Mary Putney: Angel Rogue

The major deterrent to returning home was that she had less than five pounds to her name. However, Lord Collingwood would surely lend her the fare to America, plus a little extra to support her until she was established.

His lordship would probably balk at first, worrying whether he was doing his duty by his late brother's only child. Proper English girls would not want to go off on their own; the correct behavior was to live on someone else's charity.

However, Maxie was neither proper nor English, as had been made clear in a hundred subtle and not so subtle ways in the four months since she and her father had arrived in Durham. She did not choose to become one of her uncle's dependents.

Even if his lordship was reluctant to see her leave, he couldn't prevent her from doing so. Maxie had just turned twentyfive, and she had been taking care of herself and her father for years. If necessary, she would find work and earn her own passage home.

Her decision crystallized, she rose to her feet with an unladylike athleticism, brushing crushed grass from the skirt of her black dress. The mourning gown was a concession to the sensibilities of her English kinfolk. She herself would have preferred no outward display of her loss. Well, it would not be for much longer.

Half an hour of brisk walking brought her back to the magnificent pile known as Chanleigh Court. Unluckily, as she cut through the gardens, she came upon her two female cousins languidly engaged at the archery butts. Portia, the elder, fired and managed to miss the target entirely from a distance of no more than a dozen paces.

Maxie was about to retreat when Portia glanced up and saw her. "Maxima, how fortunate that you have come by," she said with a note of malice. "Perhaps you can show us how to improve our skills. Or is archery one of the fashionable amusements of which you have been deprived?"

Portia was eighteen, pretty, and petulant. Even at the beginning she had not been friendly to her cousin, but after Maximus Collins's death caused Portia's London debut to be postponed, her attitude had become positively hostile, as if Maxie was personally responsible for the disappointment

Maxie hesitated, then reluctantly joined her cousins.

"I've done some archery. As with most things, it is practice that refines one's skill."

"Then perhaps you should practice your hairdressing," Portia said with a significant glance.

Maxie had gotten very good at ignoring gibes. "You're right," she said mildly, "my appearance is quite disgraceful. I had hoped to slip into the house unobserved." Even at the best of times her hair was too long, straight, and black for fashion, and at the moment she was windblown and disheveled from her walk.

Portia and Rosalind, by contrast, were as bandbox neat as when they received callers in their mother's parlor. They also towered over the smaller American. Almost everyone did.

Sixteen year old Rosalind, who was friendlier than her sister, looked uncomfortable at Portia's rudeness. "Would you like to use my bow, Maxima?" she offered in a timid attempt to warm up the atmosphere.

Maxie accepted the bow and expertly drew it several times to get the feel. Though she had not handled one for some time, her muscles remembered the old skills.

Portia murmured, "I should have remembered that archery was a skill for savages long before it became fashionable."

For some reason, that remark penetrated Maxie's calm as nothing else had. She swung her head toward her cousin with such a flash in her brown eyes that Portia involuntarily stepped backward. Voice dangerously soft, Maxie said, "You're quite right, it is a skill for savages. Move back out of the way."

As her cousins hastily retreated, Maxie scooped up a handful of arrows and stepped back until she was four times as far from the target. She shoved all but one of the arrows pointfirst into the earth near her right hand, then nocked the remaining shaft.

Drawing the bow, she focused not only on the act of aiming, but also on sensing what it was to be an arrow seeking a target. That had been the first and most important archery lesson that she had ever learned.

Then she released the shaft. An instant later, it buried itself in the exact center of the circle.

While the arrow still quivered in the target, she sent the next shaft on its way. In less than a minute, five arrows were clustered in the bull's eye so closely that several touched.

Nocking the final arrow, she turned in the direction of her cousins, who watched in paralyzed horror as Maxie let fly. The arrow neatly clipped the lime tree under which the sisters stood. Portia yelped as a severed branchlet fell into her hair, rendering it far less neat than it had been.

Stalking back to her cousins, Maxie returned the bow to Rosalind. To Portia she said, "Since I am a savage, as you are so fond of pointing out, I have a talent for mayhem and violence. You would do well to remember that."

Then Maxie turned on her heel and continued her interrupted path to the house, head high and expression set. It had been foolish to lose her temper with Portia, but there had undeniably been satisfaction in it

Inside the house, she paused at the end of the hall that passed her uncle's study, wondering if she should visit him now or make herself presentable first. The decision was taken out of her hands when a footman entered the far end of the passage, escorting a burly fellow with a battered face to the door of the master's study. Since neither of the men had seen her, she slipped away to her own bedchamber.

Having an indecently comfortable room all to herself was the single best aspect of life at Chanleigh. Maxie would also miss the luxurious hot baths and the library, which contained over a thousand volumes, most of them sadly unread.

But she would miss little else, particularly not her cousin Portia.

An hour later Maxie sat on her window seat, her dress brushed and her hair arranged in a demure knot at her nape. Less demurely, her knees were pulled up and her arms looped around them as she gazed out.

Her attention was caught by a figure emerging from the side door. It was the crude fellow who had come to see Uncle Cletus earlier. She wondered what business had brought him to Chanleigh. He seemed an unlikely associate for her uncle.

Dismissing the thought, she checked herself in the mirror. She was much neater than when she had returned from her walk, though her appearance was still hopelessly unEnglish.

Her expression, however, had returned to its normal determination after two months of drifting. Hoping that her uncle would grant her request for a loan, she squared her shoulders and headed downstairs.

As she raised her hand to knock on her uncle's study door, she heard her Aunt Althea speaking within. She halted and thought a moment before deciding that pleading her case in front of Lady Collingwood would be an advantage. While her ladyship had always been civil to her husband's niece, there had never been a trace of real warmth or welcome. Surely she would endorse Maxie's request as a way to be rid of an unwelcome guest.

Maxie's hand was poised to knock on the paneled door when Lady Collingwood's sharp voice said, "Was that horrid man worth what you paid him?"

"He was. Simmons may lack refinement, but he handled the unpleasantness about Max very well." After several unintelligible words, her uncle finished, "… certainly can't let it become public knowledge how my brother died."

Maxie froze. Her father had experienced chest spasms in the past, so it had not been a surprise to learn that he had died suddenly in London. His body had been sent back to Durham and he had been buried in the family plot with all due respect. There had been no reason to believe his death was unnatural-until now.

Pulse pounding, she glanced around to ensure that she was unobserved, then pressed her ear to the oak door.