“My luck has turned. I can’t even lose at the card table since I became heir to Lamb Hall. Tell you what,” he cajoled, caressing her pretty bum, “let me come home with you tonight, and tomorrow I’ll drive you out to see the estate for yourself in my new phaeton.”
Angela did have another couple of men on her string, but they weren’t as morally bankrupt as Bernie. There was a lurking bastard inside him that quite excited her. She had no scruples and knew instinctively he was the same. Who knew what they could not achieve if they put their brains together, to say nothing of the rest of their throbbing anatomy.
“Well, stup me,” she giggled.
“I intend to,” he promised.
Angela lived in a single room on the third floor of a building rented out to theatrical people. Until she hooked someone with real money, it was adequate for her needs because it contained two essentials, a big bed and enough space to accommodate her oversized wardrobe.
Bernard took special care to pleasure her tonight. Tomorrow night would be very different. Once she set her avaricious eyes on Lamb Hall and was eaten alive by ambition, Angel Face would be the one who would have to do the pleasuring.
The next step would be to dangle the plum of becoming Lady Lamb before her and she would be willing to cater to his every lustful perversion. His skillful hands caressed her delicious bum as he pressed her onto his swollen sex. Anticipation was half the pleasure.
They had to set out early the next morning for Stoke because Angela had to be back in London for her evening performance. Though he let her believe the phaeton was his, he had only rented it for the day. It was, however, such an improvement over the lumbering public stagecoach, he knew he would never again travel any other way.
Bernard drove her past Lamb Hall at a slowed pace, not daring to turn into the driveway in broad daylight. This would never do for Angela. She hadn’t driven out all this way to miss a grand tour.
Without realizing it Angela was being manipulated. She agreed to Bernard’s suggestion that they rent a punt upriver in the Medway and she reclined back, enjoying herself as he poled slowly so that they drifted along the bank until they came upon Lamb Hall’s boathouse.
From this vantage point they could see the lovely red brick mansion with its carriage house and stables off to one side beneath the stately old elms. The grass was like a thick velvet carpet sloping up to the Hall. Arbors and trellises were covered by wisteria and tea roses. Angel sighed as she pictured herself beneath a frilly parasol, entertaining her theater friends at a garden party.
Bernard caught his breath when he saw the doors to the carriage house standing open and the carriage gone. Thinking to boast a little he hinted at what he had done.
Angela looked at him wide-eyed. “Why on earth would you sabotage their carriage when you could fix their bleeding boat? On the road there’s always someone to come to your aid, but out at sea if you get into difficulty there’s only a cold, watery grave awaiting you.”
Bernard was pleased that Angela was as coldly calculating as himself. Their devious minds were entirely in synchronization. He pulled out a small saw and waved it in the air like a magic wand. “Hey presto!”
He maneuvered the punt alongside the sailboat and they climbed aboard. Neither of them was familiar with the workings of a small yacht, but they were both inventive, imaginative, and very determined.
The saboteurs were long gone before Antonia and Roz arrived home from London.
“I hope Anthony had the presence of mind to get a bill for the new harnesses. He can submit it to Watson and Goldman. I can’t wait to give him lessons in how to aggravate and eliminate a guardian.”
Chapter 7
Adam Savage was toying with the idea of marriage. He was thirty-two. Most men his age had had at least one wife. In the ruling class marriages were arranged to keep money, land, and titles in the hands of the nobility. Adam Savage had had none of these in the past, but now he intended to return to England and forge a dynasty.
He would need a special kind of wife: one who was at ease in society, who could entertain the highest in the land and at the same time appeal to his senses somewhat. Lady Evelyn Lamb seemed to fit his requirements like a glove. She was coolly beautiful, cultured, and he knew she would make a superb hostess for Edenwood, which would aid him in achieving his political ambitions.
Her cool English beauty appealed to his senses, challenging him to develop her sensually so that they would be able to enjoy a satisfying physical union. Her only drawback as far as he could see was her age. He could not expect her to give him a large family, but he would be content with one son and heir. If he wedded Eve, he would get her with child immediately. Marriage to Eve, of course, would make him legal father to her children rather than just their guardian, and he rather fancied he would make a good, strong father.
Today he was traveling to Colombo with precious cargo for his East Indiaman, theRed Dragon.Its holds already contained teak, ebony, and satinwood as well as pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon. These were cargoes that stored well for long periods of time. When he loaded his latest rubber and tea crops he would have to see exactly how much space was left.
England was luring him home and he had almost decided to sail back on theRed Dragon’snext voyage. He would take some of his Indian and Oriental furnishings with him, as well as the fifty tea chests marked with a leopard symbol to distinguish them from the chests that actually contained tea.
One of his smaller vessels from the China run should have made port in Colombo bringing a cargo of incomparable silks that he was importing to England. As soon as the small ship was unloaded he would supervise the loading of Evelyn’s cargo that had left days ago for the Colombo warehouse.
Adam had a general idea of what was produced at the small Lamb plantation. It had a cake house for cutting and drying indigo and a large acreage of cocoanut palms, the easiest crop to grow, that produced the greatest number of products. One simply popped the round nuts into sandy holes two feet apart. All they needed to make them grow was a little saltwater every other day and in two years time they produced six crops a year. The nut meat or copra was used for food when mixed with curry, or the oil could be extracted for hair, lamps, and candles. The sap was distilled to make arrack liquor, the shells produced tooth powder or receptacles for gathering latex, while the fiber made rope, baskets, fishnets, cushions, brushes, and mats.
It took two or sometimes three days to make the journey to Colombo. The heavy-laden wagons were pulled by domesticated water buffalo, which were strong but slow. As well as drivers Savage had his own guards, whom he had trained in the use of firearms. Thugs roamed the hills, preying on wagon trains.
All went smoothly. Savage had his own warehouses along the wharf in Colombo, but since theRed Dragonstood at anchor, its crew carried the latex rubber and the tea chests aboard from the wagons and stowed them in the cargo hold so that Adam could see immediately how much space he had left.
The captain and crew of theRed Dragonwere a frightening-looking assortment of cutthroats, whom he had hand-picked. He paid them well for their services both in wages and shares. They were allowed the freedom to do as they pleased when they were off duty and Savage had no doubt they kept many a tavern, gambling den, and whorehouse in business, but when on duty guarding his ships and cargoes, there was not one man who dared to come on watch doped or drunk.
His small ship, theJade Dragon,had only made port that morning. When its cargo of precious silks had been put aboard the East Indiaman and there was still plenty of cargo space, Adam Savage made the decision he knew had been inevitable. He told his captain he would be sailing to England with him and would likely be ready in two or possibly three weeks at the latest.
For some time now he had been negotiating with the East India Company officials in Madras to sell them Leopard’s Leap. When he picked up his mail from the mainland, as they called India, it contained a generous offer from the Company.