The Rogue Prince (3 page)

Not that Maggie had any experience in such things. She had felt awkward and unappealing during her one short season, and her sisters had scoffed at her flimsy attempts at flirting. Because of her lameness, she couldn't dance a creditable
set, and she'd been too shy to be any good at conversation. Her season had been a disaster, which had made it quite easy for Shefford to pressure her into marrying Julian Danvers, his good friend.

There wouldn't be any other offers, her mother and Shefford had claimed, not when Maggie was still such a gangly, awkward thing at age twenty—with a lame leg, no less. The years-old Chatterton scandal had not helped, either, but Julian had been willing to overlook Maggie's shortcomings to know that he'd be getting a suitably innocent, biddable wife.

Lily took her thumb from her mouth. “Is there a bairn, too, Mama?”

“I hadn't thought of a bairn, love. Shall we give one to the handsome captain and his wife?”

“No!” Zachary protested. He got up from the settee and took up a fighting stance. “No babies, Lily! The captain must fight the villains on the sea!”

“Where on earth did you learn such a thing, Zachary?” Maggie asked, aghast.

“From Willy Johnston,” Zachary replied with bravado. “We do boxing at home!”

“Come back here and sit down, young man,” Maggie said. She wasn't quite sure what boxing was, but she had some idea that it involved two grown men throwing punches at one another. It was not something she wanted her son to be any part of.

If only he'd had a more conscientious father,
if only Julian had spent more time with his son, perhaps Zachary would have a more even temperament.

But Julian had always had more important things to attend to in Town—estate management, he'd said, and business affairs. Maggie would have accompanied her husband on his trips to London if he'd ever asked her, but Julian had wanted to spare her, saying that his frequent treks to London were wholly tiresome. There were solicitors and managers and agricultural meetings he needed to attend.

Maggie decided she could tolerate London for a few more days. As soon as possible, they would return to Blackmore Manor, where her children would be safe from carriages racing through the streets, and other unforeseen dangers.

And Maggie would be safe from the ridiculously volatile reaction of her heart at the courtesy of a stranger.

T
wo days after the incident in Hanover Square, Thomas read through the invitations that his good friend, now known as Nathaniel Beraza, had left on the table. The two men were close in age, and they'd found it expedient to watch each other's backs during the years of their incarceration in the penal colony. It had been a dark hole of a place, rife with unthinkable hardship and violence. Survival in those first few months had been difficult, but between them, they'd managed to get by.

Nate had a handsome, open face. With his coppery hair and bright blue eyes, he could be a very engaging fellow when he chose to be, but he was not a man to toy with. Tom's friendship with him had grown throughout the horrific years they'd spent at Norfolk and in Botany Bay trying to survive, doing whatever was necessary to avoid the marines' vicious whips.

But it was Tom who'd watched over Duncan Meriwether, giving the old man a portion of his own food when others stole Duncan's, and protecting him physically from the fiercer prisoners
on the island. It was to Thomas that Duncan had bequeathed the vast, ill-gotten treasures he'd stolen during his pirate days.

Duncan had been transported for life for his years of buccaneering, but he'd never told anyone of the riches he'd hidden away in a cave on an uncharted south Caribbean isle—not until Thomas. Duncan had called the place Sabedoria, after his Portuguese cohort who'd stashed his own treasures there before being killed in a raid.

The old pirate had quietly babbled about living like a king on a Greek isle one day, in spite of his life sentence. Tom had humored him until the old man's last brutal beating. Then he'd carried the bloodied, broken man away from the pillory. He'd taken Duncan into his own hut and placed him on his own raw pallet.

Tom remembered cringing at the sight of the cruel slashes in the old man's back, but there'd been nothing he could do to help him, nothing but offer him a few sips of water, and his own company.

Duncan had refused the water, taking hold of Tom's arm, squeezing as tightly as he was able, and insisting that Sabedoria and the treasure were real. Tom had known the old man would not survive that last flogging, so he'd humored him, letting him sketch a map on an old cloth with a piece of charcoal to show Tom the location of his treasure isle.

“It's on the south side. There are caves just under the water in a freshwater cove,” he'd said. “Look there.”

“Aye, Duncan,” Tom had said. “I'll be sure to do that.”

“Ain't easy to find, my isle,” he'd rasped. “Ye must not give up when you get lost in the leeward isles, mate. Watch for the eagle. It's an eagle that will show you the way.”

The old man had died soon after, and it wasn't until another three years had passed that Thomas and Nate had managed to get to Sabedoria. There'd been far more blood and water under Tom's feet than he cared to remember, and it had taken months of exploring the South American Antilles, searching for a gathering of eagles' nests before they'd finally come upon a small isle with a huge stone promontory carved by the elements into the shape of an eagle. After only an hour of exploration, they'd found that old Duncan's unlikely tales of riches beyond belief had been true.

Duncan's treasure could not ease the restlessness inside Tom, but they made all of his plans possible. It had been seventeen years since he'd known peace. Seventeen years since he'd felt any kind of contentment or satisfaction.

Until two days before, when he'd looked into the soft gray eyes of Zachary's mother.

He tossed aside the beautifully penned invitations from the scions of society and pulled on his coat. He was going back to Hanover Square. But not to wallow in his memories of past events at number nineteen. He'd put off seeing the woman again—Maggie—for too long.

He knew it wasn't prudent. She was married,
and he was a man with a mission that had nothing to do with any women at all, much less the flawed gray-eyed matron who'd touched his arm and sent a firestorm of awareness through him. She was no conventional beauty, but she was exactly the kind of woman who appealed to him. Unpretentious, and down-to-earth, her emotions had been heartfelt. She was no stuffy English noblewoman with the practiced airs of those he'd encountered since his return home, but a sweet woman with a hint of vulnerability lurking in her magnificent eyes.

Tom had not been able to stop thinking of the many pleasurable hours she must provide her husband in their bed, a ridiculously unproductive thought process.

“Tommy Boy?”

His nerves on edge, Tom looked up sharply at Nathaniel, who'd entered the room silently. He went right to the pile of invitations and picked up the one on top. “This one is it, my boy,” Nate said, holding it up for Thomas to see. “Your moment is about to arrive.”

“Aye,” Tom replied quietly. It felt so strange to be back in his native land, under such changed circumstances. He'd shared his treasure with Nate, of course, and now the two of them were far richer than the prince regent himself. With an exceedingly careful orchestration, with flags and credentials and documents of authenticity, the English authorities believed he was a foreign dignitary who had treaties to be signed and a superior product to trade.

It was all a foil for the vengeance he would wreak against Leighton and Julian.

“This is the event we should attend,” said Nate.

“I agree. Duchess Waverly's ball will give us entrée to the cream of society.”

“Leighton Ingleby—Lord Shefford, now—will be there. You can make his acquaintance and begin to draw him into your web.”

Nate harbored a deep hatred for the “toffs” who'd sent him away from London in chains, away from his pregnant sweetheart. Nate had learned that the poor mot, a rookery girl of sixteen, had died in childbirth only a few days after Nate's incarceration. So had the child.

Thomas understood Nate's hatred, for he harbored his own. And he had started on the only course that could satisfy his need to even the score. It was early in the season, and the Waverly ball was the most important event thus far. Shefford would surely attend a ball given by the most prestigious matron of society. That was where Tom would introduce himself to the man, and draw him into the trap he would use to destroy him. He only wished Julian still lived, and could be hurt as grievously as Tom had been.

He would like to send both his accusers and his judge to Norfolk Island to suffer the same pain and indignities Tom had endured. That was impossible, of course, but he could take away what was most important to them. He had the resources to make their lives hell.

“Has there been any word from Saret or Salim?”
Tom asked, using the fictitious names his cohorts had chosen for themselves. They were two former convicts who'd returned to England with Tom as part of his entourage. All of his men had been incarcerated for one offense or another, and each one had his own talents. In addition, Lucas Reigi, a former pirate, was in command of Thomas's three princely ships, all anchored near London where they could be seen, and marveled at, by incoming ships.

“Mark Saret is on his way up here as we speak. He said he has news. Sebastian Salim has already left for Suffolk, to look for your family.” Nate gestured to Tom's coat. “You're going out?”

“Just to familiarize myself with the city,” Tom said, deciding it was pure folly to visit Hanover Square. “Maybe I'll take a ride up to Hampstead Heath and look at Mr. Delamere's property once more.” Anything to take his mind from fantasies of the lovely, disheveled Maggie, the wife of some damned nobleman.

Nate opened the door after a sharp knock, to admit Mark Saret. He'd been a Yorkshire man of business in his previous life, and his particular skills were of tremendous value to Tom. He was not a very tall man, but with his pale blond hair and fair complexion, he possessed enough charm to have bilked three different ladies out of their fortunes.

But that was years ago. Saret was no common criminal, but possessed a fair knowledge of the law, and was no mean forger when necessary. Thomas
had provided Saret with a fortune of his own, so there was no need for him to beguile vulnerable young ladies any longer, or to falsify documents.

Unless Tom asked him to do so.

“You have Mr. Delamere's answer?” Tom asked.

“The transaction is complete,” Saret replied. He produced the deed to Delamere's extensive estate, along with a key, which he placed in Tom's hand. “He could not refuse your,
ahem
, exceedingly generous offer. The man sold me the property late last night and we transferred the deed this morning. The old miser vacated the premises within hours of that.”

 

“Oh dear,” said Lady Victoria Ranfield, Maggie's very best friend from childhood. “I didn't want to be the one to tell you, Maggie, but neither did I want you to hear it at a soiree or at some other some public gathering.”

Maggie's sketchbook and pencil slid to the sofa beside her, and she pressed a hand to her chest, as though she could eliminate the shard of pain that sliced through her faltering heart.

Dear God. Had she stayed at Blackmore Manor in Cambridgeshire, she never would have known, would never have had to face the truth about Julian. He'd been a negligent husband, but Maggie had never thought…She'd never dreamed…

She leaned back against the sofa, swallowing hard, feeling light-headed. Disoriented. As though the axis of the world had shifted.

As well it had.

“Are you all right?” Victoria said, reaching over to collect the drawing Maggie had started. “Oh, bother, I should never have told you.”

Maggie thought back upon the day Julian had proposed to her, more than eight years before. She had hoped for a better match, but her mother and Shefford had insisted that Julian's would be the best—the
only
—offer she could expect. And Julian was Shefford's best friend, besides. So much the better, according to Beatrice.

Somehow, they'd made a decent marriage. They'd been content. At least, that had been Maggie's belief for all these years. Julian had had his shortcomings, as had she, of course. But, fool that she was, she had not guessed this.

She bit down on her lower lip in an attempt to quell its trembling. She supposed she should thank her good friend for informing her of her late husband's marital infidelities.

Yet she wondered if all her memories of Julian would now be tainted with the tinge of nausea she now felt. Would she look at her family and friends and wonder if they'd known all along that he'd sought the beds of other women during their marriage?

Had she been so inadequate in the bedchamber that he'd had to seek gratification elsewhere? Of course. She'd been a consolation wife, the girl no one else had wanted, and Julian had been too lazy to bother courting one of the more sought-after young ladies. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.

“Here. Drink this,” Victoria said.

“No, thank you,” Maggie replied, turning down the brandy her friend had hastily poured. “I must—”

She didn't know what she must do. Go, she supposed. Back to Julian's town house where her children waited. Back to the life that was a complete and total sham. She and Julian had never spoken of marital fidelity. Maggie had just assumed their vows meant something. Had
wrongly
assumed…

“Look here, Maggie. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Julian is dead and gone,” said Victoria, Maggie's very proper friend. No doubt it had been immensely difficult, having to give Maggie such distasteful information. “It's been over two years since he drowned. And you've been up at Blackmore Manor ever since the accident. Nothing has changed now that you know. Julian cared about you—”

“Don't!”
Maggie cried, her voice a ragged rasp of pain. She stood abruptly. “I—I know you mean well, Victoria, but…Please do not speak to me of caring.” She shook her head, speechless now. With a husband like Ranfield, who was mad about his wife, Victoria couldn't begin to understand the depth of betrayal Maggie felt.

In a haze of utter shock, Maggie gathered her things and went to the front door, allowing the butler to help her with her pelisse. She refused Victoria's offer of her carriage or even a footman to escort her, and walked down the steps, barely conscious of her maid, who followed right behind her.
Absently, she rubbed her aching thigh, the site of the old fracture that had never healed correctly.

After the Chatterton debacle, Maggie had taken pains to please her mother, to be a dutiful daughter. And when Beatrice insisted that marriage was less about caring than it was about family alliances, titles, and fortunes, Maggie had squelched her hope for a match based on affection and perhaps even attraction. She'd married Julian and tried to be the best possible wife to him.

Apparently, it had not been enough.

Needing to walk and clear her head, Maggie proceeded forward like an automaton, completely unconscious of the discomfort in her lame leg, unaware of the carriage traffic on the street or the passersby who nodded and tipped their hats. She had been an exemplary spouse, managing her household, giving her husband children. She'd visited Blackmore's tenants far more often than Julian ever had, fretting over sickness and bad harvests without him, while he
tended to business
in Town.

Business, indeed.

She brushed away her tears of hurt and embarrassment as resentment and anger rose within her. Perhaps
she
should have an affair or two of her own. Or even ten! No one could argue that she had not been a virtuous wife, then a properly mournful widow these past two years. Now that she knew Julian had not respected their vows during their marriage, Maggie did not know why she should do so, either.

She did not understand how she could have been so blind. Julian might never have spoken of undying love, but she had thought they'd done well enough together. They'd had two children, for heaven's sake, and he'd spoken of wanting another after Lily's birth. Another son, he'd said.