Teresa Medeiros (11 page)

Why did her father have to choose that moment to emerge from his cocoon of newsprint? she wondered
despairingly. “I thought … well, it’s just that I …”

Claremont fixed his gaze on her face, his expression so pleasantly mild that only Lucy suspected he would have liked to gag her with her napkin.

“I need some money for paints,” she blurted out. “I’ve used the last of the cerulean and I can’t finish my Cornwall seascape without it.”

The Admiral’s smile was rife with such patronizing affection that Lucy wanted to duck beneath the tablecloth to avoid the coming salvo. “Ah, my darling Lucinda. I can always count on you to dramatize the trivial.” He disappeared behind a sheaf of the
Times
with a hunk of dry toast. “It was a special talent of your mother’s.”

Lucy pushed her plate away. She dared a sullen glance at her bodyguard, expecting to find his eyes twinkling with amusement at her expense.

Claremont had vanished. In his place sat a dangerous stranger, watching her father with pure murder in his eyes. A frisson of fear shot down Lucy’s spine, a premonition of disaster not for the Admiral, but for herself. Before she could convince herself she wasn’t simply giving in to fancy as her mother would have done, her father choked and Claremont’s affable expression slipped into place like a mask.

Lucy stared in horror as her father dropped the newspaper, his florid complexion deepening to scarlet, then bruised purple. For one irrational moment, she believed Claremont had done something terrible to him with nothing more than the power of that murderous stare.

Her bodyguard leaped to his feet and hastened around the table, shoving the panicked footman out of the way. Locking his hands together, he gave the Admiral one sharp blow between the shoulder blades.
The Admiral sucked in a tortured gasp of air, his eyes watering with relief. Lucy snapped out of her daze and rushed to her father’s side, pressing a water goblet into his hand.

Claremont pounded the Admiral’s back with more relish than Lucy deemed necessary. “You might try some butter next time, sir. It makes the toast go down more smoothly.”

Lucy scowled at him, but her father was in no condition to chide Claremont for his insolence. “Not the bread,” he wheezed, stabbing his forefinger at the fallen newspaper. “
Him!
The bastard’s going to be the death of me yet!”

Claremont reached for the paper, but Lucy swept it out from under his hand, immediately finding the words scripted in bold letters beneath the paper’s banner.

“ ‘Captain Doom’,”
she read softly, the name an unwitting entreaty on her lips.

Gerard was thankful her father was still occupied with fighting to breathe. One glimpse of his daughter’s unguarded face in that moment and Gerard had little doubt that the Admiral would lock her away and toss out the key. Her color had heightened to creamy peach and her taut lips had softened to a tantalizing pout. With a distinctly unpleasant shock, Gerard realized that he would have liked to touch them, nibble them, plunge his tongue between their delectable curves.

The unbidden notion opened up a realm of disturbing possibilities. Dangerous regrets.

“ ‘After forcing the frigate into surrender off the coast of Dover,’ ” Lucy read, “ ‘the masked pirate invited (at pistol point) the blindfolded captain and his officers to join him and his crew for a gentlemanly game of faro aboard their ship. Although it is rumored Captain MacGower of the
HMS Guenevere
won back
over one thousand pounds of the Royal Treasury gold confiscated by the brigands, he was not amused by the pirate’s antics.’ ”

Neither was Gerard.

Lucy lifted her gaze from the paper to stare right through him, her eyes softened to the misty gray of the sea at dawn. The tender yearning in their depths struck him high in the gut, dangerously near to his heart.

He was beginning to hate Captain Doom almost as much as the Admiral did.

“How dare he? Have you ever heard of such boldness? Such unmitigated gall?” The Admiral slammed the goblet down.

Unsure of whether he was saving Lucy from her father or himself, Gerard snatched the paper out of her hands, jarring her face back to its haughty cast.

He scanned the rest of the article, his temper growing grimmer with each word he read. “Rascal’s getting damned reckless, if you ask me. He’s liable to get his fool neck stretched if he pulls any more stunts like this one.”

“I’ll drink to that!” The Admiral hefted the goblet.

Lucy shot Gerard a triumphant glance. “But don’t you see, Father? If Doom is on the high seas, then there’s really no reason to—”

“—relax our guard,” Gerard finished neatly, ignoring Lucy’s murderous glare. “A rogue like Doom probably has minions scattered all over England. What better time to execute an abduction than when blessed with an alibi provided by the entire crew of a Royal Navy frigate?”

“Quite right, sir,” the Admiral concurred. “We must be more vigilant than ever.”

Lucy snatched up a napkin, wringing it between her hands as if she wished it were his neck. But as her father polished off his water, his hands trembling visibly,
her sullen expression melted to one of tender concern. Gerard knew he wouldn’t be finishing his own breakfast. Lucy’s groveling for her father’s favor had robbed him of his appetite.

She dabbed at the Admiral’s damp brow with the napkin. “There now, Father. Shall I fetch you some more water?”

He shoved her hand away. “You know I can’t abide being fussed over. Why don’t you take yourself off somewhere? Go buy those paints you need. That scoundrel has upset me far too much to work on my memoirs this morning.”

Gerard bit back an oath. Another opportunity lost.

“As you wish, Father,” Lucy replied dutifully.

As she crept from the dining room, her posture was submissive, but the glance she shot him was anything but. Gerard’s eyes narrowed in speculation. It would only be a matter of time before she screwed up the courage to approach her father about his dismissal. Perhaps his day wasn’t to be wasted after all. A shopping expedition might provide the perfect opportunity to spring the trap he’d set for his tart-tongued mouse.

As Gerard started after her, the Admiral cleared his throat as if he were choking on more than just dry toast. As soon as he spoke, Gerard knew it was his pride. “Thank you, lad. You saved my life.”

Gerard gave him a crisp bow and an enigmatic smile. “Just doing my job, sir. Just doing my job.”

As their carriage clattered toward Oxford Street later that morning, Gerard wondered if Miss Snow owned any gowns that weren’t white. The chaste hue was beginning to tell on his patience as well as his eyes.

Against his will, his gaze lingered on the creamy shoulders and fluted collarbone bared by the severe lines of her Grecian-styled gown. He hated to admit it,
but the absence of color suited her almost as well as her name. Her skin was like fresh snow—soft, virgin, alluring. Too bad she’d been cursed with an icy temperament to match.

Jarred by his dangerous musings, he craned his neck toward the rear window, heartened by the sight of a single rider trailing far enough behind the carriage to keep from arousing the footman’s suspicion. After today, Lucy would probably entreat her father to raise his wages.

The vehicle halted before a shining expanse of shop windows, behind which a dizzying array of perfumes, fabrics, liquors, jewels, pastries, and books were displayed for the pleasure of the genteel shoppers milling along the flagstone pavement.

“What shall it be?” Gerard asked as he handed Lucy down from the carriage, holding her gloved hand a heartbeat longer than was necessary. “The stationers? I should so hate for you to be deprived of the fulfillment of completing your Cornwall seascape.”

She popped open her pagoda-style parasol to shade her face from the sun. Bells of warning jangled in Gerard’s head as her lips tilted in a deliberate smile. “I’m off to the silk mercer this morning for some …” She trailed off, studying the stocking toes peeping out from her sandals as if too shy to continue.

“Purchases you’d rather not discuss in public,” he gently provided.

“Quite so. You needn’t accompany me. I’m afraid you’d find it quite dull.”

Au contraire, ma chérie
, Gerard thought. He was tempted to trail along just to prove to her that he knew more about those gossamer scraps of silk and lace than she could hope to learn in a lifetime.

She plainly believed she’d found a way to rid herself
of his company, not realizing that she was playing right into his devilish hands.

He escorted her to the doorway of an elegant shop with tall windows draped in folds of Italian silk, Brussels lace, patterned chintzes, and muslins even more translucent than the one she was wearing. “I’ll wait right outside for you. Take all the time you need,” he graciously assured her.

She blinked up at him, clearly thrown off balance by his amiable surrender. He gave her a gentle shove through the door.

Gerard could not resist sneaking a peek into the gilded salon. One of the proprietors rushed toward Lucy to press a swath of silk into her hand, crooning in heavily accented English, “Our finest Italian, miss, so diverting, so cool.”

Lucy fondled the sleek fabric, utterly unaware of the sensual languor that stole over her features. Diverting indeed, but hardly cool, Gerard thought as his mind transposed heated images with torturous clarity. Her fingers on the silk. His fingers on her.

Fists clenched, he swung away from the door, knowing he’d best escape before the trap snapped shut on his own tail.

Lucy emerged from the tasteful gloom of the mercer’s salon over an hour later, blinking against the bright sunlight. She was still congratulating herself on her cleverness. Not only had she shed herself of her bodyguard’s vexing company to enjoy a brief interlude of privacy, she had also bid ten shillings a yard on a bolt of Italian silk for which the mercer had been asking fifteen. When the fabric was delivered, the Admiral would undoubtedly praise her for her economy.

Jostled by the crowds, she shaded her eyes with her parasol and peered around uncertainly. There was no
sign of Claremont or the carriage. A row of unfamiliar vehicles lined the roadside, their horses drowsing in the noonday sun. Perhaps Fenster had been forced to park farther down the street and her bodyguard had sought shelter from the unseasonal heat in the shaded confines of the carriage.

She ought to be relieved that Claremont wasn’t lurking about, she told herself, just waiting to pounce on her with that infuriating smirk of his. She was obviously going to have to devise a more subtle plan of attack. Warning him of her intentions had only given him time to plot his defense.

Tilting her parasol to a jaunty angle, she decided to stroll to the stationers alone. She hurried past the bawling street vendors, trying to ignore the mouthwatering aromas of Banbury cakes and roasted apples. An uncontrollable passion for sweets was yet another of the carnal frailties bequeathed to her by her mother.

She smiled to imagine Mr. Claremont’s chagrin when he returned to the mercer’s shop only to discover his golden goose had flown the nest.

She was still savoring her satisfaction when a grubby hand shot out, grabbed the braided cord of her reticule, and jerked her into a deserted alley.