Jo Goodman (31 page)

She lunged toward the door but Severn blocked her with his hand. Instead of pushing her away, he grasped her upper arm and yanked her toward him. Mercedes fell across his lap and was caught between his body and one corner of the carriage. She raised her hands defensively. Had he been intent on hurting her she knew the gesture would have been useless.

Severn did not come any closer, however. He smiled instead, watching the play of emotion on her face. "I wonder if you're more angry or fearful," he said thoughtfully, without inflection. "No matter. I suppose before the day is out I'll give you cause to be both."

Chapter 9

In spite of his words Marcus Severn knew he did not have all day. Pity that, he thought as Mercedes's chin came up. She didn't have the good sense to cower. With time on his side he could have made something of the challenge.

"Where are you taking me?" Mercedes asked.

Severn's answer was to pull the blinds and block the view and the sunlight. The interior of the carriage was cloaked in dusky shadows. Slivers of summer sun cut through the gloom as the vehicle bounced on cobbled streets and the blinds were jarred. Each flash had the searing brightness of lightning, and twice Mercedes was blinded as she tried to stare him down. Severn's well-shaped mouth lifted at one corner and he tapped her lightly on the cheek, mocking her as if she were a child. His smile deepened when she raised her palm to cover the place where he had touched her. It pleased him to think she had felt his touch as a slap.

"We're going for a ride," he said. "Nothing more. Did you hope there would be?"

Mercedes's calves were lying across his lap. The poplin skirt was pushed almost to her knees by her tumble and now Severn's hand lay heavily across her stockinged legs. He kept it there without moving, but when he glanced down his eyes made the journey from her ankles to knees. Mercedes could not quell her shiver.

"You're very quiet," he said casually. "I suspect you're as surprised by my presence as I was by yours. Tattersall's is the last place I expected to see you. Does the captain not know about your fear of horses or does he just not care?" He looked back at her. "Never mind. It isn't important."

Mercedes tore her legs from his grasp and pushed her gown over her knees. She managed to elude him as she pushed out of her corner and swayed forward to the opposite bench. Twisting, she landed on the thickly padded cushions with her legs tucked modestly under her. Her eyes darted toward the carriage door then back to him.

"There's no need to throw yourself out," he said, amused. "Or do I mistake your thoughts? Perhaps I'm the one you wish to toss to the street. Either way, it would raise eyebrows. Do you really wish to call attention to yourself?"

"I wish to return to Tattersall's," she said.

He nodded. "In time. I promise I won't keep you long. I have no plan to steal you away from your captain, though the thought crossed my mind when I saw him standing beside the carriage. The two of you looked very intimate." One of Severn's brows was raised now. He managed to cover deep feeling with an expression of mild interest. "I wonder... is he crawling between your thighs at night?"

Mercedes paled but she said nothing.

"He'll only be here another three weeks," Severn said. "How will you manage when he's gone? I've made inquiries about the twins, you know. If Weybourne's body isn't found, or if he doesn't come forward, I may sue for guardianship of the boys. They're my cousins, after all, the same as yours. Our kinship may be more distant, but some people would consider it my duty to take them in hand."

"You couldn't," she said. To Mercedes's own ears she sounded panicked. She drew in a settling breath and repeated the words, more calmly this time. "You couldn't. I'll be granted custody. Everyone knows I've raised them."

"And soon... perhaps... everyone will know what a slut you are." He watched her fingers curl in her lap but they remained there. He noticed the line of her shoulders change as she slumped forward a little. Her chin lowered as if the effort to hold it up had suddenly become too great. "I see I have your attention."

"What do you want, Severn?" she asked dully.

"Tell me where Weybourne is."

Mercedes's head snapped up. It was the last request she had expected him to make. "I thought you believed he was dead."

"It's been three weeks. I'm realizing I should plan for any eventuality. If he's alive he would have come to one of us for help. He hasn't approached me; that means he went to you."

"You're wrong," she said. "He would never ask me for anything. He knows I'd go to the authorities."

"Would you?" asked Severn, watching her closely. "I wonder..."

"Believe anything you like," she said carelessly. "But I can't help you. Even at the risk of my own reputation."

Severn was thoughtful. A muscle worked in his sharply defined jaw. "Even at the risk of losing the twins?" he said after a moment.

Mercedes didn't answer immediately. She knew a little about bluffing, and it seemed to her that too quick a response would show her hand. Severn had to believe she meant what she said. "Even then," she said finally, heavily, as if the words had weight and were lifted from her with difficulty. "I can't help you."

Severn stared at her for a long time. His eyes darkened as his anger simmered, then boiled over. Without warning, his hand snaked across the distance that separated him from Mercedes. His fingers tightened on her wrist before she could pull it away. He hauled her effortlessly onto the seat beside him and pinned her in the corner, bracing his arms stiffly on either side of her shoulders. Severn leaned toward her until their mouths were almost touching. "This isn't settled," he said quietly, between tight lips.

Mercedes was careful not to recoil. "Why is it so important to you?"

"Can't you guess?" He lowered one of his hands and touched her cheek lightly with the back of his hand. His eyes roamed her face, studying her for a reaction.

"It's not because of me," she said.

"You don't place a high enough value on yourself."

Mercedes ignored that. "And it's not about the Park."

"Don't fool yourself into thinking I don't want the Park," he said.

"I don't think my uncle has been such a good friend to you," Mercedes said. There was a flicker in Severn's eyes and she knew she had finally hit upon it. "Has he betrayed you in some way, m'lord? Is that why you want to know where he is? So you can get some of your own back?"

Severn's hand left Mercedes's cheek and closed around her throat. He squeezed just enough to make her struggle for a breath. When she tried to pull away, he held her tight. "You would do well to keep your thoughts to yourself," he said.

It was an effort to speak. "You're going to mark my skin."

"Afraid the captain will see?"

"You should be."

He shook his head but his grip eased slightly. "That's the last thing I fear. Don't mistake me for Weybourne."

Mercedes recognized the truth there. Severn would welcome the opportunity to be rid of Colin Thorne, and there was no better way to initiate a challenge than through her. When Severn saw her at the market he had seized on a chance to set that in motion. He wanted to leave his mark on her and he wanted Colin to know that he'd done so. In any match against the Yankee, Marcus Severn was confident of his ability to emerge the victor.

Severn squeezed one more time, choking off Mercedes's half-formed response, then he removed his hand slowly, letting it drift across her bodice and fall into her lap. He covered her fingers with his palm. "I wonder what he'll make of that?" he asked idly.

Tapping the roof of the carriage again with his walking stick, Severn directed the driver back to Tattersall's. "Perhaps he won't have missed you," he said. "You may be on your way home before the bruises show."

Mercedes remained silent, giving him no easy excuse to touch her again. When they reached the horse market, Severn opened the shades and twisted the door handle. Almost as an afterthought—though Mercedes had come to learn that nothing Marcus Severn did was an afterthought—he bent forward and kissed her cheek.

"I'll look forward to hearing from your captain," he said, smiling openly now. "Good day, Sadie."

The interior of the carriage was warm. In spite of that, Mercedes shivered.

* * *

On the return to Weybourne Park, the twins slept on either side of Colin. Their fair heads rested against his arms like exquisitely matched bookends. As much as Mercedes would have liked to have them close to her, she appreciated the opportunity for her eyes to linger on them without fear they would chafe at the attention.

Britton and Brendan were quite exhausted. Colin had seen to that. Following his business at Tattersall's he took them to the riverfront and arranged for a tour of the
Remington Siren,
a clipper of the same line as his own
Mystic.
The twins' excitement was difficult to contain as they were given the freedom of the ship, but when Mercedes protested that they might get underfoot, Colin was unconcerned. He let them, one at a time, climb into the rigging with him while Mercedes stood on deck and tried not to imagine cracked skulls and tiny broken bodies.

Britton's appetite for knowledge was insatiable and Brendan always had a question to follow his brother's. Colin answered everything in clear and simple language so that even Mercedes, who knew much less than the boys, began to form a picture of the clipper's cutting edge through the water. There were jibs and halyards and topsails, staysails, and mainsails. There were masts and lines for all the sails and cross-wise beams called gaffs and yards and booms. It was a dizzying array of mechanical parts, of blocks and tackle, of rudders and wheels, all of it brought into a harmony of movement with the wind and water under the command of one man.

Mercedes looked at that man now. He was resting with his head leaning back against the plump leather upholstery, his strong neck exposed by the tilt of his chin. His eyes were closed but she knew he wasn't sleeping. There was still tension in the line of his jaw and none of the unguarded boyish expression she associated with the moments of his deepest sleep.

They had shared little conversation since Tattersall's. For much of the day Colin had been the teacher, directing answers to the boys and communicating to her through them. Even during dinner, which Colin had brought from a local tavern and served in the captain's cabin aboard the
Siren,
she was aware he had little to say to her. She wondered at what point Severn's prints on her throat had become visible and what Colin made of them.

Brendan's head lolled forward heavily and he sighed softly in his sleep. Colin drew up the boy's legs so they rested more comfortably on the seat and eased Brendan's head onto his lap.

"You're very good with them," Mercedes said. She had noticed it often enough, but it was especially true today when the twins were carried away with the excitement of a London adventure. Colin's command of them was so easy and effortless that they had no idea he kept them on a short leash. "They enjoy the attention you show them. I hope you—" She stopped short as Colin lowered his head and looked at her squarely, almost as if he knew the direction of her thoughts.

"Yes?" he drawled.

She may as well say it aloud. He knew she'd been thinking it. "I hope you don't mean to use them as a way to get to me."

"It occurred to me," he said. "Once."

"And now?" she asked softly.

Colin shrugged. "Now I like them better than you."

Mercedes felt herself being pinned back into her seat by his dark eyes. "I see," she said lowly.

"I doubt it." Colin ruffled Brendan's hair. The boy didn't stir. "I had brothers, not twins like this pair of young ruffians, but two of them just the same."

"You told me you have no family."

"And I told you the truth," he said. "I don't know where either of them is, and I haven't known for twenty years."

"Twenty years," she whispered, frowning. "But you would have only been Britton and Brendan's age then."

"About that. Decker was four years younger. Greydon was a babe in arms. They may be dead for all I know." In spite of his wish to say this last carelessly, his voice was quietly strained. "It was a long time ago."