The Impostor (3 page)

“He’s coming this way,” Harriette whispered, as Sebastian made his way through the crowd, his gait measured but sure. “I must say, Jane, I don’t know how you did it. Grenville is monstrously wealthy, I suppose, and your new carriage is most elegant, but there is that scar and that dreadful limp.”

“He was a hero during the war,” said Tessa coldly.

“There is no need to get snappish with
me
, my dear,” said Harriette, looking surprised. “I
know
how you suffered during the duration of your time with him! I do not forget our conversations.
You
are the heroine, my dear.”

Tessa was saved the necessity of replying as Sebastian reached their sides. He bowed deeply.

“Good evening, Miss Wilson.”

“Good evening, my lord.” Harriette dipped a light, graceful curtsy and gave her hand to Sebastian, who kissed it, then turned to Tessa.

“Miss Cameron.”

Tessa sank automatically into a curtsy. “My lord,” she said.

He brought her gloved hand to his lips. Tessa stood very still at the faint, warm pressure. He was close enough for her to catch a whiff of his familiar scent, the well-remembered masculine notes of sandalwood and ambrette that had always signaled safety and comfort and warmth to her. Standing before the man she loved in the guise of another woman, Tessa fought back an agony of heartbreak and longing so intense, she thought she would die of it.

She had not seen Sebastian in over six long years. The smile he now gave her, the warm light in his eyes, was for another woman, a woman he had chosen for his lover, a woman he might even have loved.

Tessa knew, too, that when she revealed her identity and the reason for her deception, he would not even recognize her. She had seen to that years ago, the last time they had met, when he had waited for her in the looted palace at the Escorial, and the sky had burned scarlet over the delirious city.

But the memory of the last time he had kissed her, his hands gentle in her hair as he held her close, still had the power to pierce her with the force of a bullet to the heart.

“Do you care to dance, Miss Cameron?” Sebastian asked.

“Of course,” said Tessa automatically.

The long, stunned silence that followed this pronouncement told Tessa she had made a mistake. Harriette Wilson stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

She realized why when Sebastian led her onto the dance floor. The instinctive revulsion that rose in her was Jane Cameron’s. The actress disliked dancing with Sebastian, disliked his crippled leg, his scarred face too close to her, but she always agreed to these odious requests because Grenville was rich and generous, she had to please him, just smile at him and pretend that she liked him, that she liked the feel of his rough hands on her body. Because it had been asked of her.

Jane’s thoughts made a wave of fury rise within Tessa.

Forcing herself to remember to retain Jane’s form, she took the arm Sebastian offered her and followed him to the next room and onto the dance floor. The orchestra struck the first faint, delicate notes of a waltz, and he led her to the center of the room.

Tessa, who had never known what it was like to be beautiful and admired, felt the eye of every man in the room upon her as he drew her into his arms. Their stares made her skin crawl.

To distract herself from her disgust, she focused instead on the music. The waltz began slowly, gently, each measure soft and lingering, and Tessa, leaning back to gaze into Sebastian’s eyes, could feel her heart breaking anew.

But then the music gathered strength and speed, and they swirled together in an irresistible whirlwind of light and color and sound. Giving in to the intoxicating magic of the waltz, Tessa forgot everything but that she was once again in the arms of the man she loved.

They had danced thus in the barns of the Portuguese countryside, the peasant cottages of Frenada, the ballrooms of Madrid, in the glow of tallow candles, with the snow falling outside, or the summer wind whispering through the trees.

They had danced thus, as the drums sounded and the trumpets played. They had danced thus on nights when they had not thought to live through the next day, and their feet had been as light as thistledown and snow.

Sebastian’s gait was a little awkward, but she moved easily with him, following him unhesitatingly as he checked and reversed through the throng of dancers. Her feet—not Jane Cameron’s perfect feet, the feet that had never known calluses or blisters from long marches through the most treacherous terrains of Spain and Portugal, but her own, the feet that had followed Sebastian into battle and into hell—remembered the precise moment to step, to turn.

And resting her hand lightly against the broad, solid shoulders of the man she had never stopped loving, Tessa closed her eyes and gave herself up to the soaring melody. The golden music swept through her soul like a wind, and she shivered in his arms, wishing this waltz might last forever. But the melody rose, arching toward the climax; Sebastian turned her faster and faster, and then, with a final perfect phrase, the music came to an end.

Tessa stood perfectly still in the center of the dance floor, staring up at Sebastian as her heart beat a heavy tattoo in her breast. She could only hope her expression did not match her feelings—stricken, stunned, dazed.

She could not bear to look at him any longer.

Bowing her head, she curtsied.

Sebastian would have known that the woman with whom he had just danced was not Jane Cameron, even if Francis had not warned him.

It was not that she did not behave as flawlessly and correctly as his old mistress. But he would have guessed the truth the first moment the impostor had offered to dance with him.

Jane had always hated dancing with him, and when pressed to do so, had always moved very carefully, as though he could not be trusted to support her weight. But this woman had danced with him as though they were one, and despite the strangeness of it, he had known, as he held her in his arms, that he could not remember ever desiring a woman as much as he had desired the false Jane Cameron.

What sorcery had she used, what unnatural seduction?

In an attempt to clear his brain, he recalled what Francis had told him about her. Her name was Tessa Ryder, and she was the daughter of a telepathic captain on Wellington’s staff. Sebastian had never met Tessa Ryder before, but he remembered her father, Edward Ryder, a short, round, balding man whose unprepossessing exterior hid an incredibly powerful Gift. They had served together on Wellington’s staff during the Peninsula campaign, but Sebastian had not seen the older man since the British occupation of Madrid in 1812.

Francis had not been able to tell him a great deal about Tessa Ryder. Her Gift, as tonight proved, was shape-shifting. According to records of war dispatches kept at Whitehall, Francis had ascertained that she had carried out missions in both Spain and Portugal, though Sebastian, racking his brain, could recollect no such woman. Her missions must have been of the highest secrecy.

Remembering Edward Ryder, Sebastian found it difficult to believe the man’s daughter could turn her back on her father, not to mention her country, but Francis had indicated that Tessa was the lover of the Gifted French agent Pierre Sevigny, a man responsible for the deaths of countless good men during the war.

Looking down now at Jane Cameron’s face, he wondered what the true Tessa Ryder looked like beneath the mask of her Gift.

He bowed, and she sank into a low, graceful curtsy.

“My lord,” she said. “I need to speak with you.”

Chapter Three

As they departed the dance floor, Tessa automatically took the arm Sebastian offered her, clinging to him as though to a lifeline.

“I am at your service, Miss Cameron,” said Sebastian. His voice sounded odd and a little rough.

“Not here,” said Tessa. “Alone.”

When he did not answer, she looked up at him. He watched her with an intense, unreadable gaze, and Tessa, her heart clenching, wondered if he knew that she was not Jane Cameron, if she had not given herself away, dancing with him.

But he merely gave a brief nod of his head.

“If that is your wish, Miss Cameron.”

He looked neither right nor left as he pulled her through the crowd. Once or twice one of Jane Cameron’s friends or admirers would recognize her, but Sebastian looked so forbidding that no one detained them for more than a few moments. A muscle twitched in his jaw as a tall, portly young man attempted to pay his compliments to Tessa. As they swept through the gold drawing room, she caught a brief glimpse of Harriette Wilson’s stunned face.

Tessa glanced uncertainly back up at Sebastian. His eyes were very black. The grip of his hand on her own was so hard it was almost painful.

They paused only once, to retrieve their cloaks and Sebastian’s thin ebony walking stick from a footman at the door. The elegant black and gold Grenville carriage was already waiting for them as Sebastian led her out into the warm night and down the steps of Carlton House.

She had never ridden in such an expensive contraption, but she was too nervous to do more than glance at the sumptuous interior as Sebastian handed her up. He followed her inside, and then one of his liveried footmen gently shut the door of the carriage, which gave a little lurch as the horses trotted forward.

They were alone in the cool shadows.

She twisted her gloved hands together, wondering how she might begin. The speech she had rehearsed so carefully and so often over the past few weeks escaped her mind.

But before she could decide upon a course of action, a thin silver blade flashed as it sliced through the darkness. He moved so quickly that she hardly realized what had happened until it was too late.

The sharp edge of the sword he must have withdrawn from inside his walking stick rested just beneath her left ear. She swallowed, feeling a thin hairline of blood trickling down her throat.

“Who are you?” came Sebastian’s cool, dark voice from the other side of the carriage. “Who sent you here?”

She was a fool. She had walked directly into a trap. Sebastian had known she was coming. She sat very still, drawing in shallow, careful breaths, wondering how it had come to this moment, Sebastian gazing at her with a stranger’s eyes, holding a sword to her throat, as his elegant carriage raced through the darkened streets of London at midnight.

It was the first time she had been alone with him since the morning of Salamanca, when they had knelt, their hands linked, in the ruined chapel of Nuestra Senhora de la Pena, six years before, as the drums of war sounded through the plains, and the first gray light of dawn streamed over the horizon.

But of course, Sebastian could not remember.

With an effort, Tessa banished the memories of his face, tender in the pale shadows. Instead, she forced herself to look into his cold, expressionless eyes.

She chose her words with care.

“You were warned,” she said. Her hand tightened on her reticule, feeling the elongated shape of the small rod she had placed within it. “You knew I was coming.”

“Yes,” he said.

The blade of her own dagger, which had been concealed within the rod, burst through the beaded reticule. She drew it up in one swift motion, hard and fast enough to force aside Sebastian’s thin sword. The sword went flying into the darkened corner of the carriage, landing with a clatter, and Tessa kicked out, hearing it slide under the opposite seat.

Sebastian did not bother to search for it. Instead, he immediately launched himself at her, one powerful hand closing unerringly on the wrist that held the hilt of the blade through her reticule.

She gave a soft cry as he closed his fist, forcing the blade from her hand. As she struggled against him, the transformation fell away. She could feel her flesh and bones shrinking, returning to her own form. His eyes widened as they passed beneath a gas lamp and the yellowish light illuminated her face.

He slammed her down on the carriage seat, holding her down, forcing her arms behind her torso. She struggled against him, but he was too strong for her. She felt an edge of genuine panic.

But the looseness of her dress gave her an advantage. As he tried to hold her down, his hands clutching at the gown, she twisted free. The fine silk tore in his hands as she scrambled backwards across the floor of the carriage.

“Wait! Stop!” she gasped.

He did not respond. He slammed into her once again with bone-jarring force, and this time, he held her head beneath cold, black water.

The interior of the carriage disappeared completely. She could see nothing and hear nothing. Water filled her ears, her eyes and nostrils. She could not breathe. Desperate for air, she tried to break free of the hands holding her, but he was too strong, forcing her head deeper beneath the water.

Her mind reeled. She was going to die. She was going to die at the hands of the man she loved, and he would never know she had come to save him one last time.

She must save him
.

In the next second her eyes flew open again against the dark water. She could not die. She refused to die, not when she had yet to tell him the truth, to warn him of the danger.