Reckless Angel

by Jane Feather

  Daniel Drummond was about to take a decisive part in the king’s cause, and his present excitement came from the knowledge that his king had made a request of him—a request embodying the trust King Charles II had in his subject, Sir Daniel Drummond. However, he did wonder how Henrietta would react to the news, and even more whether she would be able to undertake the tasks and responsibilities that would be laid upon her.

  “So, Lady Drummond, how d’ye think ye’ll like Madrid?” The astonishing question came from the earl, who was looking pinkly well fed and well imbibed, although as sartorially threadbare as his friend.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord.” The knife she was using to slice the apple tart slipped from her fingers to clatter on the pewter platter.

  “I have not yet had the opportunity to speak of the journey to my wife, Hendon,” Daniel said, greatly chagrined by his guest. “’Twas only mentioned when I had audience with the king this morning.”

  “Oh, I crave pardon!” Hendon looked suitably confused. “Of course it was. Can’t think what I was thinkin’ of.”

  “Madrid?” Henrietta stared across the table at Daniel.

  “His Majesty has asked that I go as ambassador to the king of Spain, to ask for funds to raise another army,” he told her quietly. “But let us discuss it later.”

  “Aye, if you wish it.” She lowered her eyes to her platter, pushing her tart aimlessly with a spoon while questions roiled in her head. It was this that had presumably caused Daniel’s excitement. It would be a most hazardous journey; Spain was a wild and savage land, was it not? Yet with a court governed by the most rigid rules of etiquette. How could she possibly perform as an ambassador’s wife? A comparatively short time ago, she had been racketing around the countryside in boy’s clothes…It was an utterly terrifying prospect.

  She stood up suddenly. “Pray excuse me, gentlemen. I will leave you to your wine as I have some household matters to attend to.”

  Daniel rose and went to open the door for her. “We will talk about it in full very shortly,” he said softly. “But one matter you might deal with without delay…”

  “Yes?”

  “You might instruct Lizzie that if she wishes to discover what is happening on the other side of a door, it is perfectly simple to knock upon that door.”

  For a second, she forgot the issue of Madrid and her eyes danced mischievously. “But ’tis not nearly so amusing, Daniel.”

  He schooled his features sternly. “Listening at keyholes is devious and unprincipled, Harry.”

  “But on occasion useful,” she pointed out.

  “Nevertheless, if I find Lizzie engaged in such an activity again, in your company or no, she is going to have a very uncomfortable time of it. So if you wish to spare her some trouble, I suggest you make certain she understands that.”

  Henrietta frowned. “Why must I tell her? Surely you should do so.”

  He shook his head, and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “I strongly suspect she believes you do not disapprove of such behavior, and I would have you disabuse her of that notion without delay.”

  She looked so conscience-stricken that his smile found full expression. “My elf, you have simply to explain to Lizzie that, unlike you as a child, she has no need to develop questionable habits.”

  She nodded ruefully. “Y’are right, of course. And I did laugh. I will talk to her.”

  “We will talk about this other matter as soon as our guests have departed,” he promised, tipping her chin with a warm forefinger. “There is no reason to be uneasy.”

  “No,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “I will send Hilde to clear the table.”

  Half an hour later, she was sitting pensively beside the open window in her bedchamber, overlooking the pretty walled garden, Lizzie and Nan playing cat’s cradle on the floor at her feet, when Daniel came in.

  “Have they gone?”

  “Aye,” he said easily, bending to examine the elaborate structure his daughters were creating. “Take that strand, Nan, then you will have it.”

  She beamed up at him, following the advice, and Lizzie cast him a quick, speculative glance from under her lashes. Clearly, Henrietta had had her little chat. He pinched the child’s cheek, shaking his head in gentle admonition, and she smiled tentatively.

  “I wish to talk to Harry,” he said, having long given up his prohibition on the girls’ use of the nickname. “Run along to Mistress Kierston now.”

  “Oh, but Daddy, if we go to the schoolroom she will make us go to church with her,” protested Lizzie. “She always goes to the evening service and it is so drear.”

  “And we cannot understand anything that is said,” Nan piped up.

  “But ’tis good for the soul,” he teased. “And yours are in great need of redemption. Off with you.”

  They went without further overt protest, although with muttered grumbles and dragging feet.

  “Will we take them to Madrid?” Henrietta asked, playing with the silk fringe of her shawl.

  Daniel shook his head. “Nay, I’d not expose them to the hazards of the journey, or of the climate.” Dropping to one knee beside her chair, he laid a hand over her restlessly plaiting fingers. “Or you, elf, if ye’d rather not.”

  “Oh, how could you suggest such a thing?” she cried, springing to her feet. “You would leave me behind to attend church with Mistress Kierston while you amuse yourself with the grandees at the Spanish court!”

  Laughing, he rose from his knees. “Nay, I would not. But do you truly wish to accompany me?”

  “Not if you do not wish me to,” she declared, tossing her head. “I had thought married people essayed most dangers together, but if you think otherwise…Oh!” This piece of mock-dignified mischief ended on a squawk as Daniel caught her by the waist, dumping her unceremoniously onto the poster bed.

  “You are sailing in very dangerous waters,” he informed her pleasantly, pinning her hands on either side of her head and kneeling astride her as she wriggled helplessly. “I should have a care, if I were you.”

  She became quite still, summoning an expression of the utmost docility, except that her eyes burned with a quite different message, and her tongue flickered over her lips.

  “Merciful heaven,” Daniel whispered, “sometimes I wonder what happened to the little innocent I married.”

  “Do you?” she whispered in return. “Would you have her back?”

  He shook his head. “Only in play, love.”

  “Shall we play now?”

  He moved his hands to her bodice, unlacing it carefully, his eyes never leaving her face. “If you’ve a mind to.”

  “What shall we play?” She lay very still as he slowly bared her breasts and the cool evening breeze fingered the softly mounded flesh, caressing her nipples as they hardened in growing excitement.

  “I would have a Spanish gypsy in my bed,” he said, moving his hands to unpin her hair, combing it with his fingers, tossing the thick silken mass over the pillow, where it lay fanned around the small face. “A bare-breasted, tangle-haired Spanish gypsy who will pluck wild enchantment from the strings of her guitar.”

  “And weave bewitchment as she dances.” A dreamy, unfocused glow appeared in the brown eyes. Her hands moved to her breasts, stroking delicately. Daniel moved away from her, his gaze fixed upon her hands, upon the proud, sensual flesh that she was offering with every loving touch of her fingers. Slowly, she stood up, her gown opened to her waist, her hair pouring over her shoulders, seduction in her eyes and softly parted lips.

  She picked up the five-stringed guitar resting on the window seat and cradled it, feeling the smooth, cold wood against her breasts as if it had life, so exquisitely tuned were her senses. Her head bent as she struck a chord, and then another. Music rippled from her fingers; it was indeed magic music, sometimes wickedly inviting, sometimes aching with the need for something unknown, the vague yearnings of the soul and the flesh. Then abruptly her mood seemed to change. Her fingers move
d with amazing speed, filling the room with a tripping, trilling melody that set the toes tapping and brought an involuntary chuckle of delight from Daniel. She threw back her head and laughed joyously. Setting aside the instrument, she sprang to her feet, kicking off her shoes, twirling, her hair and skirts swirling, the creamy swell of her breasts somehow mischievously sensual. The tune she had just played bubbled from her lips as she danced for him, a wild, exotic dance of promise, moving ever faster until she was nothing but a whirl of corn silk and turquoise linen and he thought she would dissolve in motion. But she slowed finally, sinking gracefully to the floor, hands outstretched toward him, head tilted as an impish smile played over her lips and she invited his applause.

  “God’s grace,” he murmured, taking her hands and drawing her up against his length. Cupping the curve of her cheek, he kissed her mouth, his other hand resting on her bosom against the impatient jarring of her heart. She moaned softly, moving against him as if the passion exemplified by her dance must now find another outlet. She was fumbling with her opened gown, pushing it off her body, and he drew back slowly.

  “Yes,” he said on a husky throb, “take your clothes off for me.”

  She did so as if she were still the dancing gypsy, but her movements now were slow and sinuous, infused with erotic promise so that his breath caught in his throat and the blood pounded hotly in his veins. When she was naked, he reached for her, reveling in the feel of her bare skin, the planes and contours of her body, slipping beneath his hands; but she was making urgent demand of him, in thrall to the passionate mood she had created, now slave to her own creation, clinging to him, rubbing herself against the hard shaft pressing through his buckskin britches as her teeth nipped his mouth and she sucked on his lower lip as if it were a ripe plum.

  Daniel gloried in this abandonment that made her supremely responsive to his lightest touch, the merest brush of a fingertip, the dewy caress of his tongue. It was his turn now to play the instrument, and he played upon her with the delicacy she had used with the guitar, drawing the high notes of perfection from her so that she shuddered on the peak again, and yet again, and he held back from his own mountaintop all the better to enjoy hers. But there came the moment when restraint was no longer possible and he kicked free of his britches, pushing her back onto the edge of the bed, standing over her to raise her legs, fitting her to him. Her legs curled around his hips, her toes kneading his buttocks as the muscles tightened, driving him deep within her center.

  Looking down upon her as she lay, the very image of a wanton, arms stretched above her head, breasts flattened against her ribs, hips lifting rhythmically with his movements, he was suffused with a wondrous tenderness. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, a faint sheen of perspiration misted her skin, then her eyelids fluttered open and she smiled radiantly up at him as the glory filled her. He was lost instantly, falling forward to gather her against him, and her hands stroked his back while the intense wave of pleasure curled, crashed, and finally receded, returning him to the world again.

  “I do envy you, Harry,” Julia Morris said wistfully the next morning. The girls were perfect foils for each other. Where Henrietta was small, Julia was tall and Junoesque in stature; where one was fair and white-skinned, the other was dark and olive-skinned; but they were much of an age and the best of friends.

  “Why would you?” Henrietta asked, going to close the casement as a sudden squall blew in off the sea, darkening the sky and sending a shower of fat raindrops plopping to the ground. She had never had a girl friend before, had never experienced the luxury of sharing confidences with any but Will, and men were different. The instant liking that had sprung up between herself and Julia was one of the major sources of her present contentment, and was viewed with great approval by both Daniel and Lord and Lady Morris, who, like so many, had chosen exile and poverty when they had followed their sovereign.

  “I would be married,” Julia now said, plying her needle on her tambour frame with great diligence. “Ye have so much freedom, Harry. You can order your life as you wish and there’s no one to say you nay.”

  Henrietta smiled slightly. “’Tis not entirely the case. But y’are right, Julie, ’tis very pleasant being married for a lot of reasons.” Memories of the previous evening glowed warm in her mind, but those she would not share, not even with Julia.

  “And y’are going to Madrid,” Julia continued, looking up from her embroidery. “It is such an adventure! And I must stay here and be dutiful, and practice fine sewing.” She grimaced in disgust. “You do not have to sew.”

  Harry laughed. “That is because I do not know how to.”

  “Yet you found a husband,” her friend declared unarguably. “But if I try to tell that to madam, my mother, she says she will give me a strong purge to rid me of ill humor.”

  “I trust you have not told her how I met Daniel?” Harry shuddered slightly at the thought of the stiffly correct Lady Morris hearing such a scandalous tale.

  Julia went into a peal of laughter. “Do not be absurd, Harry. She would never believe it. She thinks Sir Daniel far too respectable.”

  Harry’s toes curled within her leather pumps at the thought of just how unrespectable—and unrespectful—her husband was capable of being. The sound of the great brass knocker interrupted this delicious musing. “Whoever could that be? I am not expecting anyone, and Daniel is at court.” Then she froze, listening to very familiar tones. With a squeal of joy, she flew to the parlor door, exploding into the hall. “Will…’tis Will. Whatever do you do here?”

  “Lord, Harry, give a man a chance,” Will protested as he found his arms full of Henrietta.

  “’Tis raining cats and dogs, love. Let us get in.”

  She had not seen Daniel behind Will, and now stepped back, laughing. “Where did you find him?”

  “In the street.” Daniel shook rain off his cloak as he came into the hall. “He was coming in search of us.”

  “So I should hope.” Taking Will’s arm, she pulled him toward the parlor. “You must stay with us…must he not, Daniel?”

  Will began to demur, then the words died as he saw the occupant of the parlor. Julia smiled shyly and curtsied.

  “Oh, Julie, this is my dear friend Will, who has come to The Hague,” Harry burbled excitedly. “Only he has come just as we are to go to Madrid.”

  “Madrid!” Will took his eyes off Julia for a minute. “How is that?”

  “All in good time,” Daniel said, injecting some order into the proceedings. “Allow me to perform introductions correctly, since Harry appears to have lost her wits…Mistress Julia Morris, Master Will Osbert.”

  “How d’ye do.” Will bowed, blushing to the roots of his fiery hair. “I am honored, mistress.”

  “Oh, do not be so formal,” Henrietta instructed with a dismissive wave. “Julie is quite my best friend, after you, so you must not stand on ceremony with each other.”

  “A glass of canary, Will, or d’ye prefer ale?” Daniel’s calm offer gave Will the opportunity to recover himself. “Julia, you prefer sherry, I know. Henrietta, would you fetch ale from the kitchen, please? And had you better not tell the cook we have extra guests?”

  “Oh, I cannot stay for dinner,” Julia said, flustered.

  “Whyever not?” Harry demanded, flinging her arms impulsively around Will, hugging him again. “You always do.”

  Julia was saved from response by the precipitate opening of the door. “Harry, Mistress Kierston has the headache and says she will not come down for dinner.” Lizzie and Nan tumbled into the room, shining-eyed at the prospect of their governess’s absence upon her sickbed, and then both stopped dead at the sight of their stepmother embracing a strange man. “Who’s that?” Nan blurted the question her sister’s greater age and experience had caused her to swallow.

  “I beg your pardon?” Daniel said ominously.

  “Oh, she did not mean to be impolite,” Henrietta said. “Did you, Nan?” Nan shook her head vigorously, an
d her thumb disappeared into her mouth. Daniel automatically removed the thumb before turning with a resigned sigh to the sideboard and the wine decanter.

  “This is my friend Will,” Henrietta said, taking the girls by the hands and drawing them forward. “Will, this is Lizzie, and this is Nan.”

  Will smiled in friendly fashion at Harry’s stepdaughters, who regarded him with considerable interest. “Harry told us all about you,” Lizzie said, remembering her curtsy somewhat belatedly.

  “Oh.” Will glanced uneasily at Harry. “And what did she tell you?”

  “Oh, all sorts of things…about all the scrapes you both used to get into.” Lizzie warmed to her theme. “About the time when you accident’ly shot the squire with your catapult and—”

  “Enough!” Will exclaimed, torn between laughter at this ingenuous recitation and embarrassment at the audience. “Harry, you had no right.”

  Henrietta shrugged and winked at Julia, who seemed to have recovered from her shyness with the arrival of the children and was laughing as heartily as the rest of them. “It made a good bedtime story. Lizzie, go to the kitchen and tell Cook that we have two extra guests for dinner, and bring a pitcher of ale back with you.” Lizzie scampered off importantly, and she turned to Nan. “Would you go and ask Mistress Kierston if she would like a tray in her chamber? Perhaps she would like some broth, or a tisane.”

  Having disposed of both children and her own errands in satisfactory fashion, she accepted a glass of canary from Daniel and sat on the broad window seat. “I cannot believe y’are really here, Will. What has brought you?”