Shanna Read online

  There was no answer or other sign of life, and the brawny man moved forward a step.

  “Are ye bad hurt?”

  The form lifted itself to a sitting position, and the golden eyes stared through the gloom.

  “Me mistress sent fresh garments for ye and bade me to ask if there be aught we can do for ye.”

  The colonial rose with a wordless snarl and paced the narrow cell, holding the long chain so it did not weight the heavy collar. Raw, red flesh showed on his neck where the skin had been chafed away, and there were marks on his face and body too fresh to have been made the night of the wedding. The torn shirt showed ugly weals upon his back, as if a whip had been used on him. He gave no sign that any of Pitney’s words had penetrated to his brain. He was like a caged animal; and for a moment Pitney, for all of his own bulk and strength, felt an unreasoning fear of him.

  Pitney shook his head in bemusement. He had seen this Beauchamp as a man and knew him as one. It was an ugly travesty that he had been reduced to this state.

  “Here, man! Take the clothes. Eat the food. Wash yerself. Act like ye are a man and not a beast.”

  The pacing stopped, and Ruark stood half crouched, glaring at him like a cornered cat.

  “I’ll leave it.” Pitney stepped forward and laid the bundle on the table. “Ye need not be—”

  An angry growl warned him, and Pitney stumbled back as the chained arms swung. The blow hit the table and swept it clean with a crash.

  “Do you think I’d take her charity?” Ruark spat. He gripped the edge of the table with his hands, and the chain to his neck was stretched taut as he leaned forward to its limit.

  “Charity?” Pitney asked. “ ‘Twas the bargain ye struck, and me mistress intends to see her part of it well done.”

  “ ‘Twas her offer!” Ruark roared in maddened rage. “No part of the bargain.” He slammed his fist down on the table, opening a split in its top. His voice went low and became sneering, insulting. “Tell your bitchtress she will not ease her conscience with this simple sop you bear.”

  Pitney would not stand and hear Shanna so abused. He turned to leave.

  “And tell your bitchtress,” Ruark shouted at his back, “though it be in hell, I will see her part of the bargain full met!”

  The door closed with a solid clank, and the cell was silent again but for the sounds of the chains dragging as the prisoner paced.

  Ruark’s message, repeated bluntly, brought a cry of outrage from Shanna. She strode irately across the width of the drawing room while Pitney patiently waited for the stormy tide to stem.

  “Then let him be content!” She flung an arm wide. “I’ve tried to help him all I can. ‘Tis out of my hands now. What will it matter in a few days?”

  Pitney slowly turned his tricorn in his hands. “The lad seems to think ye owe him something more.”

  Shanna whirled and the blue-green eyes flared. “That pompous jackanape! What do I care what he thinks! If he’s so proud, let him hang and be done with it! He’s made his bed—” She stopped abruptly. Flushing deeply, she flounced around so Pitney could not see. “I mean—after all, did he not slay that girl?”

  “He’s like a man gone mad,” Pitney commented with a heavy sigh. “He will not eat the food and takes naught but bread and water.”

  “Oh, hush!” Shanna cried and began to pace nervously. “Do you think I want to hear? I did not declare his doom. ‘Twas done before I knew him. ‘Twill be bad enough to face the burial without being constantly reminded of how he went. I wish I were home! I hate it here!”

  Suddenly Shanna stopped her agitated prowling and faced Pitney.

  “The Marguerite sails before the week is out! Go inform Captain Duprey that we desire passage home.”

  “But yer pa arranged for the Hampstead to see you home.” Pitney frowned. “The Marguerite is only a small merchant—”

  “I know what she is!” Shanna snapped. “ ‘Tis the least of my father’s vessels. But ‘tis his and homeward bound. And I will not be refused. The Hampstead will not be leaving until well into the twelfth month, and I want to go home now!”

  Tapping her toe against the plush carpet, she smiled with a calculating gleam in her eyes.

  “And if he wishes to face my father when I do, Mister Ralston will have to hasten to his business as well. ‘Twill give him precious little time to delve into the truth of my marriage. God help us all if he ever finds out!”

  With Pitney gone and the servants moving quietly about their labors, Shanna felt strangely alone. Her spirits were far from high, and she sank into the chair at the small secretary, morose of mood and quite ill-tempered. Visions of Ruark as Pitney had described him—ragged, thin, bruised, chained, angry—contrasted oddly with the man she had seen on the steps of the church. What would change a man so, she wondered. And the answer came as she thought of a twisted face pressed against the bars of the van and the wailing cry that had followed her through the night. She knew full well the cause.

  Her mind played tricks. She imagined herself beaten, abused, chained, helpless, condemned, hopeless, betrayed—

  A small cry escaped her lips, and in the briefest flicker of time she felt a taste of the bitter rage that must now fill him. Angrily she pulled herself away from this morbid bent and did not allow her mind to touch it again lest she feel some further unwelcome remorse.

  The bright sun spilled in rare volume through the windows. The day was crisp, cool, unusual for London at this time of year, with a clear blue sky. A fresh sea breeze had risen with the sun and swept away the low clouds and smoke, leaving the air clean and with just a hint of salt in it. Yet Shanna hardly noticed the brilliance of the day. She stared blankly at the top of the secretary, quill in hand and fine parchment nearby. Idly she began to scrawl her new name across the white sheets.

  Shanna Beauchamp.

  Shanna Trahern Beauchamp.

  Shanna Elizabeth Beauchamp.

  “Madam Beauchamp!”

  “Madam? Madam Beauchamp?”

  Slowly it dawned on her that she was being summoned by a voice outside her thoughts. She glanced up to see her maid standing inside the doorway holding several items of clothing, mostly heavy garb for cold weather.

  “Hergus?”

  “I was wondering, mum, if ye be wantin’ me to pack these for the voyage home. ‘Ere seems to be enough as ‘tis. Or would ye be leaving ’em here for the next time?”

  “Nay! If I’ve anything to say on the matter, I shan’t be returning for a good long time. Put them in one of the larger trunks.”

  The Scotswoman nodded, then paused and gave Shanna a worried look. “Are ye feeling well, lass? Would ye na like to rest yerself now?” Hergus had been unusually concerned about her since the difficult moment when Shanna, with Pitney at her side, had announced her marriage and widowhood to the stunned household staff.

  “I’ll be all right, Hergus.” Shrugging away the older woman’s earnest concern, Shanna dipped the point of the long-plumed quill into the inkwell and spoke over her shoulder. “We’ll be going back on the Marguerite before the week is out. I know ‘twill rush you, but I want to go home as soon as possible.”

  “Aye, and well you should so yer pa can comfort ye.”

  As the servant’s footsteps retreated down the hall, Shanna drew the quill across the parchment again. But her mind did not flow in the direction of the bold strokes she made, straying instead on its own museful venturings. She grew warm and flushed, remembering the fiery wetness against her breast, amber eyes staring down at her almost into her soul, and the last surging impalement that she had welcomed.

  With a gritted groan of frustration, Shanna stabbed the quill into the well and came to her feet, sweeping her hand down the front of her wine velvet gown as if to brush aside some imperfection or the memory of a strong, hard body pressing down upon her with heated fervor.

  She bent to snatch up the parchment, intending to tear it to shreds; but her eyes saw the work her hands had wrought whi
le her thoughts drifted, the face amid the swirls and flourishes, the sketch of Ruark Beauchamp! The lips, handsome and sensual yet somehow stern, smiled at her in amused mockery while the eyes—Nay, those were not quite right, and she doubted that even a great master of art could capture them with a quill.

  Irritated with herself, she rebelled against the strong grasp his memory held upon her mind, and she spat vehemently, “The knave! He’s only sorry that I gave him no chance to escape. Truly that was his intention, to get me alone then flee.” She flung the parchment down. “ ‘Twas what he wanted, and I shan’t be haunted by what I didn’t do.”

  Almost relieved, Shanna sighed, having defended herself adequately before the high magistrate of her mind, her conscience.

  “I will not think of him again!” she firmly decided.

  Yet even as she crossed to the window, in the innermost recesses of her thoughts, barricaded against attack, the vague challenge of amber eyes thwarted her victory.

  Shanna’s confrontation with Ralston was to come sooner than she had expected, for it was a few hours later as she again paused in the warm sunlight coming in through the window that a landau rumbled up before the townhouse, and James Ralston alighted. He stood for a moment, rapping the riding crop he always carried against his thin thigh, as he gazed upward toward the higher levels of the mansion where her apartments were.

  Shanna wrinkled her nose in distaste, sorely vexed that he had arrived before Ruark’s hanging had occurred. Hastening across the room, she rallied herself to a semblance of bereavement, all the while swearing beneath her breath. She composed herself in a large wing chair before the fireplace, smoothing her wide skirts and fluffing the creamy-hued lace flounces at her elbows. She would have given the man a show of tears, but she could not strike such a mood. Then the memory came to her that when Pitney sampled from his snuff box, his eyes watered copiously for some time. If she was not mistaken, he had left it on the tea table.

  “Ah, there it is!” Anxiously she flew to it and snatched up the tiny box.

  Ralston was instructing the servants as they tossed his bags down from the coach, so she had time enough. As she had watched Pitney do so often, Shanna took a bit of a pinch and held it to her nostril, inhaling deeply.

  “My lord!” she gasped. It was as if a searing iron were being thrust down her throat. She sneezed and sneezed and sneezed again.

  Thus it was, as had been her intent, that when James Ralston entered the room, Shanna sat in a state of tearful distress, tears flowing down her cheeks and her eyes as red as if she had been weeping for hours. Daintily she dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief and sniffed loudly.

  “Madam?” Ralston approached a step, his thin features tense as he tried to control his ire, his hand working on the crop.

  Shanna glanced up, wiping her streaming tears with the lace handkerchief. Her chest burned, and she gasped for air.

  “Oh, Ralston, ‘tis you. I had not expected—”

  His reply was curt. “I hastened lest I should find matters awry—”

  “Oh, had you come sooner—” Shanna sniffled wistfully.

  “Madam.” His tone was clipped, short. “I made my way straightforth to the Marguerite, escorting some of the precious goods we salvaged from the grounded vessel and there found startling news awaiting me. You have commissioned Captain Duprey to take you aboard for passage home, and in the course of events I found you have been both married and widowed in my absence. Is this correct, or have I been led astray by that erring Frenchman?”

  Shanna effectively used her kerchief at the corners of her eyes as a sob lifted her bosom. “ ‘Tis all true.”

  “Madam—”

  “Madam Beauchamp. Madam Ruark Deverell Beauchamp,” Shanna stated.

  Ralston cleared his throat tersely. “Madam Beauchamp, am I to understand that in the brevity of a week you have been able to choose a husband for yourself after a full year of failure to even find a man bearable?”

  “Do you regard that fact impossible, Mister Ralston?” It was difficult to hide her irritation.

  “Madam, with another woman I would not in the least doubt the possibility of such an occurrence.”

  “And with me, Mister Ralston?” Shanna’s brows raised and her eyes were less than warm. “Do you count me incapable of love?”

  “Nay, madam,” he answered with care, yet he recalled the extensive number of gentlemen he had himself introduced for her consideration, hoping that one of them might marry her, and, afterwards, share with him a percentage of the dowry. “It just seems, madam, that you are more selective than most.”

  “And so I am,” she replied primly. “Otherwise I might have betrayed myself by choosing someone less dear to me than my own beloved Ruark. ‘Tis irony that what so late found is so soon lost. The details of his death I care not to dwell upon, for he was taken from me swiftly, a stumble from the carriage, and he was gone. Alas, my loving Ruark.”

  “And you actually shared a be—”

  Shanna’s head snapped up in a haughty display of indignation. “Mister Ralston! Do you seek to insult me with crudeness? Or is it unusual to your mind that a husband and wife should lie together on their wedding night?”

  “I beg your pardon, madam.” Ralston’s cheeks darkened as he realized the danger of his question.

  “I do not abide this doubting of my word, and it does me ill that you should press me so. But since you have displayed your curiosity so blatantly, let me calm it. I assure you, sir, that I am no longer a maiden, and a child may be forthcoming.”

  Having issued that statement as any outraged widow might, Shanna turned aside, a slight frown of worry troubling her brow, for she did in truth wonder if she were carrying Ruark’s seed. It was such a brief encounter, but still there might be the chance. It was not her desire to raise a child without a father. Mentally she counted the days until she would know the truth. Only time would see an end to her dismay.

  Ralston misread her manner. She could well damage his lucrative relationship with her father, and the concern in his voice was real.

  “Madam, I did not mean to distress you.”

  Shanna faced him again and then paused as she looked beyond him to see Hergus in the background. She caught the frown that briefly touched the Scotswoman’s face as Mister Ralston turned also. It was with some effort that the maid maintained a semblance of respect toward the man. Having been with the Trahern family for almost twenty years, Hergus was not lacking for confidence and often expressed herself with complete frankness which did not necessarily lend to flattery. She had not approved of the men Mister Ralston had presented to her young mistress, and her dislike of Ralston had grown apace with her disdain for those he brought. It was Shanna she gave her loyalty to, and any who doubted it enough to threaten the mistress would find the fact out to their chagrin.

  “What is it, Hergus?” Shanna inquired, grateful for the interruption.

  The servant moved nearer. “I did not mean to intrude, but as you told me to hurry I thought I’d better ask. What have ye in mind to do with these?”

  Shanna’s breath caught sharply in her throat as Hergus held up the cloak and coat Ruark had left behind in the carriage. Ralston frowned slightly as he noted them to be a man’s garments and peered at Shanna questioningly. She rose to the test of her wit and, sighing pensively, went to take them from Hergus. Almost tenderly she caressed the soft velvet fabric of the coat.

  “ ‘Twas Ruark’s,” she murmured sadly. “He was handsome, manly, charming, and with the most persuasive smile. I fear he swept me off my feet.”

  Holding it carefully over her arms, Shanna presented it back to the woman.

  “In one of my trunks, Hergus. I’ll keep it for the memories.” But already she was thinking how she would get rid of them, for the memories they stirred were anything but consoling.

  Ralston’s knuckles were white as he gripped the quirt, and his bony jaw grew rigid. “Your father will question me on this matter, Madam Beauchamp.
I must give him answers. I must know the place where this marriage was secured and examine the documents. The Beauchamp name is well enough known here in London, but there are things I must be assured of, and I can hardly present myself to that family’s door inquiring on their kin, especially in a time of bereavement. But I must acquaint myself with the validity of the marriage for your father’s peace of mind.”

  Shanna experienced a brief moment of temptation to hurl a caustic accusation that he would do anything if it might fatten his purse. However, she managed to appear only slightly injured.

  “But of course, sir. I suppose my father would not simply take my word for it.” Sweeping across the room to the secretary, she retrieved the packet of documents she had won with a kiss and her virtue. “Here is your proof.”

  Ralston was already at her side, taking them from her and eagerly untying the scarlet ribbon. But as his eyes fell to the sheet of parchment on the desk, his interest was diverted, and he paused to stare down at it. Shanna followed his gaze and watched helplessly as the man lifted the sketch to more closely inspect it. She could not bear his eyes prying into her secret thoughts, for certainly that was what it was, a rude and callous invasion of her privacy, as surely as if he had witnessed her intimacy with Ruark in the coach.

  Her resentment aroused, Shanna made to snatch the paper from him, but Ralston deftly jerked it out of her reach.

  “Madam, your talents are many. I was not aware they extended to producing images of people on parchment.” He considered her askance. “Your late husband?”

  Reluctantly Shanna nodded. “Give it to me.”

  “Your father would be curious—”

  In a quick movement Shanna tore the paper from his hand and ripped it into small pieces.

  “Madam, why do you destroy a drawing of your husband? ‘Twould appear he had all the qualities you boast. ‘Twas certainly done in an amorous vein. Perhaps he won your heart as you declare.”

  Shanna’s mind screamed—poppycock! But her spoken reply came meekly. “Aye, and it tears me so I cannot bear to look upon his likeness.”