence if she focused on her suitors’ conversation, she asked him flirtatiously, “Are you going to make any wagers on the first race, Thomas? Perhaps one in my honor?”
“I will, Miss Cary!” Matthew interjected eagerly before Thomas could respond. “I’m going to place a bet for you on each and every race. I’m certain you’ll bring me good luck!”
“Well, how do you gentlemen know which horse is likely to win?” she queried, knowing such a question would prompt a lively and hopefully diverting discussion.
As her suitors joined in debating the merits of the Tidewater’s finest horseflesh, each seeking to impress her with their knowledge, Susanna was not surprised to find that she was once more hardly listening to them. Her frustration mounting, she searched the crowd for any sign of Dominick, yet time and again, her gaze strayed back to Adam.
***
“Isn’t it amazing how our shy Camille has blossomed into such a popular belle?” Celeste commented, fluttering her silk fan in front of her generously exposed bosom. “I suppose I always knew it was possible with plenty of outings and masculine attention, and plenty of Virginia sunshine. I just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.”
“Yes, amazing,” Adam replied dryly, his gut tightening as several more young gentlemen joined the laughing group seated beneath the ancient willow that graced the center of the lawn.
Camille sat at its heart, looking like a beautiful rose of summer in her shell-pink satin gown … that is, if she was indeed his Camille. The seeds of doubt had been sown and he couldn’t shake them, no matter how many times he had told himself since last night that there must be a reasonable explanation for the difference in signatures on the note and the portrait.
Camille could have written her letter to him in such a hurry that she had signed her name sloppily. Or months ago, before she had learned that her father had been killed, she had been extra careful writing the inscription on the back of the painting for fear of damaging it. That explanation could account for the signature’s almost exaggerated neatness. Yet neither rationale rang true to him, and combined with Ertha’s intuitive misgivings and the decided facial differences in the portrait, he was beginning to believe—though, God help him, he didn’t want to!—that the woman he loved so passionately, the woman he planned to marry, might be a very clever impostor.
“Matthew is certainly in his element today,” Celeste added, hugging Adam’s arm possessively. “Why, just look at him. He’s grinning from ear to ear. He knows he has a much fairer chance around Camille when Dominick Spencer isn’t hovering close by.”
Adam shot a glance around the bustling lawn and then beyond it to the racetrack, glad to see that the bastard hadn’t yet shown his face. The anger he felt at this unsettling turn of events was already boiling like a tempest inside him; he didn’t need Dominick adding fuel to the flames. Yet he knew the planter would show up at some point, and he would do well to prepare himself for it. Dominick never missed a horse race. He was drawn to them like a tick to a hound.
“Oh, look, there’s Annie Custis! I haven’t seen her for the longest time.” Celeste smiled up at him, batting her thick russet lashes. “Would you mind getting me a glass of punch while I go and talk to her? I’ve heard she’s absolutely pea-green with envy that Thomas Dandridge hasn’t paid her one visit since Camille’s ball. I want to reassure her that she has nothing to worry about, not with my brother paying such steady court. I won’t be long, Adam dear.”
Her endearment grating on his already taut nerves, Adam was grateful when she released his arm and hurried away. Giving her no more thought, he decided this would be the longest trip to the refreshment table he had ever taken. In fact, he probably wouldn’t come back.
Camille’s lighthearted laughter carried to him as he deliberately skirted the willow tree, and hot, unreasoning jealousy melded with his barely restrained anger.
It wasn’t the first time he had wondered during the past weeks, when she was surrounded by her many suitors, if she might be innocently toying with him, teasing him a little as part of their ruse. Yet because he knew they would soon be announcing their betrothal, it had never bothered him except when Dominick Spencer was around.
Now fearing what he did, her actions were suddenly cast in a much darker and wholly unsettling light. He had never felt so wretchedly jealous before. As her voice, raised in a spirited remark, drifted to him, it was all he could do not to yank her from that admiring crowd and demand an explanation for the portrait and the signatures.
Adam willed himself to keep moving toward the refreshment tables, reminding himself of his decision not to confront her until tonight, when they would have time alone to fully discuss the matter. Right now, he could use a drink. Several. Maybe a whole bottle. Two bottles! Anything to kill the pain deep inside him.
“Brandy,” he muttered to the bewigged waiter behind the table. Giving the pale amber liquid a brief swirl, he threw back his head and drained the snifter, grimacing as the liquor burned a searing path down his throat. He set the empty glass on the table with a thunk. “Another.”
As he lifted the refilled snifter to his mouth, he noticed standing not far from him an ebony-haired young woman dressed in a waiting-maid’s gown and apron who looked vaguely familiar. She had obviously been sent to the table for refreshments, for she held two full cups of apple cider. As he tried to place her, she must have felt him staring for she glanced over at him. A wide smile fit her pretty face, her dark eyes dancing with instant recognition.
“Why, yer the fine gentl’man who saved me from takin’ a tumble when I come off the Charmin’ Nancy!” she blurted, setting down the cups so abruptly that cider sloshed onto the white tablecloth. Paying no heed, she rushed over to him. “Don’t ye remember me? I’m Polly! Polly Bl
ake.”
Recalling the brief incident between himself and the maid—quite a contrived one, he thought wryly—Adam bowed his head in a gallant manner usually reserved for ladies of the gentry. “Of course. Miss Blake. What brings you here to the Tates’?”
“I’ve come to see the races same as ye, I s’pect,” she said, appearing flattered by his courtesy. “Well, that is, with me mistress.” She gestured to a fat yet elegantly dressed woman seated at a distant table with a few other dowagers of the Tidewater. “We live in Williamsburg, if y’ recall, but me mistress is a second cousin of Mrs. Tate’s. They invited us out for the day.” She paused, her gaze roaming brazenly over him. “My, y’ sure are a handsome one, Mr… . uh … come to think of it, I don’t know yer name.”
“Adam Thornton.”
“Adam Thornton,” she repeated, rolling it on her tongue. “Aye, it suits ye. A fine, strong name for a fine, strong-looking man.” Her expression became hopeful, her eyes flirtatious beneath long charcoal lashes as she asked him, “Have ye come here alone, Mr. Thornton?”
“Actually, no,” he began, but she cut him off before he could continue, her tone disappointed.
“I should have guessed.” Shrugging her slim shoulders, Polly glanced around the lawn. “Which beauty did ye accompany, then? Lord knows, there are enough of ‘em here.”
Adam made no mention of Celeste, simply inclining his head toward the weeping willow. “That one there, sitting among those gentlemen.” His throat tightened around his next words. “Miss Camille Cary.”
“Oh, aye, the one y’ left me for to follow after on the dock. I remember her from the Charmin’ Nancy. I spotted that pretty gold hair as soon as I got here. I should have known ye two would be t’gether. “
Adam tensed, lowering his half-empty snifter. “You knew Miss Cary?”
“No, just who she was. Me mistress and I never had a chance to meet her. Nobody did, far as I know, ‘cept maybe the captain. I saw her comin’ aboard ship with him in Bristol, but she had her head down real timid-like. She was a shy bird, hidin’ in her cabin with her waitin’-maid from the very start of the voyage. Which was just as well, I s’pose, what with the killin’ fever and all. After a few weeks into the trip, we all hid in our cabins, fearin’ for our lives.” Polly exhaled heavily as uproarious laughter sounded from the group beneath the willow. “That Miss Cary sure has changed since comin’ to Virginia. She doesn’t look to me like a shy bird now.”
“She isn’t,” Adam muttered, taking a long sip of brandy. “Not anymore.”
As silence fell between them, he tried to imagine what might have happened aboard that plagued ship to bring about such an incredible deception.
He already knew that Camille’s waiting-maid had caught the typhus fever and died. What if the real Camille Cary had also perished? What if that beautiful young woman sitting beneath the tree, the woman with whom he had fallen in love, was really some extremely clever wench who had seen a golden opportunity and seized it. Yet how? It all seemed so improbable.
Surely the ship’s records would have noted both deaths, Camille’s and her maid’s, so how could anyone have thought they would get by with such a masquerade? And this woman would have had to be acquainted with Camille to have known so much about her. Yet Polly had just said no one ever saw Camille, let alone talked with her, except for her waiting-maid. Dammit, what in blazes was going on? Could it be that the signatures and the portrait were both innocent flukes, that he was torturing himself over nothing?
Adam cursed the sad fact that Captain Keyes had also perished. That old salt would have easily solved this mystery. He had known Camille since she was a child, had gone to England to fetch her home. If only he hadn’t died, none of this would be happening
“Doesn’t it make y’ jealous, Mr. Thornton, her sittin’ there like a princess surrounded by all those fine young gentl’men?” Polly asked, her query breaking into his tormented thoughts.
“Yes,” he answered tersely, thinking there was no harm in revealing that much to this young woman. “Very much.”
“I can see why. She’s sure a pretty thing, and it’s funny how she looks kind of like her poor waitin’-maid that died no more than a week before we landed in Yorktown. They both had that same honey hair.”
Adam froze, his gaze riveted on the woman in the shell-pink gown, but he said nothing as Polly chattered on.
“I was on deck when they buried the girl, ye know. So was Miss Cary, but she had on a wide-brimmed hat to cover her face. She was weepin’ real hard, which made me think the two of them must have been friends. It happens that way sometimes between a lady and her maid,” Polly sighed, darting a sidelong glance at her mistress. “The lucky ones, that is. Hmmm … Now, what was her name? Sally … Sarah … Susan …”
“Susanna,” he said, feeling numb.
“Aye, that was it. I s’pose Miss Cary must have told ye.”
Adam didn’t answer, asking instead, “Did you know her … this Susanna?”
“No, we never talked, and I hardly saw her. She kept pretty much to herself, too. But that long gold hair of hers was hard to miss, and she had green eyes. Does yer Miss Cary have green eyes?”
“Yes,” he murmured, the startling pieces falling one by one into place.
“Imagine that. I s’pose if I’d ever seen them side by side and full in the face, they could have passed as sisters. What a shame that poor girl caught the fever and died.”
Yes, what a pity, Adam thought, barely able to swallow the last of his brandy for the cold fury gripping him.
What a pity the real Camille Cary, the woman he would have married, lay moldering in a deep, watery grave while her lying, scheming, opportunistic strumpet of a waiting-maid was having the time of her life! No wonder she hadn’t even faintly recognized Ertha when she had first arrived at Briarwood, or known the whereabouts of the Cary graveyard, or how to dance! Yet this woman was planning to marry him … they would be announcing their betrothal next week—
Cruel intuition shot through him as he heard her vivacious laughter join that of her admirers’, and he wondered if her many pretty promises were also part of her cunning deception. God help her, if he had been played the fool …
“Oh, no, me mistress is wavin’ to me,” Polly said. “I’ve got to run. She’ll give me a tongue-lashin’ for sure if I don’t bring her some cider, and quick.” Placing her small hand boldly on his arm, she gave him a meaningful smile. “It’s been wonderful to see y’ again, Mr. Thornton. If things don’t work out between ye and Miss Cary, I’d be more than willin’ to help ye forget her. She may not appreciate a fine man like ye, but I surely would. Just remember, y’ can find me in Williamsburg.”
She grabbed her two cups of cider and hastened away just as Celeste reached his side.
“Who was that little chit?” she asked petulantly, her jealous gaze following Polly’s shapely form.
“No one,” Adam muttered, tensing as Celeste turned her face to him, her blue eyes flashing.
“Well, for being no one, you certainly were having a fine little talk with her. Here I sent you to fetch me a glass of punch and when I turn around, I see this … this common wench fawning all over you. You can imagine how embarrassing it was to me in front of Annie Custis—”
“Drop it, Celeste,” he said, in no mood for her babble. He had had enough of playing games, and this one he was going to end. But before he had a chance to say anything, she wound her arm through his and smiled apologetically in a decided effort to placate him.
“Oh, Adam, let’s not quarrel,” she cooed. “If you say that girl was nobody special, then I believe you.” She squeezed his arm, her expression becoming almost conspiratorial. “Besides, I have the most startling news to tell you, although poor Matthew isn’t going to be very happy about it. But I suppose all is fair in love—”
“What news?” he queried, his breath snagging in his chest when Celeste glanced toward the willow and then back at him.
“It’s a
secret yet, Adam, so you have to promise not to tell anyone. The announcement won’t be made until Dominick Spencer arrives.” When she paused, clearly waiting for him to swear his silence, he considered grabbing her throat and throttling the news out of her. But her eagerness got the better of her as she blurted in a loud whisper, “Camille is going to marry Dominick! It’s all been arranged.”
Adam was so stunned that he stared at her as if she had just uttered pure gibberish What are you talking about?” he finally managed, his voice sounding hoarse.
“Annie Custis told me all about it. You know her family and Dominick are neighbors, don’t you? Well, apparently he came by their house last evening to share his good news. It seems Camille spent a good part of yesterday with him at Raven’s Point, and they decided to announce the betrothal here at the Tates’ before the races get started.” Celeste’s gaze skimmed the lawn. “Except I don’t see him yet … Adam! Where are you going? Adam!”
He scarcely heard her cries for the blood pounding in his brain, his narrowed gaze focused upon the pastel splotch of shell pink that was scarcely visible now for the young men blocking it from his view. He strode across the lawn, his every step fueled by emotions that twisted in his gut, his rage at her cruel deception overpowered by an agonizing sense of betrayal.
Why had she done this to him? Why? All he could think of was how he had held her in his arms last night, swearing his love to her, while she must have been laughing inside at him … laughing … laughing…
“Move! Get out of my way,” he demanded, shoving aside several young men before coming face-to-face with her. Looking into her wide, questioning eyes, a sparkling green as beautiful as a sunlit sea, he felt such a stab of anguish that he almost doubled over.
“Adam—Mr. Thornton, is something wrong?”
“There’s been a fire … a fire at Briarwood. I just received word.”
Defiant Impostor Page 22
