Regency High Society Vol 4. Julia Justiss

a pang of regret that caught him by surprise, he knew it would be the last smile she’d ever grant him.

      “Then thank you,” she said simply. “I don’t care which of my brothers is your friend, because now you’re mine, as well.”

      She turned away toward the flowers before he could answer. Her cream-colored skirts rustled around her as she bent gracefully over the roses, and the sheer lawn cuffs of her gown fluttered back from her wrists in the breeze as she reached to pluck a single, pink rose.

      So much grace, thought Michel as he drew the dampened handkerchief from his pocket, so much beauty to mask such poisoned blood. She struggled for only a moment as he pressed the cloth over her mouth and nose, then fell limp in his arms.

      He glanced back at the house as he carried the unconscious girl into the shadow of the tall hedges. There he swiftly pulled off her jewelry, the pearl necklace and bracelet and ring, the diamonds from her ears, even the paste buckles from her shoes. Whatever else they called him, he wasn’t a thief, and he had pride enough to leave her jewels behind. He yanked the pins from her hair and mussed the elaborate stiffened curls until they fell in an untidy tangle to her shoulders, shading her face. With his thumb he hurriedly smudged dirt across one of her cheeks and over her hands, trying hard not to think of how soft her skin was beneath his touch.

       She was a Sparhawk, not just a woman. Think of how she would revile him if she knew—when she learned—his father’s name!

      He used his knife to cut away the bottom silk flounce of her gown, baring the plain linen of her underskirt, which he dragged through the dirt beneath the bushes. Finally he yanked off his own coat and buttoned it around her shoulders. As he’d hoped, the long coat covered what remained of her gown, and in the dark streets, with her grimy face and tousled hair, she’d pass for one more drunken strumpet from the docks, at least long enough for him to retrieve his horse from the stable.

      Briefly he sat back on his heels and wiped his sleeve across his forehead as he glanced one last time at the candlelit house. The girl had been right. No alarms, no shouts of panic or pursuit came through the open windows, only the sounds of laughter and excited conversation. It took a moment longer for him to realize that the loud, rapid thumping was the beat of his own heart.

       One last task, that was all, and then he’d be done.

      Swiftly he retrieved the rose she’d picked from where it had fallen and laid it across the pile of her jewelry. He dug deep into the pocket of his waistcoat until he found the piece of paper. With fingers that shook only a little, he unfolded and stabbed the page onto the rose’s thorns so that the smudged black fleur de lis would be unmistakable.

       The symbol of France, the mark of Christian Sainte-Juste Deveaux.

       A sign that Gabriel Sparhawk would read as easily as his own name.

       And at last Maman would smile.

       Chapter Two

      It was the rain that woke Jerusa, the rattle of the heavy drops on the shingles overhead. Still too groggy to open her eyes, she rubbed her bare arm against the damp chill and groped for her silk-lined coverlet. She knew she’d left it on the end of the bed last night, there beside her dressing gown. Blast, where was it? Her blind fingers reached farther and touched the sharp prickle of musty straw.

      “Whatever you’re seeking, it isn’t there.”

      She turned toward the man’s voice, forcing herself to open her eyes. The world began to spin in such dizzying circles that she swiftly squeezed her eyes shut again with a groan. Now she noticed the foul taste in her mouth and how her head ached abominably, as if she’d had too much sherry and sweetmeats the night before. She must be ill; that would explain why she felt so wretched. But why was there straw in her bed and a man in her bedchamber, and where was that infernal coverlet?

      “There’s no call for moaning,” continued the man unsympathetically. “No matter how badly you feel now, I do believe you’ll live.”

      He wasn’t one of her brothers, he wasn’t Tom, and he certainly wasn’t her father, yet still the man’s voice seemed oddly familiar, and not at all reassuring. Uneasily she opened her eyes again, this time only a fraction. Still the world spun, but if she concentrated hard she found she could slow the circles until they stopped.

      What she saw then made even less sense. Instead of her own bed with the tall posts in the house where she’d been born, she lay curled on a heap of last summer’s musty straw in the corner of a barn she didn’t recognize. Gloomy gray daylight filtered halfheartedly through cracks in the barn’s siding. There were none of the familiar sounds of Newport, no church bells, no horses’ hooves and wagon wheels on the paving stones, no sailors calling from the ships in the harbor, nothing beyond the falling rain and the wind and the soft snuffling and stamping of the horses in the last two stalls.

      Nothing, that is, beyond the man who sprawled in his stocking feet on the bench beneath the barn’s single window, watching her intently over a copy of last week’s Newport Mercury, his boots placed neatly before him. She guessed he was not so much older than herself, still in his twenties, but though his features were regular, even handsome, there was a grim wariness to the set of his wide mouth that aged him far beyond his years. The gray light brought gold to his hair, the only warmth to be found in his face. Certainly not in his eyes; how could eyes as blue as the sky be so cold?

      “Who are you?” she asked, her confusion shifting to uneasiness.

      He cocked one skeptical brow. “You don’t remember, my fair little bride?”

      “Bride?” She pushed herself up on shaky arms and stared at him, mystified. Surely she wasn’t married to a man like this one. “When was I—”

      And then abruptly she broke off as everything came rushing back to her in a single, horrible instant. Her wedding to Tom, the tears of joy in her mother’s eyes and the pride in her father’s as they’d left her alone in her bedchamber, how she’d climbed from the window to find a rose for her hair and instead found herself in this man’s company. She had been fooled by his plain but well-cut clothing and his ready smile, and she had believed him to be a guest at her wedding. She had trusted him, for then he had seemed trustworthy, even charming. Now he seemed neither.

      Frantically she threw back the rough blanket that had covered her and saw the soiled, tattered remnants of her wedding gown. Gone was the pearl cuff that Mama had given her as she’d dressed, and her hands flew to her throat, bare now of the necklace that had come from Tom.

      “You’ve not only kidnapped me but robbed me, as well!” she gasped, struggling to rise to her feet. “I demand, sir, that you take me back home at once!”

      “So that your father can see me hung?” His smile was humorless as he refolded the newspaper and tossed it onto the bench beside him. “I’m afraid that won’t do, Miss Jerusa. And try not to be so imperious, ma chère. You’re scarcely in a position to make demands.”

      The sheer lawn fichu that had been tied across her neckline had vanished, as well, and Jerusa was shamefully conscious of how his gaze had shifted from her face to where her stays raised and displayed her half-bare breasts in fashionable décolletage.

      Swiftly she snatched up the blanket and flung it over her shoulders. “My father will see a rogue like you hung, you can be mightily sure of that! If you know who I am, then you know who he is, and he won’t stand for what you’ve done to me, not for a moment!”

      He clucked softly. “Such wasteful, idle threats, ma chère!”

      “You’re French, aren’t you?” Her green eyes narrowed. “You speak English almost as well as a gentleman, but you’re French.”

      He shrugged carelessly. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I merely