LITMIR.BIZ

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      Briefly Michel lifted his hat from his head. “Michael Geary, sir, your servant, and my wife, Mrs. Geary. If we trespass, Dr. Hamilton, I assure you it is through no intention to do you harm.”

      Hamilton peered at Jerusa, striving to see her face, and it took all her resolve not to draw away. He might not have been the highwayman she’d feared, but still she didn’t like him one whit, and she trusted him even less. When Michel had first spotted the other horsemen, she had fleetingly considered throwing herself on their mercy. Now, after meeting Hamilton, she was glad she hadn’t.

      “Mistress Geary, ma’am,” said Hamilton with a grudging, cursory nod, before he turned back to glare at Michel. “What is your destination, Mr. Geary?”

      “New York, sir, to visit my wife’s people. We ourselves live in Massachusetts, in Essex County.”

      “Queer sort of business, hauling your wife on horseback about the countryside like some damned tinker.” Hamilton grunted skeptically. “Why didn’t you go by water, eh? And where are your trunks? Never in my days have I seen a lady travel without trunks.”

      “It’s our trunks that are sailing south, Doctor,” answered Michel easily. “We sent my wife’s gowns and other such that she’ll need to New York in my cousin’s coaster, while we ourselves, sir, prefer to travel lightly by land. It’s my wife’s choosing, you see. She has not the constitution for sea journeys, nor can she abide the closeness of a carriage.”

      Jerusa listened in silence, amazed by the ease with which Michel spun one tale after another. Just as with the Faulks he had contrived to sound their better, now with this man he managed exactly to be a step or two lower, a prosperous tradesman, perhaps, or craftsman. He was so convincing that she almost believed it herself.

      And so, more important, did Hamilton, who at last nodded. “Tell me, Geary. Did you pass a house afire to the east on this road?”

      Michel’s eyes widened with appropriate wonder. “Why, yes, sir, we did at that! We had stopped for shelter from the storm at a ruin of a farm, only to have the old house struck by lightning even as we watched. You’ve but to look at our clothing to see how near we were. A terrible sight, sir, awful to behold! Thank God in his mercy for sending the rain to douse the flames.”

      “And thanks to you, Geary, for saving us the trouble of going there ourselves.” For the first time Hamilton’s lips curved in a smile, or what in a man like him would pass as a pleasantry. “That makes five times in as many summers that lightning’s found that spot.”

      “Five times, sir!” Michel whistled low under his breath. “Five times is cruel of fate indeed.”

      “‘Twas nothing to do with fate,” declared Hamilton with disgust. He turned in his saddle to stare contemptuously at one of the other men. “What kind of thick-witted oaf would choose the highest hill in the county to build his house? You deserved what the Lord sent you, Saunders, indeed you do, just as you deserved to lose the land itself. Be grateful I’m the one who bought it, else you wouldn’t even have the right to work the miserable plot.”

      Saunders sank lower in his saddle with shame and misery, and Michel’s initial dislike of Hamilton swelled. He hated men like this, men who thought that gold and land gave them the right to grind down and humiliate everyone else less fortunate.

       “‘Vous êtes un sot en trois lettres, mon fils,’” he said softly.

      Hamilton jerked around to stare at Michel. “What the devil did you say?”

      “‘You’re a fool in three letters, my son,’” he said levelly, translating for Hamilton’s benefit. “Or four, in English. Molière. It seemed appropriate.”

      Jerusa almost gasped aloud. What didn’t seem appropriate was Michel saying such a thing, especially if he was pretending to be a respectable tradesman. Hamilton was a contemptible bully, but that was no reason for Michel to insult him.

      But for some reason Hamilton didn’t seem to have even heard what he’d said. “No, before that, Geary,” he insisted. “What did you say? Did you dare to speak like a worthless, frog-eating bastard in my presence?”

      Jerusa saw Michel stiffen. “Molière was a Frenchman,” he said softly, and to her ear he intentionally let his neat, clipped Boston tradesman’s accent slide in favor of the softer French of his birth. “A French gentleman, a playwright and a genius.”

      “You’re one of them, aren’t you, Geary?” demanded Hamilton, his voice shaking with rage. “You couldn’t rattle off their lingo so neat otherwise. I lost two sons to the French swine in the last war. Two fine, honest, English boys, dead because of you! And now you dare to come on my very land to mock me, nay, to burn and destroy my very property!”

      Hamilton fumbled to unfasten his coat and Jerusa saw how swiftly Michel’s hand slid down to his belt with the pistols. Dear Almighty, in another minute they’d begin shooting at each other, unless, unless…

      “You believe my husband is French, Dr. Hamilton?” she asked incredulously as she urged Abigail forward between the two men. “French?”

      Hamilton jerked his head back to look at her, his eyes popping beneath his brows, clearly annoyed that she’d dare interfere. “Aye, mistress, I do.”

      “Then you should consider your words before you speak, Dr. Hamilton,” she said tartly. “My own father sailed in a privateer in the old French war, sending more than his share of Frenchmen to their graves in the Caribbean, and my brothers, too, whenever King George has given them the chance.”

      “Most admirable.” Hamilton snorted with scorn. “How then do you explain your bastard of a husband’s speechifying, eh? He prattles away in their infernal tongue as if he were born to it!”

      She forced herself to laugh. “Then my husband has fooled you as he hopes to fool others. He has high-flown hopes to rise above his station, you see, and fancies that because the gentry speak French, then he shall, too. His teacher is but a dancing master on our street who feeds his foolishness for our hard-earned shillings.”

      Hamilton scowled beneath his white wig. “You speak the truth, mistress? You do not mock me?”

      “La, it’s he who mocks me, Dr. Hamilton!” she said with a toss of her head. She was sure now he believed her, for despite his scowl, his body had relaxed and lost its tension. “For myself, I would no more take a Frenchman for a husband than I would an ape.”

      “An ape, you say, my dear wife?” asked Michel, speaking at last. “Is that how you choose to think of me today?”

      She couldn’t miss the clipped edginess in his voice, or the way his pale eyes had narrowed to watch her. But was his irritation with her real, she wondered, or feigned like so much else he did and said?

      She sniffed with what she hoped would pass for proper wifely disdain. Playing a shrewish wife might be a step up from playing a mad one, but it still wasn’t particularly flattering. “Not so much an ape, Mr. Geary, as a fool. Why should I sit by meekly while you display your learning and get yourself murdered in the process? What would become of me, I ask you that?”

      “Only what you deserve, my dear,” answered Michel with irritation, implying he’d like nothing better. “Not that this fine gentleman wishes to hear it.”

      “He’ll hear me whether he wishes it or not,” she said sharply.

      “But not unless I wish it, too, my dear Mrs. Geary.” His eyes glittering with unspoken threats, he reached for her horse’s reins and jerked them from her fingers. “No matter how ill-used you believe yourself, you’re still my wife, and you still must answer to me. You’ve said more than enough as it is, haven’t you?”

      “But I—”

      “Not a word more, my dear. Now you’re coming with me.” He jerked the reins so sharply that the mare lunged forward and Jerusa, caught off-balance, was

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