A Daring Deception

by Trentham, Laura

  The woman in the pond distracted him from the impending nightmare of the house party. The wet shift she wore was translucent and clung to her curves. Her face was tilted up to the sky to catch the summer sun’s heat, and the long dark strands of her hair danced above firmly rounded buttocks.

  She held up sections of hair to hasten its drying, and he caught the tantalizing outline of the undercurve of her right breast. His imagination drew in the rest, including a rosy pebbled nipple pressing against the thin cotton shift.

  His squatting position was becoming uncomfortable. So was the cockstand he was sporting. The thing had no sense of decorum. Where were the gentlemanly impulses he’d cultivated after a misspent youth? Apparently, they’d disintegrated at his feet like the leaf litter.

  His gaze unerringly found its way back to the woman even as he was determined to scrape the remnants of his honor off the bottom of his boot and leave the lady in peace. Not taking his gaze off her, he rose, wincing at the protest from his cramped legs.

  If only he could get a glimpse of her face. Turn your head, my little nymph, turn, he begged silently.

  As if she heard him, she stilled and tilted her head like a wild creature sensing a predator.

  And that’s all he’d be to the young woman caught unawares in a vulnerable state. Shame welled up. If she was of a lower class, his power over her would be absolute. He had seen the powerlessness of women forced to sell their bodies and worse, their children, in order to survive London’s slums. He refused to be the one to make life more difficult for this particular woman.

  Resolute now, he took a step backward, smacking the crown of his head against a low limb. He let out a curse and dropped to his haunches to peer from between thick vines. The noise had spooked her.

  The woman clamored to shore and pulled on a plain brown dress with buttons in the front. He watched her turn into an ordinary maid. No, not ordinary. No woman with her hair would ever be ordinary.

  He caught a glimpse of her profile. A straight nose and high cheekbones were highlighted by a rosy complexion. Her mouth was turned down in worry, but he could imagine her lips tipped into a smile. Her eye color remained a mystery. One he wanted to solve.

  Clutching a pair of half boots to her chest with one hand and lifting her dress nearly to her knees with the other, she took off in a barefooted run. He stepped out of the brush after she disappeared into a copse. She ran not toward Wintermarsh, but north. Was she a servant or the daughter of a crofter? She might even be another man’s wife.

  What could he do even if he did discover her identity? He couldn’t pursue a servant or a country maid in any honorable fashion. At almost thirty, he was expected to wed a lady of impeccable breeding. He was merely a stud horse and his future wife a mare, and together they would need to produce healthy progeny to inherit the dukedom.

  It rankled. His sister had made a love match. He often joked it was because of her state of happiness with Lord Rafe Drummond that he was forever finding fault with the young ladies thrust at him in London. Except he no longer found his situation amusing. While he didn’t envy his sister her happiness, he despaired of ever achieving the same.

  Minerva was two years his senior, but she’d been married nigh on eight years. Simon observed the sometimes tempestuous but always loving marriage his sister had made and found his every attempt to form a similar sort of bond impossible. He wanted a woman who would challenge him, surprise him, even set him back on his heels from time to time when he deserved to be put in his place.

  The yearly crop of debutantes in London were too eager to please. If he declared the sky was green, they would readily agree. If he asked them to go jump in the lake, they’d ask from which bank. Minerva chided that he never gave the young ladies a proper chance. She tried to convince him the debutantes were intimidated by him and needed his encouragement to reveal their true natures. Perhaps she was right, but he couldn’t summon the patience or will to court a single one.

  More and more when Parliament was in session he found himself eschewing the whirlwind social life in favor of his clubs, where he could connect with political friends and foes alike. He also spent more and more time in the country, seeing to his estates and visiting Wintermarsh.

  Still, once mounted on his horse, he found himself riding not toward Wintermarsh, but in the same direction as the woman. He kept the horse at a walk, fearing he would overtake and frighten her. Over a rise, he came to a stop. A large expanse of lawn with golden-tipped grasses led to a handsome manor house of red stone. The woman made her way through the field of gold, leaving a path of grass bending to her will, her hair streaming behind her in the breeze.

  His heart skipped. She slowed to open a tall wrought iron gate at the edge of the kitchen gardens. Instead of rushing through the gate, she slowly turned and scanned the countryside. There was nowhere for him to hide this time.

  As though sensing his discomfort, his horse chuffed, tossed his head, and sidestepped. The distance was too great to gauge her expression or for her to identify him. Still, their stares seemed to reach across the expanse like a cord being braided together. Simon’s breathing grew shallower. She moved first, plunging through the gate, lost to him in the vines. Released from her spell, he took a deep breath and regained his sanity.

  While he had never been to the estate, he knew where he was now. Penhaven. The estate was cursed, the line of Penhaven earls given to violence and madness. He also knew something of the man who served as proxy lord until the heir to the earldom reached his majority.

  Mr. Edward Goforth was a pompous bully. He’d been elected to the House of Commons and relished the position of power. The man’s mission focused on keeping the lower classes in their slums. Simon had done his best to ignore the inflammatory rhetoric coming from Goforth and his ilk, but it was becoming more difficult to ignore the raucous following he had gained.

  Simon wheeled his horse around and galloped toward Wintermarsh. Who was the young woman? It wasn’t Sunday, the typical half day given to servants. If not a servant, could she be a companion to the family or a poor relation? A more startling thought occurred to him. Could the woman have been Miss Tremaine? She’d been teetering on the edge of womanhood the last time their paths had crossed, and that had been years earlier. Surely she was well past twenty now.

  As soon as the stables came into view, a portion of his frustration eased. Wintermarsh was special. He’d become a man here and grown close to the people who lived and worked at the estate and in Lipton. He was grateful Rafe and Minerva didn’t mind him hanging about. He supposed the house party was his bill coming due.

  He left his horse in Tom Donahue’s capable hands and entered the house through the stately front door. His sister called his name from the study. He changed direction. Minerva sat at the desk, making notations in a large ledger.

  His sister’s marriage was unusual in many ways. One being the fact that Minerva managed the money she’d brought to the marriage as her dowry. She invested in business ventures that interested her, and the profits were funneled to various charities benefiting women and children.

  “What have to say for yourself?” Minerva put down her quill and regarded him with a flinty expression.

  How the devil did she know he’d been spying on a servant at their pond? To buy time to formulate a suitable excuse, he asked, “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I mean, Simon, really! You gave Christopher a handful of sweets. Of course he ate every last one in record time and cast his accounts all over the rug. I should have sent for you to clean it up this morning.”

  He stifled his laugh of relief when her countenance didn’t crack into an answering smile. “Terribly sorry. I did tell him to only eat two and save the rest. Perhaps you should teach him to count.”

  “He’s only three, you bounder! You should know a child can’t stop when faced with such temptation.” Minerva cast him the look, and for a moment he was twenty again and began to wither slightly.

  “Don�
��t you dare look at me like that. I’m a grown man and a duke. Save it for Rafe or Christopher.” Simon jabbed a finger at Minerva.

  “Unfortunately, glaring doesn’t work on Rafe. Never did.” Minerva harrumphed, but it was good-natured. “How’s your bill progressing?”

  “Quite well. I’m hopeful I’ll have the votes by year end.” The bill would limit the age of chimney sweeps so children who weren’t born into privilege like Christopher wouldn’t be forced into servitude. “I’m working on a bill to improve the conditions in the workhouses as well, but the support has been lukewarm.”

  His efforts to get his fellow peers to look beyond the veil of their own contentment and bear witness to the suffering around them had produced only marginal successes. The wheel of justice moved at too slow a pace to suit him.

  “That’s excellent progress. Rafe and I are proud of you.”

  “It’s just the beginning, I hope.” Simon’s throat tightened with emotion. His sister’s praise was something he’d always strived for, and even as a man grown, he relished it.

  Minerva bent her head back to her task, her golden hair, so like his own, shining in a shaft of sunlight. He meandered to the nearest shelf of books and ran his hand along the spines, gauging Minerva’s reaction from the corners of his eyes. “I was wondering… Do you circulate socially with the family that inherited the Penhaven estate?”

  “The mother passed away a handful of years ago. I attempted to befriend the daughter, Miss Tremaine, but she rebuffed my invitations. The son is quite charming, but green yet. As I understand, he’s at Eton and not often home.”

  Simon plopped in the chair across from the desk and ran a finger over his lips. “That’s too bad about the daughter. I met her once many years ago. Our interaction was brief, but she seemed full of fire and gumption.”

  “She seems to have never found her footing in Lipton, I’m afraid, and I’m not sure what Goforth’s plans are for her with regard to a London season. If he doesn’t present her soon, she’ll be on the shelf.”

  “Do you know if Miss Tremaine has a companion or other female relation to help ease her entrance into society?”

  “Not that I know of, but as I said, she has politely and firmly rebuffed my invitations, and to be frank, I haven’t issued one in quite some time in case her stepfather gets wind of it and accepts for them both. Goforth has made no secret of the fact he would like an invitation to Wintermarsh to further our acquaintance.”

  “Goforth struts around London as if he’s in line for prime minister, always lamenting the fact he’s not the Earl of Penhaven.” Simon didn’t begrudge a man for attempting to better himself, but Goforth’s methods included trampling those in his way. Soon after arriving in England, he had officially attained citizenship through his father and established himself as a force in politics.

  “I don’t doubt it. Why the sudden interest?” Minerva’s curiosity was piqued and pointed.

  “Goforth is turning into an annoying obstacle to my goals in Parliament.”

  “And?” Minerva raised a brow. She knew him too well.

  Simon searched for something—anything—plausible. “Our paths rarely cross in social settings. I thought perhaps I could sway him if we met under more congenial circumstances.”

  “This has nothing to do with Miss Tremaine?” Minerva’s attention homed in on him with an intensity that made him squirm.

  “Of course not. It has been some time since our paths crossed, but I do feel sorry for her.” He couldn’t help his next question. He had to know. “I remember her as an attractive girl. Is her appearance pleasing?”

  “Pleasing? It’s hard to say, to be honest. All I’ve been able to ascertain about her looks is that she has brown hair and dresses abominably.”

  It was the barest of descriptors and could describe countless women, his mystery one included. “You mentioned her mother died some time ago. Does she have a companion? A poor relation, perhaps?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I’m not in the know. I should have called upon her more often after her mother’s death.” More than sympathy weighed her words. Minerva understood what it was like to lose parents and be left adrift and floundering. As did he.

  Simon shook off the melancholy of the past to focus on the present. Minerva’s description of Miss Tremaine kept a spark of hope alive. The young lady in the pond had brown hair and wore an unflattering dress. He ignored inconvenient questions about why a lady would be bathing in a pond and why she was traipsing around the countryside unaccompanied.

  With an enthusiasm he found uncomfortable, Minerva clasped her hands and smiled. “You’ll be quite pleased by my guest list.”

  Simon managed to stop his eyes from rolling halfway around and assumed the bland expression he often wore during Parliamentary sessions.

  Minerva listed off names and lineages of young ladies. Lady Anne and Lady Faith and Lady Something-or-other and her also-available cousin, Miss Whatsit.

  “You should invite them.” It popped out of him like the first steam from a teapot.

  “I have invited them. Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  “I was referring to Goforth and Miss Tremaine.”

  “Are you quite serious?”

  “It’s the polite thing, is it not? Wintermarsh and Penhaven share a border. What will they think when they see the outings to Lipton and across the estate and know they weren’t invited?”

  Minerva regarded him like he’d sprouted horns. “It’s neither here nor there. We’re out of bedrooms.”

  “I’ll sleep in the cottage.” The brilliance of his plan was only now becoming clear. The cottage was both solution and escape. “I’ll drag Damien along to stay with me. That will free up two rooms.”

  Minerva sat back and regarded him with bemusement. “Is this part of your political machinations?”

  Simon seized on the explanation. “Indeed. I hope to convince Goforth as to the merits of my bill. While I may not be able to garner his support, I may be able to tone down his vociferous opposition.”

  “This has nothing to do with Miss Tremaine?”

  “Of course not.”

  Minerva ignored his denial. “Because while Miss Tremaine is on the market, she is not at all your usual sort.”

  “As I stated clearly, the invitation has nothing to do with her.” His sister’s observation penetrated his defensiveness. “Wait. What’s my usual sort?”

  “Beautiful, buxom, and not a lady.”

  Simon flushed. While it was true he had enjoyed the favors of such women, he had eschewed such pursuits recently to concentrate on more serious matters. “You make Miss Tremaine sound like an ape-faced spinster. She can’t be much past twenty.”

  Minerva puffed out a breath. “I hardly know what the poor chit looks like because she stares at her feet as if they may walk off without her and hides behind a cap more suited to a dowager.”

  “This party is a chance for you to gently influence her. Remember how difficult things were for us?”

  Minerva stared at Simon for the longest time, and with some effort, he kept his face impassive. “Fine, but I’ll let you inform Rafe he has to be polite to Goforth for a week.”

  Simon sat back with a smile of satisfaction.

  Minerva returned to writing in the ledger. “And I wouldn’t advise doing it during your fencing match.”

  That wiped the smile off Simon’s face. He rose to take his leave but stopped in the doorway. “If you’ll ready the invitation, I’ll deliver it myself.”

  Minerva didn’t look up. “I’ll have it ready after nuncheon.”

  At worst, he had done a good turn by Miss Tremaine. Would discovering the identity of the woman from the pond be a good turn or bad for him though? Considering the devilish part of him he’d tried to quash years ago was positively gleeful at the possibility, he decided it would be very bad indeed. Yet he was going to do it anyway.

  Chapter 2

  Miss Jessica Tremaine’s hear
t had taken up a new cadence. It was as if the man on the hill had introduced her to a new dance that left her exhilarated and dizzy. Had he been spying on her at the pond? Had he followed her to the manor? Was he the man she’d dreamed about off and on for years? She shook her head to rein in her imagination.

  What mattered was the man had not been her stepfather. That twist of fate would have been disastrous. Her years of imitating ugly wallpaper would be for naught if Goforth had spotted her out of her usual disguise. But she was fairly certain her stepfather would have confronted her immediately. Lying in wait was hardly his style. He was a slap-first, ask-questions-later sort of man.

  She ran straight to her chambers on the third floor upon returning to Penhaven Manor, luckily not crossing paths with anyone. Once used by a governess, the room was spare but comfortable, and most importantly, it was as far away from her stepfather as she could credibly manage.

  A schoolroom with dusty wooden blocks and a broken slate was connected by a door next to her bed. When sleep wouldn’t come and she was feeling particularly melancholy, she would wander the abandoned room. Her brother had used it for two years before Goforth sent him to Eton after their mother’s death. Dwelling on the wrenching pain of the day her brother left was enough to unsettle her.

  The Penhaven estate had welcomed them on a blustery snowy day eight years earlier. She had been in awe of the size and opulence of the manor. For a brief moment, she’d been filled with a hope they would finally find the elusive happiness they’d lost since her father died.

  Instead, tragedy had come to call and misery had moved in. There was nothing she could do but make the best of her bedfellows. Her goal was to make sure her brother, Blake, the ninth Earl of Penhaven, found contentment in his future.

  In her room, she stared at herself in the distorted looking glass. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair had dried in thick waves around her shoulders. The plain brown dress she wore clung to her damp chemise, outlining her body.