Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife. Miranda Jarrett

tipped her head, suddenly prim. “My answer’s in my heart, and you know it already. But before I can tell you, you must speak to Papa.”

      “Hang it all, Ceci, I’ll speak to a hundred papas—a thousand!—if it means I’ll have you!”

      “One is quite enough,” she said mischievously. “I don’t want to wait the time it would take you to ask all those others.”

      “Then you will come with me to meet my father?”

      “I cannot, Josh, not now,” she said sadly. “Oh, I know your news is most grand, but mine is very wonderful, too. Think what my father will say when I tell him my aunt still lives!”

      “She lives, true enough, but you heard what Miller said,” he cautioned gently. “She’s a madwoman, Ceci, kept by her son in a house away from town. Surely they know where you and your father live. If they had wished to find you, don’t you think they would have done so before this?”

      Ceci hesitated, reluctant to abandon her dream. “If my aunt is unwell, she may have forgotten. Or she may have believed my parents would not forgive her shame.”

      “She may still feel that way.”

      She shook her head fiercely. “But you don’t understand, Josh! Antoinette is my dear maman’s only sister. Whether she is ill or not, that does not change. Maman loved her, I know, and now I will, too.”

      “But, Ceci—”

      “Non, Josh, you shall see that I’m right!” She kissed him again, and slipped free of his embrace, dancing away from him in the street. “I will come meet your papa tomorrow, I swear to it! And I love you, Josh Sparhawk! I love you!”

      Antoinette sat in the chair by the window, laying out the silk threads she would need this day for her embroidery. At first the doctor had forbidden it. The needles were a danger, he said, and because of him they had taken away her beautiful colored threads and her hoops and her needles, and she had wept with frustration and shame.

      But Michel had made them give them back, because Michel remembered. In all the years when she had worked for the dressmakers, those years when they had been so poor after Christian was murdered and her family, her sister and her husband, had refused to help her from the shame she’d brought to them. In all those years, she had never once pricked her finger and spoiled a length of silk or linen.

      Never once, never once… Mother of God, where did the words go? She pressed her hands to her forehead, scrubbing away at the skin, as if she could wash away the blackness, too.

      A length of silk or linen. She took a deep, shuddering breath before she opened her eyes. For now the blackness had receded like the tide, and the words were hers again.

      Her fingers still trembled as she held the needle up to the light to thread it. Danger, fah! How could a woman be dangerous with only a needle for a weapon?

      But then, she had Michel.

      Her handsome son was her weapon, and she thought with grim satisfaction of how the doctors and the others grew pale whenever Michel came to see her. He terrified them all, her gold-haired hero of a son who was so much like his father. A word from him, and they had taken away the chains from her bed. A frown, another word, and she was freed from the dark attic room they’d tried to make her prison. He made certain that she was treated with respect, as both a lady and the mistress of this house.

      Her gaze drifted to the little portrait over the bed. Her Christian would have done the same for her; he would have done anything she wished, for he’d loved her that much. Hadn’t he even sworn it to her, his fingers on the jeweled cross of his sword? He’d been so certain of it that he would punish her if she forgot herself and did something, anything, that he claimed a true lover wouldn’t.

      Her needle paused over the linen as she remembered. She had not liked Christian’s punishments. She carried the scars still, on her back and her legs and breasts. But his reasons had been as pure as his love, noble and fine, like the gentleman he was. He had done what he had because he loved her, and she bowed before his punishments because she loved him so much and wished to be worthy of him.

       No more, oh, please, no more!

      She gasped as her fingers flew to her forehead again, the needlework in her hand falling to the carpet. She would fight back. She would not let the blackness take her again.

      Dear holy Mother, if only Christian had lived, spared to become her husband and with his love guide her through the perils of life! The time they’d had together had been so short, and then he had been torn away from her and murdered. God rest his precious soul, he had not even been able to say farewell to her. The Englishman had come, and then it was too late.

      The Englishman, the Englishman! She jabbed her needle furiously through the linen, remembering all that the man had stolen from her. Her darling Christian, her life, her love, all destroyed by his cruelty. She had seen Gabriel Sparhawk only twice—once when he’d been Christian’s prisoner, and years later, with his little whore of a wife and their litter of brats—but she’d never forgotten his arrogance and his bragging self-confidence, the marks of a man who thought he was invincible.

      But soon that would change. She would never forgive what he had done to her, and soon he would never forget the pain she would bring to him in return. Soon he would meet her Michel, and justice, at last, would be served.

      “Excuse me, ma’am, there is a lady to see you. She said it was most urgent.”

      Antoinette frowned. This serving girl was the stupid one. Ladies did not receive at this hour. Christian had always been most strict about that.

      “The lady, ma’am? Should I show her in or send her away?”

      Antoinette nodded and set aside the neat piles of silk threads. Even Christian would forgive her if the matter were truly urgent.

      “Oh, madame,” cried the girl as she rushed into the room. “I have waited so long for this moment!”

      She was no one that Antoinette recognized. She was small and young and pretty and there were gold hoops in her ears and tears on her cheeks, and when she held her hands out to Antoinette, Antoinette took them. What else could she do?