“Aye, Duncan,” Tom had said. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Ain’t easy to find, my isle,” he’d rasped. “Ye must not give up when you get lost in the leeward isles, mate. Watch for the eagle. It’s an eagle that will show you the way.”
The old man had died soon after, and it wasn’t until another three years had passed that Thomas and Nate had managed to get to Sabedoria. There’d been far more blood and water under Tom’s feet than he cared to remember, and it had taken months of exploring the South American Antilles, searching for a gathering of eagles’ nests before they’d finally come upon a small isle with a huge stone promontory carved by the elements into the shape of an eagle. After only an hour of exploration, they’d found that old Duncan’s unlikely tales of riches beyond belief had been true.
Duncan’s treasure could not ease the restlessness inside Tom, but they made all of his plans possible. It had been seventeen years since he’d known peace. Seventeen years since he’d felt any kind of contentment or satisfaction.
Until two days before, when he’d looked into the soft gray eyes of Zachary’s mother.
He tossed aside the beautifully penned invitations from the scions of society and pulled on his coat. He was going back to Hanover Square. But not to wallow in his memories of past events at number nineteen. He’d put off seeing the woman again—Maggie—for too long.
He knew it wasn’t prudent. She was married, and he was a man with a mission that had nothing to do with any women at all, much less the flawed gray-eyed matron who’d touched his arm and sent a firestorm of awareness through him. She was no conventional beauty, but she was exactly the kind of woman who appealed to him. Unpretentious, and down-to-earth, her emotions had been heartfelt. She was no stuffy English noblewoman with the practiced airs of those he’d encountered since his return home, but a sweet woman with a hint of vulnerability lurking in her magnificent eyes.
Tom had not been able to stop thinking of the many pleasurable hours she must provide her husband in their bed, a ridiculously unproductive thought process.
“Tommy Boy?”
His nerves on edge, Tom looked up sharply at Nathaniel, who’d entered the room silently. He went right to the pile of invitations and picked up the one on top. “This one is it, my boy,” Nate said, holding it up for Thomas to see. “Your moment is about to arrive.”
“Aye,” Tom replied quietly. It felt so strange to be back in his native land, under such changed circumstances. He’d shared his treasure with Nate, of course, and now the two of them were far richer than the prince regent himself. With an exceedingly careful orchestration, with flags and credentials and documents of authenticity, the English authorities believed he was a foreign dignitary who had treaties to be signed and a superior product to trade.
It was all a foil for the vengeance he would wreak against Leighton and Julian.
“This is the event we should attend,” said Nate.
“I agree. Duchess Waverly’s ball will give us entrée to the cream of society.”
“Leighton Ingleby—Lord Shefford, now—will be there. You can make his acquaintance and begin to draw him into your web.”
Nate harbored a deep hatred for the “toffs” who’d sent him away from London in chains, away from his pregnant sweetheart. Nate had learned that the poor mot, a rookery girl of sixteen, had died in childbirth only a few days after Nate’s incarceration. So had the child.
Thomas understood Nate’s hatred, for he harbored his own. And he had started on the only course that could satisfy his need to even the score. It was early in the season, and the Waverly ball was the most important event thus far. Shefford would surely attend a ball given by the most prestigious matron of society. That was where Tom would introduce himself to the man, and draw him into the trap he would use to destroy him. He only wished Julian still lived, and could be hurt as grievously as Tom had been.
He would like to send both his accusers and his judge to Norfolk Island to suffer the same pain and indignities Tom had endured. That was impossible, of course, but he could take away what was most important to them. He had the resources to make their lives hell.
“Has there been any word from Saret or Salim?” Tom asked, using the fictitious names his cohorts had chosen for themselves. They were two former convicts who’d returned to England with Tom as part of his entourage. All of his men had been incarcerated for one offense or another, and each one had his own talents. In addition, Lucas Reigi, a former pirate, was in command of Thomas’s three princely ships, all anchored near London where they could be seen, and marveled at, by incoming ships.
“Mark Saret is on his way up here as we speak. He said he has news. Sebastian Salim has already left for Suffolk, to look for your family.” Nate gestured to Tom’s coat. “You’re going out?”
“Just to familiarize myself with the city,” Tom said, deciding it was pure folly to visit Hanover Square. “Maybe I’ll take a ride up to Hampstead Heath and look at Mr. Delamere’s property once more.” Anything to take his mind from fantasies of the lovely, disheveled Maggie, the wife of some damned nobleman.
Nate opened the door after a sharp knock, to admit Mark Saret. He’d been a Yorkshire man of business in his previous life, and his particular skills were of tremendous value to Tom. He was not a very tall man, but with his pale blond hair and fair complexion, he possessed enough charm to have bilked three different ladies out of their fortunes.
But that was years ago. Saret was no common criminal, but possessed a fair knowledge of the law, and was no mean forger when necessary. Thomas had provided Saret with a fortune of his own, so there was no need for him to beguile vulnerable young ladies any longer, or to falsify documents.
Unless Tom asked him to do so.
“You have Mr. Delamere’s answer?” Tom asked.
“The transaction is complete,” Saret replied. He produced the deed to Delamere’s extensive estate, along with a key, which he placed in Tom’s hand. “He could not refuse your, ahem, exceedingly generous offer. The man sold me the property late last night and we transferred the deed this morning. The old miser vacated the premises within hours of that.”
“Oh dear,” said Lady Victoria Ranfield, Maggie’s very best friend from childhood. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, Maggie, but neither did I want you to hear it at a soiree or at some other some public gathering.”
Maggie’s sketchbook and pencil slid to the sofa beside her, and she pressed a hand to her chest, as though she could eliminate the shard of pain that sliced through her faltering heart.
Dear God. Had she stayed at Blackmore Manor in Cambridgeshire, she never would have known, would never have had to face the truth about Julian. He’d been a negligent husband, but Maggie had never thought…She’d never dreamed…
She leaned back against the sofa, swallowing hard, feeling light-headed. Disoriented. As though the axis of the world had shifted.
As well it had.
“Are you all right?” Victoria said, reaching over to collect the drawing Maggie had started. “Oh, bother, I should never have told you.”
Maggie thought back upon the day Julian had proposed to her, more than eight years before. She had hoped for a better match, but her mother and Shefford had insisted that Julian’s would be the best—the only—offer she could expect. And Julian was Shefford’s best friend, besides. So much the better, according to Beatrice.
Somehow, they’d made a decent marriage. They’d been content. At least, that had been Maggie’s belief for all these years. Julian had had his shortcomings, as had she, of course. But, fool that she was, she had not guessed this.
She bit down on her lower lip in an attempt to quell its trembling. She supposed she should thank her good friend for informing her of her late husband’s marital infidelities.
Yet she wondered if all her memories of Julian would now be tainted with the tinge of nausea she now felt. Would she look at her family and friends and wonder if they’d known all alo
ng that he’d sought the beds of other women during their marriage?
Had she been so inadequate in the bedchamber that he’d had to seek gratification elsewhere? Of course. She’d been a consolation wife, the girl no one else had wanted, and Julian had been too lazy to bother courting one of the more sought-after young ladies. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
“Here. Drink this,” Victoria said.
“No, thank you,” Maggie replied, turning down the brandy her friend had hastily poured. “I must—”
She didn’t know what she must do. Go, she supposed. Back to Julian’s town house where her children waited. Back to the life that was a complete and total sham. She and Julian had never spoken of marital fidelity. Maggie had just assumed their vows meant something. Had wrongly assumed…
“Look here, Maggie. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Julian is dead and gone,” said Victoria, Maggie’s very proper friend. No doubt it had been immensely difficult, having to give Maggie such distasteful information. “It’s been over two years since he drowned. And you’ve been up at Blackmore Manor ever since the accident. Nothing has changed now that you know. Julian cared about you—”
“Don’t!” Maggie cried, her voice a ragged rasp of pain. She stood abruptly. “I—I know you mean well, Victoria, but…Please do not speak to me of caring.” She shook her head, speechless now. With a husband like Ranfield, who was mad about his wife, Victoria couldn’t begin to understand the depth of betrayal Maggie felt.
In a haze of utter shock, Maggie gathered her things and went to the front door, allowing the butler to help her with her pelisse. She refused Victoria’s offer of her carriage or even a footman to escort her, and walked down the steps, barely conscious of her maid, who followed right behind her. Absently, she rubbed her aching thigh, the site of the old fracture that had never healed correctly.
After the Chatterton debacle, Maggie had taken pains to please her mother, to be a dutiful daughter. And when Beatrice insisted that marriage was less about caring than it was about family alliances, titles, and fortunes, Maggie had squelched her hope for a match based on affection and perhaps even attraction. She’d married Julian and tried to be the best possible wife to him.
Apparently, it had not been enough.
Needing to walk and clear her head, Maggie proceeded forward like an automaton, completely unconscious of the discomfort in her lame leg, unaware of the carriage traffic on the street or the passersby who nodded and tipped their hats. She had been an exemplary spouse, managing her household, giving her husband children. She’d visited Blackmore’s tenants far more often than Julian ever had, fretting over sickness and bad harvests without him, while he tended to business in Town.
Business, indeed.
She brushed away her tears of hurt and embarrassment as resentment and anger rose within her. Perhaps she should have an affair or two of her own. Or even ten! No one could argue that she had not been a virtuous wife, then a properly mournful widow these past two years. Now that she knew Julian had not respected their vows during their marriage, Maggie did not know why she should do so, either.
She did not understand how she could have been so blind. Julian might never have spoken of undying love, but she had thought they’d done well enough together. They’d had two children, for heaven’s sake, and he’d spoken of wanting another after Lily’s birth. Another son, he’d said.
And yet he’d shared intimacies with another woman. Women, if Victoria was correct.
She shuddered as disgust roiled through her. Who was Julian to soil their wedding vows? How could he taint the sanctity of their marriage with the obvious precedence of other women in his life, in his heart and mind? How could he come to her bed at Blackmore Manor and touch her after…
It should not hurt quite so badly, but it did. And it shook what little confidence Maggie had. All these years she’d fooled herself into believing she had satisfied her handsome husband, when in truth she hadn’t possessed whatever it took—beauty, charm, sophistication—to keep him faithful. Or happy.
Maggie swallowed back her tears. If Victoria was concerned that she would learn of Julian’s infidelities in some public place, then everyone must know. Her family and friends, the servants, maybe even shopkeepers…
Mortification flashed through her. Julian’s disloyalty and dishonesty cut into her like a jagged knife. Her entire married life had been a lie.
Her vision blurred by her tears, Maggie tripped, and would have fallen, but for a pair of strong hands that caught her.
It was him. The prince.
“Madam, we meet again.”
“Oh!” Maggie felt her cheeks go warm, and knew she was blushing bright red. She blinked away her tears and pressed one hand to her breast, feeling as sad and raw as a jilted bride. “Clumsy me.”
“Not at all,” he said. “There is a crack in the pavement.”
He could have released her arm then, but did not.
Maggie took a shaky breath and looked up at him, into those lovely green eyes, and forced herself not to sniffle. She swallowed thickly. “You…You seem to be making a habit of rescuing my family.”
“How is your son? He is fully recovered from his misadventure, I trust?”
She nodded, needing to escape, to find some private place where she could weep until she used up all her tears, but he continued to grip her arm. Somehow, she managed to answer the man. “But for a scolding and some time spent alone in his bedchamber, he is fine. Thank you for asking. And thank you once again, for intervening the other night. If not for you—”
“Think nothing of it,” he replied. And still he did not release her. Maggie took another quaking breath, her earlier upset complicated by the attentions of the man who had occupied far too many of her thoughts since his daring rescue.
“You are distraught,” he said, frowning fiercely. He took her elbow and looked down the street. “Is there anything I—Perhaps you would join me for tea?”
“Oh, I really should n—” she began, but everything had changed. Her world had shifted in Victoria’s parlor only a few minutes earlier, and her life would never be the same. She was a widow, no longer bound by the same constraints she’d known as a debutante or even a wife. There was no reason to decline an invitation from this man—a prince in every sense of the word. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”
She sent her maid, Tessa, home, then stepped forward to place her hand in the crook of his arm.
He slowed his gait to match hers, escorting her to Blakeley’s Tea Shop, then going inside to a small table near a window. He ordered their tea, then turned his full attention upon her.
Maggie felt her heart flutter, much as it had the night before, when she’d knelt beside him and taken Zachary into her arms. This time, her panic was due to her lack of experience. Her sisters had decried her as a failure at flirting, but it had not mattered. Before she was halfway through her first season, she’d married Julian, and any attempt at flirting had come to an end, for he’d seemed oblivious to her attempts to engage him.
Maggie was on her own now, in uncharted waters. If she were to have an affair of her own, she could not have asked for a more intriguing or attractive man to have it with. And yet she knew better to think he would even entertain such a possibility.
“I hope it is nothing serious,” he said.
“What?” came her breathy response. Of course it was serious, just the thought of sharing intimacies with—
“Whatever has upset you.” He removed his gloves, then leaned forward and lifted one hand, gently using the pad of his thumb to rub away the remnants of her tears. Maggie hoped no one noticed his intimate act, but every fiber of her being vibrated with awareness.
Attraction shimmered through her, making her breasts tingle and her womb tighten with expectation. She had to force herself to ignore the pebbling of her nipples and the heat at the crux of her legs, for she knew such sensations would bring her naught but an afternoon of feeling vaguely frustrated and
ill-at-ease. That was how it had always been with Julian on the occasions when he’d taken his pleasure in her bed, and then left her feeling unfulfilled and unsettled.
“It’s nothing. Only some strange news,” she said. She did not think she could ever speak of her late husband’s betrayal to anyone. It was bad enough, just hearing the few details Victoria had told her.
The prince seemed to understand that the subject was not open for discussion. “I hope you weren’t too harsh with your son last night. Zachary, was it?”
“Yes, Zachary,” she managed to say. “I fear I was much too lenient with him. I yield far too often to my softer side.”
“He is a lucky boy, then,” said the prince, his voice low and seductive. He moved his hand slightly, touching Maggie’s fingers with his own. It could have been an inadvertent contact, but she did not think so, not after he’d touched her face so tenderly.
His hand was large and square, with a sprinkling of dark hair on its back, his fingers long and blunt-tipped. Just looking at them caused a frisson of sensual awareness to shoot down Maggie’s spine.
“My son needs discipline,” she said quietly, “and a father’s influence.”
“His father does not provide it?”
“My husband passed away some time ago,” Maggie said, aware that her statement might be construed as an announcement of her availability. She’d half intended it to be so.
But the prince said nothing, and Maggie lost heart. As her sisters had been pleased to point out, she hadn’t the slightest idea how to attract a man, and it was obvious now that her marriage to Julian had not improved her skills. If anything, what few she possessed had become rusty during her marriage. He’d had little interest in her or the children, coming to her bed every now and then, whenever it suited him.
Maggie pushed back her chair, embarrassed at her own failures and her silly forwardness with this man, this stunning stranger who attracted the surreptitious attentions of every fashionable lady who walked past their little niche. “Perhaps I should go.”
The Rogue Prince Page 3
