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 while 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, shorty. “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?”