Desire and Deception (3 page)

When the captain took a step toward her, she put out a hand as if to fend him off. That checked him for a moment. "Sutter, find her something to sit on before she faints."

"Aye,
Cap'm
."

"No!" Lauren said wildly as she came up against the railing. Glancing desperately over her shoulder, she spied the
gangport
. "I'm sorry . . . to have troubled you."

She saw Jason Stuart moving toward her again and choked back a cry of panic. Without waiting for him to reach her, she turned and fled down the gangway, praying that the shadows would swallow her up.
Dear God, how had she managed to find one of the two men in London she wished most to avoid?

Soon she was running again through the darkened streets of the city, this time driven by more than fear. She had been truly shocked to learn the captain's identity. It didn't seem possible that the fates could be so unkind.

Three weeks ago the name of Jason Stuart had meant nothing to her; she hadn't even known of his existence. Neither had she realized how truly dangerous her situation was . . .

An argument could have been made that she herself was to blame for her present predicament. Perhaps she
should
have known better than to agree when George Burroughs offered her a home at Carlin House. But she'd only been twelve years old at the
time,
and alone in the world. And the six months she'd spent at the parish workhouse—where she'd been taken after her mother's death—had been horrifying. It wasn't the cold and hunger or the backbreaking work she found so hard to bear; in truth, she had been used to little better. It wasn't even the beatings. It was the way she'd been punished for breaking rules she hadn't even been aware
of. . .
locked in the root cellar despite her pleas and screams . . . left there in that awful blackness till her terror was so great she'd lapsed into merciful unconsciousness . . . She would have done anything to escape that. And George Burroughs had offered her a way. In return, she was to help him save the shipping line her father, Jonathan Carlin, had built.

She had never known her father, nor wanted to. She could never forgive him for what he'd done to her mother. Lauren hadn't been born on the wrong side of the blanket precisely; the blanket had slipped. Jonathan Carlin had married her beautiful, frail mother in a sham wedding ceremony—a common sport of wealthy young bucks at the time—and then abandoned Elizabeth
DeVries
, leaving her to face the shame of bearing an illegitimate child and the misery of constant and grinding poverty.

How terrible those final days of her mother's life had been: the pale face ravaged by hardship and illness, the thin form wracked by fever and pain. Though only a child, Lauren had continued to take in washing and mending as her mother had done, but the pittance she earned couldn't pay for the medicine Elizabeth so desperately needed to ease her suffering.

Lauren still clenched her fists whenever she remembered her helplessness; somehow that had been harder to bear than even grief and loneliness. Even as young as she'd been, she had vowed never to know such poverty again, and her time in the parish workhouse had only strengthened that vow.
That
was why she had been willing to listen to George Burroughs's strange proposition.

He'd revealed that for some years he had been a partner
in
her father's shipping firm, and that Jonathan
Carlin
had married again shortly after abandoning her mother. Jonathan had wed Burroughs's sister, Mary—legitimately this time—
and a child had been born to the couple, a daughter, scarcely six months after Lauren's birth to Elizabeth. The child had been named Andrea. But ten years later tragedy struck.

Burroughs had not gone into detail, but he'd told Lauren that Jonathan and Mary had been murdered by pirates, and Andrea tortured and left for dead. Though the child recovered physically, she was never the same mentally. Still, as Jonathan Carlin's daughter, she had inherited his tremendous wealth.

Burroughs, as her uncle, had taken over her guardianship and continued to run the Carlin Line. But the following year Andrea had succumbed to pneumonia, and so he had sought Lauren out.

She would come to live at Carlin House, which overlooked the sea atop the craggy cliffs of Cornwall, and live in the manner that Jonathan Carlin's daughter
ought
. . .
so long as she pretended to be Andrea. There should be no problem in getting away with the impersonation. There was only one person who might know the difference—Jonathan's sister, Regina Carlin, who stood to take over the Carlin Line should it become known that Andrea was dead. Regina had never liked Andrea; indeed, she had labeled her niece a lunatic and tried to have her committed to Bedlam. But Burroughs was determined to protect his ward, just as he was determined to keep control of the shipping line out of Regina's hands. He had forbidden Regina access to Carlin House and hired men to see that she was kept out—so there should be no problem with her, he said.

And after all, Lauren and Andrea
had
been half sisters . . . only six months apart . . . both with fair curling hair, green- gold eyes, and delicate features promising great beauty. The only remarkable difference was Andrea's mental
instabil
ity ..
.
New servants would be brought in. No one but Lauren and
himself
and her governess would know the truth.

Nor would the impersonation last forever, Burroughs promised. She could have her independence when she reached her majority, as well as a share in the Carlin Line. Burroughs had said that half the ships were rightfully hers, and in a way, Lauren agreed; had her parents' marriage been real, she would have legally inherited Jonathan Carlin's entire fortune.

And Lauren had only to remember her last night in the root cellar to make up her mind. She agreed.

Her new life at Carlin House wasn't quite what she had expected. She rarely saw Burroughs, since he resided in London, and she wasn't allowed to associate with the servants. There was only Miss Foster, who was cold and unfeeling, like the granite of the cliffs. She did see her father for the first
time
. . .
in the portrait that hung in the gallery. She had studied that handsome face, searching for some trace of the cruelty that had hurt her mother so, and was surprised when she couldn't find it.

But, except for the loneliness, her life wasn't a bad one. She was given an education befitting the heiress to the Carlin shipping empire, and all the material comforts even a princess could want. New gowns and shawls and slippers . . . Her half sister's jewel box was hers, the lovely lockets and pins, the ring Andrea had always worn. Miss Foster insisted that Lauren wear the ring, and also insisted on calling her "Andrea", even if they were alone, as did Burroughs.

By far the most frustrating part of having assumed her half sister's identity, though, was that she was forbidden to go beyond the house grounds. Early on, Lauren had realized that the unsmiling men who were charged with protecting her from Regina were also there to keep her in.

Yet it hadn't taken her long to devise ways to slip past her constant guards and escape to the wild, gorse-dotted cliffs with their rocky paths down to the sea. Miss Foster slept soundly, thank heaven, and whenever there was no telltale moon to reveal her presence to the patrols, Lauren would climb down the tree outside her window and set out for the cliffs and a few blessed hours of freedom.

That was how she had met Matthew
MacGregor
. Three months before her sixteenth birthday, on one of her nightly ventures, she had caught him in the act of stashing contraband silk and brandy in the caves below Carlin House. By all rights, he should have slit her throat when he'd found her hiding among the rocks, since her knowledge could have sent him to the gallows. But he had befriended her instead, saying she reminded him of the daughter he had lost. And after living in seclusion for so long with only a grim governess for companionship, Lauren had latched on to him like a barnacle, gratefully welcoming their odd friendship, which had grown steadily over the next year.

It had
only been a month ago that she had gone out to meet him and heard voices above her on the
clifftop
—an indistinct murmur above the rumble of the surf.

Warily, Lauren had crouched down among the shadows and pulled the hood of her woolen cloak well forward. She knew her hair would reflect the faintest light. "Bright as a beacon," Matthew always said about her golden tresses, warning her that in moonlight her hair glowed like a lantern.

The voices above grew louder, filling Lauren with unease. An argument seemed to be taking place, and although the stiff
seawind
whipped away the exact words, one of the voices sounded oddly as if it belonged to a woman—a frightened woman. Lauren frowned. She could think of no female but herself who would venture so near the cliffs at night.

Then her legs began to cramp from stooping for so long. She was cautiously trying to shift her tall frame into a more comfortable position when the quarrel above her suddenly erupted into a full-fledged scuffle. A muffled grunt was flung down by the wind, followed by a low curse and the rasp of dirt and pebbles falling over the cliffs edge. The next instant, a terrified scream rent the night air.

Lauren jumped, turning her head in time to glimpse a giant fluttering bat plummet past her in the darkness. She froze, her skin crawling as the
scream echoed eerily off
the cliff rocks.

It was a long while before she dared inch her way forward to scan the cliff above her head. Seeing nothing, she peered down. She couldn't make out anything on the rocks below, but she knew no one could have survived such a fall.

Her heart pounding as violently as the surf below, Lauren left her hiding place to scramble over the slippery granite, her breath coming harder as she negotiated the treacherous cliff path mainly by feel. When she reached the bottom, she unconsciously slowed, dreading what she would find. She climbed over the last rocky barrier,
then
halted abruptly, staring in horror.

Her governess Miss Foster lay there, her
body twisted at an awkward angle, her mouth open
in a silent scream. A heavy woolen shawl was draped over one shoulder, while spray from the crashing waves had wet her skin, making her mannish face shine in the darkness.

Lauren swayed, feeling sick. There was something vaguely obscene about the way Miss Foster's black bombazine skirts were spread over the rocks, as if she had neatly arranged them before sitting down to the tea table.

Nausea churning in her stomach, Lauren turned away, stumbling blindly over the rocks, desperately needing to get away.

When a shadow rose up before her, she screamed—and would have screamed again, except that a broad, calloused hand clamped over her mouth, preventing her from uttering a second.

"Hush, lass," Matthew hissed in her ear. "Do ye mean to bring all
yer
guardian's
culls down on us?"

Hearing that familiar brogue, Lauren flung herself into Matthew's arms and sobbed against his shoulder. "Matthew . . . she . . . she . . ."

"Aye, I heard the scream." After a moment, he gently disengaged himself from Lauren's deathlike grip. "Stay here, lass. I must look."

In a moment he was back, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Matthew," Lauren said hoarsely, the normal huskiness of her voice deepened by horror, "Miss Foster's
fall
. . .
it wasn't an accident. Someone pushed her. I heard voices up on the cliff just before it happened."

"Aye," he growled, "someone pushed her.
And I
wouldna
doubt that ye were the mark."