Heather Graham (6 page)

Pierce laughed. “Evil, eh?”

“His tricks—”

“Everyone plays tricks at court these days. Your brother can be a pest, Anne. And Jamison Bryant is selfish and immature. As to Rose—she’s a little witch. She deserves what she gets.”

“Pierce, Rose Woodbine is really quite kind and brave—”

“What makes you think so?”

Anne hesitated. “Just a few days ago, my love, Jamison had me rather trapped,” she said lightly. It had been worse than that, but knowing Pierce’s temper, she had refrained from telling him what had happened when she’d had the misfortune to find herself alone with her brother’s friend. They’d all accompanied the king for a ride south, and Jamison had nearly forced her horse off the trail—intentionally, she was certain. But Rose Woodbine had come upon them and immediately sensed her distress. Her riding had been so magnificent that she’d easily pretended to have lost control of her horse—nearly crushing Jamison, and allowing Anne to escape.

Anne touched his chin. “She is an excellent horsewoman, my love. She rode just like a stunning little female cavalier into the fray, and drove off that wicked fellow.”

“What was that wicked fellow doing?”

She waved a hand in the air. “It was nothing, really. I was just in an uncomfortable position. And Rose was very brave and kind in rescuing me from my discomfort. So, Pierce, for me, would you offer her your protection?”

He sighed. “Anne, for you, I would do most anything. She has my protection. And she shall have it with exceptional generosity—if you can keep her away from me!”

Anne kissed his nose. “I shall. Now—”

“Now I want to hear no more about her!”

She raised her eyes to his, but he started to kiss her.

“Let’s please be alone for a few moments!” he said huskily. She remained silent, tasting his kiss again. Within moments she forgot all about Mistress Woodbine.

To Pierce’s great annoyance, he did not. Even as he lay with Anne, he saw Rose Woodbine’s face within his mind’s eye. The fantastic wealth of her hair, the color of it! The curve of her lip, the feel of her against him, the emerald green of her eyes, flashing …

He shuddered suddenly, startled by the hunger, and then the wave of unease that settled over him. She was just a girl. A pretty commoner, no more, no less. All right, she was beautiful. Still …

There was no need for Anne to ever know that he did find something compelling about the girl. Something that haunted the senses, that beckoned, that excited …

A feeling of guilt riddled him. He had been making love to Anne while thinking of the Woodbine girl. Wanting her. She absolutely infuriated him!

Yet he could not still this feeling of desire.

He almost groaned aloud.

The girl wanted to go home, he had heard. Badly. She wanted nothing to do with any man, she just wanted to return to her precious Virginia.

And pray God! Maybe she’d manage to do so soon!

HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN
a happy man, Jamison Bryant thought. He was young, good-looking with very pale blue eyes, fine light hair, and a lean, well-muscled body. Yes, he should have been happy, he decided, staring across the room that had so recently been his father’s, but was now his own. It was a rich room. Heavy brocade draperies hung from the huge oak bed. Within the confines of an elegantly carved mantel, a fire burned brightly. The entire manor, the Bryant home of Hershire Place, was elegant and warm and opulent. And now it was his. He’d been raised to rule it, he’d been guided, he’d been taught. And somehow, he thought with a sigh, lightly stroking Beth’s soft white flesh, he’d gone astray. He’d never been able to tolerate his noble father. His learned teachers had bored him to tears. He’d escaped his classes to play pranks like setting fire to small logs and tying them to the tails of hapless cats. He wasn’t quite sure what flaw had caused him to be the way he was, and for a while when he had been young, it had plagued him.

But then, he thought with a smile, he’d grown older, and discovered that many within the world were flawed. And many of those flawed individuals were so much more interesting than the others.

“You’re brooding,” Beth told him.

He nodded, smiling down at her. She was a fleshy lass, and he liked that about her. Every single thing about Beth reeked of the farm girl, from her broad hips to her ample bosom and her freckled cheeks.

But she was no simple lass, not his Beth! She had a shrewd way of looking at the world, and she thoroughly entertained him. He enjoyed her because she knew him, knew all his little streaks of cruelty, and even enjoyed them. She knew that he’d never consider granting her even the title of his “mistress,” that he would call her nothing but a whore until the day he died. That didn’t matter. When he prospered, he saw to it that Beth prospered. She liked rich things. He didn’t mind giving them to her. She knew that he thought continually of Anne, and she would have happily done anything to aid him in his pursuit of the lady. She knew that she would always be amply rewarded.

“’Tis a wretched life!” he told her wearily, lying back beside her.

“Because you can’t have the Lady Anne?” Beth inquired.

He grimaced, resting his head against her breast, noting with some dissatisfaction that her middle was broadening even more. He pinched her and she cried out. Then he rolled up to lie on his back, his fingers laced behind his head, his eyes not seeing as he stared toward the window.

“I have always wanted Anne,” he said, and it was true. There was something about her blond beauty. She was like a beacon of purity—even if the entire court was well aware she slept with DeForte. Damn DeForte. And his friendship with the king. And his reputation as a soldier, and as a shipbuilder, and all damn else.

But Anne …

He adored her. He worshiped the very ground she walked on. More than anything in his whole life, he wanted Anne. If there had ever been anything decent about him, anything that could actually steer him true, it was Anne!

Anne was someone he could never quite reach, no matter what his station and the title he had inherited. There was something about her …

And then there was Rose!

Ah, yes! Rose had it, too. His elegant, headstrong, wayward little American cousin. She was always cool, she walked so straight, she spoke with such a tone to her words. It was in her eyes, her gestures, her dress. He didn’t know what it was exactly. It was something that could never really be reached, not quite touched.

Oh, yes! he thought. He was terribly dissatisfied! There was the majestic, elegant Lady Anne, whom he had wanted his whole life, and now there was Rose, the talk of the court, the American beauty. And he was so damned close to them …

And yet he was lying here with Beth!

“They’re all out hunting today,” he said, rising from the bed and striding naked to the window, looking out as if he could see the people he spoke about. “It must have been a very exclusive party. The king, DeForte, the Lady Anne, my cousin Rose, and just a few others!”

“And you were not among them. And so you are unhappy.”

He hesitated. “Nothing would disturb me. If I just had Anne.”

There was a knocking on the door. Jamison could hear his father’s ancient servant, Crawly, clearing his throat.

“God’s blood, what is it?” Jamison thundered.

Old Crawly didn’t answer. He heard a peal of deep laughter, and then the voice of his best friend, Anne’s brother, Jerome.

“Give the old man a chance,
Lord
Bryant. ’Tis me. Jerome. And I don’t give a damn what perversion you’re up to at the moment, I’ve come up with a splendid idea!”

Beth started to hop up. “Oh, lie down!” Jamison told her irritably. It certainly wasn’t as if she hadn’t been seen in bed by many a man before. He reached to the foot of the bed for his own breeches and crawled into them, strode across the room, and threw the door open.

Jerome grinned broadly at him and stepped into the room. His looks had always struck Jamison as odd. In a way, he resembled Anne. His eyes were very blue, his hair blond. He was slim, his features fine. But his smile was utterly different, cool and bitter where Anne’s was warm.

“My dear Beth!” he taunted, bowing deeply toward the bed. Beth scowled at him. Jamison frowned.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jerome said.

“Well, you should be.”

Jerome was undaunted. He ambled over to the table where Jamison kept his best whiskey, poured himself a glass, and sat down, propping his feet up on a priceless inlaid table.

“I have the idea of a lifetime!” he said pleasantly.

Jamison arched a brow. “Pray—do tell!”

Jerome chuckled softly. “Well, let’s see here, m’lord! I imagine that you’ve been lying here with poor Beth bemoaning the fact that the illustrious and damnable Pierce DeForte is sleeping with my oh-so-wonderful sister. So let’s think about this. Surely, with your wonderfully cunning mind, there must be something you can plan?”

Beth moaned. “Take care, Jamison!”

“Shut up!” Jamison snapped. “What are you getting at?” he demanded of Jerome.

Jerome shot Beth a smile. “Beth, we are going to need your help, but I know that Jamison will see that you are well rewarded for any assistance you give.”

Beth arched a brow.

“Tell me about this plan!” Jamison insisted.

Jerome grinned, swallowing down his whiskey. “It’s really so damned simple! On the one hand, we have the exquisite Rose! Legally obliged to at least pay you some heed. Then we have the object of your dearest desire—Anne. Then, of course, the illustrious DeForte, and finally, my friend, you. Two women, two men. We just have to see that they are all arranged properly!”

“And how do we do that?” Jamison demanded.

“Are we all in?” Jerome queried.

Beth nodded. Jamison hesitated. He would have done anything for Anne. Wanting her had become an obsession.

“Yes, we’re both in,” Jamison said at last.

Jerome grinned like a jester. “This is the plan …”

Rose was entirely unaware that she might be the focus of anyone’s evil thoughts at the moment. Her own temper had risen to a tempest; and she was too busy ranting about Lord Pierce DeForte to think of her distant cousin.

“Well, now, he can’t be that horrid a creature!” Mary Kate said soothingly as she ran a brush through Rose’s long tresses. Newly washed and lightly scented, the long hair felt like silk sliding through Mary Kate’s fingers. Though Mary Kate was doing her very best to keep a somber inflection in her voice, she was secretly rather amused. She had been with Rose since her mother’s death, and they were very close. Theirs was far more than a mistress-maid relationship, which is why Rose felt free to rant and rave to Mary Kate now about the fury in her heart—all directed at Lord Pierce DeForte.

“I tell you, Mary Kate, God put no more horrid creature upon this earth! You would have thought that I had purposely waylaid the man! And he did soak me with full malicious intent, I tell you! I have never, never in all my days, come across an individual more rude!” She sniffed, whirling around in the chair before the dressing table. Her eyes, ferociously green at the moment, seemed to sizzle with emerald fire. “He is detestable!”

Mary Kate expertly whirled the deep auburn skeins of Rose’s hair into a smooth coil at her nape. “He is the rage of all London, you know,” she told Rose.

“All London can have him.”

“He’s one of the king’s dearest friends.”

“Even such a splendid monarch may be ill advised in choosing his friends!”

“I also believe that your father considers him the most eligible man in England.”

Rose waved a hand impatiently in the air. “You know Father, Mary Kate! He simply doesn’t understand. And he’s certainly never met Pierce DeForte! If he had, he would never think him at all possible as husband material! Oh, I can’t believe that he’s had me sent here to court to begin with! And set up in such a humiliating position—like a prize racehorse, trying to attract the best stud!”

“Rose!” Mary Kate exclaimed in horror.

“Well, it’s the truth!” she cried, her eyes still green fire, liquid with her fury, and just a trace of tears. She loved her father deeply, but the events that had occurred today had truly brought home the misery of her place here. He wanted her to marry—in England! And all that she wanted to do was go home!

“He has no right!” she said suddenly, staring at Mary Kate. “He spent all those years treating me like an equal! Letting me learn about the ships and the plantation, the people and the crops! Then off he sends me to school—and then to court, where I’m placed beneath the ‘benign eye’ of Lord Bryant to be ‘suitably’ wed! And the entire world seems to know that he really wants me to marry that horrible man I met today!”

Mary Kate shook her head. “Rose, I know that your father loves you. I’m sure he doesn’t want you to be miserable. He’s heard that the king dotes on DeForte, and so—”

“The king is a fool!” Rose cried.

“Hush! That’s very nearly treason!” Mary Kate said, distressed, and not nearly so amused anymore. Rose could be very wild and impetuous, and in her anger she might well get herself into some serious trouble.

Rose inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Oh, this is ridiculous! I wouldn’t have to hate DeForte and say stupid things about the king if I could just go home!”

Mary Kate frowned. Rose had never really been denied anything. Now Mary Kate was afraid that she was going to learn the lesson of denial in a very brutal manner, for Ashcroft was hardly likely to let her choose her own husband. It made Mary Kate sorry, for she loved the girl deeply.

“Well, there’s more to deal with than your father at the moment!” the maid warned.

Rose knew instantly whom Mary Kate was referring to. Lord Jamison Bryant. On top of everything else, Jamison’s kindly father had somehow managed to pass away at this most inopportune of moments! Now she was left with Jamison as a guardian. Although he was a handsome enough man, tall, lean, and always impeccably dressed, there was something about him that disturbed her.

“Jamison,” she said flatly to Mary Kate. She hesitated. “I don’t think he has any real power over me,” she murmured, a little uneasily. She inched her chin up a shade. “I won’t let him have any power over me. He’s a guardian, not my father. He’s supposed to see to it that my virtue is kept safe, and he’ll never have to worry in the least about that.”