The Mammoth Book Of Regency Romance Part 16

"What is it?" Martha asked.

"Is something wrong?" Hazel said, then glanced over Ella's shoulder. "Is she out there?" "She" being Lady Fitzsimon.

Ella nodded her head.

"Is he out there?" Martha asked.

She nodded again.

"Well, let him in and see what he has to say. I still wager he's here to propose. Then he'll send that old cow packing." Hazel pushed past Ella and went out into the main shop but then came to an instant standstill, much as Ella had done previously. "Oh, my stars! He's brought half of London with him."

At this point, Madame arrived, coming down the stairs from her rooms above. She glanced at the lot of them and sighed. "What is this? Standing about? The shop needs to be readied. I want-" She pushed open the curtain and discovered the mob outside.

She whirled around on her employees. "Whatever have you done?" But before any of them could answer, she took another glance at all the anxious and happy faces outside well, except those belonging to Lady Fitzsimon and her police officers. "Oh, la! It matters not I'll be rich before this day is out. Get those doors open!"

Martha bobbed a curtsey, and made her way to the door. The moment the doors sprang open the shop was filled with people and a cacophony of requests.

"I would like a gown from that green silk."

"Can you do my costume for the Setchfield masquerade?"

"I would like the same design of gown as the princess wore last night."

"I want that gel arrested for theft! She stole my gown and my invitation!"

But the loudest and most commanding request came from Lord Ashe. "I am here to fetch my bride. Bring her out immediately."

This stilled every pair of lips in the shop. Even Lady Fitzsimon's.

"Gar," Hazel whispered. "It is just like a fairy tale." Then she pushed Ella through the curtain and into Ashe's waiting arms.

And like any good fairy tale, it all ended with a kiss.

His Wicked Revenge.

Vanessa Kelly.

Wapping, London.

It started with a woman and it would end with a woman. This woman. The one Anthony Barnett had been dreaming about for thirteen years. The one who would now be the instrument of his revenge.

Lady Paget Marissa, to her close friends and family studied his sombre office, taking in the dark, heavy furniture and the stacks of bound shipping ledgers. She looked everywhere but at him.

Not that he could blame her. His summons to her brother, Lord Joslin, had been carefully worded, but the threat had been clear. Marissa was to appear at Nightingale Trading by noon today or the entire Joslin family would suffer the consequences.

Anthony maintained his silence, knowing victory would be sweeter when Marissa finally came to him of her own volition. Step by reluctant step. She had already taken the first one by coming down to his dockside warehouse. The next would be when she worked up the nerve to look him directly in the eye.

The cas.e.m.e.nt clock by the door ticked out the seconds as she inspected everything in the room worth inspecting. Eventually, like a disobedient child dragging her feet, she slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. Her pale eyes, the colour of a clear winter sky, fixed on him with reluctant attention. A hint of shame pooled in those cool blue depths. At the sight of it, a grim satisfaction settled in Anthony's chest. She could no longer ignore him, and had now stepped willingly into his carefully laid trap.

He finally had Marissa where he wanted her, and there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing she could do about it.

"The light is poor in here, but I think you are greatly changed," she said in a flat, toneless voice. "I hardly recognize you."

He frowned. What had she expected? The last time she had seen him, he'd been a callow youth, and a weedy one at that. Years spent at sea had toughened him hardened him in ways she couldn't imagine. She had changed as well, and in ways he had not expected.

Marissa retained the feminine power to command his complete attention, of course. But she had always chattered and sparkled like a rippling brook, full of laughter and mischief. Now she was subdued, even colourless a muted reflection of her youthful self.

Reluctantly, he recalled the last time he had seen her, the night his life reached both a beginning and an end. Then she had been full of life and beauty so joyously in love that his heart had well nigh burst with glory of it. The beauty remained, with her tall, slender figure and hair spun from moonlight. But the glow that had lit up his world had faded. Now her allure had become unearthly, even remote. Lovely but cold, like an Alpine lake before the spring thaw.

Anthony abandoned his post by the window that overlooked the docks and his growing shipping empire. He prowled across the room, halting in front of her, deliberately crowding her against a bookcase. This close, he could inhale her perfume faint and scented with jasmine and the sweetness that had always been Marissa. That, at least, had not changed. His body recognized the subtle scent, responding with a flash of heat and a sharpening of all his senses. Almost unconsciously he leaned into her, wanting more.

As she flinched and stepped back, Anthony scowled. Marissa had never trembled before anyone, not even her b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a father in one of his towering rages.

He waged a brief internal struggle to ignore the long and lamentably ingrained impulse to protect her. She had forfeited such a right years ago, and his current plans called for exactly the opposite of protection.

"Lady Paget, please sit down. I'm sure you're as eager to begin our discussion as I am."

She muttered something under her breath and stepped around him to the hard cherry-wood chair in front of his desk. With a spine as straight as an oak mast, she perched on the edge of the seat, looking as if she were facing a roomful of Barbary pirates.

He wasn't a pirate he was her first lover. The man she had sworn to love for ever but instead had betrayed, breaking all the vows they had made so many years ago.

Rather than settling into his own leather chair, he leaned against the edge of his ma.s.sive desk, deliberately looming over her. She edged back in her seat, trying to put distance between them. But distance between them, at least of the physical sort, wasn't part of his strategy.

Marissa took a deep breath and raised her gaze to meet his. Heat infused those eyes now, fire and ice clashing to a devastating effect. It jolted him that look, sending a heady l.u.s.t roaring through his veins. He smiled, knowing he wouldn't wait much longer to bed her.

His smile seemed to discompose her. She cleared her throat.

"Mr Barnett-" she began.

"Captain Barnett," he interrupted, nodding towards the window. "Those are my ships out there in the Thames."

Frost clashed with the fire in her eyes, dousing the heat. Her lips curled in an aristocratic sneer. "Forgive me. I had no idea you had done so well. As I was about to say, I would be grateful for an explanation behind the missive you sent my brother. He was not well pleased to hear from you. It was only with great reluctance that he agreed to your demand that I come to your office, unescorted but for my maid."

"I do like to observe at least the appearance of propriety," he replied sardonically.

Obviously, Lord Joslin had not seen fit to explain to his sister why he was forced to accede to Anthony's demands. Marissa likely had no idea just how far in debt her brother really was.

With a puzzled shake of her neatly trimmed bonnet, she continued. "Since I am here, I would like an explanation. Your business is clearly with Edmund Lord Joslin, rather. I fail to see why I must be brought into it. Whatever it is."

With that last phrase, some of the old defiance came back into her voice. Time to switch tack and keep her off-balance.

"You have a daughter, I understand," he said, stretching out his legs so his booted feet almost touched her shoes.

She froze, gloved hands clutching her large reticule in a convulsive grip. Long-lashed eyes searched his face, as if looking for the answer to a question she didn't want to ask. "Yes," she replied in a hesitant voice.

"How old is she?"

She paused. An odd expression, one almost akin to panic, flashed across her features.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

You'd have thought he'd asked her to strip down to her shift, right here in his office. Not that the idea hadn't crossed his mind. He'd already calculated how long it would take him to unfasten the long line of b.u.t.tons that marched up her elegant but severely tailored pelisse. That pleasant task, however, must wait for another day.

She pressed her rosy lips together, as if holding in a great secret that longed to escape. "My daughter is not yet twelve," she admitted grudgingly.

Anthony gave her a disdainful smile. "You didn't waste any time, did you? How long were you married to Paget before you whelped?"

She flared up at him, just like the Marissa he used to know. "It's not like I had any choice in the matter," she retorted. "I was engaged to be married to Sir Richard, as you recall."

"Oh, yes. I recall everything," he said. "I remember how desperate you were to break your engagement. So desperate you begged me to elope with you to Gretna Green."

She closed her eyes, fighting to regain her control. After a few moments, she opened them. Her stare was once again cool and remote.

A reluctant admiration stirred within him. Marissa would never have reined in her temper so quickly. Lady Paget was obviously made of stern stuff.

"What is your daughter's name?" he asked abruptly.

A muscle in her cheek jumped, but she gave him a fierce scowl. "Why these pointless questions, Captain? Please get to the business at hand and be done with it. I have no intention of spending the entire afternoon in Wapping."

He shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. "My point is simple. I a.s.sume that you would do anything to protect your daughter, is that not correct?"

Marissa had always been pale, but what little colour remained in her cheeks leached away. Her perfect features froze into immobility. Except for her blazing blue eyes, she might have been carved from alabaster.

"Why . . . why would you ask me such a thing?" she stuttered. "Of course I would do anything to protect my child."

"Then we shall deal very well together," he said, not bothering to hide the triumph in his voice.

She gasped, swaying in her chair. He launched himself up from his desk and caught her by the shoulders as she began to slide off the polished seat.

"d.a.m.n it, Marissa!"

Anthony kept a firm grip on her shoulders, letting her head rest against his stomach. Guilt lanced through his gut. He clamped down hard, resisting the compulsion to sweep her out of the chair and into his embrace.

Her slender body trembled under his hands. He couldn't see her face, couldn't even tell if she had actually swooned. The rim of her bonnet not only obscured his view, it was poking him in the gut.

Carefully, he slid her across the polished seat of the chair to rest against the high ladder-back. With a quick tug, he untied her bonnet and dropped it to the floor. Her corn silk hair, coiled around her head in tight braids, gleamed in the dull November sunlight coming through the window. Like her simple pelisse, her grey kid gloves and her st.u.r.dy reticule, her glorious tresses were as neatly contained as her emotions.

Until he had made his thinly veiled threat against her daughter, that is.

He hunkered down before her, taking her hands in a gentle clasp. "Would you like a brandy? It will help to revive you."

She gave a small shake of her head. "No. Please give me my reticule."

He plucked it from the floor by her chair, where she had dropped it. "What do you need? Smelling salts?" He began to rummage around in the voluminous bag.

"My handkerchief, please," she said in a thin voice.

Pushing away the growing remorse that threatened to destroy all his exacting plans, he dug around in the overstuffed reticule until he felt a square of starched linen. "What in G.o.d's name are you carrying around in this thing?" he grumbled as he extracted the handkerchief. "You could store a frigate's cargo in here."

She ignored him, keeping her eyes closed as she blotted her forehead, cheeks and then her full, ripe lips.

His mouth suddenly went dry. He remembered those lips very well. They could take a man to heaven. "Marissa, are you sure you don't want a brandy?" Of its own accord, his voice had fallen to a deep, husky note.

She opened her eyes. A gaze as hard as diamonds and just as cold stared back at him. She jerked her hands from his loose grasp. "I did not give you leave to use my name, Captain Barnett. Do not do so again."

The treacherous warmth stealing over him fled under her withering look. Anger his daily companion took its place. He welcomed it.

He rose to his feet, resuming his perch on the edge of the desk. "Now, Marissa," he chided. "We're the oldest of friends. Why should you stand on ceremony? You never did before."

"I was young. I didn't know any better," she retorted.

Her temper brought the roses back to her cheeks and the heat back into her eyes. For the moment, the ice maiden stood in no danger of fainting.

"And neither did I," he said in a hard voice. "But you came to me, remember? You begged me to save you from marriage to Paget. You swore your undying love. Your eternal devotion if I eloped with you to Gretna Green."

"I was only seventeen," she protested.

"And I was but eighteen."

In the world's eyes, Anthony had been a man when he and Marissa lost their virginity to each other. But he had been so sheltered, raised by his widowed father in a small country parsonage. When he was ten, his father had died and Anthony had been dispatched to live with his distant cousin, Lord Joslin, and his family. He spent the rest of his youth on their estate in Yorkshire, deep in study, preparing to follow in his father's clerical footsteps.

Through those years, he had also fallen in love with Marissa, and she with him. Or so he had always thought. Anthony's mouth twisted into a sour smile, remembering how young and foolish he had been. In many ways, Marissa had always been more worldly than he.

"Do you want to know what happened that night?" he asked. "After Edmund discovered us together in my bed? After your father horse-whipped me and drove me from Joslin Manor?"

She blanched and, for a moment, he thought she might faint after all. But she took a deep breath and regained her composure.

"I don't know what kind of cruel game you are playing, Captain," she replied with quiet dignity. "But if reciting your tale will bring this tawdry scene to a conclusion then, yes. I do want to know."

Anthony gave her a humourless smile. "I'm sure you'll find my tale of woe edifying, Lady Paget."

He pushed up from his desk, tasting the bitterness in his mouth and throat. It was always thus whenever he recalled those months after he first arrived in London those months spent waiting for her to come and find him. Those months of back-breaking work and near starvation, his life barely a step up from the mudlarks who scavenged along the Thames.

"After discovering us naked in each other's arms," he said, prowling around his office, "your brother ran straight to Viscount Joslin. Your father had two grooms hold me down, then he beat me until my back was shredded raw."

Marissa made a choked sound, but held her tongue. What could she say to soften such a painful and humiliating memory?

"Did you know Edmund stood there grinning while he watched your father beat me?" he asked, curious to find out how much she knew about the scene that remained burned into his memory.

"No," she said, her eyes betraying her shock. "And Father forbade me to ever mention your name again."

He resumed his prowl around the room.