Wedding Night Revenge (10 page)

'If I find you're wasting my time, I'm likely to be seriously displeased...'Connor watched Sam with a minimum of curiosity as he Reckoned at some bushes. For some reason he felt beyond surprise as a young woman slipped out between laurel branches and hurried with a lithe grace towards them.

'This is Annie...my sister. She's fourteen...'

Connor looked from the girl's burnished crown of auburn hair to the boy's battered face. Suddenly the puzzle slid effortlessly into place and he was again on the point of humourless mirth when a wave of righteous anger surged through him. Far from trying to rob him, Sam Smith was trying to sell him his sister, and by the looks of things, he wasn't the first uninterested punter he'd approached that evening.

A large fist chucked under the boy's chin, forcing his bloodshot eyes to meet blazing blue. 'Did I look as though I lacked female company tonight, or did I look as though I was well catered for in that respect?'

Rachel again! He was using words that reminded him of his blasted past love! Past fiancee, he amended in his mind. She was his past, yet he seemed determined to keep her in the present. He was employing phrases she'd said...allegedly said...about him. His ire increased. His fingers forked over the lad's jaw, tightened until he howled.

"Snot like that, m'lord. Honest. She's me sister, not a pro, aft' I'm the direct opposite to her pimp. 'S why me face took a clubbin'. I was tryin' to protect her...'

Connor released him with a savage flick. After a steadying stare into space, he gave Sam a grim glare. The girl remained stock-still, unmoved by any of it, with downbent head and hands clasped behind her back. She looked plainly and comfortably attired, certainly not in the manner of a prostitute, but not waiflike either.

'What in God's name is all this about?' Connor blasted through gritted teeth, his accent thickened by bottling his anger.

In
response, the boy simply took a pace towards his sister and, putting a gentle hand beneath her chin, raised her head.

Connor stared. For some reason Sam's simple action was entirely appropriate and very illuminating. No more was necessary. His sister, Annie, had an uncanny, startling beauty which seemed more exquisite for being compared to her brother's unlovely physiognomy. Her skin tone looked parchment white, her eyes as black as polished jet and, as Connor watched, Sam pulled the ribbon from her hair and it tumbled in a waterfall of luxuriant waves over her shoulders. She simply stared up blankly at him.

'I can't do it no more. I can't keep her safe. Every cove we meet wants a piece of her...even them as should know better. 'Specially them as should know better...'

Connor watched the lad's bloodshot eyes sheen with tears. 'Now I've got no work an' no place to stay. How long will it be afore Annie's on the streets...really on the streets?'

'Who hit you?' Connor couldn't think of anything else to say for a moment.

'Me uncle, Nobby.'

'Your
uncle
wanted your sister?'

'No! He just wanted to hit me 'cos that slimy toad wanted a barrow load of geneva or he'd make us trouble. It was that jarvey's fault. Couldn't keep his trap shut, could he? He let on to that bent beak who I was. He knew me; sometimes we have a mug o' porter in the Jolly Farmer where the hackneys congregate. He let on who was me guv'nor, too... Me uncle were right narked. Now I lost me job and me squat. Annie used to cook and clean so Nobbie let her stay, too.'

After a moment reflecting, sorting and sifting information, Connor summarised, T take it Arthur Goodwin, Esquire, is a Trading Justice who wanted his cellar stocked with free gin in return for issuing you with a liquor licence at the Brewster Sessions.'

'At first that's what he wanted. Then he saw Annie...'

Connor looked at the girl, looked at her brother. He closed his eyes. 'Where are your parents?'

'Dead. Pa died years since from the lung disease; Ma from the gin just last Michaelmas...'

'What are you expecting me to do about any of this?' Connor asked quite gently...too gently, he minutes later thought.

'I trust you. You didn't need to help us out the other day... You've a good heart... you're not like Quality—' Hurriedly, he expounded, 'That is, you seem decent...'

Connor shifted restlessly, cut off Sam's praises with a sardonic laugh. 'What do you want?'

'I want you to take her in.' There was a pride and dignity behind the youth's audacious demand. Even when Connor quirked an expressive eyebrow at him he didn't waver. 'She's not bright, but she's a good girl. She can cook, clean, sew. She used to dress me auntie's hair right nice afore she
got
the chills and turned up her toes. Perhaps one of your ladies might like...' He cleared his throat at a quizzical look from Connor.

'That is...you might know of a lady who needs a good maid...'

Connor smiled to himself. Such ladies—even respectable ones—were hardly likely to take in such a young beauty and present themselves with problems keeping her out of sight of roving-eyed amorous husbands or lovers. 'I take it you've tried domestic agencies?'

Sam smiled bleakly. 'Oh, yes. Annie's been in fine houses...with fine masters. Like I said...it's especially them as should know better that she has to fear. She's chaste still, but I ain't sure how we managed it. She started in Beaumont Street and stayed just a day. Sir Percy Monk thought she might make a pretty playmate for his son. She's got a right set of talons on her, I'll give her that,' he added with a limp grin. 'Marked the blighter good and proper.'

Connor pursed his lips; he knew the boy, and his vicious, licentious reputation. He was sixteen years old and no better than his lecherous sire.

'I want you to take her in,' Sam repeated in a quavering voice. 'Arthur Goodwin won't dare cross you. He's afraid of you. But he'll hound me and Annie. He # said as much. He said he wants her and he won't give up...'

Connor put a hand to his forehead and rubbed, cursing inwardly for ever having left home this evening. He hadn't come here to listen to his mistress sing. She was wont to warble in the throes of passion and that was more than enough for him. He'd come here because he knew Rachel would be attending; she'd lured him to her side, just as she had on the road earlier in the week. But for that fateful incident with the crush of carriages, he wouldn't now be stuck in this farcical quandary. It was her fault! A weak smile acknowledged his irrationality. With a sigh he asked, 'And you? What are you intending to do?'

Sam Smith swiped a brash hand across his nose, shrugged. 'Oh, I'll get by.

Always do. I can duck and dive...or work in a stable. I'm a good groom...been apprenticed,' he added with a flicker of optimism dampening his bravado.

Connor found the laugh got stuck in his throat. He looked up at his coachman, gazing off diplomatically into the night. His current groom, having retreated from holding the door, to his place at the back of the carriage when his master struck up conversation, just swivelled his eyes skywards. Connor opened the carriage door himself and merely jerked his head at the interior.

Wordlessly, the girl clambered in, unaided.

'How did you know I'd be here?' he asked Sam, hoping to curb the boy's silent streaming tears with conversation.

'I saw your lady...up at the window...' Sam snivelled, smearing his face with a dirty palm, his auburn head jerking back at the brightly lit casement.

'Oh...not this one, not the one who left with the other gentleman...' Sam looked anxiously at him through red eyes, as though frightened the miracle might slip away with a stupid word. His cheeks dripped rusty water again. 'I meant your blonde lady as was kind on,the road. You seemed to like her...so when I saw her here I thought...' He snuffled a laugh, cuffed his mouth. 'I thought she were right brave to give that Arthur Goodwin a dressing-down.

His ugly mug were a picture...'

Connor laughed, too. But for a different reason. Out of the mouths of babes... 'Oh, that
my
lady,' was all he said.

'I'll match your call and raise you this...'

Benjamin Harley tried to freeze a betraying smile as the fistful of fifty-pound notes was waved at him. With a dramatic flinging open of his fingers, the man let loose the money and it fluttered down to settle on a cushion of similar paper already littering the baize. Quickly Lord Harley looked away lest he inadvertently exposed his steadily mounting excitement. He slanted a stare at Edgar Meredith across the cards he held fanned in a languid hand. Carefully, very carefully, he lowered them from possible prying eyes and placed them face down on the baize. He couldn't remember' the last time he'd been lucky enough to hold such a promising set of pictures. His eyes slid to the pot, calculated note denominations by their visible edges; the mountain of sovereigns that had been early antes, he didn't bother counting...there were too many.

An hour and a half ago, eight men had started this game of cards and their bets had amassed into a very tidy sum. A very tidy sum, indeed. Two players had already folded; two had adopted the studied thoughtfulness that betrayed a bluff; one was looking exceedingly nervous. And one was looking exceedingly foxed. And he held a full house; the winning hand...he was sure. He was thus determined to keep his wits about him. Resolutely, he pushed away a few inches his half-full brandy balloon in a move that was sure to have routed a weaker set of men.

'It's getting too rich for me,' Nathaniel Chamberlain muttered with a sorry look at the cash that once had been his, now tucked away beneath the tipsy pyramid in the centre of the table. Neatly, he cupped his hand of cards, but didn't yet discard them. Leaning at an angle to cosy with his brother-in-law, slumped in the next chair, he hissed low and vehement, 'And if you've any sense left, Meredith, you'll follow my lead.'

'Fesch me a drink,' Edgar slurred at him, and held out his empty whisky glass.

'Don't be a fool!' Alexander Pemberton added his own cautions to Nathaniel's. He stooped on creaky knees until his mouth was close to the top of Edgar's thinning pate. Earnestly he gritted, 'Listen to what your brother-in-law is telling you. It's time to admit defeat. Cut your losses now...'

'Everyone wan's to give me a'vise. I doan need a'vise. I need a drink.'

'I'll buy you a drink.'

Edgar swayed his head at the soft Gaelic drawl. He frowned across a shoulder at a pair of black trousers. His bleary vision climbed past a figured-silk waistcoat in pearl grey, resplendent beneath the lapels of a charcoal, superfine tail-coat. His neck angled awkwardly so he could take in a perfectly folded cravat crowned by high, white collar points. Eventually he blinked at a face of dark, stern beauty. 'Why...look whooze arrived,' he crowed. "S the Irishman. His lor'ship's lowering hisself to talk to me tonigh'.

See, everyone...' He flapped a hand about. 'See, the dashing Major's here in the Palm House an' is condashending to talk to me. So you're talking to me

's'evening, are you? I'm honoured, milor'. Woan play cards with me though, will you? Frightened I'll cheat, are you?' He started to giggle. 'He's chary o'

me cheating...' He slunk sideways in his chair and elbowed Nathaniel in the ribs. 'Thinks I'll shteal his money...' he hissed in a stage whisper. As though just remembering that the object of his scorn had offered to get him a drink, he contorted himself about again, and stuck out his empty glass at the Earl of Devane's hip.

Benjamin Harley curled a lip in amusement and slid a sideways look at his chum, Peter Waverley. Peter had been busily examining Edgar's last bid. He held up five fingers to Benjamin, denoting the additional hundreds of pounds he needed to stay in the game.

Harley's humour turned greedy. His mind was again on the pot...and securing it as soon as maybe. 'Shall we continue, Meredith? I've better sport than this awaiting me this evening. And she's far easier on the eye...and wallet than you are when drunk...' He managed a weak grin, for he was fretting to get play again underway before Meredith passed out or upset the table. Either way he might lose out if the game were called void. Quickly he matched Edgar's last bet and, dithering over whether to stick, or up the ante, allowed avarice to overrule his need to bring the game to a speedy conclusion. He raised the stake by scribbling a promissory note for one thousand pounds. His eyebrows elevated meaningfully at Edgar; he then included the other men still playing in the challenging look.

Edgar fished in a pocket, then delved deep in theother. He tried his breast pocket. The gentlemen sitting around the table watched anxiously.

T didn't sayj wouldn't play cards with you,' came mildly, yet audibly, from behind him.

Edgar continued digging for gold. A handkerchief was tossed idly on to the table, a silver snuff-box followed in a clatter, then spectacles skidded away to wink candlelight. 'You didn't shay anything at all to me, ash I ric'ricall.

Avoided me like I shtank, ash I ric'ricall. If you're not too grand and fash...

fashdidious, si...sit down, then.' Edgar wobbled his head at Nathaniel's seat and hiccoughed again. Annoyed with the sudden spate of spasms rocking his chest, he ceased talking and gulped in a lungful of air. Steadily he began swelling about the neck and elevating in his chair.

'Aye, take my place...please,' Nathaniel said. He scraped his chair back from the table, shaking his head at Edgar. 'I'll not make excuses to Gloria for you, y'know. You'll not cry off apologising for this lunacy yourself...' Noticing his brother-in-law was becoming horribly florid and pop-eyed, he thumped him on the back.