by Carrie Lomax
Unwanted.
Unloved.
Miriam had stared at him like he was a gift from the gods from the very first moment they’d met. Richard hadn’t had to do anything at all to earn it. He did not deserve Miriam’s soft gaze or innocent kisses any more than she deserved to be the unwitting victim of her friend’s plotting. For a time, Lizzie had given him that sense of being adored. It had been a lie, but it had been an effective one, a balm to his badly bruised sense of worth.
“Break,” Howard yelled. The men released the rope as one. Wood scraped and men’s voices rose in a cacophony that chased away Richard’s miserable thoughts.
By the end of the week, Richard’s resolution had fractured. He needed to see Miriam again, to bask in the glow of her affection whether he deserved it or not. After all, he was the son who’d murdered his own father. Forgiveness, redemption, and love were not for him.
July
Chapter 10
Richard had darkened countless doorsteps of imposing town houses and elegant country manors. Why the facade of the Walsh’s home, with its squat proportions and brooding black-framed windows, shouldn’t make his hand tremble as he moved to knock. But it did.
Incongruous boxes of bright summer blooms spilled out from beneath the windows. A bee buzzed lazily amongst them. Richard ran his fingers through his hair and inhaled the sweet scent of the flowers. When was the last time he’d felt faint with nerves? Had he ever?
The door creaked as it swung open. Richard startled. A man barely taller than Miriam, with thick black waves of hair sprinkled with gray at the temples assessed him with obsidian eyes.
“Lor-” He stopped. Miriam’s father did not appear to be the type who was easily impressed by titles granted by a far-off sovereign. One his country had waged war to part ways with, at that. “Richard Northcote to see Miss Walsh.”
“Are you now?” he asked softly. A bright spark lit the older man’s eyes like an ember from Hades’ forge. Richard swallowed, pinned in place by the intelligence and curiosity he found there. It was too late to turn tail and run. Pity, that.
“Yes, sir. Is the lady available?” Richard asked, clearing his throat.
“Mebe,” Walsh responded with an exaggerated American accent. Maybe. His skeptical gaze roamed Richard’s body from tip to toe. Richard had found the funds to have his best suit tailored and freshened, but it no longer looked new. His work at the warehouse had turned his biceps into mounds and broadened his shoulders necessitating new clothing entirely, not simple alterations. Richard had done what he could, but he was acutely conscious of the fact that he did not present as a nobleman from a distant land.
“If there’s a more convenient time for me to return…” Richard trailed off. He did not appreciate being left dangling on the doorstep like a servant at the wrong door.
“She’s in the rear yard,” Livingston replied. “Miriam has been waiting for you ever since you sent your first note. What pressing business of yours kept my daughter on tenterhooks for ten whole days, might I ask?”
Real fear prickled up Richard’s collar and concentrated at the base of his skull. Livingston Walsh looked like the sort of man who would bite the head off any man who dared to disappoint his daughter. He was carved of black marble and rough-hewn freedom.
“I had work at the warehouse,” Richard blurted, as though that could help his case.
“Howard’s, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Richard replied, swallowing hard around the lie. “I’m his partner.”
Abruptly, Mr. Walsh turned his back. Boot heels clopped on wide, scuffed planks. Richard peered into the house and, after a moment’s hesitation, followed.
Like the floors, the walls were crafted of dark wood. The house’s furnishings, also wood, were carved out of heavy walnut. A console table gleamed softly in the low light. A silver bowl sat atop it, beneath a large heavy-framed mirror. Beside that stood a spindly coat rack upon which hung a battered top hat.
A large double door with heavy iron handles laid to his left. To the right, a similarly dark receiving room. It looked like the parlors and sitting rooms Richard was accustomed to seeing in the homes of wealthy families. With its oversized, heavy furniture the space looked like a belligerent commercial space designed to make supplicants feel small. The entry certainly had the effect of making Richard feel even less confident of his purpose in coming here. Only the prospect of thwarting Lizzie’s meanspirited plans kept Richard moving forward. Footsteps disappeared down a narrow hallway. A glow of light illuminated the end but nothing beyond that point.
“She’s back here,” Walsh called over his shoulder. Richard hurried after his host like a lost duckling scurrying after its mother.
The back half of the house was as different from the front as chalk to cheese. Once through the dim, imposing front rooms, the rear apartments were warm and inviting. It was as if two distinctly different people had battled over the architectural priorities and had divided the spoils. Clearly, whomever had won the front had the more visible but smaller share of real estate.
After the gloom of the entrance, Richard’s eyes needed a moment to adjust the brighter light. When they cleared, he saw a wall of casement windows that let in the afternoon sun. French doors opened onto an extended yard teeming with flowers. A slight figure in a gauzy white gown fairly glowed in their midst. Thick, glossy black curls escaped their pins on the top of her head to dance about her shoulders.
Mine, his heart whispered. My woman, my wife, my soul.
Richard coughed. Where had that thought sprung from? Miriam was none of those things. Least of all his soul. Richard didn’t have one. If he did, it would be as black as soot, not light and beauty like Miriam.
“Are you coming?” demanded Walsh. The man’s pugnacious form had settled into a shadow near the dining room where he observed Richard.
“Yes. I was momentarily blinded.” Richard forced his body into motion. Dampness condensed in the hollows of his arms and that the small of his back. “It’s very bright back here.”
“Miriam likes her garden. I ripped out the wall, as much as I could of it without the house falling down, and installed casement windows.”
“It reminds me of my father’s…” Richard stopped. Only wealthy families could claim to have a conservatory, and he had no status here, only a tenuous connection with his family in England. He could return at his brother’s word and not a moment before. That had been the agreement when Edward had sent him away.
“You were saying something about your father.”
Richard swallowed past a tight throat. “He’s dead. Almost three years ago.”
“I see,” replied Livingston Walsh, and Richard had the uncomfortable feeling he saw entirely too much. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Shall I proceed?” Richard inclined his head toward the garden where Miriam worked unaware that she was being observed.
“Keep it short.”
Dismissed, Richard measured his approach in restrained steps. At his first footfall on the flagstone path, Miriam glanced up. The joy that overtook her features made him feel every bit the scoundrel he was. After all, he was here for her money, not for her.
“Richard,” she half exclaimed, half-breathed. “I wish you’d warned me before coming. I’m covered in dirt and—”
“You look beautiful.” Richard’s heart hammered in his chest. The vise in his throat squeezed tighter, choking off his ability to speak. He couldn’t do this. Lying was not exactly an unfamiliar habit. Witness his refusal to use the proper, demoted title ever since his arrival in America. Yet there was an honesty and softness that pulled at Richard’s protective instincts.
“You’re a dear,” Miriam blushed. She removed her gardening gloves and set them aside. “Would you care for tea?”
“Please.”
If he could swallow it past the tight knot in his throat.
“You waited so long to come, I believed you’d lost all interest.” There was no accusation in her
words. Richard’s stomach flipped and sank.
“I had work to do. Impoverished nobleman on foreign shores have little choice but to earn their keep.” He remembered to take a breath, and speaking was easier after that. But he had remind himself to keep doing it. Richard had spent years seducing practiced courtesans and flirting with innocent girls when he couldn’t escape dancing with them. But never had he tried to court a woman under false pretenses. It was harder than he thought it would be, in part because Miriam had inherited her father’s directness.
Before this afternoon, Harper Forsythe, his now sister-in-law and current countess of Briarcliff, had dared to address him as an equal. Richard had disdainfully dismissed her from the moment they had met. A familiar emotion tightened Richard’s shoulders. Regret.
He was sick of it. Yet here he was, committing one more sin to cement his everlasting damnation.
A question arose in Miriam’s eyes as he settled into the iron chair beside a planter overflowing with blossoms.
You are here to seduce Miriam out of her fortune. Not to fall in love, Richard reminded himself sternly. “Your father is an intimidating man.”
It was the right thing to say. Miriam smiled conspiratorially.
“Only at first. He’s very protective of me.”
Richard smiled approvingly. “Where did you meet Lizzie?” Richard asked, then wished he could bite back the words. Or, better, bite off his tongue to prevent himself from letting such stupidity fly out of his mouth in the future.
Miriam’s features remained placid. Unsuspecting. “At boarding school. I know she behaves abominably at times,” — here she cast Richard a knowing glance — “but Lizzie means well. She’s been coddled and indulged all her life, and I fear it hasn’t brought out the best in her. Yet I believe she will find her footing eventually. She’s such great fun everyone ignores her excesses.”
Richard kept his thoughts on Lizzie’s motivations to himself. “Do you think she’ll find her way before or after Arthur obtains his annulment?”
“So, you’ve heard of that?” Miriam sighed. “I don’t believe she particularly wanted to be married to Arthur. I think she saw him as her knight in shining armor. Lizzie always did love the Arthurian legends, and she was keen to escape her parents’ house.” Miriam’s spine never met the iron backrest.
“She ought to have refused him, if she meant to…be unfaithful.” Richard caught himself from using a coarser word. It was a measure of how quickly Miriam had made him feel at home in the short time he’d had to bask in her presence.
Miriam shrugged. “Perhaps. We all do things to please others, though. Lizzie more than anyone.”
Richard lifted one brow. “I cannot imagine Lizzie doing anything to please anyone but herself.”
Miriam’s brows knit together in a frown. “Hasn’t she been kind to you? Introducing you to her friends and family, giving you a place to feel welcome in the strange country?”
Richard opens mouth to speak and then slammed it shut so hard his teeth clicked together. He could hardly explain to Miriam that her best friend was plotting to steal her fortune, using him as the instrument. Weary despair settled over him.
“I suppose that’s true,” he conceded, though not because he agreed with Miriam’s rosy assessment. Richard’s half-formed plan to inform her of Lizzie’s plot disintegrated. He hadn’t counted on female loyalty.
“I know Lizzie is rash and impulsive. I’ve visited with her since our trip to the Pines, and we’ve decided to put that ugliness behind us. She says she’s unbothered by the fact that you’re courting me. If you are, in fact, courting me.” Miriam’s cheeks were tinged with a faint pink hue.
Richard chuckled. Relief that the danger had passed flooded over him. “Would you like me to? Court you, that is?”
She reached across the table and wove her bare, dirt-smudged fingers through his.
“Very much,” she replied shyly. “My feelings have not changed since the beach.”
“Neither have mine,” Richard said. He clasped her fingers in his and raised them to his lips, brushing a kiss over her knuckles. Miriam’s gray eyes widened, two dark-fringed orbs of wonder. Richard’s belly tightened low in his abdomen. She could not know the intensity of her effect on him. If he dared to show it, Miriam would surely turn tail and flee his presence. He would woo her like a small woodland animal. One step at a time, gaining trust.
The scrape of iron on flagstones caused icy fingers of fear to streak down his back.
“Looks like an amicable visit,” Livingston Walsh commented as he folded himself into the chair. “You’re lucky to have caught Miriam at home. Ordinarily she’s at Cliffside in the summer, our country house in the Palisades.”
The man placed a small tray with two tea cups on mismatched saucers, a small teapot, and a tumbler of amber liquid which Richard instantly recognized as whiskey. Longing coursed through him. His ten days without drinking alcohol had gone untested until now. Richard pulled his gaze away to focus on Miriam. The only thing he wanted more than the siren call of a stiff drink was for her to look at him the way she’d done a moment ago. With hope and yearning shining in her bright eyes. Not that he deserved a fraction of it.
Miriam poured the tea. It was good and stiff, much better than the poor stuff his landlady provided each morning. He drank it with gratitude while contemplating how much to reveal to Miriam. He quickly resolved to tell her nothing. Miriam wanted to believe the best of Lizzie. Perhaps he could convince her to think well of him long enough to agree to be his wife. Once Richard had his ring on her finger and access to all of Miriam’s lovely money, he could be as truthful as he wished. Someday there would be a reckoning. Richard resolved to stop that day from coming for as long as humanly possible.
“I have business in the city,” Miriam said with modest pride after she had taken a sip of tea. Her father cut her a sharp glance.
“Mr. Northcote doesn’t need to know about that.”
“It’s my concern, Father,” Miriam reprimanded lightly. “His title is Lord Northcote, not mister.”
Livingston toss back half his whiskey with a scowl. “We didn’t fight off the redcoats fifty years back for me to simper at English nobility. Besides. A man doesn’t need money to want you. You’re good enough in your own right, understand?”
Miriam’s eyes went wide and glassy.
“Of course, she is. Besides, I don’t need money. I have my own income. It may be the expectation to marry for pecuniary reasons among my class in England, but this is a new world. Miriam is nothing less than my equal.” Richard said smoothly. The lies tasted like ash. Nonetheless he cast his wife-to-be a doting smile.
Livingston drank the rest of his whiskey in a single swallow. “You have my permission to court my daughter, Mr. Northcote. See that you do it right. Proper visits and carriage rides. You’ve a reputation as a ladies’ man. The only reason I let you pass my door is my daughter seems quite taken with you. But I’ll not have a loutish wastrel for a son-in-law no matter how many fancy titles or how much my daughter loves him.”
“Father,” Miriam reprimanded with gentle warning. “You said you would entertain him.”
“And I have, Miri. That’s my tea he’s drinking, is it not?” Livingston cast him a sharp glare.
Understanding bloomed. Livingston Walsh had discerned his reasons for courting Miriam. Richard scrambled up from his seat. “Thank you for your time, Miriam. I shall leave you to return to your gardening.”
Miriam scowled, then schooled her features into resignation.
“Aren’t you going to offer Miriam a carriage ride?” Livingston demanded. He tilted back his chair to rest on the rear legs. His jacket shifted, revealing a pistol at his side.
Richard’s pounding heart settled. He brushed one hand through his dark hair. It needed a cut. Miriam’s father had not read his mind, after all. Of course, he hadn’t. That was impossible. If he didn’t get a better handle on his guilt, he’d destroy his prospects with Miriam.
Richard found that for his own half-understood reasons, he did not want to let her out of his sight. He couldn’t protect her from Lizzie if he wasn’t at Miriam’s side, after all.
“Does tomorrow afternoon suit?” he asked, cutting his gaze to Miriam’s serenely beautiful face.
“That would be delightful, Lord Northcote. I believe my father wishes to see you out.”
Richard followed the scuffling bootsteps over scarred wood floors as tension ratcheted his posture ramrod straight. Sure enough, as Livingston Walsh opened the door into the bright and dusty street, he paused. Richard clasped the shorter man’s proffered hand. It closed over his fingers in a hard pinch that made him wince.
“My daughter’s frail. Asthma.”
“I know,” Richard replied, straining not to shake his fingers.
“Take her uptown for your carriage ride. The dirt from the roads can set her off, so move slowly. If the slightest harm comes to my daughter, you’ll never see her again. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Richard wanted to feel affronted, but instead he felt relief. The slightest of accidents was all it would take to get him out of this confounded, duplicitous mess.
Thus, losing Miriam forever, and consigning him to another failure, that of fatherhood.
Damn. Richard kicked a rock and swung into a long, loping stride. Silently, he condemned the flash of selfishness in wanting to be with Miriam, no matter the origin of their meeting. He wished he could be the sort of man these harsh Americans admired. Strong. Hard-headed. Wealthy. Yet, weren’t these the same ambitions that had led him to commit the worst act of his entire life? It was the path that had brought him to Lizzie. Lost in his thoughts, Richard stumbled into the street where a horse nearly ran him over. Its rider cursed. Richard jerked his head up and realized he was bound to disappoint Miriam tomorrow, for he had no carriage and no means to procure one.
Chapter 11
“I don’t trust him.”