Wedding Night Revenge (25 page)

Sam Smith placed down the fork he'd buffed to a whitish gloss. He picked up another, turned it this way and that
in
front of his face while his eyes slid past the utensil to his supervisor. If she was aware of him, seated at the far end of the scrubbed pine table, polishing silver, she gave no sign. The cups and saucers were shuffled aimlessly about on the tray again as she glared at the kettle. Sam knew she was already willing it to steam so she could make the tea and be gone.

'Vera and Bernard are gone out to her sisters along the street. She's ailing bad, so Vera says. But she'll be back in time to get the dinner on the go.

Annie finished dusting the parlour and morning room while you was gone. I told her to start upstairs...'

Noreen nodded wordless acceptance of this mundane information. Nothing much penetrated her misery, her despair.
Handsome prince!
she scoffed at herself beneath her breath, a sob of bubbling rage lodged in her chest. He was the villain of the piece. The ogre. The devil incarnate. And serve her right for knowing it. Eavesdropping was a sure way to learn of disaster.

Abruptly she grabbed the sputtering kettle, tipped it in a clumsy motion and gave a little yelp as she received a small scald from a splash of boiling water.

Sam got up from his stool and came over to her. 'Show me what you've done to y'self...'

Noreen ripped her stinging hand from the comfort of his. 'Don't be after doing that. Mother Mary! I've had worse damage than that...'

Sam grasped her hand again, fended off the other as it made to knock him away. He looked into Noreen's rapidly blinking eyes, watched her quivering lips compress into a tight line. The angry weal was barely discernible on an already work-roughened red thumb. 'T'ain't that bad, you're right,' he said.

'Not bad enough to make a tough old bird cry, anyhow. Did you . catch a worse roasting off the mistress over summat?'

Noreen glared at him through an increasing blur in her eyes. 'No, but you will, I'm thinking, if you don't keep your thoughts and your hands to y'self.'

Sam let her go; went to sit back down at the table. He picked up a spoon, polished it slowly, with long strong strokes. 'Vinegar's sweeter 'n you are, Noreen Shaughnessy. What was it happened to you to make you so sour?

Lose a man, did you?'

Noreen stared at him. Then she laughed, hysterically, throwing back her ginger head and swiping at her eyes again. 'So like a man, I'm thinking.

Anything wrong with a woman's life, it must be a big strong man let her down. I don't need a man. Never have done. And I told you before, it's none of a Stripling's sympathy I'm needing.'

'It's none of a stripling's sympathy you're getting,' Sam countered quietly. He studied her over the gleaming spoon, continued looking even when she challenged him with fierce bloodshot eyes.

'So you've not got a sweetheart waiting for you back in Hertfordshire.

Windrush is the Merediths' estate, ain't it?'

'It was...' Noreen said, a strange caustic note honeying her brogue. But it's not lost yet, is what I'm thinking, she told herself, nodding.

Sam was attending every mutter and gesture, so she added quickly, 'I got a sister back there. To be sure, that's enough plucking at me heartstrings that I need. She's more'n enough family for me.' With an air of finality, she clattered the tea things on to the tray.

'What's her name?'

'Mary.'

'Younger 'n you?'

Noreen failed to respond, but cursed irritation below her breath.

'Problem, is she?'

'What's it to you?'

'Nothing. I've got a sister of me own gives me enough problems.' 'My sister don't do tail-trading, if you're about to see them as alike.'

'Neither does mine,' Sam said, his voice cold.

'You're thinking I'm a fool, then?' Noreen mocked. 'A pretty young thing gets put off by that godforsaken villain when she toils like the devil snaps at her heels? He's tipped you out and on to us, before Annie loses that sweet shape and folk get to knowing he's the one swole her belly.'

'You're thinking wrong. She ain't carrying and he ain't a godforsaken villain.

Lord Devane's a good man.'

'Is he now?' Noreen queried silkily. 'We'll see...' She turned away to attend to the tea. Insouciantly she remarked, 'Shame she ain't a pro. Girl looks like Annie could put you both in Swell Street, I'm thinking.'

'Shame 'ud be if she were a pro,' Sam curtly returned. 'She's a good girl.

She'll stay that way. She'll stay fed and clothed and decent, for as long as I do.'

Noreen raised her eyes to look at him. 'Where's your ma and pa?'

'Dead.'

'Mine too.'

'Thought so. Just you and Mary, then, is it? No other kin?'

'Is it me family tree you're after getting?' Noreen asked sarcastically.

'No; an' it's not lifting your skirts I'm after either, if that's what you're thinking.'

Noreen dropped the tray back to the table. Her face flushed crimson, her mouth fell open, but no tongue- lashing could force past her dazed shock.

'Yeah...I do mean what you think. You think I'm just after putting you on your back, don't you, Noreen Shaughnessy? Well, let me tell you, I might be a bit brash and I might talk a bit bawdy, but if I want a tumble I can go straight back to Whitechapel and take a fancy I know who don't bristle like a cornered cat every time I look her way.'

Noreen made an agitated attempt to straighten cups and saucers and mop milk from the tray. 'You go back there then. Find yourself a little girl to play with. Sure and you're never old enough for a real woman, anyhow. You're not a man, you're just a kid.'

Sam smiled, then he laughed, with quiet male satisfaction. 'She's not a little girl. Men as like little girls make me sick...make me sick to my stomach.

She's a woman...older 'n you, I'd guess. But I saw you a week ago and I'm looking now. You're what I want, heaven help me if I know why. I'm man enough for you, Noreen Shaughnessy...and you know it...'

I assume that you have in mind a suitable venue to consummate the
happy event. Please let me know where and when, and at the risk of
being too indelicately eager, might it be soon? Early settlement of
the transaction would be appreciated, if for no other reason than it
will hasten my going home and your going overseas.

Connor read again the acerbic few sentences set out in neat ladylike script.

She hated him and she wanted him to know it. Her despising was couched in every prettily formed word. It was in her refusal to begin with the courtesy of an address to him or finish by signing even one of her initials. He was beneath contempt. Yet she would acquiesce. Like hell she would.

He folded the consent to her ravishment, recently delivered with pomp on a silver salver by Joseph Walsh. A laugh scraped at his throat at that absurdity.

He slumped back in his chair and closed his weary eyes.

'What's funny?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all.'

Jason Davenport prowled aimlessly about the room.By the magnificent mantel he stopped, gave the Irish wolfhound posted over it a glare. Two fingers prised his superbly folded cravat from his perspiring neck as, indignantly, he looked through the windows at a late afternoon in May that was unremittingly hot and still. He abruptly tipped a shot of whiskey into a glass in irritation. 'Just five hundred then...till next month when my allowance is due...'

'No.'

'You're a tight-fisted bastard. I know for a fact you won fifteen hundred last night at White's. Harley made a point of telling me. He's still steaming over losing Meredith's estate to you, you know.'

'Yes, I know,' Connor said distantly, gazing at him over a steeple of tanned fingers.

'Was it Harley instigated the rumour you'd been bedding the Smith girl under your own roof?' Jason asked with casual interest.

'No., But he quite cheerfully backed it once it was up and running.'

'Where have you hidden them? I've not seen sweet Annie or her brother in days.' Jason grimaced a look of genuine alarm at Connor. 'God! There wasn't any truth in it, Con, was there? You haven't set her up somewhere in Cheapside? She's just a baby. Mind you, if she still looks as delectable in a few years' time, I might be interested in taking her on myself...' His voice, one eyelid, lewdly lowered.

Connor propped his fists on the edge of the desk. Slowly he pushed himself to his feet. 'Jason...do me... and you... a good turn. Remove yourself from my sight for a while, there's a good fellow, before I see you across the street with the toe of my boot.'

'Three hundred?' Jason hastily changed subject, apparently deaf to his stepbrother's threat to summarily eject him. 'How can I show my face at the Palm House without a penny to my name? I'll look a fool, starting straight off with markers.'

Connor shrugged, turned him a classic profile as he gazed into his garden. 'I think, Jason, you mistake me for a person who cares a damn about your credibility.' He suddenly speared a steely blue stare at his stepbrother.

'You've not approached your father again for money...have you?'

Jason cleared his throat with whiskey. 'I said I wouldn't,' he gasped hoarsely as the liquor stung. He paused reflectively, 'I know your stables are overstocked... I've a rather nice set of silver ice pails just come into my possession, taken from Frank Cornwallis following a rubber of whist.

They're corkers! I'd say they'd look pretty good in a house like this. They set me back the money he couldn't find. At just two hundred and fifty they're a bargain.'

Connor gave him a smile. Lengthy black lashes screened the afternoon glare as he debated whether to kick him out anyway or suggest they go and find a couple of obliging jades and stay drunk until dawn.

He slumped back into his chair and slowly unfolded the paper. It didn't read any sweeter third time around. He jerked open a drawer in his desk, dropped in Rachel's note. He was about to close it again when the stone sparked sunbeams. Without removing it from where it nestled, concealed amongst parchment, a dark thumb brushed the sapphire's faceted surface. Why he'd removed it from the jeweller's box in the safe where it had reposed, feeling the need to look at it, he'd no idea. But now with slow deliberation he found a loose end of red ribbon binding the deeds to *

Windrush then threaded it through the ring's golden shank gnd tied it. He smiled at the rank symbolism in what he'd done, then with a curse slammed shut the drawer.

His head bowed, supported by massaging fingers sunk deep in his glossy ebony hair. He must have been insane to have started this, for he hadn't the vaguest idea now how to bring it to a dignified close without looking every sort of idiot. Did that matter? She already thought him every sort of idiot.

Perhaps he should ask Rachel if she had any ideas how they could put this interlude behind them and carry on with their lives as though they'd never again met and engaged in such pointless, hurting vitriol. It was ironic: but for that blasted incident with the carriages jamming the street he might never have seen her. He might have made it home to Ireland in blissful ignorance of the soulful, indomitable woman she'd become. Hardly, he mocked himself, her father would have made it his business to ensure that their paths crossed at least once before he escaped. He was an astute father who knew his daughter. The man understood him, too...too well for comfort.

Rachel had always been a fashionable beauty. Now, her elegant sophistication was hardened with a grit she used to veil an increasing vulnerability. The melancholy she felt over Isabel was quite apparent to those who loved her; and it was likely to pluck at the heart of a man who'd once cherished her as much as he had.

She was unpopular. She'd outraged the
beau monde
by jilting him on a whim and so tardy it was scandalous. But it was failing to show proper humility, to beg forgiveness, that made those people so pitiless in their displeasure. No matter that she faced the world with a credible air of insouciance, being disliked wounded her...added to her distress.

At nineteen she had been surrounded by friends, showered with countless social invitations. She was accepted now into company under the umbrella of a family outing, but it was only the Saunders who welcomed her for herself. She could look quite isolated in a crush of people. The poignancy of watching her concealing her unhappiness on the Pembertons' stairway, even now, clawed at his insides.

But Rachel was too proud to feign amnesia over past slights to snatch herself a companion. Her aunt Chamberlain's specious cordiality had disgusted her, and he knew he'd played a part in it. Had he not been accompanying Rachel she might have remained ignored by the woman. Perhaps that was just something else she resented: his power and influence, his celebrity. And to him it was nothing against having her respect... having her...

What he had instead was her permission to take her to bed for one night of coerced lovemaking.

'All your moody moping about is to do with that blonde baggage, the Meredith woman, isn't it?' Jason slurred into Connor's reverie, emboldened by the alcohol he'd steadily consumed and peeved that his bargaining for cash was being ignored.

Jason was barely aware Connor was out of his chair, but he certainly knew of the one-handed vice constricting his throat.

'Be careful...be very careful, Jason, what you say next,' his stepbrother threatened through touching teeth. 'And while you're listening carefully: I'm sick to death of you and your selfish spendthrift ways. Your father's ailing...possibly due to you worrying the life from him. My mother's an unhappy woman...because she's anxious over her husband's health.'