Midnight Mistress (7 page)

Unfortunately, that good sense did not always extend to their friendships. “My deawr Lady Juliana!”

“How pleasant to see you again, Lord Renquist,” she commented, her smile hardly wavering. She glanced around the room. “I see my uncle invited quite a few guests.”

“Yes, we have impowrtant business to discuss,” the lord intoned grandly, apparently unaware that Juliana knew that his position at the Admiralty required almost as little effort as the commodore’s. “How does Mrs. Jolly fair?”

“Oh, quite well, though she has a headache today and could not receive callers.”

“Dweadful,” the lord replied with a veneer of sympathy. It was no secret that Mrs. Jolly considered the lord’s purchased
title “new-minted.” “But what of you? Is yowr ankle quite well?”

“My ankle? Oh yes, quite,” she replied as she looked past Renquist’s shoulder. Near the pianoforte stood Lord and Lady Marchmont, a pleasant but vague couple who rarely spoke of anything but the weather. Nearby, Mr. Feathergill and his wife chatted with some other officers, and though Juliana could not hear them, she was quite sure that Feathergill was again expressing his dissatisfaction at being passed over years ago to become the Vice Admiral of the Blue.

Over by the bookcases stood two plump officers who were named Rice and Caldwell, whom Juliana always thought of as a matched set of pleasantly overstuffed armchairs. And near the window, the commodore and Meg stood with another man whose dark, lean shape was silhouetted against the window. Juliana peered closer, trying to make out who it was. Instead, she saw Meg glance toward her, looking miserable.

Miserable?

The stranger turned. Juliana froze as she recognized the bleak, hard lines of his profile.

Her smile disintegrated. She wished she could run away and hide for a century. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her.

She wished she’d worn her prettier dress.

“There she is!” Commodore Jolly bounded up to her. “Look who I invited, my dear. Captain Gabriel—the man who was so helpful to you when you hurt your ankle.”

“Helpful?” Juliana’s word came out as sputtered gasp. “Commodore, he is the man who
caused
me to hurt my ankle.”

The guests began whispering among themselves. The commodore’s usually befuddled expression became positively perplexed. “But I thought … I imagined … oh heavens, this is a tangle.”

“A tangle of my making,” Connor admitted, stepping
forward. “Commodore, I confess that I accepted your invitation under less than forthright circumstances. I saw this as an opportunity to beg Lady Juliana’s forgiveness.”

Forgive him?
Juliana thought. She’d rather be keelhauled! Years ago Connor Reed’s duplicity had nearly ruined her life, and she’d be the fool of the world to let it happen again. Yet as she looked up into his face, she found herself hoping, almost desperately, that somewhere underneath those cold, pale eyes and ruthlessly self-assured smile lived the boy she’d grown up with, the boy she’d always depended on, always trusted, always loved.…

Grinigog!

She turned away, angrier than ever that he’d managed to undermine her resolve yet again. She considered storming out of the room, but something far more cutting came to mind. With a practiced eloquence she lifted her hand to her mouth and gave a bored yawn. “Of course I shall forgive Captain Gabriel. I have always believed it is charitable to pardon the slights of the lower … that is to say, of
gentlemen
such as yourself.”

Connor sucked in his breath as if he’d been struck by a bullet. For an instant his composure was stripped away and he stared down at her with the stark pain she’d seen in his eyes as a child. But within a second he regained his control. His jaw pulled taut and his eyes turned to opaque mirrors, reflecting her own indifference back at her. Then his mouth edged up into a smile that held every ounce of the cold ruthlessness that had made him the most notorious privateer on the high seas. “The lady is too kind,” he stated, giving Juliana a bow of mock deference. “Commodore, I thank you for your hospitality, but I fear I have another engagement and must take my leave. Good evening.”

The captain left the room leaving the still befuddled Jolly and the other guests in his wake. The Feathergills stared. Lady Marchmont murmured something about winter weather having ill effects on one’s nerves. Only Lord Renquist
seemed perfectly satisfied with her actions. “Oh, well done my deawr,” he commented in a low voice only she could hear. “Nothing wong with tweating them as equals, but it never hurts to put them in their place.”

He might have said more, but Meg stormed up to her and gripped her arm, making a perfunctory apology to the guests as she herded Juliana out of the room. She pulled her friend into the empty dining room and glared at her. “How could you be so monstrously uncivil?”

Juliana stiffened at the censure. “Meg, you do not understand. This man—”

“—was a guest in this house. The commodore invited the captain here as a kindness to you. You should have at least been civil to the man for Jolly’s sake, if nothing else. Yet when you arrive, you treat him as if you were an ill-mannered termagant.”

“Well, what if I did?” Juliana shot back. “He deserved it. You don’t know what he did to me, how he treated me—”

“I saw how you treated
him
. Julie, I saw the look in his eyes. You wounded him—deeply. No human being deserves such treatment, no matter what he has done. You owe the captain an apology.”

“Never!” Juliana lifted her chin stubbornly. “The sea will turn to freshwater before I apologize to that scoundrel.”

“Then you had best pray for a deluge, because I believe you need to apologize to him, for your own sake, if nothing else. You know that a sister could be no dearer to me than you are. But since you started running with Lord Renquist and his smart set you have become more cynical and cutting. It has made you fashionable and popular, but it is at the expense of your natural kindness. And if you do not change your path, I fear you will become no better than those empty-headed dunderheads at Morrow’s party.”

Without waiting for an answer, Meg returned to the guests. Juliana joined them a few minutes later, slipping easily into Meg’s explanation of momentary fatigue. For the
rest of the evening she was the picture of elegance, acting as the perfect hostess to all the commodore’s guests. But while the ever-cheerful commodore and his vapid officers droned on about several completely insignificant events at the Admiralty, Juliana thought on what Meg had said.

The butler, Roberts, arrived, announcing that dinner was served. During the soup course, Juliana dismissed the girl’s observations as pure fancy. But by the time the fish arrived, Juliana realized that if her friend had seen changes in her, then she must have changed. By the time the mutton chop was served, Juliana had to own that Meg’s observations were at least partially correct.

The veneer of arch sophistication had made her one of the most celebrated ladies of the
ton
. She had dozens of friends, scores of admirers, and more marriage proposals than she could turn down in a lifetime. Though still young, she had achieved a position that put her in the same circles as the incomparable Lady Jersey and the revered Mrs. Drummond-Burrell. She had earned her father’s pride.

Lady Juliana Dare was a complete success, but she knew full well that such acclaim would never have come to a gangly, eager girl who had spent her early years climbing through a ship’s rigging, trading ribald jokes with sailors three times her age, and seeing far more of life than a modest, well-bred lady was supposed to. If the full truth of her upbringing was known, she had no doubt that both her popularity and her devoted suitors would disappear like silver minnows snapped up by a hungry barracuda.

In truth, she was as mortified by her past as Connor was by his.

It seemed an interminably long evening, but eventually the guests left. Meg retired immediately to her bedchamber, barely saying good night. After the commodore settled in his study to read the latest humor magazine and racing form, Juliana headed to her own bedchamber. Pride was a hard dish to swallow, and of late she had had little practice at it. But as
she turned the situation over in her mind, only one solution came to her—at least, there was only one solution that would not cost her another sleepless night. So she wrapped herself in her most concealing cloak, and padded down the hallway to Meg’s chamber door.

“I cannot believe that you talked me into this,” Meg said as she stepped gingerly around an evil-smelling basket of fish innards.

“ ’Tis your own fault,” Juliana countered over her shoulder. “You were the one who encouraged me to apologize to Connor.”

“Yes, well, I imagined you might send him a nice note, not spend the night traipsing around the London docks.”

“We are not traipsing—the harbormaster gave us excellent directions. We shall find the captain and be back home by eleven, I assure you.”

“Perhaps,” Meg replied as she gave a wary glance at the fog-shrouded docks ahead of them. “I only hope that you know what you are doing.”

Juliana hoped the same. Ever since she had left the hired carriage and set foot on the docks, she began to have doubts about the wisdom of her plan. When she was a child, this place had been like a second home to her. The river had been
the lifeblood of England’s commerce since Roman times, and most of the successful shipping concerns, including her father’s, had their offices here. But it had been almost seven years since she had visited those offices. And as she peered into the murky gloom, intermittently lit by lanterns and torches, and saw the dark forms of ships rise and fall on the rolling Thames like a fleet of ghosts, she began to wonder if a pleasant note might not have been the best solution after all.

Then she remembered the pain in Connor’s eyes, pain she’d purposely caused. Any note she sent would likely be torn to bits before it was read. No, she had to face him when she apologized, to make sure he believed her. She wasn’t entirely certain why it mattered so much to her,—she was sure that Connor was nothing more to her than a notorious scoundrel—but she did know that if she didn’t try to make amends, she truly would be no better than Renquist and the rest of his shallow set.

“Look!” Meg’s cry cut through her thoughts. She pointed directly ahead, toward one of the shadow vessels. “ ’Tis the one, I’m sure of it. It has no name painted on its bow.”

Connor’s ship. It was a fine snow, a two-masted vessel used in trade and war. Juliana appraised the silhouette with a sailor’s eye, taking in the sleek hull built for speed and maneuverability, and the high-set guns designed to fire at masts and rigging.
French design, and a real beauty
, she surmised as they approached the vessel, but her admiration was almost instantly replaced by a perplexed frown. It was hardly unusual for a privateer to be sailing a captured ship—often that was the only way they could acquire one. But usually the vessels were old and outdated, unable to outrun and outfight their more modern attackers. This frigate was nearly brand new, surely no more than a half dozen years out of the French shipyards. How in the world had Connor managed to win such a prize, when four years ago he’d left London with little more than the clothes on his back?

“Who goes there?”

Juliana started at the barked demand. She looked up and saw a man glaring down at her from the railing of Connor’s ship. He had one eye, no neck, and arms like ham hocks. He looked as if he’d slit her throat for a penny. “We—ehem—we’ve come to see Captain Gabriel.”

The large man leaned to his left and spit a wad of tobacco into the water. “ ’Ooh wants ’im?”

Make that a ha’penny
, Juliana thought as she pulled her concealing hood closer around her face. Her reputation would be in tatters if news of this visit became public—though keeping her good name seemed the least of her worries at the moment. During her years at sea she’d learned that some rough characters were rock-hard on the outside but gentle as lambs on the inside.

This man looked as if he were made of stone clear through.

However, she’d come too far to turn back now. Gathering her courage, Juliana straightened her shoulders and spoke with as much authority as she could muster. “My name is of no consequence. I wish to speak with Captain Gabriel. Would you be so kind as to tell him that he has a visit—”

Her words died as a gummy wad of tobacco hit the wooden dock not six inches from her slipper.

“Shove off. The captain chooses his doxies, not the other way ’round.”

“Doxies! Now see here, we’re not—I mean, we aren’t—my good man, if you just inform the captain of our arrival, I’m sure he will—”

She ducked as a well-aimed chaw sailed over her head and spattered against the shed behind her.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Meg commented dryly as she looked from the spatter to the disappearing hulk of the sailor. “What do we do now?”

What indeed? In her younger days, Juliana would have stormed the gangway and yelled at the tobacco-chewing son
of a packet rat until he was forced to take her to Connor, but those days were long gone. Such behavior would almost certainly attract the attention of the night watch—and assure her a front-page headline in tomorrow’s
Tattler
. The Jollys would be mortified. Juliana had little choice but to give up and go home. “But I cannot go home, not yet,” she breathed, speaking more to herself than to Meg. “There must be some way I can get on that ship and see Connor—”