by Wolf, Bree
“I’ve never met the woman in my life.”
Zach’s frown deepened. “Then why? Who is she to you if you’ve never even laid eyes on her?”
“She’s no one to me,” Markham said, his voice even as his dark gaze held Zach’s. Then he leaned forward, slowly, bit by bit, his gaze lingering, watching. “But she is to you.” One brow rose as though that small gesture would tell Zach all he needed to know.
“To me? But I, too, have not laid eyes on her before that night.” Confused, Zach watched his friend, irritated with Markham’s way of slowly guiding someone to a conclusion. Could the man not simply spit it out?
“While that may be true,” Markham said, his voice one of leisure and utter patience, “you yourself even spoke to me of her not long ago.” Leaning back, he took another swallow from his glass, his dark eyes lingering expectantly on Zach’s face.
Huffing out an exasperated sigh, Zach threw up his hands. “Either tell me or I’ll leave!” he snapped. “I am far from in the mood to solve a riddle.”
Markham chuckled, then set down his glass. “At present, she is Lady Remsemere,” he began, the hint of a superior smirk tugging on the corner of his mouth. “However, not long ago, she was Lady Wentford.”
“Lady Wentford? But…?” Zach’s voice trailed off as the name slowly dug deeper into his mind, teasing a memory that was just out of reach. “Wentford,” he mumbled again and again as his gaze returned to Markham. “I’ve heard the name before, but I can’t…” He shook his head. “Tell me.”
Markham sighed. “Before marrying Lord Wentford, she was Lady Eugenie, daughter to the Earl of—”
“Pembroke,” Zach mumbled in shock, his gaze becoming distant as his mind returned to the night he’d visited Ravengrove. Indeed, she’d seemed familiar. Her pitch-black hair and pale gray eyes had reminded him of something he hadn’t been able to grasp. Now, he knew where he’d seen them before. The painting that hung in Pembroke Hall of his uncle, the late earl, with his two children. A boy and a girl.
“Eugenie,” Zach mumbled. Then he blinked, and he found Markham grinning at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The man threw up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “If you recall, you downright refused to seek her out, afraid she would not receive you, that she would look down on you the same way her family has looked down on your father.”
Zach swallowed, remembering only too well the fear of being found wanting. Despite his father’s success, despite his own accomplishments, Zach could not deny that the thought of being deemed unworthy had stung. Indeed, he’d wanted to reach out to her, but he had not dared. And then his brother’s heart had broken in two, and Zach had been occupied with other matters, forgetting about the cousin he’d never met.
Only now he had.
“I assume you did not introduce yourself,” Markham commented dryly, then waited.
“Of course not!”
His friend leaned forward. “Still, from what you glimpsed of her, would you say your fears were justified? Is she an image of her father? Her grandfather…as well as yours? If she knew who you were, would she look down on you? Would she be displeased to share a familial connection?”
Holding Markham’s insistent gaze, Zach finally understood why his friend had urged him to visit Ravengrove. In all likelihood, Markham had known that Florian Brooks had died long ago. Perhaps his name had found its way onto the list of suspects simply because it had been a way for Markham to force Zach’s hand. Indeed, his friend proved to be a rather manipulative man, even if his motives had been good.
“No,” Zach finally answered, remembering the kindness in Eugenie’s eyes. The name still felt strange even though it had yet to leave his tongue more than once. He could not deny that he felt a connection to her. She was family after all, and Zach did no longer doubt that she would welcome him. The way she’d spoken to him that night, her voice full of compassion and curiosity, had proved her a good-hearted person, who knew how to look beyond the trappings of another’s life and see that which was truly important.
And he had been a stranger then. An intruder in the night. And still, she’d seen him. The man he was at heart.
Markham sighed, and a pleased smile played on his lips. “Then I believe there is nothing standing in the way of you calling on her, is there?”
Zach ran a hand through his wet hair, contemplating the notion of setting foot onto Ravengrove yet again. “What if they recognize me?” he blurted out when the beast’s narrowed gaze once more appeared before his inner eye. “What if they realize it was me who broke into their home?”
Markham shrugged. “Then you will tell them why and share a good laugh.”
Zach couldn’t help the grin that tugged on the corners of his mouth. “To you, the world is very simple, is it not?”
Again, his friend shrugged. “In my experience, the world is simple if you choose to see it that way. Complications and restrictions that arise are solely born out of our own doing.” He scoffed. “People tend not to see that though, for it would mean that they themselves are responsible, and it is so much more fun to complain when you see yourself as the innocent victim.” Bitterness clung to Markham’s voice and, for a moment, his gaze darkened in an almost painful way, a faraway look in his eyes as he stared into the dancing flames.
“Are you all right?” Zach asked, feeling a stab of concern for the first time since making the man’s acquaintance. Most days, Markham seemed like a man who didn’t have a care in the world. Certainly, he was cynical and a bit world-weary. Zach, too, had come to see things differently in recent months. Perhaps his friend was not wrong to be distrustful and cautious. Still, there was another part of Markham that appeared almost casual and relaxed at the same time. He often portrayed a devil-may-care attitude, pulling strings like a puppet master and forcing those of his acquaintance to face their fears. But had he done so himself? Zach couldn’t help but wonder.
Inhaling a deep breath, his friend turned from the fire, gulped down the remainder of his drink and once more became the jovial and carefree man Zach had first met. “Will you call on her then?” he asked with a challenging grin, completely ignoring Zach’s inquiry after his well-being. But of course, a man like Markham would rather cut out his own heart than admit that something weighed heavily upon it.
“I will,” Zach replied, knowing that pressing the matter would be futile. “However, not now. Once I’ve retrieved my father’s ring and a little time has passed, I will seek her out.”
Markham chuckled. “You think she will not recognize you if you wait?”
Zach laughed. “Honestly, I’d rather not have that one night stand between us for the rest of our lives.”
“So you prefer to lie?” Markham dared him.
Zach inhaled a slow breath, aware that his friend’s gaze was fixed upon him with undisguised attention. Just when he was about to answer, the door to the drawing room flew open and in rushed a perhaps five-year-old girl.
Dressed in a nightgown, she was clutching an almost hairless doll in her arms, her own chestnut brown hair braided down on both sides of her head. Her eyes seemed dark in the dim light of the room, and they stood open wide as she glanced over her shoulder as though afraid that someone was after her. “Father, they’re coming! They’re coming!”
Zach stared as her little feet carried her across the heavy carpet toward Markham, her free arm stretched toward him.
The moment she’d burst into the room, his friend had immediately set down his glass and was out of his chair and halfway toward her before she could take more than a few steps. He knelt down and caught her in his arms as she buried her face in his shoulder, her little hands clutching at his shirt. “Hush, Daphne, it was only a dream,” he whispered into her hair, his free hand brushing softly over her back as she shivered in his arms. “No one is coming. It was only a dream.”
Unable to move, Zach watched the tender moment, feeling reminded of his own childhood when the occasional storm had
driven him and Nate from their beds, urging them to seek refuge in their parents’ chamber. Their mother and father had caught them in the same way, their embrace a sanctuary in a cold and frightening world, their soothing words a reassurance that all would be well.
Pushing to his feet, Markham picked up the little girl and carried her out the door without even casting a sideways glance at his guest. Judging from the look on his face, Zach doubted that Markham was currently aware of his presence. It seemed all his attention was focused on the little girl who’d called him Father.
Taken aback by this night’s developments, Zach poured himself another drink, wondering about the man he thought he’d come to know well these past few months. Still, there seemed to be a lot more to the Black Baron then met the eye.
The clock struck nine before Markham returned, his gaze haunted as though he had been the one suffering a nightmare and not his…daughter? “I apologize for the interruption,” he said, stepping across the threshold and closing the door. “I assume you wish to stay the night. I asked Donahue to ready—”
“You have a daughter?” Zach blurted out, unable to contain his curiosity. “I thought you weren’t married.” Or had he been?
Markham swallowed, and although he did not drop his gaze, the tension tightening his posture spoke volumes. “Strictly speaking, she’s not…my daughter.”
“She called you Father!”
“That’s because I’m all she’s got left!” Markham snapped, his eyes thunderous, haunted by memories that still plagued him. For a long moment, his gaze remained hard, immobile, before he inhaled a slow breath and his body visibly relaxed. “I suppose even in the absence of their true parents, every child has the right to call someone Mother or Father. For a reason I shall never understand, Daphne’s choice fell on me.” His voice grew hoarse, and Zach could see as plain as day that despite his callous ways, Markham loved the girl dearly. “No matter how unjustified her choice, I will not deny her the one thing she’s ever asked for.”
Silence fell over the room as the two men looked at one another, testing the new bonds of their friendship. Zach could see that Markham felt vulnerable, having this secret revealed without his consent. Concern stood in his dark eyes, and Zach realized that some of the cynical attitude the man possessed had been born the moment his path had crossed Daphne’s.
“What happened?” Zach asked, offering his friend another drink.
Markham hesitated, but then strode forward, grabbed the glass and downed its contents in one swallow. “I will not discuss her,” he said then, his voice once more hard as steel. “Not ever. Are we clear?”
Although disappointed, Zach understood that their friendship was still too new and untested to carry a revelation of the kind he had no doubt lived in Markham’s past. “Very well,” Zach said, clasping the man’s shoulder and giving it a friendly squeeze. “Then let us speak of Miss Hawkins.”
A chuckle rumbled in Markham’s throat as his head bowed forward in a moment of utter relief. “I thought you disliked speaking about her.”
“I dislike your suggestions that I should pursue her,” Zach clarified, relieved to see his friend relax. “However, I cannot help but wonder why she’d been at Ravengrove the night I…” His voice trailed off.
“Broke in?” Markham finished helpfully, mirth returning to his gaze as he stepped back toward the fire and the chairs they’d occupied earlier.
Zach inhaled a deep breath. “Although this is a source of great amusement for you, I cannot deny that it bothers me. Yes, I do enjoy to test the limits of human interaction on occasion. But breaking into someone’s home is not something I can justify to myself.”
Markham nodded. “I understand. Perhaps we need a better plan.”
“Perhaps?” Zach asked, chuckling. Sinking into the comfortable chair once more, he stretched his legs. “If Miss Hawkins had recognized me—”
“Do you have any reason to believe she did?” his friend asked, seating himself as well.
“She did not call out my name if that’s what you mean,” Zach told him, remembering the moment their eyes had met. “Other than that…I don’t know.” He could only hope she had not for if she had, she would no doubt refuse to speak to him ever again. What woman would cherish the thought of having a criminal among her acquaintances?
Indeed, the thought of Miss Hawkins’ rejection bothered him more than he would have thought.
“You care for her,” Markham said into the stillness, his gaze watchful once more as though the earlier scene with Daphne had never happened. “Do not deny it. I can see where your thoughts linger.”
“Perhaps.” Zach swallowed. “She’s…there’s something about her that…I’ve never…”
His friend chuckled. “She’s made quite an impression on you, hasn’t she? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t spoken to her beyond the occasional encounter at a ball, have you?”
Zach shrugged, remembering with perfect clarity the way she’d rolled her eyes at something undeniably boring Lord Tedious had said. He remembered the deep emerald of her eyes as they’d sparked with something held at bay. He remembered the way she’d lifted her head, her chin rising a fraction, as her uncle had lectured her for some kind of nonsense.
“Perhaps you should make up your mind before it’s too late.”
“Too late?” Zach frowned.
Markham scoffed. “Before her uncle marries her to Coleridge and you’ll end up kicking yourself for the rest of your life because you allowed her to slip through your fingers.” His friend’s brows rose in challenge, but also as a means to emphasize his words.
Indeed, Markham had a point. If Zach didn’t act fast, she might soon be lost to him for good and he would only have himself to blame for that. “She calls him Lord Tedious,” he said on a chuckle, unable to wipe the image of her flaming red hair and her mischievous, green eyes from his mind.
“Who?”
“Coleridge,” Zach clarified. “She calls him Lord Tedious.”
Markham laughed. “Does that not make her the perfect woman for you? Granted, I’ve not known you long, but you cannot deny that—”
“I’m not denying it. I’m simply…being cautious.”
Sighing, his friend leaned forward, his gaze for once somber and free of mischief. “Not all women are like your brother’s former fiancée. You know that to be true. Just like not all men are rakes and scoundrels. I’m not urging you to rush into something without thought or consideration. All I’m saying is that she may be worth the risk.” For a moment, he held Zach’s gaze. Then a large grin spread across his face. “At the very least, life with her will probably never be boring.”
Unable not to, Zach laughed. “I do believe you’re right on that account. Still, I wonder if—”
“Then get to know her better,” Markham interjected. “I’m not saying offer for her hand the next time you lay eyes on her.” His grin deepened. “She might not even want you. After all, you can be a tad bothersome at times. Then there’s your criminal background and—”
“I’m tempted to throw my glass at your head!” Zach laughed. “But perhaps it would be wiser to repay you with equal measure. Is there a lady you’ve noticed beyond polite conversation? Do tell so I can push and prod for it does seem to be highly entertaining.”
For a split second, barely more than a heartbeat, Markham dropped his gaze. His smile never faltered, and yet, Zach could have sworn that his question had conjured the image of a young lady. “Ah, there is one!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Do I know her? Does she know of your interest in her? Your affections?”
Rolling his eyes, Markham scoffed. “There are no affections to speak of. I merely find her…curious,” he admitted with such an overbearing air of nonchalance that proved his words false. “There’s something odd about her. She—”
“Odd? What a compliment!” Zach laughed. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already swooned into your arms.”
Accepting his friend’s teasing with
an attitude of haughty superiority, Markham continued nonplussed. “She seems to pretend to be someone she’s not. There’s something about her that doesn’t quite fit, as though she merely acts the part.” He shrugged. “I cannot help but wonder why.”
“And I suppose you will not rest until you discover the truth?”
Markham grinned. “You can bet your last penny on it, my friend.”
Chapter Seventeen
Step One
“Will you not tell me what you need it for?” Caroline inquired as the two of them left the jeweler’s shop, pulling up the fur-lined hoods of their winter coats to brace against the cold of the new year. “I’ll never believe it to be merely an accessory for a new gown.” Her pale blue eyes narrowed as she squinted into the harsh wind despite the large spectacles that shielded her eyes. “Pray tell, what goes on in that willful mind of yours!”
Unable to hide a grin, Rebecca looked at her cousin, their arms linked against the cold as they proceeded a few steps down the street to where her uncle’s carriage stood waiting. “I’m sorry, dear cousin, but for the time being, I must not divulge more than I have.” A rush of excitement danced up her spine as she thought of the simple ring with the emerald stone she had just commissioned the jeweler to fashion for her. “It must remain a secret.”
Caroline’s brows drew down into a frown before she turned and climbed into the carriage. “Even from me?”
A touch of hurt swung in her voice, and Rebecca swallowed at the thought that her cousin might believe Rebecca’s secrecy to be founded in distrust. In fact, there was no one in the world Rebecca trusted more than her beloved cousin. However, they were two very different people with two very different ways of seeing the world. Although Caroline had always been on her side, always helped Rebecca achieve whatever she’d set her mind to, Rebecca wasn’t quite certain that her dutiful cousin would support her in this. After all, she’d been utterly shocked when Rebecca had divulged that a masked intruder had found his way into Ravengrove one night.