Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) Page 21

  But he had not. The uncertain hope of that fragile moment was shattered when Cybill Chamberlain glided up beside him and placed her hand possessively on his arm. As soon as Alex turned toward the beauteous brunette, a crush of gentlemen surrounded Joss, obscuring her view while they clamored for the next dance. When next she could see her husband, he was kissing Cybill's fingers.

  The naked pain sliced clean to her soul. So much for Barbara's well-intentioned matchmaking. He believed her to be ridiculous, his gawky crusader, masquerading as a belle. She had embarrassed him. Yet even though Alex found her wanting, it appeared the rest of the men present tonight were all quite smitten. But I want only Alex, damn him!

  Biting the inside of her cheek until the acrid taste of blood filled her mouth, Joss wrenched her anguished thoughts away from her husband and accepted the Marquess of Clarence's hand as the music resumed. When next she looked over to where Alex stood, he and Cybill Chamberlain had vanished.

  The evening passed in a dizzying whirl of laughter and wine and music. It should have been the most exhilarating time of her life. Repeatedly she was pronounced the ton's latest nonpareil. Everyone from the old prune-faced dowager duchess to the young dashingly handsome Duke of Westover assured her it was true.

  Outwardly Joss smiled. Inwardly she died. But she endured until the midnight supper. As the ladies and gentlemen queued up to enter the sumptuous Chitchester dining hall, Joss refused numerous requests to escort her. When it became apparent that Alex was not going to return for her, she went in search of her mother-in-law. Pray heaven Barbara would understand her desire to depart. Monty was nowhere to be found, but Octavia stated acidly that it was his wont to desert her in favor of some disgraceful gaming hell on most social occasions.

  Seeing how crestfallen Joss was, Barbara made their excuses and had a Chitchester footman send around Monty's carriage. As they rode through the dark, deserted streets, she attempted to console Joss. "I cannot fathom Alex's behavior, but I'm certain he had an excellent reason for it."! He'd best, else I shall flay him alive with a Muskogee skinning knife and make divan cushions from his thick, insensitive hide!

  * * * *

  Alex crouched beside the bow window, hiding behind a boxwood hedge on the grounds of the Mayfair estate to which he had followed Wilbur Kent. The spy, now dressed in buckskins, sat inside, closeted with the Chamberlains. His Majesty's government was paying handsomely to keep the colonel and his lady in high style, Alex thought with disgust. He strained to overhear their conversation as he observed the trio seated around a Pembroke table.

  "This is it, Kent. A small fortune, courtesy of the foreign secretary. See you spend it well on your savage allies," Sir Rupert said, handing him a money belt heavy with gold.

  Kent stiffened. "Those savages are the key to stopping American advances on the frontier."

  The colonel raised his left eyebrow, emphasizing the saber slash that had cleft it in twain. "I shall expect a complete accounting when we rendezvous at Fort Charlotte."

  "Really, Rupert, you act as if you do not trust poor Willie," Cybill said, languidly placing her hand on the sleeve of his uniform. Her eyes glittered with sick excitement as she pitted the two hostile men against each other. Alex could almost smell her arousal. The thought that he had come close to bedding her sickened him.

  "I shall bring the whole Creek Confederacy in league with Tecumseh by summer's end," Kent boasted.

  "See that you do. 'Tis likely his majesty's government shall be at war with your United States before that."

  The colonel stood up, dismissing Kent, who headed for the door, saying, "Until we meet again in Mobile."

  Chamberlain nodded brusquely, then turned back to his wife. "I sail on the morning tide. Shall you miss me, pet?" he asked Cybill mockingly.

  "A pity I shall be left all alone with you sailing for Mobile and Willie to Charleston. Whatever shall I do to amuse myself?" she asked with a pout.

  "I am certain you shall contrive to find male companionship," her husband responded. "Just be certain, whoever he is, that he is useful to our cause."

  Alex watched the officer pull on his gloves and adjust his sword, preparing to take his leave of Cybill. He cursed in silent frustration. The two malfeasants were sailing on different ships to stir up more grief on the frontier. What should he do, intercept Sir Rupert? Or Kent? He could not do both.

  Hearing Kent summon his carriage, Alex made a snap decision. Relieving Kent of the money with which to purchase arms for the Red Sticks must take precedence over stopping the colonel. Surely locating Chamberlain's ship before morning should not prove difficult. A man-o'-war the size of The Walsingham would be difficult to miss. He slipped from the hedges and hid in the dense shadows by the roadside where Kent's carriage would pass.

  When it lumbered by, he jumped onto the jack in the rear of the conveyance. He did not see the tall, thin figure who watched him stow away, then followed.

  By the time Kent reached his destination near the docks, Alex was battered and filthy, his elegant evening clothes ruined by the ride. He climbed silently from the back of the carriage and slipped down the dark alleyway after Kent, who carried the thick money belt Chamberlain had given him.

  Child's play. Alex congratulated himself on his luck, withdrawing the knife from his boot. As he neared Kent, he reached out and slipped an arm around his quarry's neck. Kent stumbled backward, choking as Alex clubbed him on the head with the heavy handle of the blade. He slumped unconscious in Blackthorne's arms, then dropped to the muddy earth as Alex released him.

  Quickly Blackthrone knelt and unfastened the fat purse. He slipped it around his own waist and started rolling Kent toward a pile of broken kegs. Suddenly the shrill whistle of a charley broke the silence. "What's the problem there, gov?" he yelled from the far end of the alley, advancing swiftly, truncheon in hand.

  Crouching in the shadows, Alex cursed as his eyes scanned the surrounding doorways and windows for a place to hide. He did not want to be forced into harming some stupid watchman, but he could scarcely allow himself to be taken before the magistrate as a common cutpurse!

  Just before he reached an intersecting passageway, a voice whispered, "Hide in that doorway. I'll take care of the charley."

  There was no time to argue as the tall regal figure of Montgomery Caruthers stepped into the moonlight and stood over Kent's unconscious body. "So grateful you happened along, my good fellow. This wretched denizen of the docks attempted to assault and rob me." Monty held up his cloak, which he had just sliced with his own concealed blade.

  In a few moments' time, the baron readily convinced the charley that Kent was a robber who'd attacked him as he was in route to a rowdy gambling hell near the wharf. Monty's elegant attire and speech immediately marked him as Quality, while the unconscious Kent, clad in frontiersmen's clothing, was obviously an American. The burly watchman dragged him off to Newgate with few questions asked.

  Once they were alone, Alex materialized from the shadows. Leaning on the splintering door frame, he said, "Not that I mean to appear ungrateful, milord, but how the bloody hell did you find me here and why did you lie for me?"

  The baron shrugged. "One can scarcely have one's own nephew dancing on air outside Newgate. Quite bad for the family name. Anyway, Babs would roast my balls on a skewer if I didn't look after her only son. When I saw you following the infamous Mrs. Chamberlain I might have assumed it was an assignation but for the fact she had that disagreeable American chap already toadying about her. I felt you might require assistance. It appears my instincts were once again dead-on."

  "I'm afraid you've just sent a British agent to Newgate and foiled your government's attempt to incite an Indian war on the Georgia frontier. I was acting on instructions from the American charge d'affaires."

  Monty appeared singularly unconcerned about his brush with treason. "I sold my commission back in eighty-three after the bloody bungling incompetents in Whitehall signed away the richest part of the New World at the Pe
ace of Paris. A fracas such as the late and unlamented war of American rebellion has left me without the faintest stirrings of patriotism, my boy, difficult as that might be for a young idealist such as yourself to comprehend."

  "I'm better able to understand than you might think, milord," Alex said with a faint touch of humor. "I'm scarcely any more enamored of my government's policies than you are with yours. My highest loyalty in this is to my father's people."

  As they made their way out of the warren of narrow alleyways to the open wharf where his carriage awaited, Monty chuckled. "Still the noble red Indian's champion."

  "That was how Jonathan Russell lured me into this imbroglio. Now I'm off to locate a certain British man-o'-war."

  "Perhaps it might be useful if I accompanied you."

  Alex shook his head. "No. You would be recognized. Best if you return to the Chitchesters and placate Joss and Mama."

  "Whatever shall I say? Alex is off rescuing your red in-laws from the royal navy?"

  "You may laugh, but we are only a hairsbreadth from a senseless war between Britain and the United States."

  "Dear me, Alex, what would you have to do then, shoot me?" the baron said as he signaled his driver to bring up his carriage, which waited on the wharf.

  "I sincerely hope not," Alex said with a fond smile. "I owe you a great debt, sir."

  For once, Montgomery Caruthers made no light rejoinder. Earlier at the Chitchesters's he had overheard two cabinet ministers discussing the impending declaration of war that they knew was on its way from Washington. "Consider us even, my boy...for your uncle Quint. I almost hanged him once—as a spy. Ironic that you should choose to follow in his footsteps. But then again, perhaps not."

  Alex reached out and enveloped his uncle in a fierce embrace. "I shall miss you."

  The baron returned the hug, then stepped back, still holding his nephew's arms. He cocked his head and said, "Let us hope it will not be as long a war as the last one, Alex."

  Sensing that events beyond their control would soon separate them, Alex said with a lump in his throat, "Until we meet again, Uncle Monty."

  "Milord, my boy, call me milord," Caruthers replied as he climbed inside the carriage and waved jauntily.

  Chapter Fifteen

  His head was splitting. If someone had cleaved it in two with a broadsword, it could not have felt any worse. After spending all night drinking in waterfront taverns, Alex found even his prodigious capacity for liquor had been taxed. And all for naught. After fecklessly looking up and down the docks for The Walsingham, he'd begun questioning dock workers and sailors in the waterfront ale houses. A grizzled salt indicated he knew the location of the man-o'-war but would divulge it only after Alex had joined him in toasting every bloody British naval victory since the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

  By the time he finally reached the mooring, Chamberlain's ship was sailing down the Thames bound for the gulf.

  All he had to show for a perfectly wretched night was Kent's money belt. And no doubt a furiously angry pair of women, he thought grimly as he climbed the side steps of his house. At least he could have some badly needed sleep and a bath to sober himself before facing either of them. After twenty-four hours without sleep, a brush with the night watch and a dozen pints of ale, he was in no condition to think.

  But his mind kept returning to the magnificent woman with the tawny hair. It was her fault that he had botched his mission so badly. He had been unable to get her out of his mind all night. She was wearing his mother's rubies, no mistake about it. Perhaps that was why he imagined her to be Joss. But the eyes—those wide, clear blue eyes that had looked right into his soul, they were Joss's eyes. He knew they were.

  "I'm losing my bloody mind," he muttered as he turned the brass knob to open the door, then tripped on the sash, almost falling into Fitch's arms.

  The haughty butler inspected his filthy clothes, then sniffed the fumes of cheap ale disapprovingly before saying, "Good morning, Mr. Blackthorne."

  Alex was in no mood for pleasantries. "Have Foxworthy draw me a bath—lots of hot water."

  "Very good, sir," Fitch replied in a tone that indicated exactly how much his employer needed to bathe.

  Alex made it across the hall to the door of his bedroom before his mother's voice froze him in his tracks.

  'The bath can wait, Fitch. Bring a pot of coffee to the sitting room—strong, black coffee," she said in a tone of voice Alex had not heard since he was sixteen and she had caught him sneaking Lizzie Clayberry and a jug of whiskey into his bedroom.

  He cursed savagely under his breath and turned to face her. The wretched butler was smirking! Making a mental note to fire Fitch at the earliest opportunity, or perhaps even gut the wretch, Alex walked unsteadily down the hall to meet his fate.

  Barbara inspected her only son with blazing blue eyes. "Pray, have a seat, Alex. You look as if you need one," she said with mock levity, leading the way into the sitting room and seating herself on one of a pair of easy chairs.

  He sank obediently into the other while his mind churned frantically. "Why are you here?" was all he managed to blurt out. Brilliant, Blackthorne, bloody brilliant.

  "You might better inquire if your wife is still in residence. You do remember your wife ... Jocelyn, don't you, Alex?" she asked with deadly sweetness.

  "Of course. I expected her to be at school by this time. She always is." The moment the words escaped his lips, he wanted to call them back.

  Barbara pounced. "How convenient. She arises early to go about her duties before you creep in from your nights of debauchery. Do you expect her not to care?"

  "No—yes—er, that is... ah, hell, Mama, it's all too complicated for me to explain right now."

  "I should think so. You reek of ale and look as if half of Wellington's cavalry has ridden over you. Have your guttersnipe drinking companions turned cutpurse?"

  "I haven't slept in nearly two days," he said, anger beginning to smother the muddled remorse he had been battling all night.

  "And whose fault is that, pray? You are the one who chose to desert your wife in front of the whole assembly at the Chitchesters and spend the night God knows where. How could you do that to her, Alex?"

  The note of genuine distress in her voice cooled his temper as quickly as it had risen. "I did not intend to desert her but...was that her—I mean, my God, the red dress, the hair ... it scarcely looked like my Joss."

  He looked guilty, confused and for all the world like a six-year-old boy caught out in some grave infraction. She stifled the urge to coddle him, an impulse she was certain every female from seven to seventy had upon confronting a distressed Alexander Blackthorne. "It was she, Alex," she replied sternly.

  "But—but, Joss never dressed...she never looked...like she did last night. I insisted she buy new gowns, have a maid..." His voice faded away in bewilderment as Fitch strode into the room with a heavy silver tray. He set it on the tea table between them and poured two cups of richly fragrant coffee. Barbara's he sweetened and added cream to, the other he handed to Alex black.

  Barbara dismissed him with thanks, then said, "You have never really known your wife at all, have you, Alex?"

  Was this a trick question? In what sense did she use the word "known"?

  Not giving him a chance to reply, she went on, "Only a fool or a blind man would not have recognized the potential in Jocelyn. She has a striking face and a beautifully proportioned figure. All she needed was a bit of guidance and a physician's help to see without those horrid spectacles. Did you ever think to take her shopping yourself?" When he shook his head dumbly, then winced in pain, she replied crossly, "I thought not."

  As he held his aching head cradled in his hands, his mother continued her scolding. "Lud, as much time and money as you've lavished on light-skirts since you were scarce out of knee britches, I'd think you should have realized what a beauty she could be."

  "Joss and I are friends—that is, I've always loved her just as she was...rather ende
aringly...disheveled." He cursed and took a hearty swallow of the coffee. Without the usual cream and sugar, it was scalding hot, burning the roof of his mouth. He gasped as it went down his throat, searing away at least three layers of membrane.

  "Perhaps you've never thought enough about what it is precisely that Jocelyn wants," Barbara suggested.

  Alex sighed and stared into the murky depths of his coffee cup. "I've ruined a wonderful friendship with this marriage. Joss isn't happy. I'm not happy. Damn, I never meant to hurt her. How the hell could things have gone so bloody wrong?"

  "Why did you leave her at the ball, Alex?" Barbara asked, more gently now.

  "It was not what you think, Mama."

  She arched one golden eyebrow disbelievingly. "Really? I saw you and Mrs. Chamberlain."

  "I spent not a moment after that in the woman's company, you have my oath upon it," he replied grimly.

  Alex had never lied to her. She knew he was telling the truth. "But then, why—"

  "I'm bound by my word not to reveal the reason, but you must believe me when I say the matter is not at all what it seems. I was not out carousing."

  Barbara nodded. "Very well then, we shall speak no more about it. But that still leaves the matter of you and Jocelyn and your marriage. You say you love her, yet it sounds as if you feel toward her much as you do toward one of your sisters."

  He shook his head again, instantly regretting it. Now the pounding ache was joined by a nausea and dizziness. "No, that's not how I love her...but...it's not...it's just..."

  "Well, that's certainly clear," Barbara rejoined. 'Tell me what's happened, Alex? Is there another woman—one of your Cyprians?"

  "No, not a Cyprian! At least I don't think she was. She was a virgin." Bloody hell, he must be even drunker than he'd thought to blurt that out to his mother!