Elizabeth Boyle (93 page)

But, the contents of the broadsheet Julien had shown her rocked her beliefs about the Lord Admiral’s veracity.

A clear and clever forgery, she tried to tell herself. Julien’s way of tricking her into trusting him.

Why, it couldn’t be true. The
Retribution
being sold right out from under her?

The Lord Admiral had given her his word that the return of her ship was part of their deal.

His word.

In the end it had been the Lord Admiral’s words that convinced her to hold her tongue.

Once they’d gone outside Hatchards, he’d sent Lady Mary ahead to Julien’s carriage, where everyone else stood patiently waiting.

He drew her aside and out of sight of the other party. His hand caught her by the elbow and twisted it painfully. “What are you doing anywhere near my daughter?” His face turned an ugly shade of purple.

The vehemence and anger behind his question took her aback. What should he care if she was anywhere near his daughter? “I didn’t know she would be here,” she said, breaking his grip and rubbing at the aching joint. “Even if I did, what does it matter? I came here for another purpose. Remember?”

He glared down the long beak of his nose at her. “How dare you take that tone with me. You would do well to remember your place. I hold your life in my hands, and I will not tolerate such base-born insolence. You would do well,
Miss Fenwick
, to remember your place and just how temporary it is.”

His odd, seething rage did more than alarm her, it frightened her, because it was obvious that he hated her.

And not because she was a smuggler or an impostor.

There was more to it.

But what? She’d offered him the means to save his career, and yet his every word, his every look and nuance since he’d entered Hatchards and found her in the company of his daughter screamed that he detested her with a vehemence born of years of malice.

Not that she cared what the Lord Admiral thought of her. But this type of irrational hatred could lead a man to do anything, even break his word, of that she was sure.

Suddenly, trusting him didn’t seem such a good idea.

And she’d learned to listen when that little voice— the one like a soft banshee wail—called to her. She hadn’t survived all these years dealing with smugglers and thieves by ignoring these whispers of caution.

So when the Lord Admiral demanded to know where de Ryes was, she did the only thing she could.

She lied.

Again.

And it galled her more than she cared to admit.

“So if you were here to capture de Ryes, where is he?” the Lord Admiral demanded for a second time.

“He didn’t show,” she told him. “His note said he would be here, and he hasn’t arrived.” Then, as luck would have it, she spied the Lord Admiral’s hired help. “And who would blame the man, with half of Bow Street lounging about, just waiting to nab him? You’ve scared him off with that obvious lot of yours.”

“I’ll have you know they are the finest men for such a job,” he blustered.

“If they are, then why are they out in the open like that? Why, I can see nearly ten of them from here! Ten men to capture de Ryes?” She shook her head. “Loan me a pistol and a good dirk, pay me what you just wasted on this bunch, and I’ll bring him in on my own.”

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. “I do believe you to be the wittiest man in London.”

“And you, my dear lady,” Julien replied, “are the most discerning and elegant lady 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 plumage 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.