Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 2 - Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

“You’ll never change, will you?” she said sorrowfully. She swallowed hard, her fingers tightening on his sleeve. “But maybe you’ll understand this. As much as I wish I could keep you here, I want you to sail for home now, tomorrow, before the French try to blockade the channel again.”

“Desire—”

“Hush, hear me out! If you’re healed enough to chase after Caro Moncrief, you’re more than well enough to travel. You’ve no real reason to stay here. I’ve had Jack book passage for you on an English ship bound for Jamaica, and from there you’ll have no problem finding a sugar sloop for the voyage up the coast to Rhode Island.”

“I can’t do it, Desire,” he said softly. “I’d be a coward if I did.”

“At least you’d be a live coward!”

“Since when has that been an issue for our family, eh?” He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, her face pale and anxious in the twilight. “If you’d taken the safest course, you’d still be a spinster knitting stockings in our grandmother’s parlor on Benefit Street. We Sparhawks don’t always do the wisest thing, but we’re never cowards.”

“Oh, Jeremiah.” She sighed with resignation and leaned against his shoulder. “I thought at least I could try to convince you.”

“You might as well try to coax the moon from the sky. Likely you’re right about Lady Byfield. Likely she doesn’t know any more about David Kerr than she’s already told me. But if she does, and if there’s even a breath of a chance that I can save Davy or any of the others…”

“Of course you must.” She sighed again, and with her handkerchief in her fist, she struck his arm. “It’s the very devil being a Sparhawk, isn’t it? Think if our greatgrandfather had been a tinker instead!”

“Us Sparhawks tinkers?” Jeremiah snorted. “We’d all have died out from boredom long ago.”

“Well, we’re never bored now.” She searched his face, her eyes still too bright. “You will be careful, won’t you? If there’s another war with France, then the whole continent will be turned upside down.”

“Ah, but Des, I’m an American, and none of it will bother me.” With his own handkerchief he wiped away the last of her tears. “If this Napoleon’s fool enough to go after England again, then he’ll get the whipping he deserves and right soon, too. You’ll see, this war, if there is one, will be done in no time, and your Jack will be home in time to see this baby christened.”

“Dear God, I pray you’re right.” Her smile was shaky, but at least, thought Jeremiah, it was a smile. “But Jere, please, please, tell me you’re doing this for Davy’s sake alone and not for that silly Byfield woman.”

Jeremiah saw the concern in his sister’s face, and thought of Caro Moncrief. Yes, Lady Byfield was silly. She was beautiful, too, and charmingly unpredictable, and she’d made him laugh for the first time in months. She was also married, and no matter what the rest of the county gossiped about her, she was clearly in love with her husband. But all that mattered to Jeremiah was that she needed him, and for that he wouldn’t abandon her.

Yet the deeper truth was something he couldn’t admit to Desire. She’d always looked up to him as her big brother, counting on him to be strong. How could he tell her how uncertain he’d become inside? How could he admit that because Caro needed him, he needed her, too?

“Oh, aye, of course I’m doing this for Davy,” he said softly, wishing he didn’t have to lie to Desire. “Come, sister mine, let’s go in the house.”

Slowly, painfully, Caro struggled to force her eyes open. There was a sticky sweet taste in her mouth and her head ached so badly she felt sick to her stomach. What had she eaten for supper? If only she could reach the chamber pot beneath her bed and not retch all over the carpet!

The shadowy figure of a man leaned over her. “Come now, Auntie, don’t play the sleepyhead with me. The servants said you were stirring and I haven’t all day to wait on your pleasure.”

“George?” Her voice was scarcely more than an ineffectual croak as she tried to focus on his face. “Leave my bedchamber before I have you tossed out!”

“How charming, Caro. Your eyes aren’t even open and already you’re giving orders as if you were born to it. Pity you weren’t, isn’t it?”

Her head still spinning, she weakly pushed herself up against the pillows. “You’ve no right to be here, especially to insult me. Where’s Weldon? Why did he let you in?”

George laughed, enjoying her confusion. “Weldon didn’t let me in. Rather he let you out.”

To Caro’s dismay, she realized he was right. Now she remembered how she’d argued with George on the steps of Blackstone House, how he’d grabbed her when she’d turned to leave him, and the same sickly sweet smell of the cloth he’d pressed over her face as he’d pulled her into the carriage.

“You’re my guest now, Caro,” he continued, “and I mean to be a most excellent host to you during your stay here.”

Caro’s dismay deepened as she looked around her. The slanting, water-stained ceiling overhead didn’t belong to any room she recognized, and the single casement beneath the eaves framed no more than a sliver of sky through the narrow, dirty pane. Watching from beside the window, the grim-faced woman with her arms crossed over her breasts bore no resemblance to her own laughing, lighthearted lady’s maid. The linens Caro lay upon were patched and dank, the bedstead hard and narrow, a servant’s bed without curtains or bolster, and beneath the coarse coverlet, she wore not her cambric night rail but only her shift. With an indignant gasp, she clutched the coverlet over her breasts and glared at George, seated beside the bed on the room’s only chair.

“I’d hardly describe myself as your guest, George,” she said tartly, striving for as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances. “As despicable as you are, I didn’t think you’d lower yourself to kidnapping.”

He cocked his head, striving to look contrite. “Kidnapping seems a bit harsh. Think of it instead as an opportunity for you to reconsider certain of your…misconceptions.”

“Don’t try and put a pretty face on it, George,” she snapped. “It’s kidnapping, nothing less, and I’m certain the magistrates will agree with me. And my only ‘misconception’ was to trust you as much as I did.”

In her mind she was already framing the words she’d use to swear out a writ against him. Even with Frederick’s title to protect her, she’d have to be careful: to a magistrate, George would seem more a model English gentleman than a villain. He was a small man, the same height as Caro herself, and because his features were fine boned, almost too pretty, he favored expensive boots and coats cut to make him look like some bluff country squire. In a group of men George Stanhope was always the one who laughed the loudest, and among ladies he was known as a witty, agreeable partner, free with compliments and trinkets.

Yet from the first time George had bowed over her hand, Caro had not been fooled. She, too, was a sparrow made bright in false plumage, and she was quick to recognize the wish for the same in George. But where she would have loved a penniless Frederick for his kindness alone, all of George’s fawning attention had been dependent on her husband’s wealth and generosity. It was his expectations of Frederick’s death that paid George’s tailor and bought the gewgaws for his mistresses, and those same expectations that had made him bring her here.

He smiled now, still trying to charm her into compliance. “I didn’t ask for your trust, Auntie, only your common sense where poor old Frederick is concerned.”