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“But my foot hurts,” the child insisted, his wan face drooping in a frown. “You know it hurts more when I’m cold.”
“Let me push you nearer the hearth,” Eliza said, rising to help him.
“Now, Eliza. You know you’re not strong enough.” Judith signaled a manservant to assist her. At precisely that moment Eliza’s father strolled up with Michael in tow.
“There you are, daughter. Michael and I were just—”
“Oh, Michael. Just the person I was looking for,” Eliza fibbed as an idea occurred to her, inspired by her desperation. He was always so infernally kind to her, he’d be completely unable to turn down her request. “Aubrey is rather uncomfortable. I thought he might enjoy playing with Tattie. Would you see if you could find her?”
“But Eliza,” her father began.
“No, no. I’d be happy to find Tattie for Eliza. And for Aubrey.” Michael gave an abbreviated but gallant bow, sending her a truly devastating smile at the same time. “Any suggestions as to where she might be hiding?”
Eliza frowned as if thinking, though it was actually to cover the panic that always set in when he turned his easy charm upon her. “Very likely in the morning room,” she lied again. But it was a matter of self-preservation, she told herself when Michael moved away to do her bidding. Eliza’s old cat was more probably in the kitchen, nestled in the small space between the coal box and the stove’s water tank, warm and snug and hidden to anyone who did not know precisely where to look. Michael would never find her and perhaps she’d be spared having to spend any further time with him tonight.
But that did nothing to address Aubrey’s peevishness.
“You will like my cat,” she ventured, though the boy’s face was closed in a pout.
“I hate cats,” he replied.
“So do I. So do I,” Gerald Thoroughgood muttered, glaring at Eliza. “Especially when they’re used on such a petty pretext—”
“What animals do you like?” Eliza asked the child, determined to ignore her father completely.
“He used to like dogs. And horses,” Aunt Judith answered for her son.
“Cats can be fun,” Eliza persisted, trying to get the boy to speak for himself. “Kittens especially are so comical. Like little monkeys twisting and wrestling all the time.”
“We offered him a small lap dog.” Judith reached out to push a black curl back from Aubrey’s brow, but he turned his head sharply away, and Judith reluctantly withdrew her hand.
Eliza hadn’t seen her young cousin much in the four months since his fall, though her mother had kept her apprised of his progress—or lack thereof. As Eliza stared at the sullen child now, confined to the bulky rolling chair, forced to participate in a society he no longer felt included him, she knew exactly how he felt. Though her physical limitations were not so immediately visible as Aubrey’s—she at least could get up and walk—she felt no less cut off from the main stream of daily life as he did. Too bad there wasn’t a place for pitiful creatures like them to congregate, where being sickly or maimed or just different was the norm and not considered odd at all.
All at once a preposterous idea popped into her head. What its source was, she could not say. Perhaps from something she’d read. It might have come from the
Times
which her father brought home to her every evening. It could have appeared in the travelogue she’d read last spring, the one written by that eccentric duchess who lived down in Cornwall. Or perhaps when she’d studied that book on migratory birds of the Atlantic coastline.
Whatever the source of her inspiration, Eliza suddenly knew the answer to her dilemma. Madeira. The island of Madeira, haven to myriad migratory birds, and
haven as well for numerous travelers searching for escape from England’s cold damp winters. The island’s balmy southern shore had made of it a winter colony for ailing British citizens. If she and Aubrey could go there, they’d be with others like themselves—and she’d be away from Michael and her father’s determined matchmaking, at least for a while.
She leaned forward, her gray eyes alight with hopefulness. “I have the most wonderful idea,” she began.
Long after most of their guests had departed, Aubrey, his parents, and Michael lingered. Aunt Judith had very early on retired from the debate. She sat on the hearth bench, just listening. But Eliza felt sure she was on her side. Michael lounged near the mantle, one elbow propped on it, a drink forgotten in his other hand as he stared at her. Eliza’s mother, too, was quiet. Only Uncle Lloyd and Eliza’s father voiced their opinions, and they were both opposed.
“If it’s the cold, we can send him to St. Mary’s, down in the Isles of Scilly,” Sir Lloyd said. His thick mutton chops seemed almost to flap independently of the movement of his jaw.
“Madeira is far too … too far,” Eliza’s father added.
Not far enough
, Eliza wanted to retort, but she wisely held her tongue. “You and LeClere have sailed to Portugal. Several times,” she argued instead.
“Yes, but though Madeira is Portugese, it’s several hundred miles farther out. And besides, that was business.”
“And business is more important than Aubrey’s health? And mine?” Eliza demanded an answer, her cheeks flush with emotion. She did not even try to hide her frustration with them.
“She has a point, Gerald.” All eyes turned toward Constance. “Though I cannot help but dread the thought of them undertaking such an arduous journey, I
think both Eliza and Aubrey might benefit from a winter in Madeira. Dame Franklin sent her son-in-law there—the one who suffered from the foxhunting accident. She told me once that it worked miracles for him.”
Gerald Thoroughgood frowned. “But what of her wedding?” He gestured toward Michael. “It would hardly be fair to the groom.”
“I think she should go.”
Michael’s surprising comment drew every eye in the room to him. His posture straightened and he set his glass down on the marble mantle. But although he addressed her father, he kept his clear gaze directly upon Eliza. “I think her idea is a sound one. What nobler endeavor could there be than to improve a child’s life? I understand that Eliza has known illness in her own life. Who better to accompany Aubrey? Who better to understand and help him regain the use of his injured foot?”
Even Sir Lloyd could not hold firm when society’s shining star turned the full force of his persuasive personality on him. Michael’s smile was disarming, but it was his words which ultimately carried the day. Who could deny a suffering child perhaps his last chance to heal?
When the two fathers finally agreed, Eliza could only gape at Michael, quite dumbfounded. Was it because he wished to be rid of her for the several months the journey would take? Or was he hoping for a way for him to cry off that would be less humiliating for her? Or allow
her
to cry off? It would be quite like him to do such a gentlemanly deed.
But the intent expression on his face as he stared at her put the lie to those possibilities. He studied her so oddly, as if he’d never really looked at her before now. Nor was she nearly so disconcerted by his attention as she usually was.
But then, she’d been caught up in her passionate argument with her father and Sir Lloyd.
“I’ll check the ship logs in the morning,” Sir Lloyd stated as one of the servants helped him into his heavy overcoat. “I believe one of my vessels can carry them there without much trouble.”
“And we must see to a chaperone,” Eliza’s father added.
Eliza stood and crossed slowly to Aubrey who’d been silent through the entire discussion. “We shall have ourselves quite an adventure, you and I.” She covered his thin hand with one of hers. “Sailing to an exotic island. Enjoying a warm, sunny winter instead of a cold, dreary one.”
“I’m not going if I have to take this bloody chair,” the boy snapped.
“Now Aubrey,” Sir Lloyd began. “You shall do as we deem best, and I—”
“Before long Aubrey may not need that chair at all.” Once again it was Michael who came to the rescue, ending the debate before it could properly begin. Then with that smooth manner that had disarmed Sir Lloyd, he drew Eliza a little aside from the others. To her utter shock, he placed a hand on each of her shoulders then bent his head nearer hers and addressed her in a tone reserved for her ears only.
“And perhaps by the time she returns to us, my bride-to-be will be more eager for our marriage.”
“I … it’s not … that is—”
He cut her stuttering off with a light, pleasant brush of his mouth against hers that threw all her senses off-kilter. But she could feel the smile on his well-formed lips, and when he straightened up again, she wondered disjointedly whether he could feel the round O of astonishment on hers.
“I’ll be there to see you off, Eliza. But I will also be there to greet you when you return,” he said, his handsome
face hovering above hers. “I am hoping, dear girl, that your doubts about our coming marriage will ease during your sojourn, and that by the time you return, you will anticipate our union just as eagerly as do I.”
“
H
e has three daughters and one son.”
“How old? The son, not the daughters.”
The skinny solicitor had to force down the gleam of unholy interest that lit his eyes. Why would this man want to know how old Sir Lloyd Haberton’s one male heir was? But he was not about to ask the question out loud. He had a nose for trouble, he did. And it was clear this particular chap was nothing but trouble. Not loud rowdy trouble, but the deep, silent kind. The very worst sort. Pity this poor Sir Lloyd Haberton.
“Nine. Ten. Does it matter how old he is?”
Stupid question, he quickly realized. For the man raised his head from the single sheet of paper he’d been studying, the one listing Haberton’s several business and residential addresses, and fixed his cold eyes on him. Deadly, those eyes were. Cold and deadly as death itself. The solicitor swallowed and shifted on the hard wooden bench. “He’s ten. Yes, ten. That’s what the scullery maid told me. Oh, and he’s being sent away for the winter.”
One dark brow arched but the man’s eyes reflected no discernible emotion.
“He’s had a fall and he’s being sent to some island to heal,” the solicitor continued.
“How fortuitous.”
Cyprian Dare did not believe in fate or in luck. He neither wished for things nor prayed to anyone or anything. A man made his own fortune, good or bad. He took advantage of what was happening around him and he shaped his own fate. Cyprian had waited all his life for the chance to even the score with Haberton. Now his persistence would pay off. The time had come.
He pulled out an envelope and slid it to the center of the scarred tavern table. “Your payment. Speak a word of this to anyone, however …”
He didn’t need to elaborate. Behind him Xavier shifted his considerable weight from one leg to the other, and Cyprian watched the sallow-faced solicitor go two shades paler. Xavier had that effect on people.
Once the solicitor scurried out of the room, Cyprian signaled his two men to join him at the table. At the same time, the serving wench stuck her head in the door.
“Can I fill you up again?”
The younger of Cyprian’s two men, Oliver, waggled his brows at her. “What a jolly idea. You can fill me up. I can fill you up.” The boy grinned. “I’m certain we can work a trade of some sort or another.”
She giggled and sidled into the room. She was a short brunette with huge breasts threatening to burst the seams of her tightly laced bodice at any moment. Completely unlike the slender blonde dairy maid Cyprian had dragged Oliver away from not an hour past, and that after the rapscallion had spent the night in the company of a rather refined widow nearly twice his age.
“Fill up our cups and leave,” Cyprian growled impatiently. Now that his revenge was so close at hand, Oliver’s renowned appetite for the ladies would have to wait.
The maid was quick to do as Cyprian ordered, but she leaned low over the table as she poured, offering Oliver
and the others as well an ample view of just what she had to offer a man. When Oliver slid one hand up her skirt, she let out a pretty little shriek, and then a softer gasp. But she was careful not to slosh the wine. As she flounced away, casting a long meaningful look back at Oliver before closing the door, Oliver held up his center finger and grinned.
“Caught a dip, I did. And she’s wet and ready for me, just that fast.” He sniffed his finger and let out a heartfelt sigh.
Xavier shook his head at the younger man. “She’s probably still nasty from the leavings of some bloke who had her under the stairs. Or in the barn. Or out in the meadow.”
“Screw you,” Oliver retorted flippantly. He stuck his finger in the other man’s mug and stirred it around. “You’re just jealous because that’s the closest you’ll get to any quim this trip out.”
“My Ana’s worth a hundred of your doxies. A thousand. It’s no hardship a’tall to be waiting for her. You’re young yet—only a lad,” he added, clearly to irritate Oliver. “You’ll learn that there’s more to a woman than the place between her legs.” Then Xavier turned from the boy to face Cyprian. “Will we be turning for home now?”
Cyprian drummed his fingers idly on the table. “Soon,” he mused out loud to his first mate and oldest friend. “Very soon.”
Then he straightened up and smiled, a cold, calculating smile that drove any thought of women from the minds of his two men. When Cyprian Dare wore that expression, best for the whole world to beware.
Xavier and Oliver shared a look. They knew little of this Sir Lloyd Haberton whom Cyprian hunted so fiercely. But they knew the man must have done something extremely foolish to have stirred such intense emotion in their captain. Whoever he was, however,
he’d soon know why no one ever trifled twice with Cyprian Dare.
 
The sky hung ugly and low, and mist coated everyone in the Haberton and Thoroughgood party with beads of moisture as fine as diamond dust. They’d smelled of damp wool on the crowded coach ride to St. Catherine’s Dock. Now, however, a rank fishy smell dominated. Eliza heartily hoped they’d not be forced to endure that smell the entire journey.
She’d never been to sea. Never stepped foot on a boat, let alone a sea-going ship. But she’d imagined it. She’d read once that the sea smelled of salt and other strange things, altogether different from the land. Despite her recent doubts about this harebrained scheme of hers, she couldn’t deny the budding curiosity growing in her. She wanted to smell the sea, and stare across the living, writhing swells of it. She wanted to see where and when the moon rose, and figure out how the tides were affected by that distant orb.
She just hoped it wasn’t always as cold as it was today. She felt that her skin surely must be turning blue.
“You know, it’s not too late to change your mind,” Eliza’s mother murmured for her daughter’s ears only. “Your cousin Agnes could manage—”
“No, she couldn’t. Besides, I
want
to go.”
Perry jostled his way between them and threw one arm around each of their shoulders. “Here now, Mum. She wants to go.
I
want to go.”
“You have school, little brother,” Eliza taunted, but gently. Younger brothers were almost as much trouble as older ones, but she knew she would miss both of them enormously.
“I’m hardly little,” he said, staring down at her from his lofty height. “Besides,” he added, “I’d learn ever so much more if I went—geography, history.” He sent his mother a pleading look but his argument fell on deaf
ears, as it had often in the previous two weeks. With a grimace of resignation he gave Eliza a kiss on the cheek. “Take care of yourself, paleface,” he ordered sternly, using the name he’d given her after reading stories of America.
Eliza gave him a wan smile. This was turning out to be even harder than she’d guessed. “Don’t grow too much while I’m gone.”
LeClere was next, giving her a fierce hug. He was the one who always looked out for her, and she realized only now how much she had always relied on him. Could she truly manage this?
Then Michael came up and a new wave of doubt assailed her. Why was she running away from him? He was such an utterly perfect human being. Her brain must be even weaker than her lungs to think of turning down such a paragon among men.
When he smiled that paragon smile, and kissed her brow with his paragon lips, she wondered if perhaps she should reconsider this trip to Madeira after all. Then her father cleared his throat and Michael stepped back. “Have a safe trip, Eliza. I’ll eagerly count the days until you return to me.”
Until you return to me
. His words lingered in her head through the rest of their goodbyes. Her father hugged her, so hard and long that she thought she’d never catch her breath again. Her mother held Eliza’s face in her hands while tears sparkled in her eyes. “When you return it will be time to get on with the wedding. You understand?”
“Yes, Mama. I understand. And I’ll be ready.” And she would, she told herself.
In the past two weeks Michael had been even more attentive than he had before, coming to dine with the family, escorting them to the theater. She’d been disconcerted by his presence, as always. But now it was somehow different. Before he’d behaved as if he were
fond of her, but not particularly drawn to her—as if their marriage were a business arrangement, which it was. Now, though, his interest in her seemed more personal. More physical, too.
Once, when he’d helped her down from his carriage, she’d known by the look in his eyes that he’d wanted to kiss her. And if she’d paused just a moment, he would have taken that kiss. But she’d turned away, flustered, and the moment had been lost. Afterwards she’d recalled the one time he had kissed her and berated herself for missing the chance to satisfy her curiosity with a second kiss. Today, of course, with her family here, he’d had to confine himself to kissing her brow. But that only increased her curiosity.
She stared past her mother to where Michael stood watching her with a half-smile on his face. Despite the cold, hot color flooded her cheeks. Soon enough they would be married and then her curiosity about kissing—and other things—would be answered. Perhaps this trip would be good for them both, whetting their appetites for the coming ceremony.
The goodbyes might have gone on endlessly had the captain of their vessel not implored his employer, her Uncle Lloyd, to intercede. “The tides do not wait for the
Lady Haberton
.”
“Yes, yes,” Sir Lloyd conceded. He’d arranged for one of his regular vessels to stop over in Madeira. Now he looked none too pleased with the entire venture. “Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s be done with it.”
A scared-looking Aubrey was carried up the gangplank by his servant Robert. Eliza’s maid Clothilde followed them, as did an army of baggage carriers and a perplexed sailor pushing Aubrey’s chair. Cousin Agnes was assisted aboard, grumbling about the rain, the stink, and the paltry size of the ship.
When it was Eliza’s turn to mount the ridged gangplank, she steeled herself not to stumble or hesitate or
look in the least overwhelmed. Madeira would be good for Aubrey’s condition and very likely hers too. She must approach everything about their journey with a positive outlook. But once LeClere released her arm and returned to the dock, she was not quite certain she could succeed. Waving madly with her damp hankerchief, she stood at the rail as the gangplank was pulled up.
But Agnes herded her away from the deck. “You’ll catch your death, child. Your lungs are weak enough as it is. Come along, come along.”
The last view of her family that Eliza had was of her parents standing arm in arm, her mother dabbing at her eyes. LeClere and Perry and Michael had their collars turned up and their hats pulled down against the cold and the rain. But they were smiling and she gulped down a hard knot of emotions. Six months until she saw them all again. Six long months. Who knew how things might change by then?
 
The
Lady Haberton
slid out of St. Catherine’s Dock and into the Thames at nine o’clock. A bare half hour later the
Chameleon
followed. Cyprian Dare stood at the forward bow, leaning out over the bow sprit, just above the weathered carving of a woman with a thick serpent twined about her.
Not much longer. Not much longer at all. He would let them get well out to sea. Perhaps as far as the Channel Isles. Then he would pounce and Sir Lloyd Haberton’s child would be his.
A sheet of rain gusted over him, stinging his face, then rippling across the deck. Another came, and then another, until the entire world was a cold wet blur of rain and deck and murky river. But the wind blew strong from the north and they made good progress. He shrugged off the hood of his rain slicker and turned his face up to the sky. The violent rain plastered his close-cropped
hair to his skull and icy fingers of water worked under the collar of his coat and shirt.
But Cyprian didn’t care. If anything, the freezing rain helped cool the terrible fire that raged in him still. Finally, twenty-eight years would be avenged. He’d begun his search the day his mother had died—fifteen years it was now. But the memory of it was as fresh in Cyprian’s mind as ever. Up till then she’d never spoken of his father, not even when he’d asked. Only as she lay dying had she finally revealed his name—Sir Lloyd Haberton —and cursed him for abandoning both her and their child. Then she’d abandoned Cyprian as well. He knew now, of course, that she’d wanted to stay. But back then he’d felt abandoned.
Cybil Burns probably had been a handsome woman once upon a time. But a youthful indiscretion and the resultant pregnancy had turned her family from her in shame. Alone, abandoned by everyone, she’d had her child and made her way as best she could. But the music lessons, private tutors, and polite manners she’d been taught were no help when it came to keeping a child fed. Though raised a well-to-do vicar’s daughter in Newport, she’d been reduced to working as a maid in dock-front taverns. She’d whored too, Cyprian had realized years later. She’d slept with anyone who’d promise a better opportunity for her child. He’d gotten his first position as a cabin boy that way, and God only knew what else. Because his father hadn’t cared at all that she’d borne him a child, she’d been forced to sell her body so that she could make a life for herself and her son.
BOOK: Rexanne Becnel
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