The Defiant Mistress

Tomorrow she would be Gabriel’s wife.

She experienced a brief frisson of tension as she contemplated her wedding night—she could not help but feel a little nervous at what some of her wifely duties would entail—but she loved and trusted Gabriel. Whenever he held her in his arms or kissed her he always tempered his male passion with exquisite tenderness for her innocence. In fact—she skipped out of the path of a sedan chair carried by two sweating porters—in fact, sometimes Gabriel was a little too tender. One of the chairmen turned his head to look appreciatively after her, but she was used to men’s admiring glances and she didn’t pay any attention. Her thoughts were too full of her coming wedding night. A quiver of illicit anticipation stirred deep inside her as she imagined how much more passionately Gabriel would kiss her when he no longer had to keep such a tight rein upon his desire. Tomorrow night she would find out.

She turned off the broad expanse of Cheapside into a narrower side street. Here, even in the summer, the houses with their projecting upper floors were too close together to allow the mid-afternoon sun to penetrate all the way to the ground. The shade provided a respite from the glare of bright sunlight, but only an illusion of coolness. The air was hot and still. Athena’s skin felt gritty with the grime of the city.

She pushed a strand of damp blonde hair away from her face and turned her thoughts to the supper she meant to prepare for her aunt. It was the last night she would spend under Aunt Kitty’s roof and Athena wanted to show her appreciation for the older woman’s generosity and kindness. She had already bought most of the ingredients she needed early that morning. This second shopping trip had been to fetch the few items she’d originally forgotten because her mind had been too full of Gabriel.

Well, for the rest of the afternoon and evening she would not let so much as one stray thought of Gabriel cross her mind. She would concentrate only on preparing the most splendid supper imaginable for Aunt Kitty—and her reward…her reward would be to lie in bed and think of Gabriel all night! Athena couldn’t suppress the saucy smile that tugged at her lips at the prospect. Her whole body hummed with happiness as she stepped into the passage that led to the small courtyard in front of her aunt’s lodgings.

‘Hello, Athena.’ A man’s voice spoke suddenly from the shadows.

She jumped, her stomach lurching with surprise, but at first she was startled rather than afraid.

‘You naughty girl,’ he said, chiding her in a repellently indulgent tone. ‘What a tease you are.’

Samuel?

Horrified disbelief held Athena immobile for several seconds. She recognised that hateful voice, but she’d hoped never to hear it again. Samuel didn’t belong in London. He had no place in her new life. How had he found her?

He moved into the light, his glittering eyes roaming greedily over her body. Her skin crawled at his lascivious interest.

‘Such a tease,’ he said thickly. ‘Have you been getting impatient for me to find you, sweetling?’

He reached towards her.

She jerked backwards, bumping her basket against the wall. The impact jolted her into action. She spun around, driven by a panic-stricken need to run as far and as fast as possible.

Samuel lunged forward. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him.

‘Don’t run,’ he said, his breath scalding her cheek. ‘I’ve been patient, but now it’s time you came to heel.’

‘No!’ Athena desperately tried to break free. ‘Let me go! I won’t marry you!’

‘Yes, you will.’ He twisted her arm painfully, punishing her for her resistance. ‘It’s arranged. Your father approves. Your mother—’

‘Josiah Blundell is not my father.’ Athena continued to struggle. ‘He’s my stepfather. My real father would never force me to marry you.’ Her voice shook with scorn and contempt. ‘He would have protected me from you.’

Samuel hissed angrily. ‘Your fine father is dead. He was nothing. I am Cromwell’s friend,’ he boasted.

‘I doubt he even knows your name!’ Athena mocked him, too angry to be cautious.

Samuel’s uncle, and her stepfather, Josiah Blundell, was indeed Cromwell’s friend. She knew that Josiah did have some influence with Cromwell. But she was sure the same could not be said for the twenty-three-year-old Samuel. He was an indulged only son, and Josiah Blundell’s favoured only nephew, but he could not lay claim to any great achievement in his own right.

‘He does, you bitch!’ Samuel’s grip tightened cruelly. ‘And if you don’t mind your manners, you’ll find out how much.’

‘Leave me alone.’ She flailed wildly at him with her basket, ignoring the pain in the arm he held as she tried to kick her heels against his shins.

‘A woman should show more respect for her husband.’

‘I’ll never marry you,’ Athena panted. ‘I’m going to marry someone else.’

Samuel swore vilely and forced her along the passage and across the courtyard into her aunt’s lodgings. ‘Be quiet, or the old woman will pay,’ he threatened her.

Athena stopped struggling, appalled at the possibility Samuel might take his spite out on Aunt Kitty. He shoved her across the threshold and into her aunt’s parlour. Then he released her.

Athena stumbled forward, nearly tripping over her skirts. She righted herself and whirled around, frantically searching the room for her aunt.

‘She’s not here,’ said Samuel. ‘A little precaution I’m sure won’t be necessary. She’s come to no harm. As long as you behave yourself, she’ll be back here soon enough.’

Athena stared at Samuel. He had wanted her from the first moment he’d seen her, and all his life he’d been given what he wanted. Fright and anger jangled through her. She had done everything in her power to escape him. It seemed monstrous that he should have found her now, on the very eve of her wedding.

Most of Athena’s life had been lived in the shadow of the war between King and Parliament but, though she had heard dreadful stories of battles and sieges elsewhere, the conflict had not directly impinged on her childhood. That had changed in 1656 when she was fifteen. Her father had died and she’d discovered that her family’s situation was more precarious than she’d realised. Sir Edmund Fairchild had secretly sympathised with the royalist cause, but he’d trod a skilful path through the volatile rivalries of his predominantly parliamentarian neighbours. On Sir Edmund’s death, the Fairchild estate had passed to Athena’s younger brother, Luke, but the new baronet was only six years old. The Parliamentarian leaders of the county looked covetously upon Fairchild Manor.

To safeguard her family and preserve her son’s inheritance, Athena’s mother had remarried eight months after Sir Edmund’s death. She had chosen as her second husband one of their closest neighbours, Josiah Blundell. Josiah was a man of stern, puritan feeling—but there was no doubt he held Athena’s mother in stiff-backed affection. Upon their marriage he had promised to preserve the young baronet’s inheritance and protect the rest of the Fairchild family. So far he had been as good as his word—except in one respect. From the first he had been in favour of a match between his nephew, Samuel, and Athena.

Athena had done everything she could to change her stepfather’s mind. But Samuel only ever revealed his most charming face to his uncle, and Josiah could not understand Athena’s objections to the marriage. At last, in desperation, she had fled from her home in Kent to the bustling anonymity of London. She’d taken refuge with the widowed sister of her father’s brother-in-law, a distant family connection she was sure was unknown to Josiah and Samuel. To make it even harder to track her down, she had altered her name from Athena Frances Fairchild to the less memorable Frances Child and pretended she had no family apart from Kitty.

But now it seemed all her efforts to make a new life had been in vain. Samuel had found her.

She stepped back, moving her basket instinctively in front of her. It was a flimsy shield and an inadequate weapon, but it was all she had. She lifted her chin and forced words through her fear-tightened throat.

‘You can’t make me marry you,’ she said. ‘You can drag me to the altar, but you can’t make me say the words.’

‘Yes, I can.’ There was an expression of gloating self-satisfaction in Samuel’s eyes. ‘You will say the words willingly.’

‘Never.’ Fear chilled her. He was so horribly confident. She had to get away from him.

Athena backed up another step. Samuel stood in front of her. From the corner of her eye she could see the doorway on her left. She didn’t dare look in that direction in case she signalled her intentions to him. She took another hesitant step backwards, looking down at the basket she held in front of her. Suddenly she hurled it at Samuel and made a dash for the door.

She saw Moses Spink, Samuel’s friend, too late to avoid capture. She struggled wildly in Spink’s arms, hardly aware that Samuel was speaking to her. At last his words penetrated her angry, panic-clouded mind.

‘…unless you want to see Vaughan hanged for treason.’

‘What?’ she gasped, lifting her head to stare at him through a veil of untidy blonde hair. ‘What sick nonsense are you talking?’

‘Your noble bridegroom is a spy for Charles Stuart,’ Samuel informed her triumphantly. ‘I have one of his letters to prove it. He is a traitor—and here is the evidence that will hang him.’

‘You’re lying.’ But despite her bold denial, doubt crept into Athena’s heart. Gabriel Vaughan was the third son of the Marquis of Halross. As the youngest son he had to make his own way in life and he’d chosen to apprentice himself to a City merchant. But he’d once mentioned to Athena that, during the Wars, his father had fought for the King. A picture of Gabriel rose powerfully in Athena’s mind. He was so full of glorious male vigour, so high-couraged and honourable. Had he decided to follow in his father’s tradition and take up the cause of the exiled King?

‘See for yourself,’ said Samuel, as if reading her thoughts.

Spink released her. She stepped out of his reach with a proud toss of her head, but she couldn’t prevent her hands from trembling when she took the tattered fragment of letter Samuel held out. She knew Gabriel’s writing. He had composed a sonnet for her a month ago. He had presented it to her with a flush of hopeful male awkwardness, not quite at ease with the romantic gesture; but Athena had been so enchanted with him that soon he had puffed out his chest with pride in his lover’s skill.

Now she recognised his confident initials signing the letter and the sentences above that clearly proved his involvement in a plot to kill Cromwell and restore Charles II to the throne.

‘Your choice is simple.’ Samuel’s voice came to her from a distance, as if her head was underwater. She felt as if she was drowning. ‘Marry me tomorrow in place of your traitorous bridegroom—or Vaughan will hang.’

Athena looked into his eyes and knew it was not an idle threat. If Samuel showed this evidence to Josiah, her stepfather would go straight to Cromwell—and then Gabriel would die. One of Athena’s uncles had been hanged by the parliamentarians after the Battle of Worcester—simply because he had fought at the King’s side. If an officer in the King’s army could be treated so dishonourably, then a King’s spy would receive even less quarter if he fell into his enemies’ hands. Athena could not bear Gabriel to suffer a traitor’s death.