Brazen Temptress (6 page)

Maureen's hand slid to her knife. She could see other members of the crew moving toward their weapons as well.

"And how would you know this?" her father asked.

"Because I was searched by the man-of-war that was supposed to be guarding that merchantman two days ago, and lucky for you I speak enough Portuguese to send its captain hunting for you and your crew in the wrong direction." He paused, his once welcoming green eyes shifting to cold stone. "The way I see it, you owe me a favor, Captain Hawthorne. A big one."

Her father studied the man below him and then turned in her direction. "What say you, Reenie? Do we let him on board and hear him out, or do we fight our way out of this?"

She should have told him to blow the bastard out of the water, but she glanced back down at the man in the longboat, and his gaze met hers.

He smiled at her, only slightly, but the kind that hinted he would like to come aboard if only to meet her.

In that moment she was charmed, and trapped. She didn't want him anywhere near her, for his presence unsettled something inside her she'd never known she possessed. Still, all she could do was nod her assent to her father and stand back as her destiny climbed aboard the
Forgotten Lady.

Almack's
1813

Julien's heart hammered in his chest.

Maureen at Almack's, let alone alive.
How could this be?

He all but forgot the clutch of enthralled misses encircling him in adoration. He forgot Lady Jersey at his side. He automatically moved toward Maureen, following his heart to where she stood poised at the entrance of the Assembly Rooms.

Yet even as his foot itched to take another step, he stopped himself.

What the hell was he thinking?

He couldn't approach her — not unless he wanted to find himself gutted and hanging from the nearest lamppost before the night's end.

While first all he saw was the brassy, willful girl he'd fallen in love with all those years ago, he looked again and found that time had touched what his memories held dear. She was still breathtakingly beautiful, but then, nothing could have ever marred that.

Her raven hair, her wild Celtic features — even trapped as they were in the confines of fashion — made the surrounding society misses seem more mousy, more plain than they had moments ago. Her body had grown and changed, taking on fuller lines, giving her movements a maturity and sureness that made every other young innocent in the room look like a nervous filly.

But then again, she wasn't a young girl anymore, or even innocent. He'd seen to that.

He turned his back to the damning evidence from his past.

How could it be that after all this time, all these years, she was the only woman in the world he'd ever wanted and at the same time be the very one who could bring about his complete ruin?

Still, he couldn't help himself; he glanced back in her direction.

"Who has caught your notice, Julien?" Lady Jersey asked.

"My what?" he said, looking toward the patroness.

"Your attention, my dear. Am I to assume that our late arrival is your newest lady love?" she said with a nod toward the steps. "I should have known. She appears quite enchanting. And she's rich as well, if the rumors are true. Yes, I do believe I've found your next scandal."

Julien knew he needed to divert the lady's focus immediately. The last thing he needed was Lady Jersey's tongue wagging the next day, making her titillating speculations in every fashionable salon, parlor and morning room in London as to Julien's interest in Maureen.

"Hardly," he shuddered, gathering up his best Corinthian disdain. "She looks to me to be at her last prayers. And rich? Doubtful. That dress hasn't been in fashion for ages. Why, if I was to venture a guess, I'd say she must be coming on the tenth anniversary of her first Season. Wouldn't you, ladies?"

The girls around him laughed maliciously, delighted to discover that the beautiful and unknown newcomer held little interest to one of London's most discerning rakes. Especially if she was as rich as the knowledgeable patroness intimated.

Beside him, Lady Jersey didn't appear so convinced. "Are you sure you aren't confusing the young lady with her companion?" she said, tapping her fan to her chin. "I do believe that must be Lady Mary Johnston, though I've never met her. Lady Cowper mentioned the Lord Admiral had twisted her arm to grant Lady Mary and her goddaughter vouchers."

"The Lord Admiral, you say," Julien commented, arching one brow, all the while feeling his mouth suddenly going dry. "Whatever would he want with such an ill-favored girl?" He waggled his eyebrows at his young audience. "Perhaps he is looking for a stepmother to keep his dear Eustacia in line," he said, referring to the Lord Admiral's daughter, who'd recently made her entrance into society. Beautiful, well-mannered, and spoiled beyond repute, she was quickly becoming the Season's newest toast, especially considering she was in line to inherit her father's barony and rich Kent estates.

The girls all laughed at his comment. Julien could tell none of them liked the Admiral's daughter. With her perfect manners and haughty ways, he suspected, Eustacia Cottwell had few bosom-bows.

"Julien, you are too wicked," Lady Jersey said, drawing the conversation back. "The Lord Admiral remarrying some chit of unknown breeding? Why, it is preposterous. No, it is as I've heard. A favor to an old shipmate. Her father, a naval hero or some such nonsense, brought home a pile in prize money, then up and died and left the girl a fortune. No matter. She has no family connections — even with Lady Mary's patronage, she will be considered by most as little better than a chit."

The lady and the girls around him nodded knowingly. Money was one thing, but breeding and lineage, they were everything.

Even as Lady Jersey continued to supply him with the information he needed, Maureen confirmed his worst fears by her actions.

First she spoke to the older woman at her right, Lady Mary, who in turn nodded her head across the room. Maureen's gaze followed the woman's gesture until her searching stopped with an almost imperceptible flinch.

Julien swung nonchalantly around and found her gaze resting on no less than the Lord Admiral himself.

The Lord Admiral championing Maureen? Maureen, a long-lost heiress? Indeed.

Maureen taking her place in society was about as likely as him heeding his sisters' advice and settling down and getting married.

Looking across the room, it suddenly hit him: If Maureen was still alive, that meant they were still married.

Married.
Wouldn't his sisters find that amusing — that is, once they got done scolding him for hiding the fact that he had been secretly wed all these years.

Julien took a deep breath, this time to clear his head. Turning on one heel, he put his back to his long-lost
wife
and uttered a quick apology to his young admirers.

"So am I correct?" Lady Jersey asked, her fingers winding around Julien's arm. "That this is the one you have designs for."

"No, not at all. I've other plans for tonight." He bowed to the circle of girls and then to Lady Jersey before taking his leave. Slowly, he circled the room, careful to keep himself out of Maureen's line of vision.

No easy task, he knew, considering she could spot a sail on the horizon long before a lookout did.

Still, as he made his way through the Wednesday night gathering, he tried to tell himself that this was all an uncanny coincidence, a wry twist of fate.

Yet there the Lord Admiral was, now having crossed the room to greet Maureen, bowing over her gloved hand, bidding her welcome to London's inner sanctum. His beefy arm swept wide over the crowd as if to offer her the pick of the
ton,
the gold braid and buttons on his sleeve glinting in the candlelight.

Oh, she was there to pick all right. Pick the one man only Maureen Hawthorne de Ryes could identify for the Admiralty.

But Julien D'Artiers hadn't taken his place among London's finest simply because of his sisters' connections, nor through his charm or his rakish antics. He'd gained his social standing through a cunning and calculated course.

The same skills he'd now use to ferret out Maureen's true reasons for allying herself with the Lord Admiral.

Still, it was a sight, he mused as he watched the old sea dragon fawn over her as if she were the daughter of a duke. And as the evening progressed, Julien came to the only possible conclusions for the Lord Admiral and Maureen's unlikely alliance.

She hadn't forgotten him. Or forgiven him.

"I thought he'd never leave your side," a deep, familiar voice whispered in Maureen's ear as she gazed at the departing back of the Lord Admiral. "Shall we dance?"

Before she could protest, the man who seemed to have miraculously appeared at her side took her hand and led her out onto the middle of the crowded dance floor.

He spun her around so she faced him, and her breath caught in her throat.

De Ryes.

She opened her mouth to call out his name, to betray him, but at the same moment the music swelled to life and drowned out the words that were already dying in her throat.

With a polite, wry smile — the type one expected from a polished rake — he took her hand in his and began to lead her through the complicated steps.

That smile, the flash of white teeth, the teasing glimmer in his eyes, and the roguish turn of his lips caught her heart unawares.

Her mind might be screaming his name for all to hear, but her heart stopped her tongue.

As the music continued he said nothing more, though his gaze never left hers, following her as if he expected her to vanish at any moment.

She kept the same close watch on him.

To her discerning eye he looked different and the same, and she didn't know which she distrusted more — the newly acquired haughty demeanor or the vague hint of boyish charm that clung to the edges of his veneer.

His rich chestnut hair still gleamed, though instead of his pirate's queue, he now wore it trimmed fashionably short. The only other change was a smattering of gray starting to take hold at his temples.

He looked almost tame in his fancy clothes and stylish manners, but she didn't let that fool her for one second. He still moved through the waters like a shark, with intent and grace and wile.

As she turned and whirled through the maze of dancers, she came face to face with him again, only to discover she found him as handsome as she had the first day she'd met him.

"Have we met, Miss ..." he asked politely.

"Miss Fenwick," she told him, providing the name the Lord Admiral insisted she use in public. He'd said he didn't want to risk anyone making a connection between her and a recently convicted smuggler.

"Well, Miss Fenwick, may I say you look vaguely familiar."

"Stow it," she whispered as she moved past his shoulder. "Did you think I would forget you?"

"Well, yes, I assumed you had," he said, his voice taking on that lazy drawl she'd once found so spine-tingling. "But then again, I thought you were dead."

"That would have been quite convenient for you," she told him. Even as she said it, she would have sworn de Ryes almost missed a step, but he covered it quite well.

When next they crossed paths in the course of the dance, it was his turn to whisper in her ear. "I never thought of your death as convenient, Reenie. Even when I thought you lost, I never stopped loving you."

Reenie.
Her father's nickname for her. She hadn't been called that since — well, since forever. He and de Ryes were the only ones who'd ever used that lost and beloved name.

Hearing it again almost drowned out the rest of his statement.

I never stopped loving you.

In that moment she felt herself falling prey to the same wild rush that had raced through her the first time he'd said those words to her. Oh, she'd believed him then, believed him with all her heart.

That was then.

Obviously, the man still had no shame. He'd never loved her. Never. He'd used her, her father, their ship, their crew, everything they valued to gain his own means.

And then he'd cast her away like rotting flotsam.

How dare he think his overplayed charm would save his neck now!

"I'm not the same green girl you chiseled with your sweet words and lies," she told him. "I'm here to see you hang."

"Hang?" He shook his head. "Now,
that
would be inconvenient."

His grin flashed only for her, and it struck at her traitorous heart.

Damn, why does he have to still be so handsome?
His hand cradled her elbow as he led her through the set, the warmth of his fingers coiling into her flesh like the same treasonous tendrils creeping around her heart.

Well, at least he'll look good enough hanging from a rope, she told herself, suddenly finding she needed more reasons to see him dead. "You've made quite a name for yourself since we last met," she managed to say.

He shrugged.

"Piracy, thievery, some might even say treason," she said lightly.

His eyes narrowed. "Be careful, Reenie. Have you forgotten there is a war on? There is always extra room at a hanging for one more pirate."

"Ah, yes, the war," she said. "Then they should have room to hang you twice. Once for piracy and a second time for spying. That is why you are here, isn't it? To spy?"

His hand closed around her arm with all the strength of a man used to the hard labors of the sea. He might be dressed in the frippery of a dandy, but the man underneath remained an untamed creature of the sea. "You would do well, madame, to hold your tongue."

"I've every right to see you get what you deserve," she shot back, freeing her arm with a quick twist. "And I vow I'll see justice done."

"Justice can be rather fickle these days," he told her. "Take your Lord Admiral, for instance."

She swung her gaze up. How did he know about the Lord Admiral? "I haven't the vaguest notion as to what you mean," she bluffed, using the same words and tone she'd heard Lady Mary use with a merchant who'd arrived to dun her for the unpaid grocery accounts.