Brazen Temptress (13 page)

About this time, Julien wandered over. "My good man, you'll start tongues wagging if you spend too much time in the company of a charming young lady. Especially one as fetching as Miss Fenwick." Julien winked at the Lord Admiral. "I know the problem all too well."

Maureen almost laughed, for the Lord Admiral looked about to choke on the inference that he was delaying Maureen for his own courting.

"It is hardly like that, sir. Miss Fenwick's father and I served together. I was just offering my condolences once again."

"My apologies," Julien said, with a tip of his hat. "I can see from your expression, you have Miss Fenwick's best interests at heart." He held out his arm to Maureen. "But if you'll excuse us, I have promised your, daughter and this young lady an outing."

"Remember what we discussed, Miss Fenwick," the Lord Admiral said, his tone anything but the protective regard one might expect from a family friend.

She tipped her head, as if in shy reverence to his wisdom. "I'll hold it close to my heart, my lord."

As they stepped away from the man, Julien whispered, "What was that all about?" His voice held a dangerous edge.

"I was gaining you another day of life."

"I appreciate it," the rogue said with a wry laugh. "But I'll need more than a day if I am to help you."

Help you.
His words crept over her with the same intimacy she felt when she'd folded her hand into the crook of his arm and as he'd pulled her close so they walked with their bodies nearly touching.

She smiled, for they were coming closer to Lady Mary and the others. "I don't want your help."

"You need it. I'm all that stands between you and your friend back there." Julien paused. "And if you haven't noticed, he doesn't like you overly much."

"That's the first bit of truth I think I've ever heard you say," she muttered. "I find it odd that the man despises me so. He barely knows me."

"You're a living reminder of your father. A man doesn't like looking at his past."

"Doesn't seem to bother you," she shot back.

"Oh, it does."

There it was, that hint of regrets and guilt. They tore at her, teased her into believing he meant it.

And he wasn't finished. "But that's where the Lord Admiral and I are different. My feelings for you are quite the opposite of his. Always will be."

He made his remarkable declaration as they gained the open door to his carriage, leaving her unable to respond. He smiled at her, but this time without the intimacy that had tinged his voice just moments before. In a bat of an eye, he was once again the well-mannered, discreet Corinthian as he handed her up and then gave his driver directions.

He sat himself down next to her, opposite Miss Cottwell.

"My apologies, ladies. It seems Miss Fenwick and his lordship were discussing lofty matters of a naval nature." He shuddered with an unholy horror, at which Miss Cottwell sniffed, as if to be caught so would be her utmost nightmare.

Had the man no shame?

Maureen didn't know whether to be outraged or stunned at his amazing transformation. She'd just saved his neck from the hangman once again, and now the witless ass celebrated his deliverance by insulting her!

She hadn't forgotten his performance or his words back in Hatchards, and now it appeared she was in for a second act.

Bluestocking indeed! And clumsy as well. Oh, if only she had her knife ...

Miss Cottwell seemed delighted by his observations. "Why, Mr. D'Artiers, it is no wonder you are invited everywhere," the perfect miss said. "Why, I believe you to be the wittiest man in London."

"And you, my dear lady," Julien replied, "are the most discerning and elegant one I've discovered this Season."

Miss Cottwell's companion, her elderly spinster cousin, Miss Priscilla Welton, smiled in agreement.

The ride to Gunther's continued in this manner, until Maureen considered throwing herself under the wheels of the next passing conveyance.

Worst of all, it appeared Julien was Miss Cottwell's perfect match, for he met her inane chatter with his own wry, boring comments.

Obviously, his taste in women had changed. For there had been a time when he'd claimed such a perfect London miss would bore him to no end.

She remembered the nights of rousing conversations onboard the
Forgotten Lady.
Hours had passed like minutes while she and Julien and her father traded stories and lies about the sea. Now, that had been interesting!

But this chatter — why, it was like listening to a flock of magpies.

They entered Gunther's and were provided an excellent table. Very soon she found herself stiffly ensconced in the corner seat, while Julien and Miss Cottwell held court.

She might have gone stoically on with her ice if it hadn't been for what Julien did next.

She looked up from her bowl of lemon ice and found him studying her.

"Are you enjoying your ice, Miss Fenwick?" he asked, as if he'd just noticed her presence at the table.

"Not as much as you obviously are," she replied, drawing sideways glances at her apparent lack of manners from both Lady Mary and Miss Welton. She smiled sweetly and turned her attention back to her melting treat.

"And you, Miss Cottwell," he said, once again turning his back to Maureen. "Are you enjoying your ice?"

"Why, of course, Mr. D'Artiers. I do so love ices. How kind it was of you to invite me."

Lady Mary and Miss Welton nodded their approval at this perfect response. Moments later Maureen felt Lady Mary's foot prodding her under the table.

When she glanced up at her guardian, she had no doubts about the meaning behind Lady Mary's expression.

You could learn a thing or two from Miss Cottwell.

Learn how to be a simpering, spoiled chit, Maureen fumed, cooling her anger with a mouthful of lemon ice. She'd like to see Miss Cottwell sail through a September hurricane off the Carolina coast.

"Miss Fenwick, where is it that you are from?" Miss Cottwell asked.

Maureen looked up at Lady Mary.
Bloody hell, she couldn't remember where they had decided she was from.

"Portsmouth," Maureen said quickly.

"Devon," Lady Mary said at the same time.

Miss Cottwell cocked an elegant eyebrow. "Which is it?"

Lady Mary frowned at Maureen's lapse in their agreed tale.

Not undone yet, Maureen cleared up her mistake. "Lady Mary is correct. I am from Devon. But I spent most of my time in Portsmouth. At least when my father was home from sea."

The girl nodded. "What school did you attend?"

This was something they hadn't discussed, and Maureen wasn't too sure what to say. The truth seemed the only way out. "I never went to school. I was tutored at home."

What would Miss Cottwell say if she knew her tutors had been a rough mix of sailors and dockside whores, along with a defrocked Jesuit priest?

"Ah," the girl said. "I didn't think so." She directed the rest of her opinion toward Julien. "Finishing school has a way of giving a young lady a special polish that helps her stand out in good society, raising her above others."

Maureen wasn't too sure what came over her. She knew she should politely accede to Miss Cottwell's opinion, but she didn't like the idea of letting the smug little witch have the last say.

"I disagree," she said, drawing shocked looks from nearly everyone at the table. "My father was afraid of the company one finds in those schools. It was his belief that the polish that you think so highly of, Miss Cottwell, gives a young lady a false sense of pride and superiority that men find off-putting. Would you say that was your experience?" She turned her attention back to her ice, reveling in the red flush of anger sweeping over Miss Cottwell's normally icy features.

Why the poor girl looks exactly like her father when she loses her temper, Maureen thought. I suppose it would be in bad form to point that out.

This time she kept her opinion to herself, for Lady Mary looked about to have a fit of apoplexy.

"You have to excuse my goddaughter, Miss Cottwell," Lady Mary said in a rush. "Her education has been rather unorthodox, and her father was a man of unusual ideas."

"Obviously," Miss Cottwell sniffed. "Yet I believe it is breeding, not education, that always makes a lady acceptable. My mother was a Welton. Of Welton Hall." The girl made this pronouncement as if being connected to the Weltons was nothing short of a blessing from the King. Miss Cottwell glanced down her pert nose at Maureen, as if challenging her to best such an illustrious family connection.

Maureen wasn't sure why she said the next thing, but it just came out. "I've always heard that the Weltons had a touch of madness in their lines." She tipped her head and studied Miss Cottwell as if she were a likely candidate for this family curse. The girl's eyes looked about to pop out with sheer horror at such an inference. This time Maureen sniffed, "Perhaps it skipped a generation in your case."

The comment hit better than a twenty-four pounder fired at close range.

"Oh, oh, I can assure you, Miss Fenwick," Miss Welton sputtered, "those rumors are highly exaggerated." The horrified lady, realizing she may have just confirmed what Maureen said, turned her next comment to Julien. "There has never been anything remotely unusual about the Welton lines. I assure you, sir. No, never."

"I think it is Miss Fenwick who is highly unusual," Miss Cottwell pronounced, as if calling for a social moratorium on the inappropriate interloper in their midst. "What say you, Mr. D'Artiers, do you find Miss Fenwick unusual?"

"Yes," he said, "I do, indeed, find her highly unusual."

His tone implied that he didn't mind Maureen's eccentricities in the least, but his actions told another story.

He placed his hand over Miss Cottwell's and gave it a slight squeeze, as if to comfort the poor girl in her distress.

Maureen stopped mid-spoon and stared at her husband holding another woman's hand.

Her husband.

Well, he wasn't really. Well, perhaps he was, but that didn't matter. Maureen tamped down the green-eyed rebellion rising in her heart. Even she knew that a gentleman didn't make such a public display of affection if he wasn't about to make an announcement!

Julien and Miss Cottwell?

How'd she'd love to stand up and announce to the elegant crowd that she was the very much alive and legal Mrs. D'Artiers.

Now, there was a little
on dit
to set Miss Cottwell's elegant composure into a tittering rage. Not that Maureen wanted for one moment to claim the likes of Julien D'Artiers as her long-lost spouse, but it would be fun just to wipe the conceited and victorious look off Miss Cottwell's face.

As if the two of them were locked in some battle for Julien's affections.

Maureen shook her head and tried to tell herself that she couldn't care less what Julien did with the rest of his life. As short as she hoped it would be.

He could make a fool of himself with any woman he chose. It didn't matter to her one jot what he did. Or with whom.

But still, did he have to single out Miss Cottwell for all the curious in Gunther's to witness his declaration? The very daughter of the man he claimed was out to kill her?

Hypocrite, she fumed under her breath, even as she discerned the first whispers rising above the din.

"The rake has finally fallen!"

"And for Miss Cottwell."

Why, not a half hour earlier he'd been whispering in
her
ear that he loved her.

Well, he hadn't said
love,
but it was what he obviously had meant. The man was utterly heartless and despicable. She wondered what other nonsense he'd say to her to keep his precious neck from being stretched.

With the growing attentions of the other patrons, Julien had released Miss Cottwell's hand. The young woman took control of the conversation at the table by discussing her costume for the Trahern masquerade and her search for the elusive but perfect ribbons to match.

Maureen's head spun, not only from the inane chatter but her own reaction to seeing Julien turn his attention to another woman. She stared down at her dish, her delicate ice now melted into an undistinguishable soup.

Still it galled her. Never mind that he'd let go of the silly chit's hand; he still gazed over at the blonde as if she were the only woman in the room.

Once he'd looked at her like that.

She stirred her dish until her spoon clattered out of her hand and landed on the floor.

Miss Welton gave a disapproving cluck of her tongue, while Lady Mary turned a delicate shade of pink mortification.

Well, he
had
looked at her like that, she wanted to tell them. But then, she had been the only woman around. For at least twenty leagues.

She pushed her dish away, and to her great relief Lady Mary announced that they had to depart. Only too quickly, her guardian hustled her from the shop, lecturing her on each and every social gaffe she'd made since they'd joined Mr. D'Artiers's lovely outing.

Listening with half a care, Maureen stared out the window of the carriage into the busy London street. The carts and horses and carriages whirled past, blurring into a riptide of color and motion.

Suddenly, the London streets faded before her cynical gaze and she was back on that faraway cay under a moonless, star-encrusted sky.

Julien laying reverent kisses on her naked body. His hands worshiping her, touching her, bringing her such aching passion. Her own wanton response.

She did everything she could to shake the images from her mind, but try as she might, she couldn't ignore the past.

A time when Julien had claimed there was only one woman he loved.

A time when he'd declared himself for her. For her alone.

For what she thought would last for a lifetime.

Instead of going out that night, Lady Mary announced at the supper table that they would be staying home for the evening.

When William protested, saying the Lord Admiral had an assignment for Maureen to complete, Lady Mary waved her hand at him.

"We mustn't have her about too much. Last night was a triumph, and tonight everyone will be looking for her. If she is missing, speculations will run rampant. It will make everyone all that much more eager to see her."