Julia London (34 page)

“You will not, under any circumstance, call on my
wife
, Mr. Carrey. Now leave!”

With a final look at Abbey, Galen walked out the door.

The silence in the wake of Galen’s departure was almost deafening. Abbey touched Michael’s sleeve, but he reacted by moving away from her. Her soft gasp did not daunt him as he turned, his roiling emotions masked beneath an expression of stone.

“You lied to me. I asked you who he was. You said he was a deckhand aboard the
Dancing Maiden
, not your kissing cousin.”

A shot of fear and remorse rumbled through Abbey. Michael’s granite eyes blatantly searched her face. “I did not lie to you, I just did not—”

“Tell me the truth?”

Abbey winced, realizing how horrible it all seemed. “I could not tell you then,” she blurted. “He was embarrassed because …” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she recognized the deep hole she was digging for herself. She needed to
think
, to gather her wits so she could explain everything coherently.

“You were saying,
little one
?” he spat. “He was embarrassed to present himself to me? Why? Because it was exceedingly bad form to do so before he defrauded me?”

“No, no,” Abbey replied hoarsely. “He … did not have a post,” she said lamely as her mind raced. Terribly shaken by her father’s latest betrayal and Michael’s anger, she felt completely inept to explain. Obviously, her responses were not easing him in the slightest. If it was possible for a man’s face to harden any more, Michael’s did.

“I suppose his
correspondence
was quite illuminating on that front,” he said in a low voice. Before she could respond, he pivoted away from her. “I think you should retire to your rooms.”

Panicked, Abbey debated how to explain to him. God, she was
so
confused! She could mess it all up, much worse than she already had. But she could not leave it like this. Against her better judgment, she took a step forward. “Michael, please listen to me! Galen didn’t tell me about the other will. He said only that he was expecting some important news, a
post
on a merchant vessel! He was reluctant to present himself because he felt … 
inadequate,”
she blurted. “I honored his request—for God’s sake, he is my
cousin
!”

“That,” Michael drawled icily, “is a fact you should have mentioned when I asked you.”

He stalked to the sideboard and poured a whiskey as Abbey stared at his back. He did not believe her. Dear God, he did not believe her. She closed her eyes and quickly, painfully, decided that until she had collected her wits and could think, she was doing more harm than good.

“You are upset, and so am I. It’s extraordinary news, for both of us,” she heard herself saying.

Michael glanced over his shoulder at her with a look of disdain that made her flush.

“I would rather wait until we can both discuss it rationally,” she said with a croak, and pivoting on her heel, walked unsteadily to the door. She paused at the threshold to glance at Michael’s rigid back before fleeing upstairs to the sanctity of her room.

Michael stared at the window, gripping the whiskey glass with all his strength as his emotions warred. It did not occur to him even once that Galen Carrey could be telling the truth; it was simply too preposterous. All he could think was that Abbey’s eyes did not lie.
She
did not lie, goddammit!

But she had lied to him in the cove.

And she purposely had not told him of Galen’s correspondence. Bloody hell, could she have done this to him? Could she have participated in a scheme with her cousin to embezzle him? Could she have perpetuated such a lie over the last months? Standing in the middle of the room, he weighed the fantastic thought. He recalled every conversation, every night spent in his massive bed, every stroll about Blessing Park, every single meal. And not once, not once had she shown him anything but genuine esteem and affection. Not once had her story changed.

No, it simply could not be true.

He moved stiffly to a chair and sat heavily, staring into the amber liquid he swirled in the glass.

It
could
be true.

Could he have been so wrong about her? Could she have played him so completely false? Could he have mistaken her response in his bed or the look in her violet eyes every time their gazes met? Bloody hell, she had professed to love him! Oh, and he had fallen for that like a stone sinks to the bottom of the river. For Chrissakes, he had never, in all his thirty-one years, been a victim of a woman’s charms. Not once! Was it possible he could have been so completely unguarded this time?

It was definitely possible.

He recalled with some bitterness the night she had realized Carrington had lied to her. She could not have manufactured her devastation. Or was she as fine an actress as one would hope to find on Drury Lane?

Michael shifted his gaze from the glass he held to the table where the will lay next to some cuff links. He sat forward, reached across the table to pick up one of the links, and examined it closely. As he replaced it, his eye caught the doll
sprawled haphazardly across a chair near the window. The toy struck a faint chord in him. He stared at it, blinking, until it registered. In two strides, he was at the chair.

The moment he picked it up, he knew unequivocally that Galen Carrey was a fraud. The doll was a copy of one Abbey had carried more than ten years ago. How could he forget the little gingham dress he had torn? He lifted the skirt of the curly-headed doll. It had bloomers, just like the ones he had ripped apart to make knee britches.

An ill feeling swept over Michael as he looked down at the doll he clutched in his hand.
What I recall is being terrorized by an older boy, who incidentally decapitated the one doll I had as a child
. Abbey had said that the first day she was at Blessing Park. He dropped the doll and strode quickly to the bell pull.

Jones appeared almost instantaneously. “There is a leather trunk in the attic,” Michael said gruffly. “Have it brought to my rooms immediately. Fetch Sebastian and have him dispatch a messenger to Blessing Park. I want Withers here first thing in the morning.” He pushed past the startled butler and headed for his room.

When the trunk was brought to him, Michael threw the lid open and peered inside. It was stuffed with articles from his youth. He ignored the keepsakes and dug through, intent on finding the long-forgotten item. After tossing aside a rusted knife, a pair of heavy boots whose leather had long ago cracked, and a weathered hat, he found what he was looking for. There, buried beneath some old clothes at the bottom of the trunk, was a small doll made up to look like a little pirate. It was the same doll he had doctored after severing the head in a moment of anger. It was the very same doll he had intended to return to the distraught little girl after seeing her search the decks for her damaged toy. But Carrington had put her on the boat for Rome before he had the opportunity to return it. Why he had kept it all these years, he did not know.

He sank down on the edge of the bed and stared at the doll in his hand. It was all beginning to make some sense, or at least he tried to convince himself it was.

Galen Carrey, or someone behind him, was trying to destroy him. Suddenly he needed to talk to Sam. He stood abruptly, dropped the pirate doll carelessly on the bed, and paused only long enough to shrug into a forest-green coat before vaulting down the stairs, calling for his mount.

Michael found Sam at White’s and dragged him from a game of whist. Sam protested loudly—he was winning, for once—but Michael ignored his objections and pushed him toward a private room in the back. Sam sat in a huff, but as Michael began to relate the whole fantastic tale, he watched his friend’s eyes widen with astonishment, then narrow with suspicion. Sam slowly shook his head as the weight of Michael’s words registered.

“What do you think, Darfield?” he asked softly.

Michael sighed and thrust a hand through his dark locks as he thoughtfully eyed Sam. “I don’t know. The will is a forgery, I would stake my life on it. This purported cousin of hers was a bit nervous, and I find myself wondering if someone has put him up to it, someone like Routier.” Sam sighed wearily. Michael watched his friend silently consider the facts. Sam’s loyalty was one of the most admirable qualities about him, something Michael had relied upon time and again. But until this very moment, he had never known how important it was to him.

“What about Abbey?” Sam asked slowly.

Michael shrugged and looked at his drink. “It is rather hard to believe she could carry on such a fantastic lie. That woman cannot hide a single emotion, much less a deception so huge that it implies she
acted
—” He stopped short of saying that she must have acted in his bed, in his arms, at his table—it didn’t matter; Sam instantly understood what Michael was thinking, and nodded slowly.

“Yes, but I can’t help thinking …”

“What?” Michael prodded.

Sam sighed again and lifted his gaze to Michael. “Think about it, Michael. She obviously has known him for many
years, and despite having corresponded with him, she lied to you about his identity. For the sake of argument, suppose she and this Carrey fellow were attached and wanted to be together. It would explain her lie and the embrace you witnessed.” A rush of heat invaded Michael’s neck.

“Michael,” Sam continued, his expression tense, “you are my oldest friend. Believe me, I do not want to think it any more than you, but I cannot help thinking you have known her for less than three months. It would not be the first time you were the target of some nefarious scheme.”

Michael understood the direction Sam’s thoughts were taking, and his heart slammed against his ribs in denial. “But what about the shot?” Michael protested.

Sam shrugged. “Perhaps it has nothing to do with this and was truly a mishap. But then again, perhaps someone wanted you dead, someone like Carrey. It would be much more convenient for them, if she was married, to collect a fortune without you in the way,” Sam said slowly.

Michael glanced away, remembering that day. He had been proud of Abbey for not panicking and falling into a fit of hysterics. But was that because she was expecting it? Had she been waiting for the shot to fell him? The thought was devastating; God, she could not have deceived him so completely!

“I believe that Routier is somehow behind this. I needn’t remind you he has publicly vowed to ruin me on more than one occasion,” Michael insisted.

“Perhaps,” Sam agreed weakly.

“Come now.” Michael huffed. “Short of killing me, what could she have hoped to gain?”

“I don’t know,” Sam answered slowly. “I only know that she stood to lose her inheritance if she did not marry you.
If
she married you, her chances of getting at least something had to be improved. And despite your most callous efforts to convince her otherwise, she did not cry off when given the opportunity. Michael, if she and Carrey wanted to be together, the only thing they had was an ill-conceived, dated contract. Perhaps they planned this together. Perhaps he thought to put you out of the way. Perhaps they hoped to embezzle the funds
from you. But you cannot deny that the evidence points to at least the
possibility
she is involved.”

Sam’s argument put a voice to Michael’s worst fears, yet he could not wholly believe it. There had to be another explanation, he thought, shaking his head in furious disagreement. “It is Routier, I am certain. Abbey may have lied to me about her cousin, but she most certainly did not connive to have me killed, Sam. She may be that idiot’s lover, but she is not a killer. No, Routier is behind it.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “I cannot deny that he would do just about anything to see you ruined. But consider this. Routier would not possibly know what the doll looked like. Abbey would.”

Michael inhaled sharply; the thought had not occurred to him. But Carrey could have known what the damn doll looked like, and a half-dozen other sailors. It looked bad, very bad, but he simply could not believe she had betrayed him so thoroughly, not yet, not without more proof.

“What do you intend to do?” Sam asked softly.

“Find Strait,” Michael responded bitterly. Until he talked to the solicitor, he did not know what to believe. He gulped his brandy to dull the twist he felt in his gut.

Abbey stared blindly at Jones. “He wants to see me?” she asked for the second time.

“Yes, madam.” Jones looked pained. Abbey stood unsteadily from the chair she had been sitting in since she had fled the drawing room. She must have sat for hours, staring blindly at a portrait on the wall. Her thoughts were a tangled mess. In one moment, she fretted over Galen’s struggle, seeing him as victim of another lie perpetuated by Captain Carrington. In the next, she wondered if her father really could have changed his plans so abruptly, plans he had obviously been building for over a decade. And she bled for Michael, the real victim in her father’s twisted dealings. Then she would panic that he somehow thought
she
had done this to him, not the captain. That was followed by anger that he was so quick to judge her. If the last few months had meant
anything
to him, he would know she had not. But then again, why should he? The Carringtons had not exactly been paragons of truthfulness thus far.

And if he did not believe her? Abbey could not face that possibility.

“Did he say anything?” she asked, her voice trembling under the strain. Jones shook his head.

Abbey nodded dumbly. “Thank you, Jones,” she muttered, and started slowly for the door. Her legs were leaden; she could scarcely make them move. But she could not and would not avoid him, no matter how much she feared him at the moment. When she reached the ground floor, she stopped in front of the closed oak door that led to his study, staring at it, trying to muster her courage. Several minutes and several deep breaths passed before she grasped the brass knob and pushed the door open.

She wanted to crumble when she saw Michael standing rigidly at the window, his back to her. She knew instinctively by his stance that he did not believe her. His hands were clasped firmly behind his narrow waist and his sinewy legs braced apart. She had a fleeting memory of the pictures she and her cousins would draw of the fearless captain standing at the helm of his ship. He did not turn.