Swept Away Read online

  “When I first saw you sitting by the window...I thought you were an angel,” he murmured. “I thought I was dead and you were waiting to take me away.”

  Annaleah reacted with an involuntary smile. “I expect my family would be vastly amused by your misimpression, sir. For that matter, I always imagined angels must be dressed in long flowing robes, with wings, and halos, and a shining cascade of long golden hair spilling down to their knees.”

  His own smile was crooked, a little wistful. “Whereas I will forever more imagine them as dark-haired beauties with eyes the color of a stormy sea.”

  Anna raised a hand self-consciously to touch a glossy chestnut spiral that had tumbled over her shoulder. It was by no means the first compliment she had ever received in her life, and yet...delivered through those lips, judged by those eyes, it was almost a physical caress.

  “I really must fetch my aunt,” she whispered.

  “Please--” he held his hand out palm up in a hesitant plea. “Will you not sit with me just a few minutes longer?”

  There was a shadow of desperation in his eyes, as well as helplessness. It occurred to Anna that she could imagine feather-winged angels with perfect ease, but she could not for a single instant imagine what it must be like to waken in pain, in a strange place, with no memories, not even a name.

  She looked at his hand, trembling visibly with the fear of rejection, and she reached out, slipping her cool, slender fingers into his. The thrill that travelled up her arm this time shot straight down into her knees and, having already broken more rules of decorum than she could count, she shattered a few score more by sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  “You said this was your aunt’s house?”

  “My great aunt, actually." She nodded. "Florence Widdicombe.”

  “And...you have been here a week visiting?”

  He seemed so pleased with himself to have remembered such a trivial thing, she smiled. “Yes. I came out from London eight days ago.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “Alone.”

  “Your family is not with you?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that if she was alone, then by definition her family was not with her, but then she realized he was no longer even looking at her. He had turned to stare at the beam of sunlight streaming through the arched window. It occurred to her that he had not really cared about the answer, that he might just want to hear her voice so that he would not be left too long with his own thoughts.

  It was a feeling she could well understand, for the silence was forcing her to look at the way the cords of his neck stood out when he turned his head, and the way his hair lay like a wave of silk over his cheek. The blanket had slipped down below the first hard bands of muscle that formed his chest. The hair there was smooth and black as well, covering the skin like a dark breastplate. It was much finer on his arms, allowing a clear view of the veins that flowed down to his hands, to the fingers that were wrapped with easy possession around hers.

  As far as making casual conversation, what could she say? You, sir, are a fugitive charged with treason. There are soldiers patrolling the roads, searching inns and taverns on the waterfront, watching the vicar’s house, the church, even questioning Poor Arthur’s nurses to see if he had had a visit from his notorious brother.

  “My family lives in London during the season,” she said, clearing her throat softly, “and spend their summers in Exeter. I have a sister, Beatrice, and a brother Anthony, both older. Bea is married, Anthony is not. I am...I am engaged,” she added awkwardly, wondering why she had felt the need to throw up such a petty defence. Especially when the addition caused him to turn and stare at her through a frown.

  “Do you happen to know...if I am married?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I am afraid I do not. According to my aunt, you have been out of the country for several years and no one really knows what you have been doing.”

  She saw the next question forming in his eyes, but before he could ask it, the sound of loud, scraping footsteps on the stairs put her hastily on her feet and prompted her to take several precautionary steps away from the side of the bed.

  “That will be Broom,” she explained. “He has been watching over you while you slept.”

  “Watching over me?”

  “Yes. In...in case you woke up. Now I really must go and find my aunt. She will want to send for the vicar at once, and between them, perhaps they will be better able to answer some of your questions.”

  “Will you come back later?”

  “Later?”

  “Later,” he said with quiet intensity, “when you can tell me what it is you are too frightened to tell me now.”

  Again there was no time to answer--if indeed she could have thought of something to say--for Broom was at the door, snatching the crumpled felt hat off his head and bowing as much to clear the lintel of the doorway as to extend the formal courtesy to Annaleah.

  “Mr. Althorpe is awake,” she explained needlessly. “I was just going to find my aunt.”

  “Aye, Miss. She be in day parlor, Miss, wi’ visitors.”

  “Visitors?”

  “Aye. An ‘ole flock o’ them. Two fancy toffs come first in a big black rig wi’ four ‘orses!” To a man who measured wealth in livestock, it was an impressive testimony of importance. “They was ‘ardly ‘ere long enough for ‘er Ladyship to settle ‘em in the parlor afore anither coach pulled up wi’ Colonel Ramsey an’ a brace o’ redcoats.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Annaleah did not even want to entertain the notion that Reverend Stanley Althorpe had faltered in his resolve and alerted the authorities to his brother’s whereabouts. As she descended from the attic to the third floor, then hurried along the corridor to the main staircase, she could not think of any other plausible reason why soldiers would be in the house. Her own brother, Anthony, irritated her almost beyond endurance at times, yet she could not fathom a crime so heinous as to make her willingly betray him. Beatrice often made her clamp her hands to her sides to keep from reaching up and tearing out locks of her hair, but there too, at the slightest hint of trouble, Anna would defend her unto the death.

  By the time she arrived outside the day parlor, her cheeks were warm with indignation, her temples steamy and her jaw set for battle.

  The two scarlet-clad soldiers stood with Willerkins just inside the doorway, rigid in their official capacity, and were the first persons Anna saw when she entered the room.

  The next visitor she recognized from a brief introduction at Sunday mass was Colonel Rupert Ramsey, retired from active service by a shattered elbow, and more recently attached to the garrison at Berry Head to oversee the demobilization of the army. He was short and wiry in an ill-fitting uniform, with a pointed face and thick curly hair more suited to a sheep than a man.

  She sought her aunt immediately, hoping to take some clue from Florence’s expression as to why Ramsey was here, but her gaze had barely touched upon the diminutive gray haired figure in black bombazine when it was jolted abruptly over to the second pair of ‘toffs’ seated by the fireplace.

  Both balanced delicate cups and saucers on their laps, which they set aside at once and rose in deference to her arrival.

  “Anthony!” Annaleah gasped, seeing her brother. Her gaze shifted again. “Lord Barrimore?”

  Their formal bows executed, it was her brother who spoke first. “Anna. Good show. You have saved old Willerkins the need to hunt you down.”

  Anna was too stunned for cleverness or subtlety. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  Her brother coughed into his hand. “A rather blunt greeting, I must say. To which the equally blunt answer would be the obvious: We have come to fetch you home.”

  He was impeccably dressed, as usual, in a charcoal jacket, green striped waistcoat, and pearl gray trousers. Winston Perry, Marquis of Barrimore made for a rather sombre contrast in black superfine from head to toe, with the only break in seve
rity being the stiff white collar and cravat. He was taller than Anthony by an inch or more, with precisely clipped and curled brown hair surrounding a handsome face that might have been considered irresistible were it not for the fact his expression was usually as tight as his collar. At the moment, only the two brittle green points of his eyes showed any animation, scarcely a flattering departure as they assessed her loosely combed hair and simple muslin dress.

  “Do come in, Anna dear,” her aunt invited, “and take some tea with us. You remember Colonel Ramsey? He has no time for tea himself,” she added, “but has come to warn us to be on guard against any strangers lurking about.”

  “Strangers?” Anna’s voice came out suitably hesitant.

  “Yes. You have not seen any, have you dear? ”

  Instead of answering directly, she looked at Colonel Ramsey. “Has there been trouble in the village, sir?”

  Ramsey stopped undressing her with his eyes and looked up into her face. “We have reason to believe there may be some trouble brewing, what with Bonaparte due to arrive in port any day now.”

  “Bonaparte is coming here? To Torbay?”

  “Why yes,” Anthony said, parting the swallow tails of his coat to resume his seat. “The most recent sightings put the Bellerophon less than a week out of port. Plymouth will not have him and London wants no part of the circus he is expected to draw. It was decided, quite rightly so, that he should be kept as isolated from the general population as is possible. They do not even intend to land him, merely let him sit on board the ship at anchor.”

  “What does that have to do with us?” Anna asked.

  “Nothing directly, of course,” the colonel said carefully.

  “It would seem, Niece,” Florence interjected, “they are also looking for a dangerous criminal. A gentleman by the name of Althorpe.”

  “I would hesitate to call Emory Althorpe a gentleman, dear lady," Ramsey said with a scowl, "since he is wanted for a host of crimes, none of which carry less than a penalty of hanging.”

  “Yes, well, I only vaguely recall the boy,” Florence said, waving her cane absently, “and thought him dead long ago of a shrunken head in Borneo. At any rate, you say there is a reward being offered for his capture and arrest?”

  “Five hundred pounds,” Ramsey nodded. “Authorized by Lord Wessex himself, as Lord Barrimore will no doubt confirm.”

  Anna glanced at the marquis with renewed astonishment. “You know this man, the one they are looking for?”

  “I have never met him personally, but I have run across his name a time or two through my dealings with the foreign office. As a privateer--which is a roundabout way of saying he was a mercenary--he was apparently recruited some years ago to provide information about the movements of the French navy. In light of the charges that have been brought against him in recent months, one can only presume the French offered him more money to turn his coat and work for them instead.”

  “For the five hundred pounds being offered for his capture, I would turn my coat,” Florence stated flatly, drawing focus back to the reward. “It is an astounding sum of money in and of itself. One that will be bound to draw the worms out of the woodwork.”

  “We have had several false sightings already,” Ramsey admitted. “One from a fisherman who claims he saw someone who resembled Althorpe floating toward shore on a piece of driftwood.”

  “In that case, please do tell my niece what the scoundrel looks like that she might be on her guard next time she is walking by the beach.”

  “This was several days ago and well south of here, but we are taking no chances and have printed up a likeness we are in the process of posting in all public areas.”

  Ramsey reached out awkwardly with his stiff arm and snapped his fingers at one of the redcoats who in turn produced several sheets of paper out of a leather dispatch case. He handed one to Florence first, then to Anthony. Barrimore barely glanced at it before waving it away with a small frown, at which time it was passed to Anna. She took the sheet and braced herself before looking down, and considering it was only a rough sketch in smeared black ink, it bore a startling likeness to the man lying upstairs. The hair was wilder, embellished by the kind of braids depicted in stories about pirates. The eyes were close-set and mean, and more licence had been taken etching the scar in his eyebrow; far from being the slim nick it was in reality, the artist suggested it dragged across his brow and distorted the entire temple.

  But it was him. It was Emory Althorpe, and the huge blocked letters beneath his picture declared he was wanted for Treason! Sedition! Piracy! Murder!

  Anna glanced at Florence, who was studying the sketch as if was of no more importance than the evening menu.

  “Have you seen anyone like that in the vicinity, Miss?” Ramsey asked. “Privates Dilberry and Ward may be able to help with additional information, as they were familiar with the rogue in his youth.”

  One of the soldiers touched a forelock. “Aye. I know’d ‘im, Miss. Big man, ‘ee is. Stands near seven feet tall, wi’ a scrint eye, all scarred-like, an’ shoulders this wide.” His comrade nudged him on the arm and he amended the distance between his hands, increasing it beyond Broom’s impressive bulk. “Aye, more like this wide.”

  “In absolute honesty, sir,” she said, addressing Ramsey, “I have not seen anyone who would match that description.”

  “Nor is she likely to,” Lord Barrimore said dryly, “since there is some doubt as to whether he is even still alive. A report received in the foreign office stated there was some trouble in the harbor at Rochefort shortly after Bonaparte’s surrender and he was killed by one of the general’s own men.”

  Colonel Ramsey shook his head, obviously not convinced. “He has been reported dead before only to appear like a bad dream some months later. I have heard nothing that would convince me this time is any different and until I see an actual body, I will not believe it.”

  “You sound as if you have been looking for him longer than a few short weeks,” Florence said.

  “I have had a personal interest in following his career these past three years or more,” Ramsey admitted. “The man is as elusive as smoke and twice as hard to catch.”

  “Then I bid you the best of luck in your hunt, Colonel. Wild geese have never appealed to me, personally.”

  “Too gamey by far, Auntie,” Anthony agreed, dropping the warrant sheet on the table beside him. “Especially if they have been dead for over a month. Was there anything else, sir? Any other bogie men we should be on the lookout for?”

  “I’ll not take up any more of your time,” Ramsey said, bristling slightly at the sarcasm. “Be advised, however, that there will be increased patrols along the coast roads and at every toll booth on the turnpikes leading in and out of Torbay. If you are planning to return to London any time soon, you might want to spare yourself any unnecessary aggravation by allowing for the additional delays.”

  With that, he nodded curtly at Florence and Anna, and, after snapping his fingers again at his two men, stalked out of the room, following Willerkins down the hallway.

  “Such an unpleasant man,” Florence said after a moment. “But can it be true? Is that dreadful little French general coming here to Torbay?”

  “It has been in all the newspapers, Auntie,” Anthony said. “But of course, you would have no reason to read one. Not to worry, however. Barrimore, tells me there is more than enough room in his berline coach to carry you home to London with us. We shall consider it an adventure, shall we?” He leaned forward to rest his hand patronizingly on her knee. “A grand adventure to London town.”

  Florence looked like she wanted to give his shin a sharp whack with her cane, but she smiled sweetly instead. “How thoughtful of you to worry about me, Nephew, but I do not often venture out of the house these days. My poor bones are so brittle, I fear even a brief journey in any manner of moving vehicle would likely crack my spine in two. No, no. It is kind of you to worry after my safety, but sadly, I must decline yo
ur offer.”

  “But you heard what Ramsey said. Disregarding for the moment the rabble that will be swarming to the coast to catch a glimpse of Bonaparte, one should not be so cavalier in dismissing the possibility of a dangerous criminal being on the loose.”

  “Pish. I knew Emory Althorpe when he was a boy, and if he has retained half the common sense he had back then, I should think Brixham would be the last place he would come. Not when there would be a very good chance he would be recognized, and certainly not with a reward on his head worth twenty times what most of the fishermen hereabout will earn in their lifetimes!”

  “Nevertheless,” Anthony argued, “I cannot say I am comfortable with the notion of you being so far out of town. It could take hours for one of these creaking old servants to fetch help if it was required.”

  “I am fine. We are all of us fine. There is a young boy--Blisterbottom--in the house who runs like the wind and we have Willerkins. He was a member of the King’s Royal Guard back in the ‘45 and is still a crack shot. Indeed, the locals--not to mention the field mice--are quite terrified of his prowess with a blunderbuss.”

  Anthony looked dubious. “Mother will not be pleased when we return home without you.”

  “Your mother will survive the disappointment, I am sure.”

  “Both disappointments,” Annaleah said, “for I am not leaving either.”

  “What?” Anthony had started to lift his tea cup but stopped. “What did you say?”

  “I said...I am not leaving either. I am staying here with Aunt Florence.”

  She might well have said she was taking up a gun and turning highwayman for the look he gave her in return. And were it not such a serious breech of parental authority she was proposing, she might have laughed out loud.