Honor's Fury Read online

  Amélie's bonnet had slipped to the back of her head and she felt his lips in her hair. Raising her chin, she looked into his eyes.

  Then he was kissing her again, tenderly at first, his kisses becoming stronger, deeper, masterful. She felt herself go limp as a rushing darkness enveloped her senses. Dimly aware of teeth, rough tongue, and hard cheek, of the masculine odor of bay rum and shaving soap, of unyielding arms, her own desire kindled.

  Borne on dark, swift wings, Damon's sensuality was carrying her into a spiraling world of sheer delight and wonder. Flesh and blood tingled and burned with a feeling of thrilling danger.

  He was unbuttoning her bodice, his hand reaching in, slipping under the worsted wool, under the cotton camisole, to fondle the coral point. Her breath suspended in sheer magical sensation, she leaned toward him.

  But they did not speak. . . .

  Fawcett Gold Medal Books by Fiona Harrowe:

  PASSION'S CHILD

  PRIDE'S FOLLY

  HONOR'S FURY

  Fiona Harrowe

  FAWCETT GOLD MEDAL • NEW YORK

  A Fawcett Gold Medal Book Published by Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1985 by Fiona Harrowe

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-91709

  ISBN 0-449-12474-6

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition: April 1985

  “All is lost save honor and my life.’’

  Francis I

  Table of Contents

  HONOR'S FURY Fiona Harrowe

  Chapter❖ 1 ❖

  Chapter❖ 2 ❖

  Chapter❖ 3 ❖

  Chapter❖ 4 ❖

  Chapter❖ 5 ❖

  Chapter❖ 6 ❖

  Chapter❖ 7 ❖

  Chapter❖ 8 ❖

  Chapter❖ 9 ❖

  Chapter❖ 10 ❖

  Chapter❖ 11 ❖

  Chapter❖ 12 ❖

  Chapter❖ 13 ❖

  Chapter❖ 14 ❖

  Chapter❖ 15 ❖

  Chapter❖ 16 ❖

  Chapter❖ 17 ❖

  Chapter❖ 18 ❖

  Chapter❖ 19 ❖

  Chapter❖ 20 ❖

  Chapter❖ 21 ❖

  Chapter❖ 22 ❖

  Chapter❖ 23 ❖

  Chapter❖ 24 ❖

  Chapter❖ 25 ❖

  Chapter❖ 26 ❖

  Chapter

  ❖ 1 ❖

  Babette saw him first.

  “Amélie”—she touched her sister’s elbow—“who is that man?”

  Tall, striking, dark haired, he stood in the arched doorway of the drawing room surveying the festive crowd with an air of ironic amusement.

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  He was a stranger, a man Amélie had not encountered before, either here at Arbormalle or in the homes on neighboring plantations. The gentry of Anne Arundel County, Maryland were a close-knit group given to lavish sociability and Amélie in the course of her eighteen years had come to recognize most of their relatives and friends. But this man was new. He was no crude interloper, however. By the cut of his black tailored evening coat stretching tautly over powerful shoulders, his spotless white linen, and nonchalant, self-assured manner she could tell he was thoroughly at home in polite society. A gentleman. Someone had brought him as a guest to her prenuptial party.

  “Did you ever see such a good-looking creature?” Babette asked, her cheeks flushed.

  Clean shaven with skin so dark as to be almost swarthy, he had the sort of virile attractiveness that made women of whatever age pat their coiffures and adjust their waists.

  “I wonder if he’s married,” Babette speculated. “He must be. He looks too old and too handsome to be a bachelor. Thirty-five, I’d guess. Wouldn’t you?”

  As Amélie observed him their eyes met, the stranger’s with a flash of deviltry before his gaze took in Amélie’s golden hair drawn back from a rose-tinted, hauntingly lovely face. Then his eyes, traveling downward, lingered provocatively on the half-exposed full breasts rising proudly from her décolletage.

  “Well, I never!” Amélie muttered, turning her back. “I’ve no idea who he is.”

  “I’m going to find out,” Babette said.

  Amélie put a restraining hand on her sister’s arm. Though the two were only a year apart, Amélie, the older, more often than not acted as mentor. “Don’t be forward, Babs. Remember you are a lady.”

  “Oh, piffle! It’s easy for you to talk. You’ve already snared yourself a husband. You . . .”

  “What’s this about husbands?” a male voice interrupted.

  “Oh, hello Thaddeus!” Babette’s lips parted in a coquettish smile as natural to her as breathing. Men, whether sixteen or sixty, whether she cared for them or not, brought out that dimpled smile and sweet, tremulous voice. It was a form of behavior which irritated her father, who could not understand why a carefully brought up daughter of his should act the perennial flirt.

  But Thaddeus, deeply in love with Amélie, found her sister amusing. “Hello yourself. Bright Eyes. And may I remind you I'm not a husband yet? That’s the day after tomorrow.”

  He linked his arm with Amélie’s and, leaning over, affectionately pecked at her cheek.

  “Lovebirds!” Babette declared, a touch of envy in her voice. Tossing red-gold curls she turned and began threading her way through the assembled guests, hoop skirts swinging.

  Amélie, watching her, sighed.

  “What’s she up to?” Thaddeus asked. Twenty-three with a cleft chin and brown, wavy hair, charming and warm hearted, he and Amélie had known each other since childhood.

  “Oh, you know Babette. She’s seen a new face, a man’s, and is bent on meeting him.”

  He laughed. “She means no harm.”

  “I suppose not,” Amélie murmured, vaguely annoyed at the stranger, who continued to stare. She took a firmer grip on Thaddeus’s arm. “I’m so glad we decided not to wait until next summer.”

  “Not half as glad as I.”

  They had announced their engagement six months earlier to the delight of their respective parents, the Townsends on Amélie’s side, the Warners on Thaddeus’s. Long-time friends, their properties, Arbormalle and Bancroft, adjoined, vast spreads that would one day go to Thaddeus as the Townsends had no son.

  The couple, though aware of the economic and social advantages of their union, felt it played only a minor part in their courtship. They considered their youthful friendship that had blossomed into love as lucky happenstance. Comfortable with one another, they had none of the nervous tension or flashes of uncertainty sometimes experienced by engaged couples. At least, Amélie thought, glancing across the room at her sister who was in animated conversation with the stranger. I’m not lured by a handsome face like Babette.

  Nevertheless she couldn’t help asking, “Who is that man, Thaddeus, the tall one in the doorway?”

  Thaddeus craned his neck. “I think Alex brought him.

  His name ... ah, yes, Damon Fowler. He came to see my cousin about purchasing some horses.”

  “He’s from Baltimore?”

  “No, I believe Alex said Massachusetts.”

  Amélie’s mouth hardened. “A Yankee. I wonder he dared show his face in a Southern home.”

  It was March of 1861. Abraham Lincoln, a man wildly unpopular with the slave-owning planters of Anne Arundel C
ounty, had been sworn in as president a week earlier. Feeling here ran high against the central government, the North and its crass, overbearing Yankees, against abolitionists, high tariffs, and the flaunting of states’ rights. But not all Marylanders held these convictions. In general those inhabitants of the northern and central portions of Maryland sided with the Union while those of the eastern shore and southern counties—including Anne Arundel—lined up with the newly formed Confederacy.

  “Give Mr. Fowler a chance,” Thaddeus said reasonably. “Not all Yankees voted for Lincoln or believe in his politics. Come, I’ll introduce you and you can interrogate the man yourself.”

  Babette and Mr. Fowler had moved to the punch bowl. Babette was still in motion, talking, smiling, shrugging white shoulders, flickering red-gold lashes. Mr. Fowler bore her chatter with an air of politeness tinged with amused condescension.

  As Amélie and Thaddeus approached, Babette, claimed by a young man resplendent in the uniform of the Home Guard, moved away.

  “Mr. Fowler, may I present my bride?”

  Damon Fowler bowed over Amélie’s hand. “Congratulations.” He smiled into her eyes. “Mr. Warner is a lucky man. Indeed, any bachelor who could win one of the Townsend girls would have to be. Might I observe there’s a strong resemblance between you and your sister?”

  “So I’m told,” Amélie said. “Though our hair has different coloring.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does,” he said, soberly inspecting the wealth of gleaming hair netted smoothly at the nape of her neck. “Pure gold.”

  It was an innocent enough observation. Yet Amélie thought she detected a faint note of mockery. Up close he was even more disconcerting than from afar. He had dark, almost black, eyes, deep set under thick black brows, eyes that emanated a feral vitality, a masculinity that seemed almost indecent in this tame room of pale ivory walls and flowered Aubusson carpets.

  Thaddeus laughed. “The girls are hardly alike. But then I’m prejudiced.” He squeezed Amélie’s elbow.

  “The wedding is to be day after tomorrow?” Damon Fowler asked politely.

  “Yes,” Thaddeus answered. “Alex must bring you. Ah! There’s Father O’Rourke. I must have a word with him. Pardon?”

  Left alone with Damon Fowler, Amélie felt momentarily at a loss. He was looking at her in the same amused, patronizing way he had looked at Babette, and it irritated her.

  “You are far from home, Mr. Fowler,” she said with chill courtesy. “Massachusetts, I’m told.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And you came to buy horses?”

  “Yes. I’m given to understand some of the best are bred in Maryland.”

  “We are very proud of our horses, Mr. Fowler, of course. Just as we are proud of our long history as a free people.” She was unable to fully disguise the belligerence in her voice and he must have heard it, for a black brow shot up.

  “You say that as if I doubted the virtues of your fair state, Miss Townsend.”

  “I'm sorry, I meant no offense. But you must admit there are others who would wish to dictate how we should conduct ourselves.”

  “ ‘Others’ meaning the North, I take it.”

  “If you wish to interpret it that way—well, frankly, yes.”

  “Far be it from me to presume. Miss Townsend. But you misunderstand. No one wishes to dictate. Nevertheless, I believe our Union stands above its various parts. Our Founding Fathers meant it to be so.”

  “Not at all,” she answered with a heat she could not contain. “They gave us each sovereignty and I for one resent some oaf in Washington telling us what we should do or . . .” She broke off, conscious of her red cheeks and Damon Fowler’s sober, probing eyes.

  “I must say,” he offered after a small pause, “I had no idea Southern women had the slightest interest in politics.” His dark gaze went over her again—the hyacinth-blue eyes, the silken hair with its escaping gold tendrils, the pink, sweetly curved mouth—lingering for a moment on her still heaving bosom. “Mr. Warner was right. You and your sister might bear a physical resemblance but you are not like her at all.”

  “If that is meant as a backhanded compliment—”

  “Nothing,” he hastily assured her, “could be further from my mind.”

  Was he mocking her? Amélie couldn’t tell. His expression had become bland, unfathomable, his eyes revealing only a mild interest as if he were expecting her to go on.

  “Well, this is hardly the occasion to discuss political differences, is it, Mr. Fowler?” Still seething inwardly she gave him a bright, dimpled smile, one that Babette might have envied, and was instantly sorry. It was not like her to be coy or girlishly arch and it increased her dislike of Damon Fowler. There was something about the man that made it impossible to forget her femininity. Even while arguing with him she was conscious of him as a man, conscious of his dark and unsettling good looks. Yet she wanted him to take her convictions seriously.

  “Or perhaps,” she went on in a grave voice, “you would prefer continuing our discussion?”

  His answer was forestalled by the arrival of Thomas Winslow, an elderly neighbor, one of the few who was outspoken about his Unionist sympathies. Amélie introduced the two men, then politely excusing herself, she left them, surprised as she walked away to find her knees trembling.

  Someone had invited him to stay for supper—Babette, Amélie guessed, watching her sister chattering away at him. He was seated next to her at the table and her sister’s face had the vivacious glow only a handsome, appealing man could bring to it.

  For a split second Amélie envied Babette’s ability to coquette so mindlessly without worrying as to what other people thought. But she dismissed the feeling as unworthy. She had grown up faster than Babette who, she hoped, would some day reach her own maturity. Still she could hardly blame her sister. Damon Fowler with his dark skin and hard jaw did make the other men at the table (except for her Thaddeus, of course) look wan and somewhat dandified by comparison.

  When the long meal with its superficial table talk (deemed appropriate for mixed company) was over, the ladies rose to adjourn, leaving the men to port and cigars. Amélie, bored and restless, felt she could not endure another hour or two of small talk with the women. Excusing herself, she went up to her room. There she threw on a cloak and descended the back stairs. She could hear the rumbling voices of the men and the lighter ones of the ladies in the drawing room before she let herself out into the night.

  It was unseasonably warm for early March. The forsythia hedges banked against one wall were in full, yellow bloom and their fragrance permeated the air. Amélie trailed along a brick walk past the kitchen house, down a shallow set of stone steps to the rose garden. Lifting her head she paused for a moment to watch the pale moon hanging like an ivory medallion among the jeweled stars.

  Drawing the cloak around her, she strolled through the garden thinking how delightful it would be to get away with her new husband. They planned to honeymoon on Waxwing, an island in the Chesapeake Bay where her father, Garvin Townsend, owned a small house. There she and Thaddeus would be alone. No cousins, inlaws, parents, or friends.

  She contemplated the physical side of marriage, a subject about which she had only the vaguest notion. For while Garvin saw fit to instruct his daughter in history and politics, he left the domestic topics to his wife. Therese Townsend, however, sharing the prevalent Victorian reticence, had merely hinted at what Amélie should expect. This only served to heighten Amélie’s curiosity. She only wished Thaddeus’s kisses were a little more ardent. But perhaps he was holding himself in check. Once they were married he needn’t feel shy or restrained.

  Emerging from the rose garden Amélie crossed a wide lawn and climbed the wooden steps to the latticed gazebo. Built in recent times, it was used by the family during the summer months for picnics or suppers on hot evenings. In the daytime, standing on its wide, railed porch, one could see far out on the bay where ships bent their white sails to prevailing bree
zes. Now it was all darkness. Just below the gazebo, hidden by a stand of dogwood, an unseen brooklet chattered on its way to the bay.

  Amélie was leaning on the rail, trying to pinpoint a distant flickering light, when she heard a step. A whiff of cigar smoke tickled her nostrils. A moment later she saw the red tip of the cigar and a dark figure took shape.

  “Why—-Miss Townsend!” It was Damon Fowler, his voice tinged with pleasant surprise.

  “Good evening,” she answered icily, quelling the startled beat of her heart.

  “Forgive me if I surprised you. I see you share my need for fresh air. It does get stuffy indoors.”

  “I was just about to return."

  “Don't leave. I'd hate to think you felt it necessary to quit this lovely spot on my account.”

  “You have nothing to do with it, Mr. Fowler.”

  But he did. As before, his presence gave her a feeling of disquiet as if his powerful masculinity were a threat.

  “Then stay a few moments and chat?”

  “Very well.” She drew her cape about her, seemingly to ward off a chill. But she wasn’t cold—on the contrary she felt quite warm.

  “Perhaps,” he said after a slight pause, “you can enlighten me as to the history of Anne Arundel County. I understand that the early settlers were mostly English of Catholic persuasion.”

  “That’s true. Lord Baltimore founded Maryland in 1634 as a refuge for Catholics who were then being persecuted in England.”

  “And you have your own private chapel.”

  “Yes. It was built in 1718 when a royalist colonial governor forbade priests to say mass or to baptize publicly. Of course all that has been changed. There are any number of Catholic churches now. We rarely use our own chapel except for weddings.”

  The Townsends took their Catholicism as a matter of course. They were neither zealous nor lapsed but somewhere in between. To Garvin—and to Amélie—religion was of far less interest than politics.