The Light in the Darkness (28 page)

Tearing her gaze away from the girl, she said hastily, in an artificially low voice, “Ale, if you please.”

The girl, however, had noticed her fascinated stare.
“Anything else I can get ye, darling” she inquired huskily, leaning over so that Jennifer had a better view of her cleavage. Jennifer choked back a horrified giggle. Catherine was right. She should not have come here. She was sitting in a roomful of rowdy men, spying on her husband, and rebuffing a pass from a tavern wench. This was not a situation a true lady would have gotten herself into.

“Just the ale,” she said curtly.

The girl shrugged and walked away, her hips swaying in a blatantly sexual motion. Jennifer wondered if she herself would have been reduced to selling her sexual favors for cash if Grey had not married her. Certainly her uncle would not have passed up any opportunity to make money for long. At seventeen, she had been relatively innocent. Now, at eighteen, she knew what sex was and just how much men enjoyed it. And she also knew they were sometimes willing to pay for it.

Turning her attention back to the men, and putting down the pipe, which had gone out, she saw that the conversation had turned to politics. To her surprise, Grey was speaking. She had never thought he cared a whit for political issues.

“The Crown cares nothing for our well-being,” he drawled, apparently in answer to another man’s comment. “England limits us to producing nothing but raw materials and prohibits us from shipping our tobacco in any but English vessels. How many of us shipped with the Dutch until recently?”

There was a grumble of assent around the table.

“And now they have levied taxes on us, simply because England’s coffers were depleted during the late war with France. I say England does not have the right.”

“Treason, man. Treason!” objected one of the other men.

“Is it treason to object to taxation without any sort of representation?” Grey asked in a reasonable tone. “I don’t believe so. England cares nothing for the well-being of Virginia planters. If she did—”

He broke off abruptly as the door to the room opened
and an older man, perhaps forty-five or fifty, walked swiftly in. He had silver-gray hair, and rather strange light blue eyes. Despite his age he was decidedly handsome. He stopped short as he passed Grey’s table, and Jennifer looked around in confusion as the chamber suddenly became nearly silent.

“Greyson,” he snarled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Grey glanced up at him. Knowing her husband as she did, Jennifer rather expected him to leap to his feet and confront the man for his rude tone. Instead Grey remained seated, and his attitude and expression were strangely respectful.

“Good evening, Trev,” he said calmly.

“I’ve told you before,” the other man said in an aggressive tone, “to stay the hell out of Williamsburg.”

Grey shrugged. “You don’t own Williamsburg, Trev,” he said in a politely regretful voice.

“Get out of here.”

“I fear I cannot,” Grey said without any change of expression. “I’m discussing business with my friends here. Would you care to join us for an ale?”

“I’d sooner rot in hell,” the man he had called Trev growled.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Grey said softly.

Jennifer watched from the corner, bewildered. She had never seen Grey take such abuse from someone so calmly. In her experience, Grey had always been willing to fight, with words if not with fists. His cool acceptance of the other man’s ugly words was more than surprising, it was downright unprecedented.

Grey turned his attention back to his drink, apparently hoping the other man would pass the table and go away, but he did not. “You bloody bastard,” he said viciously, and Jennifer began to suspect that he had had some ale prior to coming here. In her experience men did not ordinarily act so aggressively unless they were drunk. “You goddamned inebriated fool. I want you out of here
now.
”

Jennifer saw Grey’s jaw tighten at the insults, but he did not stand to confront Trev, nor did he leave. He simply took another swig of his ale. The men at his table were beginning to look embarrassed, possibly because he was so unwilling to fight. The insults the other man had vented should have provoked any man, except the most cowardly, into a rage.

Jennifer did not think Grey was a coward. No, there was something else going on here, some undercurrent of which she was not yet aware. She watched the drama that was unfolding with fascination.

“Now, Trev,” one of the other men at the table said. “Why don’t you join us for a drink and forget everything you’ve said? Grey has as much right to be here as you do.”

The older man suddenly reached down and caught Grey by the front of his coat, hauling him upright. Due to Grey’s great size, it took a good deal of strength to perform such a feat. Obviously the older man was still in excellent condition, despite his age. He was tall, although it was evident that Grey stood two or three inches taller. The two men stood nose to nose, staring at each other. On Trev’s face was an expression of belligerence. Grey wore an expression of resignation.

“Now, Trev—” the man at the table began again, just before Trev’s fist slammed into Grey’s cheekbone.

Jennifer suppressed a yelp of shock and horror as Grey’s head was snapped to the side by the force of the other man’s blow. He staggered but did not fall. Looking into the other man’s eyes, he said patiently, as if explaining something to a small child, “Trev, I won’t fight you.
I won’t.
”

The second blow knocked him sprawling backward. He fell toward Jennifer’s table, collapsing in a heap nearly at her feet. Jennifer looked at the men, all of whom looked unbearably embarrassed, and she realized none of them was going to come to Grey’s defense. They all wore the uncomfortable expressions of men who were friends of both combatants and who could not choose sides.

But
she
could choose sides.

As Trev stepped forward, she came to her feet and strode past her husband, who was sitting up woozily and beginning to struggle to his feet. She stood in front of Trev and stared at him coolly. “Leave him alone,” she commanded.

Trev looked down at her with amusement. She was some nine inches shorter than he was, and the men’s clothing she wore did not disguise the fact that she was slender and not particularly well muscled. It was all too obvious that she was no threat to him. “Out of my way, stripling,” he said, pushing her aside.

Jennifer caught his arm with all her strength and managed to shove him off balance. He staggered back, facing her, and his amused expression faded. Instead he looked irritated by what he must have thought was a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy interfering in a tavern fight. He stepped forward, a menacing expression on his face.

She really had no choice. She was not going to permit this man to hone his fighting skills on her husband. Pulling her knife from her pocket, she held it easily in front of her. “I said leave him alone,” she said quietly.

Trev stared at her, and at the knife held expertly in her hand, in startled disbelief. Then he looked over her head at something behind her.

“Hiding behind children again, I see, Greyson,” he snarled contemptuously. “I’m not afraid of your little bodyguard, but you—you simply aren’t worth the trouble, you son of a bitch.” He turned his back on them both, the arrogant set of his shoulders eloquently conveying the scorn he felt, and strode out the door.

Jennifer turned to see that Grey had regained his feet and was towering over her, looking down at her in puzzlement. “Have we met?” he inquired.

She dared to glance up into his face, seeing the beginnings of a bruise on his left cheekbone and an eye that would become black shortly, then averted her eyes hastily, lest he recognize her. “I’ll explain later,” she said shortly.
“Right now we’re going to leave.” She strode off across the room, and Grey followed her, more out of curiosity than because he felt any need to obey her commands.

“Are you staying here at the Raleigh?” she inquired, taking care to keep her voice in an artificially low register, as they stepped out of the room together.

Grey nodded.

“Good. Then take me to your chamber. That bruise should be taken care of at once.”

Slightly amused by the way this slim youth was daring to command him, he led her up the narrow stairs. When traveling, most men slept in common chambers that they shared with several other men. Grey, however, preferred a private room. He had paid the innkeeper sufficient coin to guarantee that he would not have to listen to another man’s snoring.

“Sit down,” she commanded once they were inside his room and he had lit a candle.

Grey eyed her with amusement in the flickering light and did not sit down. “Who are you?” he repeated. “You look familiar somehow, but I don’t recall that we’ve met.”

“We’ve met,” she said curtly.

“Indeed. What is your name?”

Jennifer wet a cloth with the pitcher of water on the washstand. “I don’t wish to tell you. Sit down so that I can tend to your bruises.”

Grey stubbornly refused to sit. He did not take orders from fifteen-year-old boys. “You have already admitted that we’ve met. What possible harm could it do to remind me of your name, so that I can thank you for what you did in there?”

“I don’t see why you should thank me,” she said sharply.

“You were perfectly capable of defending yourself against that man. Truly, I don’t understand why you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t. He was once my friend. And my father-in-law.”

Jennifer turned around and stared at him, so startled by this revelation that she forgot to keep her eyes averted. That vitriolic, angry man had been Diana’s father. That explained
why his odd blue eyes had looked so familiar. Jennifer had looked at the portrait of Diana frequently enough to remember that she had ice blue eyes.

“You seem surprised” Grey observed, seeing the way her eyes widened in shock. He could not see the color of the youths eyes in the dim light, yet something about those wide, dark eyes was strangely familiar. It only reinforced his earlier certainty that he had met this boy before.

Jennifer swallowed. At this point, if he realized who she was he was likely to kill her, just as Catherine had predicted. She wished that she had listened to Catherine and never embarked upon this ridiculous adventure.

“I have to go,” she said faintly, dropping the cloth and hastening toward the door.

Grey caught her arm easily. “I want to know your name before you go.”

“Let go of me!” she protested, trying to wrench loose from his grasp.

Suddenly Grey’s expression darkened. She was not strong enough to be male. Her impotent efforts to escape made that quite clear. And her voice had drifted up into a higher register with anger. To confirm his impossible suspicion, he caught her chin between his fingers and cruelly forced her head up.

A pair of unmistakable green eyes, blazing with fury, glared up into his own.

He yanked off her tricorne and the bobwig, revealing her dark golden hair. His expression was slowly becoming murderous, just as Jennifer had feared. “What the hell are
you
doing here?” he bit out, still holding her wrist to prevent escape.

Desperate to get away from him, Jennifer aimed a kick at his shin. Grey yelped as her leather-clad toe made contact with his leg, but he did not let go, only tightened his grip with fury. “Sit down!” he snapped, pushing her down into a chair. Spinning on his heel, he bolted the door.

When he turned back his expression was still that of a snarling wolf. “And now,” he said in a cool voice that belied
the fury burning in his eyes, “you are going to explain to me exactly what you are doing in Williamsburg. And why you are dressed like a boy. And exactly what the hell you were doing in the Apollo Room, of all places.”

Jennifer swallowed nervously, then raised her eyes to his and confessed the truth. “I was looking for you.”

“Why?”

His tone was not in the least encouraging, but Jennifer stumbled on. “Well, Catherine said—that is, she thought—well, we understood that you were here to look for a—a lightskirts, if you will—”

“You thought I came to Williamsburg to look for a mistress?”

Jennifer nodded miserably. “And I was going to stop you.”

Grey ignored the odd sensation he felt at the realization that she cared whether or not he had a mistress. His anger drained away abruptly. “And how,” he drawled with sardonic amusement, “did you plan to do that?”

“I thought I would follow you—”

“Spy on me, you mean.”

“That … is one way of looking at it,” Jennifer admitted. “And then, if you picked out a mistress, I would stop you.”

“How?” Grey inquired. “By pulling a knife on her?”

The thought was so absurd that Jennifer had to suppress her smile. “I suppose that might have worked. Actually,” she admitted in embarrassment, “I didn’t have a specific plan.”

Grey looked at her down-bent head. She had been jealous, jealous enough to make her follow him to Williamsburg, and for some reason the thought filled him with pleasure. She cared enough about him to be distressed at the notion that he was looking for a mistress. No one had cared about him that much for a long time. He knew he should be angry with her, but he could not bring himself to be so much as annoyed. She
cared
about him.

“Jennifer,” he said at last, in an unusually gentle tone, “I was not here to look for a mistress.”

Her head snapped up. “Really?”

“Really,” he confirmed. I can see why Catherine made that assumption, because the fact is that I have come here before for purposes of, er, diversion, but the truth is simply that I …”

He broke off and managed to look embarrassed. “I came to Williamsburg to find you a Christmas present,” he told her.

“A what?” Jennifer uttered, looking at him as though he had gone mad.

“You went to a lot of trouble to write that piece of music for me,” Grey explained in a rush, “and I decided I should get you something. I haven’t been able to get to Williamsburg before now, since you ladies have been so wrapped up in the plans for that damned rout. But this morning I decided I should come here and find you your present.” He looked unbearably embarrassed. It was obvious that he hated being caught in a kindness. Jennifer almost laughed at his expression.