Heather and Velvet (25 page)

S
ebastian’s ankle ached as he was led from the damp cell. The rope binding his hands behind his back chafed the raw skin. His jaw itched. He longed to claw at the first prick of stubble, and thought with dull amusement how civilized he had become that it should bother him. His mouth tasted like he’d been chewing rusty nails and his throbbing head felt stuffed with cotton batting.

As they reached the slat of light at the end of the slim corridor, Tugbert gave him an unmistakable shove. Sebastian stumbled and whirled around, his dubious patience at an end. His fierce glare was enough to make Tugbert step backward, rope or no rope.

Then the sheriff’s eyes lit with smirking amusement on something behind him.

Sebastian turned slowly. Its emptiness made the small, dusty room seem larger than it was. A watery dawn seeped through the window. For a long moment, the only sound was the hiss and sputter of a tallow candle drowning in its own fat.

Sebastian sucked in an audible breath as the niggling
suspicion he had shoved to the back of his aching head hardened to icy certainty.

Prudence sat in a rustic, cane-backed chair, as prim and proper as if she perched on a Hepplewhite chair in some Edinburgh tea room. Her posture was perfect, her gloved hands folded demurely in her lap. A lavender dress of watered silk set off her fair skin to perfection. Her hair was caught in a chignon and molded to the delicate bones of her head in a shiny cap. Not one wisp was out of place.

She lifted her head. Light reflected off the glass of her spectacles, erasing her eyes. He started to shake.

His harsh laughter grated in the silence. “I was a fool to trust you, wasn’t I?”

“You left me no choice.” Her voice was calm, resolute.

“You swore.”

“I did not break my oath. I told Tricia nothing.”

He smiled nastily. “Of course you didn’t break your oath. You’re a respectable woman.”

Without warning, he lunged for her, not sure himself what he might do if he reached her.

Tugbert wrapped both arms around him and jerked him back.

Prudence lifted a white-gloved hand. Despite her steady voice, that hand trembled. “Arlo, please. It’s all right. You may let him go.”

“I hardly think that would be the wisest—”

Sebastian twisted away from him. “You heard Miss Walker,
Arlo
. I can hardly strangle the lady with my hands bound.”

The sheriff stepped back to lean against the wall by the door, his arms crossed, his eyes wary. Sebastian paced the room, stretching his legs.

“Why, Prudence?”

She took a deep breath. “It would have been wrong for you to marry Tricia. You don’t love her.”

He kicked a stool. It bounced off the wall and splintered. Then he turned on her, his fury erupting. “Are you so desperate for a man that you’ll even take one at the end of a rope?”

Tugbert tensed. Prudence bowed her head. A barely perceptible blush crept up the luscious curve of her neck.

“I couldn’t let you marry her,” she said. “Don’t you see? It would have destroyed us all in the end.”

“So you’d rather see me dead?”

She shook her head. “You’re not to be hanged. You’re not even to be brought to trial.”

Sarcasm thickened his burr. “How did you manage that? Offer your bookkeeping services to the King?”

She glanced at Tugbert. Sebastian’s gaze traveled between the two of them, then his mouth quirked, his smile a weapon of unmistakable contempt.

“So the two of you have everything worked out. How cozy! Perhaps you can name your first brat after me.”

Tugbert stepped forward. “If you only knew to what depths your chicanery has driven this good young woman—”

“Arlo! You promised.” A note of panic touched Prudence’s voice. Sebastian caught a glimpse of something beneath her cool expression—something fearful and passionate.

“If I weren’t a gentleman …” Tugbert let the words hang in the air. His ashen hair was caught in a neat queue at the nape of his neck. Without his wig, he didn’t look nearly so foppish. “You are to leave Northumberland, Kerr, and return to the Highlands. If I catch you anywhere near the English border again, I
will
hang you.” He paused. “With pleasure.”

Sebastian walked over to the window to stare blindly at the rust that had flaked off the iron bars and fallen to the windowsill.

After a moment he spoke to Tugbert, but he slanted a dangerous look at Prudence. “Give me a moment alone with her.”

“I’d say not, sir. If you think I’m mad enough to—”

“Do as he says.” Prudence’s voice held a quiet note of command. “Please.”

Tugbert sputtered indignantly. “Very well, then. I’ll be outside the door.
Right
outside the door.”

Sebastian watched him go, darkly amused. “You’ve got him dancing like a marionette. Tricia would be proud of you.”

He came to stand directly in front of her. She fidgeted with her soft kid gloves.

“Look at me.”

She reluctantly lifted her head.

“I said look at me,” he repeated, the terse request more effective than a roar.

She paused for a moment, then drew off her spectacles and slipped them into her pocket. She tilted her head back and studied him through the thick fringe of lashes.

His jaw tightened. “Do you think you’ll forget, Prudence? When you’re lying alone these cold winter nights to come, do you think you’ll forget the way I kissed you, the way I touched you?”

When she would have lowered her eyes, he squatted in front of her. She turned her face away.

“You won’t forget me. I swear it. I’ll haunt you for the rest of your lonely, miserable life. Even if you marry Tugbert and he comes to your bed blushing in his long nightshirt, who do you think you’ll see when you close your eyes? It won’t be him. It will be me.”

“Stop it! You don’t understand.”

His mouth curved in a shadow of his tender smile. “I understand one thing. I was a fool to let you out of my bed. You might have thought twice about betraying the father of your babe.” He leaned toward her, putting his mouth next to her ear. “Stay out of my way, Prudence Walker. I won’t make the same mistake again. I promise you that.”

He stalked to the wall, refusing to look at her. She rose, her spine poker-straight. Her legs did not falter until she reached the door. He turned around and for a maddening instant, he thought she would crumple. He could not have caught her if she had. She recovered, though, swaying briefly. The haunting fragrance of honeysuckle tickled his nostrils as she brushed past him.

Sebastian pressed his eyes shut, determined that Tugbert would not see him cry.

Prudence walked past Arlo without seeing him. Something in her face kept him from stopping her. She gathered her
skirts in her gloved hands and started down the muddy road toward Lindentree.

The warm wind burned her dry eyes. On the eastern horizon, streaks of peach shot through the muted gray. It promised to be a beautiful day—a fine day for a wedding. Her toe caught in a rut. She did not look back at the jail to check if anyone had seen her stumble, but hastened her steps instead. She must get back to Lindentree. She was needed there, for she would have to deal with her aunt’s vapors when Tricia discovered her bridegroom had fled. Tricia relied on her. She must be strong. She could not afford to succumb to her own hysterics.

A needle of pain jabbed her head. Her fingers flew to her temples.

Do stop grimacing, dear. You’re not getting any younger
. Tricia’s echoing clucks drowned out the nearby shriek of a jay.

Prudence dropped her skirts and broke into a run.

The first thing ye’re goin’ to have to do is learn how to fight dirty. Sebastian ain’t never known no other way
.

Jamie would be long gone by now. Sebastian would not return from his midnight ride, and Jamie was too bright not to realize something was drastically wrong. Mud spattered her skirts as she dragged her hem heedlessly through a puddle.

You won’t forget me
. Sebastian’s voice thundered unbidden through her skull.
I swear it. I’ll haunt you for the rest of your lonely, miserable life
.

She clawed at her hair, tearing out the hairpins in a vain attempt to stop the pain. Her hair streamed across her face, and the only reality became the thud of one foot in front of the other and the harsh rasp of her breathing.

She skirted the gatehouse and fled across the lawn, ignoring the curious stares of the sleepy peacocks. She crushed her skull between her palms, desperate to silence the accusing cabal of voices screeching through her mind. Her feet slipped on the slick grass and she fell to her stomach. Her thigh crunched against the spectacles in her pocket.

She lay for a long time, eyes squeezed shut, fingers
tearing up tufts of damp earth. If she had stayed in the jail for one more minute, she would have been on her knees at Sebastian’s feet, begging him to understand, pleading with him to take her away with him.

“Oh, Sebastian, why did you make me do it?” she whispered. “I hate you.”

But as she baptized the grass with her bitter tears, she would have given her dying breath to have his arms around her one last time.

Prudence dragged her fingers through the water of the fountain, parting the dead fronds, then watching them float together again. Leaves drifted from the trees in languid blobs of russet and yellow. To her, the garden was a pleasant blur. Her wrecked spectacles lay on her dressing table. Her new pair had not yet arrived from London. She did not care. The world looked better without them.

A cool rush of October wind caught the leaves in a spinning dervish before scattering them across the terrace. She pulled her shawl tighter and strolled past a leering Apollo. His scant drapes fell across the exaggerated masculinity of his marbled form. A fat, hairy spider strung a web between his knees.

Prudence shivered, unable to banish the spooky vision of her and Tricia growing old alone there, strolling arm in arm through the garden until cobwebs festooned their graying hair.

Tricia appeared like a ghost in the doorway. “There’s a man here to see you,” she said in a thick voice.

To Prudence’s genuine dismay, her aunt had taken the disappearance of her handsome fiancé harder than the timely deaths of her seven previous husbands. Tricia’s eyes were rimmed with red, her nose shiny, and her wig crooked and ratty-looking. Was it Prudence’s own guilty imagination or did wounded accusation burn in her aunt’s eyes?

“If it’s the viscount again,” she said, “tell him he may call tomorrow. If it’s Sir Arlo, tell him I’m still ill.”

She had no desire to discuss chemistry with the persistent Frenchman. And Sir Arlo, through no fault of his own,
only reminded her of the grim path she had almost taken in the darkest moment of her life.

“It is the viscount,” Tricia said, “but he’s brought a man who says he has business with you.”

Prudence frowned. “With me? Who would have business with me?”

“How should I know? I told him I was mistress of Lindentree, but he insists on seeing you.” She sniffed. “He’s a bit pompous, if I do say so myself.”

Prudence followed Tricia reluctantly. After the fresh autumn wind, the house felt stale and closed. For weeks now, Prudence could hardly bear to be indoors. The house was an empty shell. She could not turn a corner without expecting to hear a warm, masculine burst of laughter or the jaunty click of a cane on the parquet floor. As Tricia followed the corridor to the parlor, Prudence breathed a sigh of thanks that her aunt had not put the guests in the library. Prudence had been there only once in the last two months. The lingering fragrance of cheroot smoke had driven her out into the garden, biting back tears.

D’Artan and his companion rose as they entered the parlor. The stranger would have looked comfortable in a drawing room a century ago. Lace erupted from the sleeves and collar of his frock coat, and powder flew from his elaborate wig as he bent over Prudence’s hand with a courtly bow.

“Miss Walker, I presume?”

Prudence pinched back a sneeze before he could straighten. “I am.”

The viscount gave Tricia a pointed look. A hint of her old pout touched her lips as she trotted obediently from the parlor. The tip-tap of her slippers paused right outside the door.

D’Artan lifted Prudence’s hand to his lips. “Lovely as always.”

As his companion plopped back down in a Sheraton chair, the delicate legs teetered dangerously. D’Artan introduced him, but Prudence was too interested in seeing if the dainty chair would hold his ample frame to give her full attention to his name. She wasn’t sure if it was Lord
Pettiwiggle or Periwinkle. D’Artan sank onto the settee, beaming like a satisfied cat.

The other man snapped open a silver snuffbox and tucked a wad up his nose. D’Artan took a pinch, and Prudence thought for a moment the man might offer her some, but he checked the gesture. The box disappeared into the voluminous folds of his coat.

The chair creaked as he settled back. “I am here on behalf of George III, King of England.” His voice boomed as if he had spent his entire life saying important things.

“The King?” she repeated. “What business could the King possibly have with me?”

“A petition your father filed has recently come to the King’s attention.”

Before she could stop it, an unladylike snort escaped her. “It’s a bit late, wouldn’t you think? My father has been dead for almost eight years.”

D’Artan leaned forward, crossing his satin-clad legs. “As I’m sure you know, my dear, the King was indisposed for quite some time.”

Mad as a March hare, she thought uncharitably.

“We attempted to locate your father as soon as the King reviewed his petition.” Lord Petti wiggle-Peri winkle shook his head sadly. “A regrettable and tragic circumstance. We tracked you to your London lodgings only to discover you’d gone. The missives we sent to Lindentree received no response.”

“But I never—”

He continued in his chiding tones as if she hadn’t spoken. What he had to say was obviously more important than anything she might add. “One of our agents was dispatched here a few months ago, only to be informed by a rather churlish creature that you had emigrated to Pomerania where you later died. My agent was forced to flee the grounds of the estate when this
enfant terrible
began to fire arrows at his coach. When our inquiries in Pomerania yielded nothing—”