Forbidden (3 page)

He noted the quick flutter of lashes,
the soft smile and suddenly bright eyes and his back went
up.

He searched for them and found only the
faintest traces.

The angled body as if she were
straining to hear more of what he had to say, the straighter
shoulders that brought her pert little breasts flush against the
midnight blue of the gown that matched her eyes and brought out the
moonlight paleness of her skin.

The tricks were all there, subtle and
sweet so they were hardly noticeable and he had to applaud the girl
her efforts. She’d be a match for any of the society flirts and
their matchmaking mammas when she arrived in England.

But her preparation, especially since
she obviously disliked him, alerted him to her next
question.

“Is Uncle Clayton a Red Coat? And just
how well off is he?”

“AVA!”

He sighed mentally. Talk about getting
to the point. No wonder she’d pulled out all the stops.

“What? It’s not like you weren’t
wondering either, Joss. If he’s going to take us in then he had
better be in a comfortable position to do so. I have no desire to
travel across an ocean to live as a pauper nor do I want to find
myself at the mercy of those damn Brits.”

Damon wanted to applaud but thought
that would just add fuel to the Jocelyn fire.

“For the last time we are NOT
going.”

“He’s the Earl of Stanford. From what I
understand a Lord’s life is more than just ‘comfortable’. Also, the
last time I checked, he doesn’t support the war. His age as well as
a leg injury from his sea fairing days has rendered him …
unsatisfactory as far as combat is concerned.”

Ava smiled, but not as if she was
pleased. More like a problem that had plagued her had been
assuaged.

Jocelyn’s entire frame shook and biting
her lip she turned to her sister and leaned in close.

Not that that made any
difference.

He could still hear just
fine.

“Ava. What’s gotten into you? We aren’t
going anywhere with that … that vagrant.”

Ouch.

“I don’t really care who we go with
Joss … I just want to go.”

Her words brought his eyes to them
quickly enough that he was able to catch the silent conversation
that took place between them. When Jocelyn next glanced up, her
face was tight and unhappy, but determined.

“Fine.”

Her lips were tight, almost
bloodless.

“We’ll go.”

Damon leaned back in his seat, his arms
crossing over his chest as he regarded her with narrowed
eyes.

“Then I’ll leave you girls to get
ready.”

* * * *

He didn’t leave. Rather he had the
servants lead him up to the room Jocelyn had foolishly prepared.
She watched him swagger up the stairway to the second floor, a maid
giggling on his arm as he spoke to her. She felt her gut twist, but
she waited until he was out of sight before rounding on Ava who
stood beside her in the middle of the foyer.

“What were you thinking?”

Ava frowned at her and then glancing
around the foyer, she grabbed Jocelyn’s arm and dragged her down
the hallway and into their father’s study. Locking the door behind
her, she leaned back against the dark brown wood.

Jocelyn folded her arms across her
chest and tried not to give in when Ava began to gnaw at her bottom
lip in nervousness.

“Well?”

“I….” She shook her head and tried
again. “I want to go, Joss.”

Jocelyn sagged, “I gathered as much,
but why? The war Ava….”

Suddenly angry, Ava pushed off from the
door and came further into the room.

“Don’t you think I know all that? I’ve
been hearing the same news as you. You know Mrs. Patterson got a
letter the other day. Her son Kennith, the boy who went to school
with us who always picked his nose? He’s dead. Dead Joss. Killed up
in Fort Dearborn. Everybody is either dead or dying and now we
don’t even have Daddy anymore. There’s no reason why we should stay
either.”

“Other than the fact that this is our
home you mean?”

Ava made an exasperated noise and threw
up her hands. As Jocelyn settled back on the edge of her father’s
desk, she watched her sister pacing in front of her. Her fingers
were moving, flexing, as if she wished desperately for her paints
and brushes.

But there were no paints, there were no
brushes. Ever since the war almost everything had been taken away
to provide for the soldiers. At first it wasn’t so bad, but as the
year and the fighting progressed, more and more things that they
had before taken for granted began to disappear.

The usually svelte creature her sister
had cultivated herself into over the years had disappeared and that
worried Jocelyn more than anything.

“Talk to me Ava.”

She gave a short barking laugh. “I’m
trying too but I’m not sure how much of what I say you’ll actually
hear.”

Hurt, Jocelyn cleared her
throat.

“Well then, try and we’ll
see.”

Silence filled the room for a few
heartbeats before with a sigh and a weary brush of her hand across
her face Ava spoke.

“I can’t stay here. It’s not home
anymore Joss, and it never will be again. You feel the same way
don’t you?”

She did, but the difference between she
and Ava was that Jocelyn believed that these sorts of feelings
would fade over time. A person couldn’t feel so empty and alone
forever could they?

They couldn’t always live in fear and
uncertainty.

When she remained silent Ava gave her a
tired smile.

“I already know how this is going to
work. We’ll stay here trying to pretend that we’re alright when
we’re not. We’ll get raided either by wondering soldiers or Indians
and they’ll rape us and take everything we own. Then they’ll stick
a hatchet in our heads and scalp us if they’re the Indians. And if
it’s soldiers, assuming that they’re red coats and not Americans
they’ll make us make tea until our fingers fall off and we’re red
in the face from exhaustion-“

“That’s enough Ava. I get the picture.”
While most people would have been shocked to find that Ava was
surprisingly practical, they’d be horrified if they knew that she
was also vastly morbid. Most of the time it was funny, even a bit
cute, but this time…not so much.

Groaning Jocelyn ran her left foot back
and forth over hardwood floor. Her toes extending into a graceful
pointe before she brought it back. Looking up at her sister she bit
her lip.

“Is this really not home anymore Ava?
Is there nothing worth staying for?”

They stared at each other, solemn and
silent before Ava shook her head and closed the distance between
them. Her small hands grasped Jocelyn and there were tears
deepening the hypnotic blue of her eyes.

“I want…I want what we always talked
about with daddy. I want to meet a rich, handsome man that’s going
to spoil me for the rest of my life.”

Jocelyn gave a shaky laugh and reached
up to tug an errant blond curl.

“And bring home lots of screaming,
drooling babies.”

Ava’s nose wrinkled almost
instinctively and she shivered as if a chill had run down her
spine.

“Maybe not so much that
part.”

“Which part? The drooling or the
screaming?”

“Well with the screaming I’ll at least
go deaf after a while but if the little brats drool all over me
they’ll mess up all my pretty gowns.”

This brought on a bout of giggling. And
though the laughter and the feel of Ava’s arms around her felt
good, felt normal, there was an underlying darkness to the sound
that Jocelyn was sure Ava had missed.

Something had been resolved; Jocelyn
just wasn’t sure what it was.

* * * *

An hour later, she found
out.

Ava had assembled the servants and
preparations were underway for the move. Damon stood at the
banister overlooking the foyer and watched in abject awe as
servants hustled this way and that. Their dark skin glistening with
sweat under the house lamps as they carried trunk load after trunk
load of what their mistresses had termed ‘essential’ to the front
of the house so that it could be packed onto his carriage in the
morning. Plates, precious china, what looked like Ava’s entire
room, and furniture they simply couldn’t leave behind. Paintings of
their parents that were larger than most grown men were wrapped in
bedding and treated with upmost gentleness. Silver, paints,
brushes, easels, and make-up, soaps, perfumes, food, and god help
him if he never saw another shoe in his life.

Why they needed all of these things he
didn’t know. They had to travel from here to Florida, hopefully
stopping by his plantation on the way so that he could give quick
instructions about what needed to be done and how to protect it in
case soldiers came.

Once on the cost they had to catch a
ship to the Caribbean where they would hopefully find passage to
England. All in an effort to slip past the blockade banning
Americans from English soil.

They must do all that while apparently
drowning under an ocean of pink lace and chiffon.

It was as close to Hell as Damon had
ever come and the heat from the gates burned him.

Damon supposed he had held out some
belated hope that Jocelyn would see how impractical it all was but
he’d seen how she’d grinned at the increasing paleness of his face
as Ava ordered for more things to be packed up. She’d known so many
things would slow them down, and yet instead of doing as he’d
hoped, she’d encouraged her sister to the point where they would
have been packing up the horses, the mares, and the stable boys too
if Damon hadn’t suggested in a panic that they take a break for
dinner.

* * * *

Dinner was a silent affair, with
Jocelyn trying to studiously ignore their visitor and Ava sneaking
sidelong glances at him every chance she got. It had been a while
since they’d sat down and eaten with a man and the difference
between him and their father was evident. While John Holbrook had
given off a kind, patient air, Damon seemed to emit something
darker, a bit more twisted, and it was the feel that he gave off as
well as Jocelyn and Ava’s distrust of him that kept conversation at
a minimum.

It was true they had heard many stories
of him from their father but the charming, idealistic, and kind
young man who’d been the hero of those stories seemed drastically
different from the reality sitting across from them. The thing that
bothered Ava the most, but which Jocelyn seemed oblivious too, was
his eyes. Ava knew she and her sister were pretty, or prettier than
most of the women in town. So she was used to the looks they
received from men. Most of the time once one of them went up
against the iron will hidden beneath her shyness and her seemingly
cold reserve they found themselves losing interest .

Damon on the other hand was different.
Each and every time her sister went against him for something,
whether it was leaving Virginia, choosing what to pack, or an
uncomfortable five minutes of arguing over what would be eaten for
dinner, a light seemed to flicker in his eyes. A dark kind of
interest that would have thrilled instead of worried Ava had he
been looking at her rather than Jocelyn.

As it was she sat there for a good five
minutes, stewing and shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Jocelyn’s
voice made her jump.

“Can you…can you tell us a bit about
the war Mr. Burleigh?”

He didn’t have to glance up from his
plate to look at her as Ava did because his eyes had already been
trained on her from the beginning. He gave a slight smile and
popped a sliced carrot into his mouth.

“About the war or about your
father?”

“Both.”

The grin bloomed fully and Ava had to
blink to keep herself from being dazed by it.

She’d noticed his good looks before but
the careless joy in his smile seemed to drive it home. His black
hair was wavy and fell in messy curls around his forehead and neck.
Stormy gray eyes framed by thick black lashes would have made his
face too pretty if it hadn’t been for the rough sexuality of his
wide mouth and bristled jaw.

She’d noticed how tall he was when he’d
first come, how strong and lean and with his thick eyebrows arching
sharply over those intense eyes he seemed very much like…well like
a devil.

And when Ava looked over in rising
panic to see her sister flushing prettily at the attention, she
resolved the truth firmly in her mind.

He was a devil, and he was going to
take her sister from her.

* * * *

Jocelyn was curious.

She’d never tired of listening to her
father reminisce about the war and Damon had always featured
prominently in all the stories. But somehow the man sitting across
from her and the charming, constantly laughing young man her father
had made him out to be seemed to be two completely different
people.