by Carrie Lomax
“Shall we go?” asked Mrs. Kent quietly. She had, of course, witnessed the entire scene, though she had tactfully remained at a distance. Miriam felt her cheeks flare. It was so embarrassing to have one’s private moments play out before one’s nurse. Still, there was a comfort to the fact that she was mostly amongst strangers. There was no one to care about one arrogant lord and the stupid woman who couldn’t quite stop longing for him. Even now, Miriam would have welcomed his touch.
Miriam gazed out at the dark city and swallowed. Where to even begin?
“Yes, of course.” Miriam gathered her wits and descended the gangplank holding fast to Mrs. Kent’s arm. At the bottom they met Lizzie, who was pointing to a heavy trunk and attempting to get a larger lad to help her lift it, without success. An incongruously large and shining carriage stood at the roadside, surrounded by beggar children. A footman held them at bay. Another footman opened the door as she approached. Miriam was startled to see her many trunks loaded onto the top of the coach.
“My lady.” The footman bowed.
Mrs. Kent glanced up at her sidelong. “Unless you have a better plan, I suppose we ought to at least meet Mr. Northcote’s family. We don’t need to stay if they’re half as terrible as he is.”
“I thought you liked him?” Miriam asked acerbically.
“Not exactly. I believe he likes you.” Mrs. Kent sighed. “Do you have a better plan?”
“I don’t.” Despite their depressing situation, Miriam could not help but feel the tiniest degree of satisfaction as she placed her fingertips lightly in the footman’s hand and stepped carefully into the elegant coach. Mrs. Kent quickly settled herself on the leather squabs beside her.
If she stayed, she could have this. She might be Lady Northcote, or these peculiar Englishmen may have another name in store for her. If you want to experience the world, you cannot wait for it to come to you. As though seizing opportunity had worked out well for her to this point.
The carriage door slammed open and shut. Richard clambered in and took the opposite seat.
“You’re coming with us?” Miriam gasped.
“It’s my brother’s house, after all. And as far as anyone knows, you are still my bride. If you choose to tell them differently, that is your decision.” Richard cocked his head at an angle, challenging Miriam to respond. She had made him angry.
Good.
Miriam felt as though a butterfly had been set loose in her stomach, its wings scratching and tickling her insides. She had meant what she had said on the boat, and again when they’d made landfall. She would never marry a man who had only courted her for her fortune. The fact that he had done so to support his lover and his illegitimate child was simply disgusting. Unforgivable. If only she could force herself to stop feeling this nervous, wistful attraction.
Already, her sadness had melted into anger with her old friend. Lizzie had used him just as thoroughly as she had used Miriam. Richard had so many more options than she had ever dreamed of. Yet he, too, had experienced loss. Lizzie’s peculiar gift was to find people’s weakest spots and exploit them ruthlessly.
“What is this we’re passing, out the left side?” Mrs. Kent asked, interrupting the awkward silence.
“That is the Regent’s Canal Dock. It was constructed only a few years ago but has fared miserably.”
“Is that where the Thetis is due to dock?” asked Miriam. After all, they were still business partners.
“No. We have chosen Wapping as our destination on account of the established warehouses there,” Richard replied.
From Canary Warf to Marylebone was easily an hour’s drive. London was dirtier, damper, and darker than New York. Narrow city streets sprawled in every direction, the ramshackle buildings uniform in their ugly, squat height. Things began to improve as they moved away from the dockyards. The coach swayed over rough cobblestone and gave her a sour stomach. Streets widened. Pedestrians thinned. With a few more turns the city became almost beautiful as its terrain shifted to neighborhoods with tidy limestone façade row houses.
This might have been her home. It still could be. All it would cost her was her pride—and every cent of the money she had earned despite Mr. Featherstone’s attempt at guidance.
Richard had nothing but gratitude for her ability with numbers, Miriam mused, with grudging respect for the man she had married. Miriam sighed a little gust of frustration. She was the one who had made it possible to return with his head high. If he had not succeeded in landing an heiress, he would still be lolling about with Lizzie in New York.
Wouldn’t he?
“There’s the new St Marylebone Parish Church. It was only finished a few years ago, in 1817.” Richard craned his neck to peer out the window. “Not long before I left. I should like to see the interior again. You might consider joining me for an excursion, if your schedule permits.”
An invitation, not a command. Mrs. Kent made a noncommittal sound. Miriam brushed back the curtain to peer out at the graceful white spire. “It’s pretty.”
Miriam let the curtain fall. After a few more turns Miriam felt the carriage slow.
“I am surprised they took lodgings here after the fire,” Richard commented.
“Why?” she asked.
“You haven’t met my brother. He is even more disinclined toward city life than Livingston Walsh. You wondered why I hardly reacted when your father came stomping out in a lumberjack’s suspenders and shirtsleeves. I doubt it is possible to surprise me anymore after the way my brother returned to London.”
They shared an awkward chuckle. Their gazes slid past one another as if crossing them might immolate the vehicle. Mrs. Kent peered eagerly out the window. Their collective fatigue at being cooped up in small spaces temporarily overrode the discomfort of being trapped in the coach.
“How so?” asked Miriam with great reluctance. She knew so little about this man to whom she’d promised her life. To her surprise, Richard was eager to discuss his brother.
“The first time I saw my brother after fifteen years, he was locked in a cage. He was naked but for a pair of buckskin breeches which were shredded to the mid-thigh and held up with a rotted piece of sailor’s rope,” Richard almost chuckled at the memory, but seemed to catch himself.
“Dear lord,” gasped Mrs. Kent. “Who would treat another human being that way?
“Many people, madam.” Richard’s gaze was hooded. “The sailors on the ship did not regard my brother as truly human, you see. He had transformed into something else. Someone so foreign that he had relinquished all claim to humanity.”
A shadow fell over his face.
“I imagine he could only improve with time and guidance,” Miriam offered gently.
Richard laughed humorlessly. “I suppose he has improved. I wouldn’t know. He sent me away after...” He broke off and refused to meet her gaze. “After the fire.” Richard sat back in his seat, clearly uneasy. Miriam had to fight the impulse to reach over and touch his hand. She had imagined comforting him as Richard reunited with his estranged family. Instead, they were arriving as enemies.
Miriam squelched her sadness. A mean little part of her whispered, let him squirm. If Richard had behaved as selfishly with them the way he had been toward her, he deserved to feel every bit of his reckoning.
Her musings left Miriam no time to decide her own reaction to the Earl of Briarcliff and his wife should be. Before she had a chance to consider what she should do or say, the coach halted.
“We’re here,” Richard said with humor he transparently did not feel. It was written into the slope of his shoulders and the tense line of his jaw.
I don’t want to fight you, Miriam thought. He had been a stranger in her land. Now, the tables were turned, and she was a stranger in his. At Mrs. Kent’s urging she was in motion, scrambling toward the door of the carriage. The footman handed her down to solid earth. It was all Miriam could do not to weep.
September
Chapter 20
Richard let th
e footman hand down his wife, and Mrs. Kent behind her. The familiar face of his father’s butler opened the front doorway to the new Briarcliff townhome with a ceremonious bow. A small army of servants appeared to remove their trunks and boxes from the coach. Any fears Richard had harbored about his brother’s unconventional approach to the earldom instantly dissolved. Given his elder brother’s wild behavior Richard had half-expected the door to be answered by a troupe of monkeys.
“You must excuse Lord Briarcliff’s absence. We did not know the precise timing of your arrival. Lady Briarcliff shall receive you in the courtyard.” He glanced sideways at her and covered her gloved hand with his. “This way.” The butler led them through an airy foyer and down a spacious hallway with marble floors. They passed through a sitting room with large French doors opening out to a welcoming patio. Beyond the patio was a large grassy yard. Strange growling sounds emanated from this patch of grass surrounded by hedgerows for privacy.
“What on earth?” Miriam murmured.
“I did warn you that my brother is ... eccentric.”
“Yes. You did. This is so like my house in New York I can scarcely believe it.”
Richard drank in the sight of Miriam’s wonder as they stepped onto the slate flagstones. A woman with dark blonde hair in a voluminous print gown attempted to leverage out of a chair. “Please catch Ben and bring him over,” she asked.
The butler gently placed one arm beneath the struggling woman’s elbow. “Welcome,” she said a bit breathlessly. “Forgive me for not meeting you at the door. It is rather difficult for me to get about these days. I am due within the next few weeks. The doctor believes it will be twins. Myself, I am certain of it. If not triplets.”
Miriam dropped a curtsey before Richard’s disarmingly casual sister-in-law. A feral growling from nearby raised the hairs on the back of Richard’s neck. He frowned, staring out over the lawn. A bush rustled.
“GRRAAR!”
A small boy leapt out of a planter. Miriam gasped. The boy squealed with laughter as a very large and muscular man rose from behind the bush and snatched the boy in midair. Together they fell safely onto the grass, where the man pretended that the boy had bested him.
Beside him, Miriam fought a smile. Her smile faded as the man rose, plucked the boy from his chest and hoisted him to his shoulders without seeming effort.
“Richard. Meet your nephew, Bennett.” The large man’s voice was a low rumble. Miriam’s gray eyes widened at the sight of the thick raised scar around his neck. Seeing it again even shocked Richard. His brother had been dragged back to England with violence. Edward wore no cravat with his loosely buttoned shirt, rumpled waistcoat, and buff trousers with grass-stained knees. “Welcome home, Richard.”
“Thank you. Edward. My wife, Miriam Northcote, nee Walsh.” Richard bent to greet the boy whose arrival into the world had knocked Richard even further out of the line of succession for the Briarcliff earldom. “Good day, Master Bennett,” Richard said, offering the boy his hand. The little boy’s innocent hazel eyes gazed up at him with sudden shyness. He buried his face in his father’s hair.
Would he be cruel, or kind? Surely the child had heard stories of his uncle’s attempts to have his father locked away in an asylum.
“I have brought you a gift. Climb down from your father’s shoulders, and you may open it directly.” Richard held a parcel concealed behind his back.
“Oooh!” The boy wiggled and practically fell over his father’s head in his eagerness to climb down. He grabbed two hanks of the earl’s longish hair. The earl grimaced and set his son down on the flagstones.
“Bennett, dear, what do you say to your uncle?” prompted the countess.
“Thank you, sir.”
Miriam smiled. Bennett looked just like his father, but with his mother’s honey-blonde hair. Perhaps that would darken as he aged. “How old is he?”
“Almost two and a half. He arrived quite soon after our marriage.” The countess did not blush in making the admission. She looked levelly at Miriam, assessing her with warm but guarded hazel eyes. Her eyes were quite striking, beautifully shaped, and heavily fringed with lashes. Richard had placed a small parcel on the patio. Bennett was happily ripping at the ribbon with his uncle’s assistance.
The paper was peeled back to reveal a brightly painted wooden horse, exquisitely crafted with joints to move its legs. Delighted, Bennett grabbed his father’s knee and pretended to gallop.
“Thank you, Richard. It is a delightful pony. Miss Walsh, won’t you have a seat?”
Richard glanced sidelong at Miriam. She offered no words to contradict him. Try as she might, shyness glued her lips together.
“I would return your gesture if I were able,” the countess laughed. “Come, you must be famished. There is a light luncheon awaiting us in the dining room.” The earl took his very pregnant wife’s arm and carefully helped her up the short step into the house. The tenderness with which he handled his wife brought an unexpected lump to Richard’s throat. She glanced at Richard with a hint of sadness at the corners of her mouth and in her eyes. It seared him with the heat of regret.
“It feels false to pretend that we are married,” she said.
“I shall follow your lead if you wish to tell them the truth. Tell them everything. I guarantee my sister-in-law won’t be the least bit shocked,” Richard said with bitterness.
“Oh, I intend to. I’m waiting for the right moment,” Miriam snapped. “They have had weeks to anticipate a wedding. I hate to crush their hopes, yet it must be done.”
A familiar wheeze squeezed her chest.
“Are you having an attack? London’s air is notoriously foul. We can remove to the countryside.”
“I am fine. Or will be in a few minutes.”
Richard hesitated. “I care about you. Give me a chance to prove that, Miriam.”
She laughed. The sound cut him deeply.
“Admit it. You never wanted me for myself either.” Richard’s ire rose in a barely checked tidal wave of emotion that threatened to swamp his tenuous equilibrium. All he wanted was to settle down with this woman who had stolen his heart. Set them up comfortably as a gentleman shopkeeper. The days of his dreams for a title and status were gone. Fifteen minutes in Edward’s presence had proved that to him.
“Excuse me?” Miriam turned on him with a scowl.
“You were exactly like Lizzie. You only wanted what I could give you.” They would have their argument now, before it could blow up in front of his family.
“Are you delusional, Richard?” Miriam laughed again, this time with amazement. Richard’s hands fisted at his sides.
“You and Lizzie both only wanted my status as a nobleman and freedom from the men in your lives. You, from Livingston; Lizzie, from Arthur.”
Miriam’s mouth flattened into a thin line.
“Even knowing this, I thought you saw something within me worth loving. I clung to that ray of hope so desperately that I did everything within my power to protect you from your friend’s schemes. I placed our financial power in your hands. I made arrangements to take you as far away from her as I could. I gave you a means of dissolving our union, should you wish to do so.”
“By filing for an annulment,” Miriam choked. Were those tears shimmering in her eyes? Richard wished for tangible proof that she understood why he’d married her.
“I did not marry you because Lizzie forced me to, Miriam. I married you because I wanted to. Give me a chance, and I will prove to you that no other man could ever love you as much as I do.” Tenderly Richard raised his hand to brush a small spot of dampness from her soft cheek.
“Ahem. Am I interrupting? The Countess will join us for a late luncheon and then retire for the afternoon.”
“Brother.” Richard pulled away. “The decision is yours, Miriam,” he whispered. “You must make it soon.”
They silently joined Harper and Edward in the dining room.
“I must beg you to pardon the lack of flavo
r in the food. I have been nauseous for every single day of the past eight months,” she explained. “The mere smell of food is enough to send me into a queasy fit. The midwife assures me that morning sickness subsides after three or four months, but with twins I find I can scarcely eat anything other than bread and potatoes.”
“And ices. Her ladyship does love pistachio ice cream.” The earl’s voice was peculiar, a low rumble. He had quickly changed his shirt and shrugged into a jacket, but he was not wearing a cravat. Miriam tried not to stare at the sight of the thick scar visible at the base of his throat. Miriam recalled what Richard had told her about his brother being hauled out of the jungle by the neck and winced. What an injury that must have been.
“Only when formed to look like vegetables. I have to pretend I am eating something with nutrition.” Harper winked across the table at him.
They were joking, Richard realized. It was such an easy thing to miss. The earl and his countess were so easy with one another, and with their son. Despondent envy curled through him.
“What are you doing in London in the middle of the summer?” Richard asked. “Ordinarily everyone who can afford it flees for the countryside.”
“We are here for several reasons, the most important of which was to greet you and Miriam. We were so very surprised and pleased to receive your letter, Richard. The progress you have made in America is impressive. I can see the changes in you, and they are very much for the better. Am I to understand you and Miriam have already wed?”
“Legally, yes,” Miriam interjected. Richard’s head jerked up as he stared at the woman who had just declared herself his wife. Beside her, Mrs. Kent poked at her luncheon of boiled eggs and rolls as if nothing shocking at all. Miriam lifted her chin defiantly. “We had planned to have a second ceremony here in England, when the time is right.”
He smiled faintly. Miriam returned her attention to the food. A pink stain colored her cheek.
“That can be arranged,” Edward observed.
“We are waiting for our ship to arrive. The Thetis,” Miriam informed the Earl. “Then, we shall celebrate our union.”