The Notorious Scoundrel (14 page)

A knock at the door.

She ignored the bounder.

The rapping persisted.

She huffed. She inspected her countenance in the mirror and smoothed her scowling features before she walked across the room and opened the door.

Her heart trembled.

“Are you all right, Amy?”

He peered at her from the misty darkness, his expression inscrutable, his eyes veiled with shadows. He queried her in a low voice; the sounds teased her senses, like fingers thrumming her spine.

She gripped the wood frame. “I’m about to retire.”

“Can I come inside?”

He pressed his palm against the door frame, brushing her fingers. She pulled her hand away. Jerked it, really.

He shifted his weight, leaned closer to her. “I need to talk with you.”

She detected the scent of wine on his breath.

“Now?” she snapped.

“It’s important.

She firmly pressed her lips together, but stepped aside, muscles taut, allowing him entrance.

The man’s long figure sauntered inside the room. He stirred the air as he passed, making her shiver. She closed the door after him and waited.

He scanned the bedchamber and remarked in a thick voice, “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

“Was I not supposed to?”

He turned around and offered her a small smile. “No, I want you to feel at home.”

She humphed at the friendly gesture, still perturbed.

He soon settled on the bed, the feather tick sinking. The ropes stretched, supporting his weight. In the firelight, one side of his body glowed, the other remained in shadow.

She was sentient of his slightest movement. He rested his figure on the spot where she slumbered, and if he shifted a thigh, she sensed the hard muscles rubbing her leg; she imagined it.

He looked across the room and set his gaze on a particular piece of furniture. “I’ve often wondered what sorts of treasures you keep locked away in that chest.”

“You have your secrets and I have mine.”

He chuckled. “And what secrets would you like to know about me?”

It sounded like a dangerous invitation; like he might bundle her up in a potato sack and drown her in a pond if she learned too many intimate details.

She eyed him with intent. “What happened when you boarded a slaver for the first time?”

He looked at his hands as a heavy silence entered the room. “I can’t tell you.”

She walked across the wool runner and sat on the wood chest. “I guess you can’t see my treasures then.”

He glanced at her with wry humor, but the flirtatious light soon faded from his eyes, and he sighed.

“It was dark belowdecks,” he said slowly, “the air ports too small and too few to offer light or a fresh breeze. I had to crawl. The ceiling was low, too low to stand. I followed the sounds: the cries, the iron manacles striking. The smell was foul, putrid. I found the slaves, chained together tightly without space to move. Naked. Filthy. A woman nursed a dead babe at her breast. I…I set about my duty and unlocked their shackles.”

He looked into the firelight as if seeking escape from the memory.

“How many were belowdecks?” she whispered, aghast.

“Two hundred and fifty.”

A staggering figure.

Amy had suffered over the years, too. She had endured hunger and isolation and hopelessness, but she suspected the depth of misery Edmund had encountered aboard the slaver alien even to her.

“Is that why Quincy takes to the opiate? To forget about the ordeal at sea?”

“No.”

“Did he kill someone aboard the slaver? A woman?”

“No!” he said sharply, eyes fierce. “He’s not a murderer.”

“He thinks he is.”

He quieted at that. After a short pause, he confessed, “It’s our mother. Quincy believes he killed the woman.”

She gasped. “What?”

Edmund rubbed his head, scratching his scalp. “She died in childbirth to the pup. The damn fool thinks it’s his fault.”

“I understand.” Amy sighed. “He feels guilty about her death.”

“He’s got no reason to feel guilty about it; he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He thinks he did, though.”

“Aye,” he grumbled. “That’s the trouble. And I can’t convince him otherwise, I’m afraid.”

She looked at her hands, rubbed them together. “I suppose it’s only fair that you learn some of my secrets now.”

She carefully removed the iron key from around her neck, knelt beside the chest, her skirts pooling, and unlocked it.

He hunkered beside her as she pushed up the cumbersome top and revealed the assortment of curios: a gentleman’s top hat, a crinoline, silk fans.

“Why so many gloves?”

At the low timbre in his voice, she shivered. “They remind me of my mother.” She opened one of the twelve boxes. “She used to wear gloves just like these. I purchased one pair, then another, searching for the right match.”

He fingered the soft white leather. “And do you think, if you surround yourself with these knickknacks, you will recapture the past?”

She closed the glove box, pinching his fingers be
tween the cardboard; he was tardy in pulling them away.

“I want to remember the past.”

“Why do you want to remember painful memories?”

“I don’t want to remember the bad memories,” she said stiffly. “There were good ones, too.”

“Your mother kissing you good night?” He fixed his sharp eyes on her. “Your father tweaking your nose?”

“That’s right.”

She swallowed the knot of tears forming in her throat. “What is this about?” She closed the chest and locked it. “Why did you come here, Edmund?”

“I think it a good idea we look for your parents.”

She scrambled off the floor and treaded toward the firelight, hugging her upper arms. She stared at the snapping flames, seeking warmth. “Why?”

“If your parents are alive, don’t you want to see them again?”

She watched as his shadow moved across the ground, approaching her. She burrowed her fingernails into her arms. “It’s a waste of time; it’s been too long.”

As she gazed into the firelight, fuzzy images stormed her mind: a garden filled with fragrant blossoms, a rambunctious puppy, a bright nursery room. The memories welled in her head with such vividness, she almost sensed…

A set of thick arms circled her midriff. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Amy.

“Really?” She struggled in his tight embrace, breathless, as the comfort of past dreams and the uncertainly of her future prospects clashed together in her heart. “Then what did you mean to do? Offer me false hope?”

“Amy?”

She pushed away from him; she staggered. “I have
one
chance to better myself as a lady’s maid or companion, and you want me to dream about lost parents and faerie-tale endings.” She brushed her hair away, the tresses trapped between her trembling lips. “Well, I won’t be distracted from my goal.”

“I don’t want to distract you.”

“Liar!”

The man’s sensual lips firmed. “What did you call me?”

“My parents are gone.” She swatted at the wretched tears that welled in her eyes, burned her sight. “I’m not going to waste my time and effort hunting ghosts. Get out, Edmund.”

“Amy,” he drawled, “what the devil’s come over you?”

“There’s nothing the matter with me. I won’t be pushed about, is all. I won’t let you torment me!”

She had suffered under Madame Rafaramanjaka’s cruel dictatorship. She had endured the leers and abuse from the patrons at the Pleasure Palace. She had evaded the kidnappers. She had survived—alone—for most of her life. And she wasn’t going to let the disdainful, arrogant scoundrel taunt her with worthless dreams
about long-lost parents for his amusement and selfish curiosity.

“Torment you?” He glared at her. “Are you daft?”

“I said get out!”

He bristled. After a moment, he growled, “I know you’ve been without friends for so long you suspect a saving hand, but I am not your enemy. I am your friend. And you damn well
don’t
treat a friend with such disrespect. Why don’t you learn
that
lesson before you tout yourself a lady.”

He stormed from the room, leaving Amy biting back her tears.

A
t breakfast the next morning, Edmund gathered a portion of every serving: biscuits with jam, smoked ham and cheese. He devoured the steamy fare without prejudice. As his belly filled, so, too, did the troublesome thoughts in his head. He had hoped to bury the haunting reflections with a hearty meal, but the shouts from last night’s row with Amy still resounded in his mind.

Did the lass really think him such a beast, he would
torment
her?

He frowned at the disturbing thought. He might be a scoundrel, but he wasn’t a bloody sadist. What was Amy thinking, accusing him of such loathsome conduct? Hadn’t he protected her, sheltered her for more than a sennight? Hadn’t he vowed to find her a respectable livelihood? And yet she still deemed him a reprobate. Why? Had she always harbored such a low opinion of him?

The idea seized Edmund’s imagination and he stiffened at the wretched prospect. If she considered him
such a swine, why had she kissed him? What the devil was the matter with the girl?

Quincy entered the dining parlor, his features drooping, morose. He dropped into one of the sturdy chairs and sighed, massaging his temples.

“You look like shit,” remarked Edmund.

Quincy ignored the surly comment, pegged him with a beseeching expression. “You have to talk with Will, Eddie.”

“About what?”

“About letting me sail aboard the
Nemesis
. James is threatening to house me at Mayfair while you’re both away at sea.”

Edmund snorted. “I’m half inclined to let him. It’d be a fitting punishment for being so daft.”

“I
can’t
live with him, Eddie.”

Edmund commiserated with his younger brother’s plight. Quincy’s misplaced grief and regret transcended their mother’s death. He had watched their father mourn for the beloved woman over the years, and while no one had blamed the pup for her death,
he
had blamed himself. The foolish man believed he’d devastated all their lives with his birth, James’s most of all, for the demise of their mother had pushed James into the role of caregiver. A role, Quincy suspected, James had loathed. Edmund, however, wasn’t so sure James had despised the position; he had yet to relinquish it.

“No, I suppose you can’t live with James. It’d drive you even deeper into the opium dens.”

Edmund eyed his brother with scrutiny as a series of words from a mysterious stranger echoed in his head:
Have you come looking for salvation?

“What do you find in the smoke, Quincy? Salvation?”

He lifted his eyes, his expression black. “Don’t preach to me, Eddie. I hear enough sermons from James.”

“Bite your tongue. I’m not James.” He frowned. “But you’re not going to find forgiveness for sins you didn’t commit in the opium dens.”

Quincy rubbed his brow, gnashed his teeth before he entreated, “Are you going to talk with Will?”

Edmund stuffed a biscuit into his mouth.

“I’ll talk,” he mumbled. “But I doubt he’ll listen to me.”

“Well, he won’t listen to me.” Quincy scratched his head, restless. “I’ve already quarreled with him.”

William entered the room next. He glanced at his brothers with a critical glare before he assumed a chair and gathered the food onto his plate.

Quincy quickly excused himself and departed from the dining parlor, offering the brothers privacy.

“What?” snapped Edmund. “Now?”

There was still a fortnight before they had to set sail and resume their naval duties, but Quincy, it seemed, was too impatient to wait that long and learn his fate…or perhaps he was anxious to get more opium.

“What’s going on?” from William.

Edmund sighed. He stroked his lips and chin, grooming himself for the confrontation. “We should take Quincy with us aboard the
Nemesis
.”

The captain paused. “I’ve already talked with him about the matter.”

And with James, surely, he thought.

Edmund persisted, “You can’t leave Quincy with James.”

“I can’t leave him alone, either.”

“You know what I mean, Will. Being with James will only make his nightmares worse. You know he feels guilty about Mother’s death. He thinks he’s ruined all our lives, and James’s iron hand will only compound the guilt.”

William observed him as if he was an oddity, a bloody ape capable of reason. “So what would you have me do?”

“Take him with us.”

William wiped his mouth with the linen napkin. “You know I can’t do that in his condition.”

“He’ll come off the opiate at sea, like last time. He always feels better at sea.”

“And then he’ll return to it when he comes home.”

“We’ll deal with that trouble when we return to London.”

“We
will?”

Edmund set his teeth together, raked his molars. He gritted, “Giving him to James won’t make things better, and you know it.”

The captain sighed. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

“I’ll take care of him aboard ship, Will.”

“You’re a seaman, not a nursemaid,” he said sternly. “You have other duties to attend aboard ship.”

“I’ll do both.”

“And when do you intend to sleep?”

“Damn it, Will!” He pounded the table with his fist, making the dishes dance. “You know it’s the right thing to do. Why do you always listen to James?”

The man’s lips firmed. “The decision is mine.
I
believe it’s the right thing to do, to leave Quincy behind in London. And have you considered I might be right? That keeping him on land might sober him, encourage him to stop smoking the opiate?”

Edmund countered in a stiff voice, “And leaving him here to fight his demons alone might drive him deeper into the elusive smoke.”

“Perhaps.” William was thoughtful. “But there’s nothing more I can do for him.”

Edmund looked away from his brother as the blood in his veins burned. He wasn’t so ready to give up on Quincy.

The butler stepped inside the room. “A letter, sir.”

The servant handed the folded missive to Edmund. He recognized the penmanship in the address. The note was from John.

With swift movements, Edmund rent the red wax seal and scanned the epistle. As he read the words, his hot blood cooled, turned to ice.

“What’s the matter?” said William.

Edmund’s visage was stoic, like stone. He quit the dining parlor without answering his brother’s query, and headed for the stairs. He scaled the carpeted steps in methodical strides, two at a time. Strapped for words,
he moved through the passageway and paused beside the set of double doors depicting a jungle motif.

He gathered his errant thoughts and rapped at the door.

After a few moments of quiet, he knocked again.

“Amy?”

But she still refused to respond. He sighed and pushed open one of the doors without a proper invitation. He found the chamber empty.

“Where are you, Amy?” He inspected the adjoining dressing room. “I have important news.”

However, the lass wasn’t inside the room.

He frowned.

Where the devil was she?

Edmund next explored the sitting room, then the dining parlor again. He located William, who had regained his appetite and was eating his meal, but there was no proof that Amy had been inside the room, the other chairs and plates still untouched.

“What
the devil is wrong?” demanded William.

Edmund departed once more without remarking about the situation, though his heart thumped with greater verve. He searched the rest of the house, including the kitchen and even the attic loft.

Amy was missing.

No, she wasn’t missing, he thought grimly. She had deserted the house, run off after their unfriendly quarrel.

The daft girl!

Edmund scrunched the letter in his hand and shoved
it into his pocket before he vacated the town house and strutted through the streets of the St. James district, heading for Covent Garden.

It was there, amid the bustling traffic, he spotted the unruly minx, toting a leather bag, standing across the street from the Pleasure Palace in an idle manner.

He watched her for a brief time, observed her lonely figure as pedestrians scampered past her. She seemed fine. No bruises. No scuff marks on her skin. She was wearing a full green skirt with a fine white shirt tucked beneath a deep blue, form-fitted waistcoat with shiny brass buttons. The woman’s long blond hair was un-secured, the wavy tresses falling the full length of her backside. She sported a woolly red cap; it highlighted her rosy lips.

Edmund warmed at the delightful, eclectic sight of her appearance. She had dressed in a hurry, he suspected. She wasn’t hustling now, though. She seemed in low spirits; it gouged his soul to see her in such a manner. He relinquished his vantage point, crossing the busy thoroughfare.

He joined her on the other side of the lane, approached her quietly. She noted his movements quickly, for her eyes darted in his direction, but she didn’t scuttle away. She remained rooted to the spot, lost amid the noisy streetgoers.

She looked at him glumly. “I thought it’d be easier to return to my old life.”

Edmund regarded her thoughtfully, disarmed by the steady stream of emotions that teemed through his head.
He had failed to reflect upon the hollow, vast emptiness that had overwhelmed him at her disappearance. It wasn’t until he’d reunited with her that his bones ached from the pressure of his girded muscles.

He eased the stiffness in his joints with a comfortable sigh. “You don’t really want to go back to your old life, that’s why you can’t set foot inside the Pleasure Palace.”

She pondered that, it seemed. He noted the lines across her brow.

“No,” she said with passion in her voice. “That’s not the reason. I just won’t give the mad queen the satisfaction of hearing me beg.”

Pride. He chuckled at that. She really was…He smoothed his lips and lowered his eyes.

Amy sighed. “I’m not really sure where I should go now.”

“How about home?”

She looked at her brown leather walking boots. “What home?” She made a wry face. “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome at the town house, especially after what I said to you last night.”

“No, not my home.” He was hard again, his muscles taut. “Listen, Amy, I didn’t mean to upset you when I mentioned your parents. I just wanted to prepare you.”

An inattentive pedestrian bumped into her, and she, in turn, bumped into him, flushing. “Prepare me for what?”

He circled her arms with his fingers. She stiffened under the bold, public expression of intimacy, yet he
maintained his embrace, for he suspected the lass was going to need the added support when he confessed his findings.

“I had a hunch about you…about your past.”

Her eyes widened. He noted the shift in her breathing. It was deeper, louder.

She whispered, “What sort of hunch?”

“I received a note from a friend this morning. He’s a Bow Street Runner and I had him look into old records, search through missing children reports…for you, Amy.”

She paled. She dropped the bag at his feet.

He gripped her tighter. “I think I’ve located your parents; they’ve been looking for you these past fifteen years.”

She licked her lips. “Fifteen?”

He teased her cheek, brushed the white flesh, stirring the blood, the life back into her features again. “If you’re their daughter, you’re one-and-twenty years old.”

She snorted, still looking dazed. “I’m a lot older than I thought I’d be.”

Her bravado was a distraction; it masked a welter of emotion that welled in her eyes. She wobbled even, and he steered her toward the nearest building’s façade, dragging her bag with him.

He pressed her against the shop’s stone wall, giving her more support. “I think you should meet them. I don’t want to raise your hopes; I know you don’t want to chase after ghosts from the past, but I’ve looked
into the matter, and I believe it’s important you meet the couple. I’ll send word to them about you, set up a reunion.”

“No!” She jumped. “You can’t tell them I’m still alive.” She grabbed his coat. “You can’t let them know.”

He fingered her wrists, so tight. As he stroked her thumping pulses, he murmured, “Let them know what?”

“Who I am,” she returned weakly.

“You might be their daughter.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, then: “I’m Zarsitti.”

He pulled her rigid fingers away from his coat and hushed her with a few tender strokes across the brow. “You were Zarsitti. No one knows your true identity.”

“The queen knows.” The lass’s voice quivered. “She’s vindictive. She can tell them my past. And once my parents learn the truth, they’ll regret my coming home. They’ll wish I’d stayed lost…my parents.”

She wavered as the possible truth fully impacted her thoughts.

Edmund circled her waist in support, dismissing the noisy snorts of disapproval from the bustling citygoers.

“Madame Rafaramanjaka won’t betray your past, I assure you. She’ll never get an audience with the couple who might be your parents,” he said firmly. “Not
this
couple.”

Amy blinked. “Why? Who are they?”

The party traveled along Brook Street, making their way toward Grosvenor Square. Servants fussed with the knockers and cleaned the front steps with brooms in preparation for the arrival of their wealthy masters and mistresses, who were making their way into Town for the start of the Season.

Edmund was seated beside Amy in the coach, James and Sophia positioned on the opposite squabs. The journey into the heart of Mayfair was a silent one in deference to Amy’s comfort. The lass still looked bemused at the possible turn in her fortune. It was quiet inside the vehicle for another reason, too: the brothers were still at odds.

Edmund regarded Amy’s profile; sleek, prim. He remembered her haughty manners in the rookeries, her distaste for the lower classes, her desire to better herself, and as he studied her aristocratic contours, he wondered how he’d overlooked her likely heritage…or perhaps he’d not wanted to see the blue-blooded indicators; perhaps he’d willfully ignored them.

She was covered in rich, honey yellow linen taffeta. The fine fabric fit her figure in snug fashion; it was especially designed for her shape. The piece was part of the new wardrobe Quincy had ordered for her. He had instructed the seamstress to create the dress from the best material—and had forwarded the bill to Edmund.