Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy)

by Henke, Shirl

  “A penny for your thoughts, Miss Blackthorne,” Aiden Randolph said wistfully. “You look quite vexed.” Aiden was tall, pale and gaunt, with a strabismus of the left eye that made looking at him directly rather difficult. At present, his one good eye was fixed on her adoringly while its mate flitted vaguely around the crowded room. He was quite sweet and frightfully vapid.

  “Actually, Mr. Randolph, I was just thinking about how I would much prefer to be outdoors on such a lovely day.” She bit her tongue, fearing he would ask to accompany her on a walk after the salon. Eager to change the drift of the conversation, she launched into a description of her latest landscape sketches. That normally drove suitors away.

  Across the room, Derrick observed the tall, striking redhead in the mint green mull gown. She was a bit on the thin side and too young for his tastes, but fetching with all that heavy auburn hair falling in artlessly arranged curls over her shoulders. Something about her gestures and posture seemed vaguely familiar, but he could not for the life of him place her.

  A hoarse chuckle from his companion drew his attention away from the girl. “A pretty bit of fluff, Blackthorne's daughter, but I'd not trifle with her, my boy,” Roarke Kenyon cautioned. Kenyon, a short stocky fellow with merry hazel eyes and an ear for gossip, had proven an invaluable source of information regarding the sentiments of pro-British Federalists in his home state of Massachusetts.

  Derrick wished to satisfy his curiosity about the girl and learn more about the illustrious Blackthorne family. Brushing an imaginary speck of dust from the ruffled shirtcuff spilling from the sleeve of his new dark blue jacket, he inquired, “Is she the merchant's daughter or the planter's daughter?”

  “The planter, Quintin. Quite opposed to a war against your country. A sensible fellow, even if his reasons are not the same as ours.”

  “And his reasons would be?” Derrick; prompted.

  “Relates to his cousin Devon.”

  “Ah, he runs a large shipping enterprise, does he not?” Derrick had heard about the two patriarchs of the fabulously wealthy Blackthorne clan. “Old Devon would have a deal to lose if war breaks out.”

  “True, but Devon has an English wife. His son's been living in London for the past year, as a matter of fact. Married an earl's niece, so rumor has it. Then, too, Dev and Quint were raised together, more brothers than cousins, and Dev's part Creek.”

  Derrick paused incredulously in the ritual of opening his cloisonne snuff box. “You mean red Indian?”

  “None other. Quite the scandal some years back, but no one much remembers his origins now that he's become bloody rich.”

  Derrick nodded, piecing together what he had painstakingly gleaned over the past few months. “I understand the Indian confederacies are pro British because they want to halt American expansion into their lands in the west. Do tell me more about this fascinating family.”

  Kenyon's expression grew crafty. “Wouldn't be thinking about taking an American heiress for a wife, would you? Rather a turnabout on the way the Blackthornes have done it.” He chuckled heartily at his own wit.

  In order to learn more about the influential Blackthorne family's politics, Derrick nodded, searching the crowd for the redhead. “As a second son with modest prospects, I must confess, there is a certain appeal...if she's rich enough.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth's rich enough all right.” Kenyon's chuckle set his ample belly to rolling beneath his brocade waistcoat. “But the gel's got bats in her belfry. Wants to be an artist, if you can believe that. Dabbles in paints, running around the city dressed like a ragamuffin. It would take a strong hand to straighten her out, I tell you.”

  Derrick was flummoxed. Never taking his eyes off Elizabeth Blackthorne, he choked out, “A painter, you say?” It couldn't be his harlequin...could it?

  Kenyon proceeded with an embellished description of the girl's disgraceful attire. It was she!

  “She doesn't look the hoyden, I must say,” the Englishman said uncertainly.

  “Appearances can be deceiving, my boy,” Kenyon replied gravely.

  When Beth saw him walking across the floor she nearly sank to her knees with embarrassment. He was heading directly toward her! Would he remember their awful encounter from last week? How could he not? Of course, she had looked much different in her painting togs. She was suddenly grateful for the way Mama had insisted on tricking her out for this affair.

  “Beth, you look ready to pick up your skirts and run,” Madelyne said, trying to discern the reason for her daughter's panic. Then she saw him, quite the handsomest young man in the room, moving in their direction along with Roarke Kenyon. Beaming, she looked back at Beth. “Oh, do try to smile, dear. I daresay he won't bite you.”

  When they approached the ladies, Roarke introduced his companion as Derrick Jenkins, late of Manchester, England. Elizabeth Blackthorne curtsied to him rather stiffly. The awkwardness of her normally graceful daughter was not lost on Madelyne. Derrick bowed with an affected flourish that he'd found most American females adored. Before Miss Blackthorne could do more than smile wood-enly, Quint motioned to his wife and political ally Kenyon from across the room. They made their excuses to the two young people and went to join him.

  “You look far better without paint on your nose,” he teased when they were alone. “In fact, I wouldn't have recognized you if Kenyon hadn't mentioned that you dabbled at painting.”

  Her eyebrows arched sharply and her wide green eyes narrowed imperceptibly, a sure sign of danger, as her brothers could have warned him. “Dabbled?” she echoed sweetly.

  “His word, not mine, but you must confess it is rather unusual for a lady of your background to go about the countryside in the company of a chicken thief.” His grin was infectious.

  She was not certain whether she should be amused or incensed. If only he weren't so damnably good-looking. He quite unsettled her. She decided incensed was safer. “I'm sure I prefer the company of an honest thief to that of a condescending Englishman,” she said with frosty dismissal, turning away from his penetrating blue eyes before she drowned in their depths.

  “Just because our countries may one day be at war does not mean that we need be,” he said. “Besides, I'm given to understand that you have English relatives on both sides of the Atlantic.”

  “Aunt Barbara is an American now and Cousin Alex's wife Joss will be too. They do not laugh at the idea of a woman wanting to be an artist.” Actually, having never met her new cousin, Beth had no idea how Joss felt.

  Elizabeth Blackthorne sounded so young and earnest in her righteous anger that he reconsidered his earlier impulse to use her as a source of information. There were many other older and wiser women on whom he could work his charms, women who knew far more about military and political matters than this backcountry miss. Magnanimously, he decided to let her go.

  “My dear Miss Blackthorne, I wish you every success as an artist, and please note that I am not laughing as I do so,” he replied with feigned boredom.

  “You are every bit as insufferable as Cousin Alex described the Earl of Suthington!”

  Having met Suthington, Derrick understood the magnitude of the insult better than she. As he watched her stalk away, a most peculiar sense of something lost squeezed his chest. The sudden pang was akin to how he had felt when his family disowned him.

  Chapter Two

  The Quay, Bay of Naples, Fall 1814

  Derrick Jamison stood on the deck of the brigantine Mayfair, surveying the sparkling aquamarine depths of the bay. Small fishing skiffs and sloops with their characteristically curved sails skimmed across the water, nets heavy with the morning catch. The high tenor voices of the fishermen echoed along the quay. In the distance Mt. Vesuvius released a lazy curl of smoke, teasing the deep purity of the azure sky. Along the shoreline steep tiers of stucco buildings gleamed white as snow, their seemingly pristine appearance given the lie by the harsh odors of fish and animal dung blending with the sickly aroma of sulfur, all wafting on the balmy
breeze.

  It was an invigorating sight to the Englishman after the icy rain of the North Atlantic. Feeling the warmth of the autumn sun beating down on his shoulders, he studied the wide sandy stretch of beach where rude vendor's stalls boasted a colorful array of fresh produce—aromatic bins of golden figs, the deep crimson of halved watermelons, piles of hairy tan coconuts, bright splashes of lemons and oranges.

  That was when he saw her—or rather, heard her. A low rich voice vibrating in a loud burst of staccato Italian, which was generously interspersed with cursing, some of it so idiomatic he could not comprehend the specifics. Her tone of voice combined with the Italian words he did know clearly gave him the gist of it. She stood surrounded by a gaggle of older, lower-class women, dressed as she was in brightly colored skirts and loose white blouses. They appeared to be encouraging her in a diatribe against one of the local fishermen whose catch lay in piles on the sand.

  Derrick struggled to keep up with the argument. The woman was a redhead, a good foot or so taller than any of the other females. When the crowd parted, he could see her great mass of deep russet hair spilling in unruly curls down her back, stopping just short of a tiny waist that rounded out to a pair of beautifully curved hips and a lush derriere. Her Amazonian form was outlined through the thin cotton of her short skirt as the breeze whipped the bright green cloth around slender ankles. He leaned forward on the deck's railing and peered at her, willing her to turn so he could see her face.

  If it's half as good as her backside, I want her tonight, he thought with a sudden tightening in his groin. In service of king and country Jamison could be more abstemious than most, but he saw no reason to deny himself one brief night's pleasure before getting down to the business for which he'd been sent.

  Just then she bent down and seized a large mackerel from the fisherman's pile and smacked him roundly across the face with it. This action seemed to incite the rest of her companions to take up arms. Before the hapless man could beat a retreat, the rest of the women picked up scaly cudgels and pelted him with his offending wares. Seemingly satisfied, the redhead spun on one sandaled foot and strode down the beach.

  “Bloody hell, she's magnificent,” he breathed as the wind molded her soft blouse against high, generously rounded breasts. The strong clean lines of her face in stark profile would have been the envy of a Greco-Roman goddess.

  “You may quit your embarrassing salivating any time now, old chap. It quite unbecomes a gentleman to behave like his spaniel,” Alvin Francis Edward Drummond remonstrated.

  “Do not remind me of that accursed beast,” Derrick said, gritting his teeth.

  A slight smile curved Drummond's lips, then quickly vanished as he recalled how he had spent the previous evening, picking dog hairs from a kerseymere jacket. “Would that I had the luxury of such blissful forgetfulness.”

  The dandy's slight stature and effete mannerisms belied a core of sinewy toughness, and his cool green eyes missed nothing. He was utterly calm under fire, which was precisely why he had been chosen to accompany Derrick Jamison on this assignment.

  Derrick returned his attention to the girl on the beach. “I suppose she's lazzaroni. Shouldn't be too difficult to locate her, hmmm?” he mused.

  “And aren't they the local riff-raff who, according to our briefing, sleep with a crucifix on one side of the bed, a rifle on the other and a stiletto beneath their pillow?” Drum reminded him. “She's probably got a man, some great hulking fellow who shall slit your gizzard in one of those noisome and narrow alleyways.”

  “I'll take my chances,” Jamison replied with a grin.

  “Don't you always, old chap?” Drum murmured.

  * * * *

  Beth Blackthorne sighed and tossed the letter down on the Dante chair. “How can they be so...so obtuse! So provincial!” She had come straight from the market, flushed with victory over Signore Begani, only to be laid low by this. She paced across the marble floor of the villa's portico, oblivious to the musical call of the fountain or the warm sunlight streaming down through the wisteria-covered pergola overhead.

  “Another missive from America, I take it,” Vittoria, Contessa di Remaldi, said with a smile. The contessa was a striking woman of middle years, voluptuous of body, with heavy black hair lightly threaded with silver. Her olive complexion was lined with the tiny crinkles that came from much laughter. “Who writes to scold you this time, your mother or one of your now reformed brothers?”

  “My father. He's heard the rumor about my posing for Signore Pignatelli.”

  “Oh, my—the whole rumor?” the contessa asked delicately.

  “Just because I posed au naturel for an artist with Pignatelli's gift—why, his nudes are considered the finest since Tintoretto—my provincial father demands to know how I could debase myself in such a manner!”

  Chuckling gently, the contessa asked, “And will you explain that such was the price of the master so that he would tutor you in portraiture?”

  “I might as well have sold myself in the Porta Capucina cribs. It would be no worse by my father's lights. How on earth did that tale travel all the way to Savannah?”

  “You have become quite the toast of the court, cara. An American female, single and living independently, studying painting...becoming successful at it.” There was a note of pride blended with concern in Vittoria's voice.

  “You are very kind, but you well know that without your sponsorship I would have had no entree to local artists' circles, not to mention all the wealthy patrons at court. I don't know how I should have survived without your friendship, Vittoria.”

  “Come here, child,” the contessa said, patting a cushion on the chaise beside her. When Beth walked over and took a seat, Vittoria said, “Mark my words, you shall always survive, with or without me. You crossed the wide Atlantic all alone, with nothing but a small inheritance and your dream of painting to sustain you. American courage has always been considered dauntless. Once I saw you standing on the quay, pale and nervous to be sure but with your back so straight, I knew you were going to be someone formidable.”

  “I was frightened as a hare surrounded by hounds that day—and my Italian was atrocious,” she added, chuckling as the memories of those harrowing days three years earlier came back to her.

  “Well, you speak like a native now, and barter like the lazzaroni on market days.”

  “And who taught me to enjoy the freedom of peasant garb and the fun of haggling with waterfront vendors?” Beth reminded her friend.

  “What fun it can be, although I must confess I never had the flair for it that you have exhibited. But now, enough of reminiscences and recriminations from across the Atlantic. I shall write your father assuring him that you are under the most proper chaperonage of the Contessa di Remaldi—tomorrow. Tonight is Queen Caroline's ball, and your gown has just been delivered by the dressmaker.”

  Beth made a face, “You know how I detest dressing up in court regalia. High-heeled slippers pinch my feet.”

  “Duke Umberto d'Aquino will be in attendance, and I hear he's looking for an artist to paint his family.”

  “I shall be most winsome and charming to him, then,” Beth said with a grin. “But the slippers will still pinch my toes.”

  * * * *

  “Not a bloody trace of her.” Derrick stared out the window of the handsome quarters Drum had let for them. “I made inquiries all about the waterfront. Even ventured into the fondachi. ” He shuddered, remembering the Neapolitan version of English slums, with their tiny airless rooms, noisome and dark as caves.

  “Ah, my boy, your lust will one day see you dead in an alley. Of course the beggarly classes around the waterfront wouldn't talk with you—even if, mind, you could converse in passable Italian, which you cannot.”

  “Neither can you.”

  “Ah, but being a rational man, I have no desire to communicate with lazzaroni,” Drum retorted as he continued unpacking their trunks. “His Britannic Majesty's English is all I aspire to speak
.”

  “Scarcely a practical attitude for a man sent to the Continent to spy for that very same Britannic Majesty,” Derrick replied dryly.

  Drum shook out a pair of doeskins and inspected them critically, saying, “I am not the spy. You are. If it weren't for some slight misunderstanding with my creditors in London, I would never have departed fair Albion's shores.”

  Jamison gave a snort of laughter. “A slight misunderstanding in the neighborhood of twenty thousand pounds. Actually, I thought it rather generous of the Foreign Office to buy your way out of Newgate.”

  “Generous indeed. In return I must risk my life on this absurd venture, acting as bodyguard to a reckless madman,” Drum said with a sniff.

  “Not just bodyguard, body servant, my dear Drum, body servant.” Derrick chuckled.

  The little dandy stiffened and dropped a pile of starched neckcloths into the drawer of a huge armadio. “I shall remember this humiliation whilst I'm guarding your backside against Calabrian thugs. My aim might be a bit off.”

  “Your aim is never off,” Jamison reminded him, returning to brood as he stared out the window at the narrow cobblestone streets six stories below their quarters. What had become of the stunning woman with the russet hair and Boadicean stride?

  His reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door. The landlord's pudgy young son stood panting after his sprint up the steep stairs. “For the signore,” he said in broken English, handing a sealed note to Drum, then waiting for a reward for his swift delivery.