The Lost Lord (London Scandals Book 3)

by Carrie Lomax

  True, sometimes she had a bad month or even a bad quarter. When that happened, Mr. Featherstone took great pleasure in condemning her losses. Never mind it was her money to lose, and she usually lost less than the men who bet heavily on a single commodity. Nobody believed in her strategy of buying shares across a range of commodities, bonds, and stocks, but Miriam saw the results in the form of numbers she tracked diligently.

  “Here you are,” Mr. Featherstone said grudgingly. “Certificate for X shares of beef or however it’s traded [RESEARCH]. Sign at the bottom. I’ll need to reach out to Mr. Walsh to confirm this trade is within his understanding.” – You need to finish this research here or just figure out what to put here permanently because it’s a placeholder still!

  Marion glared at the man. “That is unnecessary” – especially as Mr. Walsh, unless he meant her father, did not exist – “He is away for the summer. I am approved to manage all transactions on the account.”

  “No one has given you leave to lose a thousand dollars on cattle,” Caterpillar eyebrows informed her.

  “Well, I suppose I shan’t lose it then.” Miriam scooped up her belongings and swept out of the room with her back stiff. The damned man had better execute her purchase. If he didn’t, the fictional Mr. Walsh had every intention of lodging a complaint with his superiors. Perhaps she could get Richard to play the part. She could just imagine the English nobleman looking down his nose as he informed Mr. Featherstone’s superiors of his useless advice. The mere idea made her chuckle as she took the steps down at twice her usual pace, never mind the hint of a wheeze that crept into her breath with the exertion.

  Mrs. Kent helped her settle into the carriage. Today had been a rare departure from Miriam’s side as she ran a personal errand. Miriam savored her short-lived freedom to manage her monetary affairs free of interference from the people she loved best. Upon their arrival at home, Miriam discovered a pale envelope on the center hall table with her name scrawled across the front in slanting masculine script.

  It read, Miss Walsh. Curious, she handed off her redingote to Mrs. Kent and went to her father’s study in search of a letter opener. Her heart beat in her throat as she tried to tamp down her eagerness. A shock of excitement zapped through her at the sight of the name at the bottom.

  Richard Northcote.

  Dear Miss Walsh, he had written. I request the pleasure of your company tomorrow afternoon at two. Please respond if this time meets your approval.

  That was all. Miriam smiled and traced the edge of the elegant paper with one finger.

  “I see you found your letter,” her father observed from behind her. Miriam startled. She hadn’t noticed him sitting in his favorite leather chair reading the newspaper.

  “Papa, I’ve met someone.” She clasped her hands in her skirts trying to quell her nerves. Livingston Walsh emerged from behind his newspaper inch by inch. First, his shock of black curls, cropped short and combed with oil to make it stick close to his scalp. Her unruly curls marked her as Livingston Walsh’s progeny. Next, his high, pale forehead. Here, too, Miriam bore her father’s stamp. Fortunately, her eyebrows weren’t as thick as the forest that formed an almost-solid line across her father’s brow.

  “A friend?” he asked in a voice that sounded as if he gargled gravel. Livingston’s affection for tobacco had roughened his baritone into a tiger’s purr.

  “A man,” Miriam clarified. The newspaper descended further to reveal an aquiline nose above an extravagant mustache. To her great relief she hadn’t inherited the facial hair, either. The bump in the center of her nose that matched his was enough to make her feel self-conscious. Then again, Miriam generally felt self-conscious about her appearance. As if her asthma wasn’t enough, her height, excessive mass of dark curls and bumpy nose usually left Miriam feeling more self-conscious than attractive—until she’d met Richard.

  “A man?” The paper fell to the table. The last time Miriam had seen her father’s eyebrows knit together in such a glower they’d lost half their wealth in a crash. Miriam swallowed.

  “Yes, Papa, a man. He wishes to call upon me.”

  Her father tilted his chair back on its legs. Miriam fought the urge to press her toe against the bottom and send him sprawling backward. Recently, she’d begun to think of her father as aged, and as someone in need of coddling despite his robust health and wiry, strong physique. As a youth, she had been emboldened by her father’s indulgence of her abilities. It had led her to be insufficiently respectful of him. Yet her he continued to protect her as if she were the tiny child left in his care after her mother had died.

  Miriam was no longer a child. She ached with the need for her father to understand that

  “I suppose it’s time,” Livingston responded mildly.

  “Time?” Miriam asked, arching one brow.

  “You’re of age.” Wood squeaked and thumped downward. Livingston’s chair had settled back to earth. He laid his newspaper on the table, unfolded, in a heap of printed words. “Twenty-three is past time for a young lady to be interested in a suitor. Not that I will give my daughter to the first blighter who happens to come along.”

  As if Miriam needed reminding. She retrieved the newspaper and folded it back, neatly running a one finger down the edge to make a crease. Rows of numbers faced upward, begging her to read them and discern their hidden meanings. For now, Miriam resisted the siren call of the daily report on activity at The New York Stock and Exchange. Today, there were more pressing matters that needed her attention.

  “Although I am old enough to make my own decisions, I prefer to have your approval,” she said softly.

  “Good girl.” Her father’s chin dipped. “If you believe this particular man is worthy of your time and affections, I wish to make his acquaintance. You, my dear, are a treasure not lightly bestowed.”

  Miriam’s heart strained her bodice. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe Richard’s suit would be welcomed with open arms, considering his Englishness and affiliation with Lizzie, but her father had agreed to consider him. Given her father’s protectiveness, it was as optimistic an opening as she could hope for. A grin stretched her lips wide. “Thank you, papa.”

  “Any man wise enough to win your heart is worth a few minutes of my time, Miri.”

  Miriam thought of Richard’s warning on the beach. I am a very bad man, he’d said. Indeed, if he’d done half the things he claimed, Miriam wouldn’t trust him either. She didn’t believe his presentation of the facts, however. Not entirely. Anyone could see the grief and despair in the man’s eyes, if they bothered to look. She believed there was more to the story. No man killed his father and experienced the kind of remorse that Richard did without it being an accident.

  He wasn’t a bad man, only lost.

  More than anything, Miriam wanted to help him find his way home. Richard was a good man in a bad place, just like Lizzie was a good woman doing bad things because she was unhappy. No wonder the two had been attracted to one another. It was over now, yet Miriam didn’t feel entirely sanguine about taking up with her friend’s former lover.

  She supposed she ought to feel a greater degree of condemnation toward Richard and Lizzie for commencing an extramarital affair, yet her father’s affairs had taught Miriam to be skeptical of marriage vows not honestly entered into. People married for any number of reasons. The only one that seemed to work over the long term was love. Even that was a roll of the dice.

  “How are Marshall Walsh’s investments faring lately?” Livingston Walsh stretched as he stood up from the table, cracking his neck with a loud pop. Miriam’s gaze returned to the stock figures in the daily as if drawn by a magnet. She skimmed the top line. Her smile widened further.

  “It should be a good report this month. Wheat has rebounded. The futures I bought in April are paying off.”

  “You’ve accomplished great things with the small stake I lent you. You’ve an eye for wise investments, lass. Consider how you’d like to use your fortune.” Her f
ather followed her into the breakfast room, where Mrs. Kent had laid out a simple luncheon. The dining room often went unused for weeks at a time, for they rarely entertained guests here in New York. They had another residence, Cliffside, for that.

  “I will. Perhaps on an extravagant wedding gown,” Miriam teased. Her father cut his eyes at her. She’d managed to shock him.

  “That sounds serious. I had hoped you would put your earnings toward a more charitable cause, but it’s your money to spend. If you want a silk gown dripping in diamonds to be married in, then it’s your decision.” Livingston tried to smile indulgently but it came off as a grimace at the thought of wasted coin.

  “I can’t imagine spending money on anything sillier than an extravagant gown. A simple dress works for me, should my wedding day ever come to pass.” Miriam tucked the newspaper under her arm and rose on tiptoe to kiss her father’s bearded cheek.

  “I’m glad it’s not a done deal before I had a chance to meet the blighter. You had me worried there for a minute,” Livingston chuckled. “Who is he?”

  “Lord Richard Northcote,” Miriam offered with a note of pride. Her father’s expression darkened.

  “I’ve heard of him. He has some affiliation with Howard Shipping Enterprises.” Livingston’s mouth formed an o, as if he were about to speak, then closed. All he said was, “Shall we take a walk uptown later this afternoon?”

  “Of course,” Miriam replied. They went every day, weather permitting. “Tomorrow, however, I beg leave to entertain a guest in the afternoon.”

  Her father winked in response. Her nerves settled, like a flock of birds on a tree branch, ready to take flight again at the first glimpse of the fascinating, mercurial man who’d captured her imagination—and possibly her heart.

  Yet ten full days would pass before Miriam laid eyes on Lord Richard Northcote again.

  Chapter 9

  The first three days without wine, or whiskey, or any sort of drink at all, left Richard a shaky, aching mess. The only company he could stand was Howard’s. His friend’s delight upon learning that Lizzie was no longer in the picture was tempered by Richard’s immediate substitution for a new love.

  Besides, as angry as he was with his lover’s plotting, Richard told himself he missed Lizzie’s company. At least she badgered him to get out of bed, or into it. Without her Richard was forced to think about honoring mealtimes. He couldn’t rely on her to remind him to eat. For several days, Richard missed his landlady’s provided breakfast and went to Howard’s warehouse with a stomach so empty it rumbled loud enough for others to hear.

  “You’re not moping over the red-haired woman, are you?” demanded Howard. He didn’t like to speak Lizzie’s name. Claimed it summoned the devil in the flesh.

  “Of course not,” Richard lied. True, he was in a sulk. He did not wish to court Miriam under false pretenses or possibly at all. After sending the rash letter, he had sent a second making his excuses. The part of him that Richard only listened to when his muscles burned with the effort of unloading and reloading ships whispered in his mind that the longer he waited to call on Miriam, the more likely the attraction was to fade. With distance, he hoped he wouldn’t hold so much appeal to a fragile young lady. With time, his awkwardly genuine desire to touch her would surely diminish.

  Once his hands were steady without drink, Richard debated hourly whether he ought to visit Miriam. Each time, he resolved to leave Miss Walsh in peace. As his need for wine crested and crashed, Richard buried himself in long hours of hauling freight to support his future child.

  Lizzie, of course, didn’t think this at all sufficient. Although she’d publicly reconciled with her husband—her affair with Spencer had ended preemptively after his ignominious defeat at Richard’s hands—Richard held no doubt their reunion was grounded in the thinnest layer of reputational self-preservation.

  One afternoon, about a week after their separate return from the Pines, Richard found Lizzie waiting on his unmade bed when he arrived home from the warehouse. His skin was crusted with dried salt. He looked forward to filling a hip bath with warm water and sinking into it, but that meant hauling buckets from the well, starting a fire in the stove of his too-warm apartments, and then emptying the tub into the rear yard. It was such a bother, having to perform these menial tasks himself. Richard had developed a new appreciation for the servants who’d hauled endless buckets of water up and down stairs to keep him clean back in England. Here, he could afford only a twice-weekly maid to keep his rooms from falling into total disarray.

  “Have you been to see Miriam, yet?” Lizzie demanded idly, with an ice pick in her tone. She turned the page of her fashion magazine. The dress she wore was new, made of creamy linen embroidered with green trim. In it, Lizzie looked cool and resplendent. There was no hint of the licentious woman who had taken him on that very bed many times over the past several months. Lizzie barely glanced up at him.

  “You know I haven’t,” Richard replied. A weariness he couldn’t attribute to hauling cargo crept over him. Lizzie’s presence fatigued his very spirit. He wanted her gone.

  “I haven’t told Arthur yet.”

  Another page flipped past. Lizzie had folded up the bottom corner to mark the page.

  “About our baby,” Richard clarified.

  Green eyes met his, slowly. Beneath the glacial indifference, Richard saw a barely-banked cold fury that chilled his marrow.

  He’d hurt her. It didn’t matter how impractical her desires were. What Lizzie wanted she went after with the tenacity of a badger.

  What she’d wanted was him.

  “Yes, about the child we are making.” Lizzie returned her attention to the periodical she was perusing. She shifted back, displaying her breasts. The linen gown draped over his tangled quilt, revealing nothing. It was cut, he realized immediately, to hide a growing belly.

  “You might yet lose it.” The wish popped out of his mouth without intervention from his brain. The thought of siring a child with Lizzie, of all women, sent a shudder through him. He wished he’d thought of that before falling into bed with a woman he’d never liked and since come to abhor. “I see advertisements for mother’s helpers, to bring back the menses, in every newspaper. It can’t be that difficult.”

  Lizzie rolled back and sat up in a single, fluid motion. Her eyes went wide with purposeful astonishment.

  “Are you asking me to kill our child?” she asked quietly.

  In Richard’s view, this was mighty early to refer to an invisible bump growing in Lizzie’s belly as anything so momentous as a child. What if he went through with seducing Miriam and Lizzie miscarried? Being a coward when it came to arguing with Lizzie, he changed the subject.

  “There is no hope of a marriage between us, Lizzie. Even if I could give you the status and wealth you crave, what you’re after is entirely dependent upon the arrival of a person who will never thank you for being born into a loveless partnership. You have nothing to offer the infant but unhappiness.”

  He hadn’t intended to circle back to the initial topic, yet Richard’s tongue had spoken what his brain hadn’t meant to say out loud.

  “If I hadn’t already hated you, Richard, I’d start right now.” Lizzie pushed herself off the bed and shook her skirts straight. The waistline was defined but high, disguising any mild bulge that might or might not have begun to show. She caught him inspecting her midsection and smirked. “If you’re hoping for a reprieve from responsibility, you’re an even greater coward than I thought.”

  Richard could hardly disagree.

  She stalked away, surveying his modest apartments with contempt. Only two weeks earlier, Lizzie had claimed to find his residence relaxed and inviting. Now, Richard wondered with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach whether he’d ever understood her motives.

  Had she truly believed herself in love with him, or had she been entranced with his title and plotting to obtain it from the start?

  Richard had never cared enough to find ou
t. He, too, had been ensorcerelled by his conferred, unearned importance in the world. Losing his place as heir to the Briarcliff earldom had been the greatest single blow to his self-regard he’d ever experienced. Richard recalled the precise moment he’d changed from the tolerated but never adored spare into the heir apparent. His brother’s disappearance into the wilds of Brazil had changed the course of Richard’s life for the better. He had become the sainted, the respected, and the most important of all family members. Overnight, his sisters and younger brother had demonstrated an increased degree of respect—or had, once he’d returned to England with his father.

  His mother had grown more lenient with him the longer Edward was missing. As the years passed, she had poured her efforts into searching for Edward, and had hardly paid any attention to him at all. Richard mulled this in silence for days as his muscles stretched and strained to raise barrels of food, bolts of cotton, or fine china packed in sawdust and sealed in heavy wood crates.

  His brother’s return three years ago had unmoored Richard. Overnight, he lost the title, his allowance, and his new mistress. Friends had abandoned him like rats from a sinking ship once Richard had been reduced to a hard-living almost-heir spending his abruptly curtailed inheritance as fast as he could. The sudden restrictions on his income had angered him, as had his father’s insistence that Edward could be restored to sanity well enough to claim his rightful place. Richard had offered nothing but needling jokes and viciously targeted humor as he’d plotted to have his brother locked away in asylum.

  Edward’s return had left Richard unneeded.