Bound by Love Page 7

  “Not married?” Jared asked.

  “Nah, though the ladies be after ’im somethin’ fierce. ’Andsome as ’e can be, that lad.”

  No dependents, and so he’ll give up the title with a bow and a smile, Jared thought with a mirthless grin.

  “How old is he?”

  “Yer age or so, I’d guess. I di’n’t look at no church records.”

  And so how will he know me? Jared thought with a heavy sigh. I don’t know who he is. God knows how many sons my uncles had. Twenty years have passed.…

  “Well done,” Jared said, passing the man a purse. “Thank you.”

  This news was the same as the other informants had reported. The man had taken Jared’s title and his brother Justin’s name. He was said to be charming and handsome and very well liked. A man who liked the countryside more than the city, who liked a good jest and a fair lady, a fellow, Jared thought again, he could like—if the man hadn’t stolen his birthright, if the man weren’t the son of a thief and murderer and so, however innocently, a party to murder and kidnapping.

  There was only one thing left to do. But strangely, Jared was loathe to do it. He sat in the dim tavern and knew what he should do now—what he’d planned to do for years. Now that the time was come, he didn’t feel ready. It wasn’t because of the danger, although there’d be some—no man with any spine would take such an accusation passively—and there’d be more danger if the false earl himself was guilty. That didn’t bother Jared; the only thing he’d feared in years was that he wouldn’t survive to this day to make this accusation. But now he found himself curiously unwilling to seek his revenge.

  He was beginning to realize that once it was done, it would all be over—everything he’d lived for the last twenty years. And revenge wouldn’t bring back his brother or his childhood.

  He shook his head to clear it. Strong ale, he thought. He drained his tankard so he could order another and forget what he had to do. He’d tried in many ways to forget in the past week as he’d waited for information to come rolling in. He’d walked the streets of London like any visitor from the Colonies, as though he had nothing more than entertainment on his mind. The city had fascinated him in spite of his dire mission. Why not? This was London town, and what a town it was!

  He’d visited cathedrals and buildings of state, seen the tower and the menagerie, walked the city from Fleet Prison to the palace. He hadn’t stopped to gawk at the hangings at Tyburn Hill the way so many Londoners did, because he found death no more thrilling in England than it was at home, although there was so much more of it here. Nor did he have the heart to go to the theaters or pleasure gardens, or cockfights or bear baitings, or any of London’s many gambling houses. He hadn’t come here to amuse himself. The thought of making money and gaining power was still uppermost in his mind, and he found that, in London, moneymaking was amusement enough.

  His merchant’s instincts took him to the markets, from Covent Garden to Leadenhall to Billingsgate, Haymarket, and Whitechapel, to marvel at the wild variety of goods offered there. He found a different world of commerce on every street in London, too. Craftsmen and their apprentices lived and worked in their own districts, making each one a unique world of weavers or watchmakers, tailors, coach builders, or any of dozens of different occupations.

  And everywhere, London’s army of street vendors pushed their barrows and sang or shouted about their wares—everything from silks to smelts, and often sold side by side. He woke in the morning to shrill songs about milk and coal, and shaved to the tune of “Scissors sharpened here!” or “Oysters, alive, alive, oh!” He’d felt like a man of the world before he’d come here; now he felt like a wilderness savage.

  He stayed at a comfortable inn and ate in coffeehouses where men of business traded goods from the Colonies, so he could keep up with the dealings of Lloyds and the East India and Hudson Bay companies. He turned a few pretty pennies for Alfred as he waited, and bought bolts of beautiful silks for Della. He met his informants at taverns in parts of town where anything could be bought or sold. Watching that process was amusing, too.

  In fact, he enjoyed himself so much, he felt guilty about it. But the truth was that he felt even guiltier thinking about how Della would enjoy it. Just imagining her reactions made him smile. He wished he could have her there, chirping merrily at his side. He found himself lingering in the street watching a Punch and Judy show so he could tell her about it; just yesterday he’d caught himself pausing in a cathedral, trying to put the glory of a stained-glass window into words for a letter to her. She loved to go to town; she was thrilled when she got a chance to go to Williamsburg. But as he wrote her, one could put a dozen Williamsburgs down in London and its inhabitants might not notice. He decided that one day, if he could, he’d show her London—but not everything in it.

  He would have gone into the mouth of hell itself to get the information he needed, and sometimes he thought that he had. He was glad of his size and the sword at his side when his wanderings took him to places where he saw human degradation such as he’d never seen in Virginia, even when he’d been a bond-boy. At least then he was the only one suffering. There were poor people in the New World, desperately poor ones who had arrived there with only their two hands and the skin on their backs. But they’d come for work, and most had found it. They were so proud of their successes that they made themselves and their homes advertisements for their achievements. Not here.

  Here, there were thousands who had given up. Whole districts were filled with such poverty and misery that for the first time he began to understand why free men might sell themselves into servitude in a strange land. He, more than most, knew the value of owning his own skin. But if he had to live in London’s rookeries? Then, he thought, he too might risk his life with strangers for a chance of escaping the certain death that freedom in such slums would bring. It made him see how lucky he’d been, which only made him remember how he’d been unlucky, too.

  He was alone again, he realized, for the first time in years, with only his mission to keep him company. He felt as out of place here as he did in his adopted land, even though he had Alfred and Della there. But what had he expected?

  He passed his hand over his eyes. The ale was too strong, he thought, as he put up his hand to call for another.

  “Is there anythin’ else y’ be needin’, kind sir?” the soft voice asked. “We’ll be closin’ soon, but I got all night.”

  Candles provided unreliable light, but he didn’t need light to know what she was offering; it was in her voice, even if he couldn’t make out the expression in her eyes. Her sort thronged the nighttime streets; he’d turned down dozens of better-looking wenches since he’d got to London. A furtive fellow had stopped him in the street this very night and handed him a printed sheet. It was a listing of London whores, their addresses, and a brief description of their looks and talents. He’d laughed and dropped the paper in the gutter where it belonged. He didn’t like to go to strangers…but he was in a strange place, he reasoned—as best he could after three orders of the landlord’s finest ale—and he was definitely alone again.

  More completely alone than he’d been in years. He stared at the table, not really seeing it. He didn’t want to remember those years, but couldn’t stop himself. The memories were worse here than in Virginia because his ghosts lived here. He was haunted tonight.

  The woman waited patiently for his answer. She smelled of ale and cooking smoke, peat and tobacco, like the rest of the inn. But he thought he also caught the scent of faint flowers.

  She had dark hair and pale skin, and smiled to show she had all her teeth. She was plain but soft-spoken, and her simple gown showed she was buxom—not a beauty, but a comfortable-looking woman.

  He was no stranger to women. But oddly, he felt guilty as he rose and pulled out a chair for her. For no reason, he told himself. He had made no promises to any other woman; it was only that he’d been thinking of home, he told himself, of Della. He frowned. He ref
used to even think about Della when he was thinking of what he might do with this woman.

  But this woman was, after all, only offering her company now. And he found there was nothing on earth he wanted more than company tonight. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow, especially since he wondered if he’d have many more days after it. He was about to fulfill a life’s dream, but in so doing, he knew he was risking his life. No man wanted to be accused of being party to kidnapping and murder, and this was a powerful nobleman he was about to confront. He didn’t doubt that a man who had once killed for a title would try it again, if pushed too far. And Jared intended to push. He wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t fool enough to deny there might be consequences to his actions. That was another thing he decided not to think about tonight. He spoke to the woman instead.

  They talked little, in the way of such things. She cast down her eyes when she saw how he was evaluating her, as though she didn’t know he was, as though they both didn’t know it wasn’t conversation she was offering. He needed to find her attractive and so he did. But there was something he needed more than beauty or physical satisfaction tonight, and she was offering it. When she put one warm hand over his on the table, he shivered at her touch and realized it didn’t matter how attractive she was. She seemed gentle. It was enough.

  She had a room nearby, of course. He hesitated, thinking of possible traps and ploys, men working with her, waiting in the alley outside.

  “Ask the landlord, if y’ like,” she said softly, standing so close to him he could smell the scent of her warm skin, feel the curve of her hip against his. “I’m honest and clean. Aye, and lonely.”

  That last was the word that decided him. Yes, that he understood. He would take the risk; his need was overwhelming.

  “Don’t you want to take off your shirt?” she whispered when they got to her small room, after he removed his long coat, turned to her, and slid her gown down from her shoulders. “No,” he said, as he always did with such women, taking her two hands in his. “No, and please don’t touch my back.”

  She paused, then shrugged. Men had asked much stranger things of her. She smiled with real pleasure when she ran her hands up his chest, because his body was as good as his face, his chest lightly furred, his skin smooth and clean, the muscles beneath her hands rock hard. It seemed he held his breath.

  Then he let it out in a long sigh. This was what he’d come for, something even better than the miracle of female contours that his body was responding to, something his heart needed far more. His body could do without; his soul could not—not tonight.

  It was the touching, of course, the feeling of another’s hands soft upon him, a touch that didn’t bring pain, a touch that had a semblance of care in it. He needed that—and to hold another person close. That was what he needed more than the brief moment of physical release she offered. Because, he thought with muttered approval as she stroked him, this closeness, this wonderful caressing, was such a rarity, such a necessity. It was what he’d been deprived of all those years when he hadn’t been considered fit for touching, only beating, when he’d had nothing but his sorrow to comfort him as he’d lain alone, aching in the dark. A simple caress was what he’d yearned for then. It was what a man might risk everything for, even if he had to pay for it. It was what he needed tonight, his last night in London—perhaps one of his last on earth.

  He was grateful to her. And so for the first time in a long time, the woman he held forgot he’d paid a price for her attentions. But he could do no less for any woman who would actually touch him, a man who was less than a man because he’d been a slave. They sank to her bed together and made a kind of love, though they both knew it was something far less.

  He left her sleeping and hurried down her stairs to the teeming London streets. He had to go find a stranger now and accuse him of being a liar and a cheat and tell him that he intended to do everything in his power to see that he lost his home, his good name, and his fortune.

  Jared considered how he’d spent his night. It might have been the last thing he’d ever do in London, but all in all, he reckoned it wasn’t such a bad thing. At least there was a mimicry of love in it. What he had to do now had to do only with hate.

  Chapter 5

  He came riding in through a side path, but even so, it wasn’t long before he was challenged. There were too many workers on the grounds for him to go unnoticed for very long.

  “Yer pardon, sir,” the old man said, sweeping off his cap just in case the intruder was of the quality, “but ’tis private land yer on now.”

  “Hawkstone Hall. Yes, I know,” Jared answered, though he never took his eyes from the great house in the distance.

  The old man stood, considering. The intruder didn’t wear a proper wig beneath his tricorner hat, but his clothing spoke of money, and his voice, though strangely accented, spoke of breeding. He was young and well proportioned and rode a fine horse. Still, he was a stranger…and then the young stranger inclined his head and looked the old man straight in the eye.

  “Ah! A relative of the earl’s, is it, then?” the old man said in sudden comprehension.

  A twisted half-smile appeared on the intruder’s lips. “Yes,” he said softly. “Exactly right, a relative.”

  “Begging pardon, sir,” the old man said, touching his forehead, bowing, and standing aside so the fellow could ride through. He watched the young man ride on, but frowned, puzzled, when he saw him halt his horse halfway to the hall. The young fellow sat still as one of the statues in the formal gardens, looking at Hawkstone Hall as though there was nothing else in the world to see. But after all, there are few finer sights in the kingdom, the old man thought before he turned and went on his own way. He looked back once, to see the young man still sitting there, staring as though time itself was standing still as his horse and he. But then, young men have all the time in the world, the old man thought on a sigh as he went about his own errands again.

  *

  Jared had thought it would be smaller, because children think all things are bigger than they really are, and he remembered being a child here. But it was still enormous. He had thought it wouldn’t hurt so much, either, but the sight of his lost home sliced through him more keenly than any lash. As he sat his horse and stared, he saw at once everything that for years, he’d glimpsed only in dreams. He felt tears come to his eyes and was astonished, because he’d banished the tears long ago, after he himself had been banished.

  Mine, damn it, he thought savagely, sitting upright in his saddle as he stared at the great golden stone house, hands fisted tight over the reins. Mine. No matter what man ruled here now, no matter what would happen here, this was as much his home now as it was then.

  He gazed at the mansion hungrily. Many men had done so. It was a magnificent house, not a forbidding castle or one of those cold piles of brick that stood naked and alone, dominating the land around it, like some he’d seen as he’d traveled here. It was a deceptively simple-looking house, made of glowing golden stone. There were formal gardens in front, but it didn’t need anything to enhance its unique beauty. Wide and long and meandering, with many roofs and entrances, it had been built in the days of Queen Bess, though it was said that men had lived on the site since the dawn of time. It had no one style; it had its own style. Horseshoe shaped, with two wings on either side in front, it had an enclosed courtyard that welcomed a man into its province even before he walked up the great stairs to its front door.

  There was no home like this in the Colonies. There hadn’t been enough time for something like this there; the people who lived in the Colonies before the English came had built houses they could carry away with them when the seasons changed. This home had been built to outlast time and seasons. It had grown over the years, like the great trees in the drive that led to it, each generation adding something. His father had said it wasn’t finished yet and never would be, because it had to grow and change with their family. His father had been right. But the house was th
e same now as it had been when Jared had last seen it, because the family had ended with him.

  Mine, Jared thought as he sat and stared. Mine. Everything in it was his, from the peacocks that strolled over the scythed grass to every last chimney that studded the long rooftops, to the mullioned windows that showed prim faces to the sun and then took the sunlight and fractured it into prisms of stunning color inside. He remembered that. As he sat looking at his heart’s home, he remembered everything else about it. In fact, he was so lost in remembrance that he wasn’t aware of horsemen approaching.

  The hounds’ baying woke him from his daydreams. Jared looked up to see a string of dogs prancing around three horsemen coming toward him. He discounted two of them the moment he saw the man in the middle—the lord of the hall. Jared knew it. His stomach tensed. His hands closed to white-knuckled fists, and he could feel his heart quicken and then slow to long, thunderous beats as his eyes narrowed on the man who claimed to own his home.

  The man was dressed in princely fashion, all in gold and brown; he rode a cream-colored horse and wore a fine, dark-gold long coat, blinding white linen, and brown breeches. He was young, wide-shouldered, long-legged, and lean-hipped. Like his companions, he wore a simple white wig, pulled back in a queue. His eyebrows were dark gold, and his face was lightly tanned, not sun-bitten as Jared’s own. A lord of the manor, Jared thought bitterly, didn’t work in the sun the way a man who had to work to prove his worth every day did. But it wasn’t just his face or clothes that convinced Jared of who he was, it was the easy way he sat his horse, the way the other two men rode with him. His pride, confidence, and absolute surety marked him as lord and master here as surely as his comfortable smile did.

  When he came within distance to see Jared close up, that smile slipped. Jared nodded. His cousin. It could be no other. The resemblance was eerie, although the face was not as lean as his. There were other differences. On closer inspection, Jared could see that the imperious nose was thinner than his own, that this chin had a definite cleft that his own only hinted at, that these brows were darker and the long eyes were vivid blue, not gray. The man was younger than himself, maybe a little shorter, and though lean and fit, there was a sleekness to him that Jared lacked. Of course, Jared thought bitterly, this man has never lived in hell. Still, the likeness was unsettling; he could swear he’d seen this man before, almost as he saw himself each day in his mirror.