by Laura Parker
Sabrina was past being put to the blush by insinuations of her supposed licentious life. Of more concern was the paltry sum he had offered in exchange for her only valuable. Whatever money she received in exchange for her pearls would have to last Kit and her for the foreseeable future. “Very well, I will try elsewhere.”
She rose abruptly and held out her hand.
“There, there now, miss,” the man responded, holding the necklace more tightly. “Don’t fly away on me.” He waved her back into her chair. When she was reseated he bent a hard look upon her. “They ain’t stolen?”
“Of course not. My father gave them to me.”
“Of course,” he murmured cynically. “Of course.”
He ran the strands between his gnarled fingers again and then rubbed them along the top row of his teeth, of which he had three. “They’re real enough. Not one of them paste.”
Sabrina held her tongue, but out of sight in her lap her hands were knotted into fists. Now he thought her a thief and cheat!
“You are certain you will not want to redeem them?”
“You may sell them at whatever price you choose, provided you sufficiently compensate me at present.”
He crooked his head. “Two hundred pounds.”
“Five,” she countered implacably.
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Done.”
“Guineas,” she added with a small smile.
He frowned at her here, as though suspicious still of her real intentions. “I will need time to collect so large a sum. He brushed a caress over the strands lying across the back of his hand. “You must come back in a few days.”
“I must have my money now for I am leaving London in the morning.”
He squinted at her. “Why the rush?”
She stood up a second time and silently held out her hand.
“Now, now,” he nattered, “I will see what I can do.” He rose with arthritic stiffness from his chair, pulling his shawl more closely about his curving shoulders and tottered away, calling back over his shoulder, “You wait right here.”
The moment he disappeared the bell mounted over the door tinkled as two more customers entered, a tall gaunt gentleman in greatcoat and muffler wound round his neck and a fashionably dressed lady who was openly weeping.
“I simply don’t see how I can possibly—” she sobbed and dabbed at her eyes with her muff. “Family heirlooms? Think of the scandal, were it to be told!”
“Pleath, do not dethpair, viscounteth. ’Tith the very reason I brought you here, tho that you may provide againth the pothability your huthband will learn the truth.”
Sabrina could not mistake that voice among a hundred others. Sir Millpost, the notorious gossip! Of all the damnable luck!
“You are too kind, sir,” his companion went on to say. “I don’t know what I should do but for your kind advisement in this matter.”
“A friend in need,” he crooned, bending over her gloved hand to salute it. “It shall be our little secret.”
Sabrina attempted to back into a corner among the alarming number of hocked objects that included a full set of armor, but they noticed her the instant she moved.
“Who ith there?” Millpost called out and lifted his gold knobbed cane in a threatening manner.
“Another customer, of course,” Sabrina said in a waspish tone and stepped forward, for there was nothing else to be done.
“Oh no! Oh no! We must go!” The lady, a rather pretty young noblewoman with rouged cheeks and diamonds at her throat, turned and hurried to the door.
Millpost obediently followed, opening the door for her but at the last moment, before he went through it, he twitched his head back toward Sabrina. “Are we not acquainted?”
Sabrina looked into his reptilian gaze peering at her out from under the brim of his tricorner and said succinctly, “Impossible.”
He did not argue but left quickly.
“Who was that?” asked the returning pawnbroker as the bell tinkled behind the closing door.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Sabrina answered. Had Millpost recognized her? She could not say with certainty one way or the other. Now more than ever it was imperative that she and Kit leave London.
Minutes later she was hurrying home through the mizzlefilled afternoon, carrying more coins that she had ever possessed in her life. She told herself over and over that it was unlikely that Sir Millpost would recall her face. Like many of Lady Charlotte’s friends, he had never seemed to find her as worthy of his attention, not when the juicier gossip lay in the activities of her betters. She had never even sat at table when the countess entertained gentlemen friends at cards. Besides, even if he had recognized her, it would mean nothing to him. After all, no one but Cousin Robert knew that she had run away and Millpost would be unlikely to know Robert.
Rattled but secure in the knowledge that she would be gone from London before her whereabouts could be ferreted out, she picked up her step, more worried that she might be late for her final supper with Lord Darlington.
“You are not eating your soup.”
“I do not feel much like soup today,” Sabrina answered.
“No soup? Then we must think of something else.” Jack signaled for the footman to remove her dish. “What do you think would tempt you, sweeting? A chop? A bit of custard? Fresh berries perhaps? Or a freshly stewed fig?”
Sabrina gazed coolly at him down the length of the sumptuously laden table replete with Darlington House’s best silver and plate and crystal. “Nothing, thank you, my lord.”
“Come now, surely something at my table intrigues your appetite?”
He was baiting her. In her experience of him, his quite rare high spirits could only have one cause. He was sexually spent. He had spent the afternoon cradled between some harlot’s thighs!
The room seemed suddenly too warm, or perhaps it was only her temper heating up the air in her vicinity. She had cause. For instance, her suspicions about the lovely red velvet gown she wore, which he had gallantly supplied at the last minute. What else could she think but that it had once belonged to another of his mistresses? The fact that she had no other suitable garment was the only reason she had agreed to wear it. It was a remarkably good fit, seemingly made for her, which galled her all the same.
She looked up, feeling suddenly ravenous. “I believe I will have a chop. A very bloody one.” Something she could stab and dismember with her knife.
Jack hid his smile behind his napkin. The color had come back to her cheeks. He did not know precisely the cause but its appearance was enough to cheer him. Her hair had been washed and brushed out in deep shining waves down her back, which added an alluring informality to their meal. Her skin was luminous in the candlelight, a perfect foil for the luscious red velvet of her gown. There was only one element missing. The deep decolletage begged adornment.
“You should have worn your pearls,” he said as he set his wine goblet aside. “The gown requires them.”
Sabrina regarded him steadily, noting the lace that adorned his shirtfront and cuffs. “I was unaware of the formality of the occasion, my lord.”
“A tribute to you, sweeting. Do drink your wine. The vintage is a particular favorite of mine.”
He watched as she begrudgingly followed his suggestion. Thanks to Zuberi’s intrepid actions he knew that she had gone out this afternoon, where she had gone, and what she had done while she was there. Perhaps, if he drew her out, she would tell him.
“What did you do this afternoon?”
“Very little.”
“Something, surely.”
“I read a book.”
“I see. My afternoon was spent far more enjoyably.”
“I shouldn’t doubt it.” She did not attempt to subdue the scorn in her voice this time. “You are a gentleman who brooks no interference with his pleasures.”
“Did I once say that?”
/> “Yes, to Countess Charlotte. You had come for tea but announced before even seating yourself that you were leaving. You said quite loudly for all to hear that you found her guests dull. That you were in search of exceptional pleasures and that you never brooked interference in their pursuit.”
“I am flattered that you should recall my words upon so slight an acquaintance.”
She lifted a brow in indignation. “I had never heard anything so rude.”
He laughed. “You since know me better. I have been ruder in your presence, and bolder about it.” The rare brilliant smile he sent her dimmed even the candlelight. It was as if he touched her, wrapping his long, strong fingers about her naked breast.
Shaken by so small a thing, Sabrina glanced away. With the length of the table between them and two footmen as chaperoning onlookers to the ordeal, she was finding it exceedingly difficult to share her last meal with him. He had but to look at her and she was half-afire with wanting him. She had once thought the suspense of not knowing what these feelings represented was the worst torment. Now she knew how very foolish those thoughts were. How much worse it was to be in perfect knowledge of what his hands and mouth and body could do to her!
Mercy’s grace! She must get away before she shamed herself and disgusted him with her pleas to be taken back into his bed. When he went out for his daily rounds on the morrow, she would bundle Kit up warmly and hire a hack to take them to Greenwich, where she would book passage for them on the ship sailing out.
She glanced down, letting out a shuddery breath. She had lived well enough before she knew there was passion in her. She had thrived before his arms ever went round her or his kisses persuaded her that the love of a man might be worth seeking. She would learn now how to live with the knowledge of all those things, and with the absence of them in her life. She must.
“I’ve decided to leave London.”
Sabrina’s thoughts collided with his words, jerking up her chin. “What did you say?”
“That I have decided to leave London.” His long fingers moved impatiently among the silver pieces arrayed beside his plate. “For good.”
“I see.” She held his gaze. “Where are you bound?”
“Does it matter to you?”
Oh no, he would not draw her out! He would not make her beg him to stay and see the satisfaction in his eyes a moment before he rejected her with the admonition that she had been warned not to expect anything of him but the hours they had shared in blissful coupling.
“What, have you no words of fond farewell for your fellow adventurer?”
Her mouth was dry. The words seemed to stick together as she pronounced them. “May you have good sailing, my lord.”
“Ah, so then you think I should make a sea voyage.” He looked splendid in the candlelight, every inch the nobleman at his leisure. “I was thinking the same. Do you like sea voyages?”
“I would not know.” How stiff she sounded, like a green girl at her first soiree. “I have never sailed in anything larger than a skiff on a river.
“Doubtless you would find a sea voyage exhilarating.” He picked up his wine goblet and held it toward her in salute. “Would you care to make such a journey?”
A frown of confusion puckered her brow. What game was this? Did he suspect her plans? How could he? “I have thought I should one day like to see the American colonies. My mother’s brother resides in Boston.”
Jack nodded and sipped his wine. So that was where the minx thought she was headed! “You might not like it. Boston is as cold in winter as Scotland and equally remote.”
She shrugged elaborately, “It was only an idle thought, my lord.”
He was accustomed to handling things with blatant threats or exquisite delicacy. Despite his two duels, he had walked away untouched from enough other untidy situations that he should have been presented a medal for finesse by the unsuspecting husbands he had cuckolded and the wives he had debauched. But none of that weighed in a jot when it came to the small, courageous, and exasperatingly stubborn young woman who sat opposite. She was as resolute as any opponent who had ever held a pistol against him. And just as potentially deadly … to his freedom.
He set his glass down, but his fingers tightened on the stem. “What will you do without me?”
Sabrina rose without answering. She did not trust her voice. She did not trust her feet or her heart or her resolve. She was tired of fighting battles alone. This once she would not rail against the injustice in her life. She would not protest or vow vengeance. She would not demand or plead or even murmur regrets. All she had to do was get beyond the door ahead of her. That was all that was required, that she put one foot ahead of the other. A simple activity that she most often gave no more thought to than breathing.
She nearly made it.
His chair sat between her and the door. As she passed by him he stood and caught her wrist. “Don’t leave me.”
A great shudder passed through her. He had said, “Don’t leave me,” not “Don’t leave me yet” or “Don’t leave me now.”
She turned blindly to him, not wanting to read a correction of her hopes in his eyes.
Jack brought her in against him and, with no more than a look, banished his footmen from the room.
“Come, Sabrina, we are alone. You may speak freely now.”
She lifted her gaze from a contemplation of his shirtfront, her expression as wary as any he had ever beheld. Gone was all pretense to raillery and arrogance. He knew he stared into the eyes of a woman in love, a woman who did not know if or how that love was returned. The power of that simple knowledge affected him more than any sword or pistol he had ever faced. Did she care so very much, then? For him? He did not, perhaps never would, deserve it.
“Don’t look so.” He touched her face tenderly, his fingers fanning out over her soft cheek. “Did you think I would leave you behind?”
Sabrina blinked back the hateful tears that had threatened her the whole day long. “I thought you were determined to try.”
The statement drew laughter from him.
It was the last sound she heard before her world exploded.
There were heavy footfalls suddenly in the hall and then the door to the dining hall burst open and several armed soldiers, muskets at the ready, poured through the breach. In their wake came Robert McDonnell, who stopped short when he saw her. He pointed an accusing finger at her. “That is her! That is Sabrina Lyndsey!”
A surge of vertigo washed through her as the armed men rushed her. Dimly she realized that Jack had stepped away. She saw Zuberi’s dark face loom momentarily in the doorway behind Cousin Robert, then vanish.
Finally a man in a long red coat was standing before her, speaking. “Miss Sabrina Lyndsey, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of your stepbrother Christopher Rodale and the death of Tom McKinley at McDonnell Farm.”
It seemed as if the world had gone unaccountably mad as she was taken by the arms, her wrists whipped behind her back and tethered with a length of cord produced by one of the soldiers. She did not speak, could not find a single word to utter in her defense. All she could think of was that, if they were allowed to search the house, they could find Kit.
She glanced in mute appeal to Jack who stood some distance away. He was no longer even looking at her. His face was expressionless but for the slight smirk that lifted one corner of his handsome mouth. Did he know something she did not? Her mind fixed on that hope, and it bolstered her nerve. Of course! He would handle everything. There was no risk he would not take, no gamble he would not wager upon, no odds he could not bend to his design.
When his prisoner was properly secured, the man in the red coat approached the viscount and said, “I’m sorry, your lordship, for the inconvenience. Only doing my duty as it was charged to me.”
“Don’t be absurd, Sergeant.” Jack reached for the snuffbox he carried in his pocket but seldom used. He flicked it open. “The young woman could no
t have harmed anyone.”
“I regret to inform you, Lord Darlington, that you are mistaken.”
Jack took his time in turning to the owner of that supercilious voice. When he did he was certain he would have recognized Sabrina’s “Cousin Robert” anywhere, though he had never met the man. He was of a type, mean-spirited, small-minded, and smug in his deficits. So this was her nemesis. If his glance alone were sufficient to the method of murder, McDonnell would be gasping his last breath. “Who are you?”
McDonnell’s self-important smile withered, frosted by the nobleman’s chill tone. “The name is Robert McDonnell, my lord. Sabrina Lyndsey is my ward.” His nose quivered in distaste as he glanced at her, his pale eyes as hostile as they were merciless. “I cannot presume to know what lies the girl has told you. I don’t doubt she has offered you persuasions all her own. She is steeped in every sort of calumny. You have been deceived in her. She is nothing short of a criminal.”
“All that?” Jack kept his voice soft and mildly bored. “I had not guessed.”
The man’s baleful gaze continued to evaluate his ward. “If you know the whereabouts of my ward, Christopher, I should be grateful to you for the information. I will not rest comfortably until he is again under my care.”
Jack inhaled a pinch of snuff before drawling, “I would not give a leech into your care, McDonnell, had I the direction of leech.”
At last McDonnell’s attention came back to Darlington. “I should have a care were I you, my lord. Else the courts may seek to discover your exact role in these matters.”
With this threat to Jack, Sabrina found her tongue. “I took Kit!”
When her guardian turned to her, she struggled briefly but the two soldiers held her fast. “ ’Twas no kidnapping. He came willingly with me.”
“You have put your pretty neck in a noose, my dear,” McDonnell said coldly.
“You do not believe her?” Jack asked scornfully. “She is lying to protect the true villain.” His slow smile of licentious pleasure as he turned his gaze upon Sabrina was one that no man present could misunderstand. “I have that affect on women.”
