Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (9 page)

      
Dusting off his pants, Alex chuckled. "Remember, I grew up in a large family with two little sisters and two elder ones. Believe me, I much preferred the younger ones," he added dryly.

      
"You mentioned before that you had sisters. Have you any brothers?" she asked, hungry for information about his American family.

      
"Alas for my poor parents, no. I am my father's sole male heir, a fact my mother loves to tease him about whenever he complains of my roguish proclivities."

      
"Like father, like son?" she ventured.

      
"In his day Devon Blackthorne cut quite a swath across the backcountry. His reputation as a brawler and rogue was legendary from the Muskogee towns all the way to Charleston. I am his penance—or so mother would have him believe."

      
"Mrs. Breem thinks you've come here to corrupt the children," she said with a chuckle.

      
He shrugged, raising his hands in mock guilt. "Caught out again. I was, in fact, enlisting them to snatch fat purses and gold watches for me in Mayfair."

      
"Their skills in that area need little sharpening, I fear. Most of them come from families where the law is an enemy and food and coal are scarce as violets in January."

      
"But you help them."

      
Joss blushed as he looked at her with frank admiration in his gaze. While his attention lacked the teasing charm and sexual magnetism he reserved for women to whom he was attracted, she knew he liked and admired her. "Yes, I do what I can, as do the others in the charity school movement. Education provides the only hope these children have to escape a life on the streets."

      
Alex grinned. "And who better to teach them than you?"

      
She fell in step beside him as they strolled around the schoolyard. "Well, I did learn to read when I was three, mastered Latin at seven and Greek by ten," she replied solemnly.

      
"Egad! You are a bluestocking indeed!"

      
"Caught out, too," she said with a sigh, then laughed. "What has brought you here today, Alex? We have a vacant position as schoolmaster for the older boys."

      
A look of extreme horror crossed his face; then he threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Me, a schoolmaster! As a lad my parents could scarce keep me at my books an hour a day. They'd relish the notion of me as a pedagogue. So would Mellie and Charity."

      
"Your elder sisters?" she ventured.

      
"Bookish wenches, both of them."

      
"So am I. 'Tis not a bad thing for a woman to love books," she said defensively.

      
"Ah, but you have a sense of humor, which they sadly lack."

      
"Are they still at home? Did you come to England to escape them?" she asked as she ushered him into the side door of the dilapidated frame building that housed the makeshift school.

      
"No, both are wed. Mellie's husband, Toby, has become indispensable to my father. He oversees a good portion of the shipping business in Savannah, leaving Papa free to spend more time in the Muskogee towns. He and Mama love to summer in the high country at Grandma Charity's place," he said with fond remembrance of childhood days past.

      
Joss offered him a seat on one of the small room's two rickety chairs, then set to preparing a pot of tea for them as he talked. Next door the children's voices seeped through the thin walls as they devoured lunch. "It's difficult to imagine an English lady living in the wilderness," she said.

      
"Equally difficult to imagine one teaching slum children their letters," he replied, accepting a chipped cup of tea, waving away the small scrap of sugar loaf she offered.

      
Joss was curious about his family. Sitting down, she said, "Lady Barbara must love your father very much."

      
His expression grew thoughtful. "As a child I never considered what she must have given up for Devon Blackthorne. We were all happy. And as Papa's inland trade and foreign shipping grew, we became prosperous. If Mama ever pined for England, she never indicated it in any way."

      
"It all sounds very romantic," Joss said with a small sigh that he did not hear.

      
Alex chuckled. "One never thinks of one's own parents that way, but I suppose it was true. What of your parents, Joss? Were they happy?"

      
"My parents gave up a great deal to marry. As the second son of an earl, Papa was expected to wed a woman of his class. The family didn't disown him for marrying a governess, although they made their displeasure known and ostracized her shamefully. He was expected to take a vicarage in the established church, which would have provided him and his wife a livable income. It was his conversion to Methodism that led to the final split with his family. But she held fast to him through terrible privations."

      
"What was she like?" Alex asked, touched by the poverty and hardship of her life.

      
"I know little. When I was only three she died of childbed fever after a breech birth. My brother Samuel died too. All I can remember is a soft voice singing hymns and lullabies."

      
"I'm sorry. It's difficult for me to imagine not being surrounded by family. Although I often complain of them, I do miss not having them about now and then."

      
"Surely not when you're having a streak of luck at the hazard tables," she teased. Her sad past did not bear dwelling upon.

      
"I confess I've found compensations here in the Great Wen that offset the temporary loss of my family, but I did receive a letter from home this morning. One of the reasons I came to visit you."

      
She paused with the cup halfway to her lips. "And what was the other reason, since I know you did not intend to volunteer tutorial assistance?"

      
He placed one hand over his heart theatrically. " 'Pon my honor, Miss Woodbridge, you do me grave injustice. Can't I simply wish the pleasure of your company? You're a refreshing tonic after three days of playing whist at Brooks with Drum and his chums."

      
"Thank you ... I think," Joss replied dryly. "You mentioned a letter from home. Not bad news, I hope?"

      
"Nothing ill's befallen my immediate family, no. It's the political situation that worries me. If war comes, I'll be forced to return home."

      
Joss paled. "Surely your president wouldn't declare war against his majesty's government while Britain has her back to the wall fighting that despicable Napoleon?" she said with righteous indignation.

      
Alex's expression grew uncharacteristically grim as he

considered how to explain the complexities of American politics. "Yes, from what my father writes, it's very possible."

      
"Over the Royal Navy's search of American ships and impressment of sailors? The French have seized as many American ships as has Britain," she protested.

      
'True, and war against Napoleon is a possibility as well. But freedom on the seas is only the smallest part of the problem. Most of the war pressure is internal, having more to do with Spain hemming in land-hungry American settlers to the west and south."

      
"And Spain is Britain's ally." She nodded in understanding. "With a declaration of war, the Americans could sweep down into the Floridas and west into Texas."

      
Alex grinned in spite of the gravity of the situation. "I should've realized a true bluestocking would understand geography as well as politics."

      
"Would you join the Americans and fight?" Joss asked, her fear for him written plainly on her face as she reached out and touched his coat sleeve.

      
"No, I would never do that. It would be a betrayal of my father's people."

      
"Now I truly don't understand," she replied.

      
"Since the days of the American war for independence, all the great Indian nations have been sympathetic to the Crown. What little protection they ever received from white squatters on their land came from the British government."

      
Joss understood European politics, but she knew little about the loose tribal organizations of wild red Indians. "What does your father think will happen now?"

      
"The situation is like a powder keg sitting next to a hearth. The British have sent ships into the gulf and have men garrisoned at various Spanish forts. They're sending agents to stir up anti-American feeling among the tribes. My father is afraid the Creek nation—of which the Muskogee are a part—may decide to join their old allies the British once again. Uncle Quint just returned from Washington to inform him that the western congressmen—war hawks they call them—are pushing hard for a fight."

      
Alex pulled the letter from his pocket to read his father's dire prognostication, but when he looked at Joss's pale, stricken face, he immediately reconsidered. Why worry her with events neither of them could prevent? Instead, he scanned down the pages to his mother's portion of the letter.

      
"If war breaks out, what will we do?" Joss said desolately.

      
He looked at her deadpan and pointed his finger as if it were a pistol. "Why, Miss Woodbridge, for the glory of my country I'd have to shoot you."

      
Joss stared at him for an instant, then started to laugh. He made her so happy.
Please, don't let a war separate us
.

      
Alex rustled the pages of the letter and said, "Let me read you the latest
on-dits
from Savannah. Mother writes that the French Brutus cut for gentlemen has been greeted with hooting in the public houses. The Georgia courts refuse to admit jurors sporting trousers. They must wear proper attire—knee breeches!"

      
"Just like Almacks," Joss said merrily, her good humor restored.

      
"Ah, here it is, the best of motherly advice." He cleared his throat, then read Barbara's bold sweeping script. " 'You must remember, Alexander, that you are your father's sole male heir. You have a duty to contract a suitable marriage, although I would be the last to stand as example for that, having been all but disowned for spurning a viscount for a man of mixed blood. Nevertheless' "—he paused for emphasis, rolling his eyes—" 'you surely will be able to find a young lady who will return your regard. Ask for her hand and bring her home posthaste to meet your family. We miss you ...' etc., etc., all the usual exhortations from a loving mother to her son. Can you imagine me wanting to settle down, Joss? I've just passed my twenty-second birthday. Papa was twenty-six when he wed."

      
"And you'd as soon best his record by waiting a few years more," Joss said with a smile.
But some day, Alex, you will find the suitable young lady who returns your regard .. . and how shall I bear it?

      
"I certainly will endeavor to break all records in avoiding leg-shackling. Why—"

      
He stopped midway, replacing the letter in his pocket as a low growl followed the sound of a loud shriek. The door to the small kitchen area where they sat swung open when the business end of a broom smashed against it. The old hag wielding the broom chased a bundle of brindle fur under the scarred pine table, then circled, jabbing wildly at the dog, who held a large ham bone clenched in his sturdy yellow teeth.

      
"Poc! What have you done?" Joss cried, standing up so abruptly she knocked over her chair and nearly went tumbling down with it.

      
" 'E's stolen me supper, that's whot th' sneak thievin' worthless rascal done. Bloody wretch—beggin' yer pardon, Miss Woodbridge," the crone added as she and the dog eyed each other warily. Poc showed no sign of letting go of his prize, no matter that his enemy looked fierce as a Sherwood game warden cornering a poacher. Her nose was bulbous, blazing beet-red above a sharkish mouth pulled wide in a grimace that revealed half a dozen rotted teeth.

      
At least the dog has her beaten if it comes down to a biting match,
Alex thought, then reconsidered. Her blackened gums were probably as hard as Toledo steel and her angular lantern jaw could snap a mastiff's neck. He stood up, reaching out to steady Joss when her skirts tangled on her overturned chair leg. Poc tried to make a run for it but the old woman, amazingly agile considering her age and girth, slammed the door shut, cutting off his only means of escape short of leaping through the window glass.

      
Recovering her balance, Joss stepped between Zelda Grim and her prey just as the cook's helper raised her broom to deliver the coup de grace to Poc, who hunkered against the door, clutching the bone in a death grip. If Alex had not seized the weapon from behind, Joss would have been brained along with the dog.

      
"Gor! Leave me be, ye bloody jackanapes," Zelda screeched, this time so enraged no apology was forthcoming for her profanity.

      
"I shall handle this, Zelda," Joss said. 'Tell me what happened."

      
" 'E stole me bone! It were left over 'n' I were goin' ta boil it with some greens fer me dinner. Then this 'ere 'eathen come sneakin' in 'n made a mighty leap up on th' stool by the washtub. Afore we knowed it, 'e was off with me bone," Zelda finished on a plaintive whine.

      
Joss looked down at the dog, who had come out of his hunkering crouch now that Alex had neutralized the threat from the broom. "Bad dog, Poc. You know it's wrong to steal." He looked singularly impenitent with his loot clamped firmly between his jaws.