Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (37 page)

      
His hand reached out, and one finger touched her chin, tipping it up so that he could read what lay hidden in her eyes. What he saw robbed him of breath.Her hands clutched his wrist and she swayed toward him involuntarily, desire a hot, dark fire blazing in the hazel green depths of her eyes.

      
Derrick swept her up into his arms and carried her from the small dressing room directly to their big bed, murmuring, “By God, I will make you glad—nay, eager—to stay with me.”

Chapter Twenty

      
They sailed the day before Quint was scheduled to depart for America. Beth's father, along with Vittoria and Piero, stood waving from the quay as they were rowed out to the
Lady Barbara
. It had been a difficult leave-taking for Beth, maintaining the fiction that all was well between herself and Derrick, that she was looking forward to her new life as a countess in cold, distant England. The only thing she did not have to pretend enthusiasm about was the coming child.

      
She wanted Derrick's baby more with every passing day, a small part of him that could love her in return. If the child's father could only desire her, never love her, so be it. She must learn to content herself with what was and not waste her life dreaming impossible dreams about what would never happen. She sat in the small boat, holding on to Percy with one arm, waving with her other. When her small circle of family finally became tiny specks on the distant horizon, she turned to face the looming outline of the sleek Baltimore clipper owned by Blackthorne Shipping Ltd., her uncle Dev's company.

      
“Tis a fine ship. Your father guaranteed 'twould make the passage swiftly and smoothly,” Derrick said as he prepared to help her climb aboard.

      
“My uncle named it for his wife.”

      
“Ah, yes, Monty Caruthers's sister, who scandalized the ton by wedding an American,” he said.

      
“Uncle Dev is part Creek Indian. I can imagine how that must have fanned the flames of gossip.”

      
“Merely being American would have been sufficient,” he replied, before realizing that she might take his remark amiss.

      
She did. “Then I shall deal famously with the Quality, I warrant,” she said, stiffening when he took her arm and helped her onto the boarding ladder.

      
Derrick cursed to himself. “Everything I say you take amiss.”

      
“If you refrain from saying things that are amiss, I will not be able to take them that way, will I?” she replied oversweetly.

      
Sighing in defeat, he reminded himself that she was breeding. He vowed to be patient during the voyage...and more careful with chance remarks.

      
The seas were rough with unseasonable storms, but in spite of Derrick's fears for her, Beth proved to be a marvelous sailor. Unless the weather prevented it, she always rose at daybreak and went above deck to sketch. He brooded about whether she would take it into her head to resume her “career” once they were settled in London.

      
They would have to have a discussion about her art, and he dreaded it. Their shipboard routine, removed from all outside sources of friction, had been almost idyllic. There was a great deal of time to spend lying abed, making love, and they found themselves able to do so without the frenetic overtones that had so marred their relationship recently. Finally, as they approached the coast of Brittany, he could put the matter off no longer.

      
Beth entered their cabin, flushed from a successful morning's work. After the earlier storms, the sea was now smooth as glass and the sunrise spectacular. Derrick stood by a small table where a repast had been laid out.

      
“That looks marvelous,” she said, taking the seat he offered her and digging in. “Did you sleep well?”

      
“Quite,” he replied, recalling the lusty way they'd made love before retiring. Something in his eyes conveyed the memory to her, and he was pleased to see a faint flush stain her cheeks. No time like now while she's in good humor. “We'll be landing within two days, channel weather permitting,” he said by way of opening.

      
A pity
, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. “I expect you'll have a great many things to attend to,” she replied noncommittally.

      
“Yes, but there is one matter that we need to discuss before we're at sixes and sevens settling into our new life. I know how much you enjoy painting—and I want you to continue it—but there will be other demands on your time as well.”

      
“I've been expecting you to bring up the matter of my work.” She pushed her plate away, all appetite fled. “I will do my best to perform whatever social obligations are necessary, but from what I've seen and heard of English noblewomen, much of their time is wasted with mantuamakers, tea-time gossip and dancing masters. I see no reason that I cannot continue to paint instead of holding court from a fainting couch.”

      
The tone of disdain in her voice was unmistakable. ”A trifle blunt, puss,” he said, trying to cajole her.

      
“Tis an American fault, I fear. We say things as we know them to be.”

      
“You've yet to set foot on English soil. I doubt you know anything about it to be true or false. I'm not trying to forbid you to paint. But you cannot sell your paintings in England. Even among the merchant classes, women do not work for money. It would certainly cause you to be ostracized by the upper ten thousand.”

      
“And the peerage, of course, defines the order of the cosmos,” she replied, her disdain quite open now.

      
“Do you want to be cut, Beth? To spend your life in complete isolation?”

      
She sighed raggedly. His damnable sense of duty to the Jamison name meant everything to him. “I told you I’d be a hopeless misfit but you refused to listen.”

      
“I listened, all right—to my wife tell me that she would prefer to be rid of me and return to her old life and loves. That will not happen. You are my wife!” He bit off each word furiously. So much for cajolery! “Nor will you engage in selling so much as a pencil sketch. Do I make myself clear?”

      
“Quite, m'lord earl. What will you do? Banish me to the country? There's nothing I should like better!”

      
“Your time at Lynden Hall shall come quickly enough. But first you must be presented to society. We were wed abroad, and gossip about the legitimacy of our child shall abound if I hide you away before everyone sees that you are not already showing your condition. Would you want that for your son or daughter? Do you care enough about the child for it to matter in the slightest?”

      
His remark cut her far more than any member of the ton could ever have done. “Very well, I will play your games. I see no need—or even a way—to obtain commissions, but I will paint. If you take that from me, I...I do not know what I should do.” She hated the desperation that she'd just revealed, but Derrick's thunderous expression immediately softened.

      
He reached over and took her hands in his, massaging the pulse points in her wrists with his thumbs. “I would not be so cruel. Nor will things be so terrible, puss. I will be at your side when we face my family.”

* * * *

      
The Jamison city house was located on Pall Mall, just a short distance from Prinney's famous Carlton House, a trying ride from the docks. Beth was in a veritable daze since landing, trying at once to get her “land legs” back and not lurch like a drunken sailor, then to assimilate all the sights, sounds and smells of the greatest city on earth. The smells were by far the most difficult.

      
Percy found them fascinating and had to be restrained from jumping from the carriage, but Beth found them ghastly. Coal smoke hung thick in the air, which carried on its turgid currents the odors of emptied chamber pots, tannery chemicals and lord knew what else. The waterfront in Naples was a veritable perfumery compared to the seeming miles of warehouses and noisome slums surrounding them. The narrow streets and alleys were overcrowded with the most wretched collection of humanity she had ever seen.

      
“The
lazzaroni
are better off,” she said as their carriage passed several beggar boys who chased after it, shouting for coins. Diseased prostitutes, little more than children themselves, hawked their wares boldly on the busy streets. “There is no excuse for this in the richest nation on earth.”

      
“I quite agree,” Derrick replied. “You have no idea of the ghastly conditions of the poor since the industrialization in the north drove so many thousands from the land. Now that the war's over, 'tis well past time members of Parliament turn their attention to mending what's ill in our own nation.”

      
“And you will have a seat in the House of Lords.” She had not considered that there might actually be something worthwhile for an earl to do in London. Rather, she had envisioned the wastrel pursuits of the beau monde, fashionable men who spent hours with tailors and dressers, then went out to spend their nights gambling, wenching and drinking. Alex had outlined an expurgated version of that life in his letters to her.

      
“Yes, but I'll also have to sit down with my solicitors and unravel the mess Leighton made of the family estates and investments.”

      
“Are you in debt?” she asked, knowing that his stiff English pride would forbid him to accept from her any financial assistance if that was the case, no matter that her family was well able to do so.

      
“Apparently not yet. Lee's been dead for nearly a year now, else 'twould have been worse. The solicitors have curtailed his wife's excessive spending.”

      
She wanted to question him more about her sister-in-law, Annabella, but the driver stopped their carriage and Derrick climbed down, assisting her out so that she could get her first look at the imposing stone edifice that would be her new home. The dog jumped down, tail wagging with excitement, but Beth grew tense as she viewed the three-story mansion. Everything about it was gray, from the austere granite walls to the cloudy skies above. A chill wind hinting of early autumn blew a loose strand of hair across her face and she shivered.

      
As they climbed the age-worn steps to the front door, it was flung open and a small, dainty female with blond ringlets and round pale blue eyes swept regally toward them. Annabella. Dressed in pale lavender silk trimmed with fine Belgian lace, she was young and very pretty in the vapid sort of way Beth had always imagined English beauties.

      
“Oh, Derrick, dear brother! 'Tis so good to see you in this time of trial,” she said, dabbing at nonexistent tears with a lacy kerchief, careful that her perfect cream and rose complexion not be marred in the slightest. She bussed his cheek with more than sisterly enthusiasm in Beth's opinion.

“How have you been, Bella? And your daughter—Constance, is it not?” he inquired politely, taking her busy little hands from about his neck and holding them discreetly between his.

      
“Constance is an absolute darling. She'll be walking in no time, or so the nurse tells me,” she said dismissively, batting her eyes at Derrick.

      
Barking loudly, Percy chose that moment to jump from behind a carriage wheel, where he'd been attending to a call of nature. “Ooh!” Annabella shrieked, jumping back as if the tail-wagging greeting were the attack snarl of a Bengal tiger.

      
“Pay no mind to Sir Percival, he doesn't bite,” Beth said, kneeling to give the dog a calming pat.

      
“This must be your bride,” Annabella said, recovering her voice as Beth stood up, towering over the diminutive widow. “Twas very wicked of you, dear Derrick, not to let anyone know where you've been these past years—and to marry abroad and not tell us!”

      
“Bella, may I present my wife Elizabeth? Everyone calls her Beth.” Derrick's hand pressed the small of her back, urging her forward. “Beth, this is your new sister-in-law Annabella.”

      
“Beth, how charming. I'm certain we shall become great friends,” Annabella said with cloying sweetness that indicated to Beth that she'd best beware of the Englishwoman whose title she'd usurped. “Our solicitors informed me that you're from the colonies.”

      
Beth could imagine being American was only slightly more acceptable than being a leper. “Yes, I am American, from Savannah, Georgia.”

      
“But you wed dear Derrick in Naples? That was where they finally ran you to ground, was it not, you naughty fellow?” she said, turning back to him.

      
Derrick only smiled that calm, noncommittal spy's smile of his and replied, “Naples is a very romantic city, Bella. You must visit it one day,” he added as he ushered the women inside.

      
When the dog followed, Annabella looked askance at him but said nothing until Derrick explained, “Beth is quite fond of the rascal. We shall see that he's confined to our apartments, won't we, m'dear?”

      
Before she could reply, Annabella had recovered and began prattling. “Of course, propriety demands that I wait until my full year of mourning for poor Leighton is over before I can throw a gala to properly welcome you home, but I have arranged for dear Cousin Bertie and a few old friends to join us for dinner this evening. If that is all right with you?” she said to Derrick.

      
“My wife might be overtaxed from our long journey,” he replied, turning to Beth as they entered a long narrow foyer cluttered with Louis XV furniture and a depressing array of bric-a-brac. “She is expecting the Lynden heir in late spring.”