In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL)

by Maggie Robinson

  Liar. But neither of them could risk another kiss.

  Charles returned to his seat, prepared to be manhandled by Isobel and reprimanded by Grace. He did not have long to wait. Once he shifted so that his leg was nowhere near Miss Crane’s clutches, he turned to Grace Westlake.

  “I suppose you think I am a bounder for behaving so improperly.”

  “A bounder?” Grace wiped her lips on a lace-edged serviette, leaving a crimson stain. Some poor laundress would have a time getting it out. “No. More like a fool. Someone should have warned you about my niece before you married her, Mr. Norwich. You young people are so impetuous. You think you know everything. Louisa has been difficult all her life. When she ran away, I truly feared for her mental stability.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “She has always been headstrong. I should think after one evening here you have discovered what her family and friends truly think of her.”

  “I’ve discovered that she has precious few friends in her family,” Charles said baldly.

  Grace sighed. “It may appear that way to you. You’re a stranger and know none of us. I daresay you don’t really know Louisa.”

  “I know her well enough.”

  “Oh. Passion.” Grace waved a dismissive hand. “That won’t last. And when it fades you’ll realize you’ve shackled yourself to someone who cannot bring you true happiness. She’s incapable. Irrational. All this talk of getting a job, of women’s rights, of freedom, whatever she thinks that may be—she will not make you a comfortable wife, Mr. Norwich.”

  “Comfort is highly overrated.” It was true Louisa had already tilted his world, though not for the reasons Grace Westlake stated.

  “You say that now. Talk to me in a few months when your château has lost its allure and she wants to go to India or Africa or some such hideous place.”

  “Travel is very broadening, Mrs. Westlake.” It had certainly opened Charles’s eyes.

  “You have an answer for everything. You’re very smooth, Mr. Norwich. I’ll give you that.”

  Charles snipped the last thread of his patience. “There’s something I don’t understand. Louisa told me your son wanted to marry Louisa. If she’s so . . . difficult . . . why would that be?”

  “Her family knows her best, and can protect her from her baser impulses. It would be a sacrifice for poor Hugh, but he was ready to do it. Still is.”

  “Louisa is my wife,” Charles said firmly.

  “But you needn’t hold yourself to a mistake, Mr. Norwich. I’m prepared to offer you generous terms to end the marriage. It’s a pity you were married in an Anglican church, but these things can be arranged for a price. Everyone has one, don’t you agree? I’d planned on speaking to you privately tomorrow, but now is as good a time as any. Isobel is flirting with old Mr. Baxter and cannot hear us, though he knows my plans already. That wretched woman will throw herself at anything in trousers, even a man old enough to be her father,” Grace said with disdain. “Dr. Fentress can present Louisa’s medical history to you. She was not a virgin bride, as you must know. You’ve been duped, young man, enticed by a pretty package that’s rotten within.”

  Charles threw his napkin down on the table. “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Westlake. I am feeling unwell.”

  She gave him a sly smile. “I imagine you are. Think about what I’ve said. I’ll expect you in my suite at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. We have much to discuss.”

  Charles got up unsteadily. Louisa looked up with consternation, probably expecting him to wander down and give her another kiss. He gave her an apologetic shrug.

  “Headache, I’m afraid,” he said to the table at large. “Do forgive me.”

  It was all he could do to muster the dignity to walk out of the cavernous room when he wanted to run shrieking. After a few wrong turns down dark corridors, he was back in their rooms and dying for a drink. But a drink would not erase the evening.

  What had he fallen into? And how was he to extricate himself from it? He rubbed his temples, for in truth he really was getting a headache.

  Poor Louisa. Or maybe not. Maybe she deserved the opprobrium from those downstairs. Only her maid Kathleen and the old butler seemed to genuinely like her—everyone else had kept a little distance from her.

  That disparagement could be due to Grace. She did seem to rule the roost, and everyone looked to her rather than Louisa for direction. Louisa should have been sitting at the head of the table. Hell, Charles himself should have been sitting at the foot instead of Sir Richard Delacourt.

  He didn’t like any of this, but he really didn’t know who had the truth on their side. He’d thought Louisa to be spoiled and rackety himself. Was there really something “wrong” with her?

  Charles didn’t think so. But his judgment had been impaired for some time now. Wherever the truth lay, he needed to tell her he was about to be bribed to “divorce” her.

  If he had no honor, he wouldn’t say a word, just take what Grace Westlake offered and disappear. Louisa had already paid half his fee—a small fortune—and the sum was sitting in his new bank account collecting interest. Maybe Grace could be cajoled to match what was yet to be earned, and Charles would save himself the effort of continuing this charade.

  He loosened his tie and sank down in a gray chair before the fire in the sitting room. How soon would Louisa make her escape to check up on him? If she was indeed so unconventional, the guests might not expect her to stick around for tea and gossip while the men drank their port and smoked their cigars.

  The stitching on his new silk patch was irritating the corner of his eye, and he pulled it off. Everything dimmed instantly, with whorls of blood and shadows obscuring his vision. He covered half his face with his hand and waited for the room to right itself.

  The door burst open and Louisa entered, all lace and violet scent and umbrage. “How dare you leave the table!”

  “Shh! Sit down and we’ll talk like civilized people. You wouldn’t want the company downstairs to think we’re having a lover’s quarrel.”

  “They can’t hear anything—we’re miles away. Anyway, Mrs. Naismith is playing the piano while Mr. and Mrs. Merwyn are singing.”

  “I’m sorry to miss it.” He tried to imagine the stout Merwyns singing a duet together and failed.

  “Oh, no, you’re not. No one would be. Neither one of them can carry a tune, but it’s tradition here for them to perform at dinner parties. Why did you leave?”

  “Your aunt said any number of things I found objectionable. I found I could not be a good boy and listen.”

  “I told you she was challenging. If she was easy to deal with, I would not have had to invent a husband.”

  “You’d better sit down, Louisa.” He took the eye patch out of his pocket and tied it back on. Louisa came into focus, pale and obviously agitated. He didn’t want to have to add to her upset, but he felt an odd loyalty to protect her. “Grace has offered—or will offer—me a substantial sum of money to end our marriage.”

  Louisa slid into the chair opposite. “Oh.”

  She didn’t sound surprised.

  “She’s in cahoots with the banker. And Dr. Fentress, too. They plan to tell me tomorrow you are a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and that I’d be better off without you. It’s all about your fortune, isn’t it?”

  Louisa shook her head. “It’s really about the power. Grace has plenty of money of her own. She hates me; she always has. No matter how good I was, it wasn’t enough. After a while, I decided to be bad. Why not? Behaving got me nowhere. Then she really turned the screws and cut me off without so much as pin money. I could go nowhere. Do nothing. If she could have figured out how to stop my inheritance, she would have. Sometimes I thought she might have me declared mad. And sometimes I thought I would go mad.”

  Charles gave a low whistle. “Good Lord, you really are a poor
little rich girl.”

  Her lips trembled. “Are you mocking me?”

  “No, I’m not. What will happen if they discover that we’re not really man and wife? This scheme might be considered proof of your insanity.”

  Louisa’s brown eyes widened. “Do you think I should be institutionalized?”

  “I wouldn’t wish that on the other patients. Now, don’t kick up at me—I’m only teasing.”

  Charles was just realizing this hoax was very dangerous indeed. While he didn’t think what they were doing was precisely illegal, it was scandalous nonetheless. Hell, they were sharing a suite of rooms. Louisa may have an iffy reputation, but discovery of their unwed state would put the final nail in her coffin.

  “There’s no reason for anyone to suspect anything,” Louisa said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “You’ve been a model husband so far, except . . . toward the end.”

  He thought she might mention the kiss, but she did not.

  “I’m sorry. I should have stuck it out downstairs.”

  “Yes, you should have. Grace always gets what she wants. She’s ruthless. But you must deflect her. When you meet with her tomorrow—”

  “You want me to go through with that?” asked Charles, incredulous.

  “Absolutely. I’d like to know what she thinks I’m worth.”

  He reached across and took her hand. It was cold as ice despite the warmth of the fire. “You are priceless.”

  She snatched her hand away and buried it into the lace on her lap. “Save that kind of talk for when it counts and there are people around to hear it. If Baxter is siding entirely with Aunt Grace, she might be behind the bottleneck to my funds. That’s really why I came home. Don’t worry! I can still pay you.”

  Charles felt a flare of annoyance. “I don’t care about the money.”

  “Everyone cares about money, even me. Money is freedom.”

  Money was also food. Health. Most people Charles knew would rather eat than be free, whatever free meant.

  “All right, boss. What’s our strategy?”

  Louisa’s tongue was peeping from the corner of her mouth again. “I don’t know yet. Let me think.”

  “Two heads are better than one, or so I’ve been told. Do you trust me?”

  “I have to, don’t I? Oh, this is so much more complicated than I expected.”

  “It’s only a month. We can endure anything for thirty days.” Charles had seen much, much worse than Grace Westlake and her minions.

  Chapter

  11

  Louisa had expected the worst, but not within less than twenty-four hours of her arrival. Wasn’t Aunt Grace more subtle than that?

  Apparently not. Imagine. Talk of her dishonor and bribery at the dinner table. No wonder Captain Cooper got up and left. What must he think of them all? His own family might not be very grand, but they surely wouldn’t be so vicious with one another.

  And . . . Sir Richard Delacourt. Grace had been making her point inviting him after all these years, had she not? Louisa was never going to escape from her youthful indiscretion if he was thrown at her at every turn. Grace planned for them all to spend New Year’s Day at the Priory? Unthinkable.

  She punched her pillow down and stared at the shadowed ceiling. When Kathleen had come in to help ready her for bed, Louisa enlisted her to keep an eye out belowstairs. The servants always knew everything before anyone else did. She wondered how often Mr. Baxter visited—she’d have to find a new bank officer if he was representing Grace’s interests rather than those of the Stratton heiress. The Strattons still owned the majority of shares in the family bank, and there must be someone there she could talk to besides Hugh or Mr. Baxter.

  Louisa’s father, Byron, had been a great sportsman, rather in the mold of Sir Richard, now that Louisa thought about it. He’d been far too busy amusing himself and his pretty young American wife to pay attention to the family bank, Stratton and Son. Her grandfather must have been disappointed, but the business continued to prosper without Byron in life, and certainly after his death. Under Grace’s careful stewardship, Louisa had been stunned to learn the amount that came to her when she turned twenty-five.

  She’d been giddy. Now no one held any legal authority over her or her finances, though nothing had stopped Grace from inserting her opinions into everything anyway. So Louisa had simply left, and proved to be every bit as wild as her aunt had always said she was.

  She was beginning to think she should not have left, or been so wild. Too late to cry over spilled milk, however. She had a strange man two rooms away from her who could either help her with her future or ruin it forever, but she was praying for the former.

  Sleep would not come. Louisa longed for her old room—her girlhood bed, her familiar books, the botched watercolors she was forced to paint as Grace tried to turn her into a demure young lady. There were lovely vistas here at Rosemont, but Louisa had succeeded in making everything look smeary and dull.

  Her parents’ room had better pictures on the wall. Louisa lit a lamp and got up to examine them, as an art connoisseur’s wife might. She did love art, even if she had no talent for it herself. Her father had purchased several works by the American marine artist Fitz Hugh Lane, among the other seascapes. They were restful, really—calm water and sun and sky, harbors that Louisa had never visited. Why had she not thought to go to America last year? The Atlantic was a bigger barrier to contain her past than the English Channel.

  That’s where she’d go once she was done here, even if she did dislodge the Westlakes from Rosemont. She’d explore her American roots, walk the fashionable New York streets where her mother had grown up. There might be some distant cousins to meet, maybe someone her own age to befriend. She hadn’t had a real friend in years. Except for Kathleen, who was as dear to her as a sister, but as different from her as chalk is to cheese.

  Louisa could hear Aunt Grace’s disparaging tones now. “One doesn’t get too familiar with the servants.” It had been a miracle that Kathleen wasn’t sacked when she and Louisa grew close in their isolation. But Kathleen was always punctilious in front of Grace, appearing meek and properly cowed. Once Louisa’s bedroom door was shut, it was altogether another thing.

  Louisa wondered where Kathleen was now. She’d declined to sleep in Louisa’s dressing room, saying it would cause talk if she were to be a human shield between her mistress and Maximillian Norwich. Maybe Kathleen was rendezvousing with Robertson in his room above the garage. He’d been hired not long before Louisa had bolted, but he had apparently been here long enough to impress unimpressable Kathleen. The man hadn’t said so much as boo when he’d picked them up at the station today, but he was only keeping to his place in the Rosemont pecking order.

  It was clear Grace was still queen.

  No doubt her aunt was sleeping soundly, pleased at the mischief she’d made at dinner, confident she could bribe Louisa’s new husband to sue for divorce. On what grounds, she wondered. Insanity? Louisa did feel unbalanced now that she was home again. She supposed a criminal conversation charge could be trumped up if the price was right—some poor fellow might be persuaded to lie and say he’d slept with her and made her an adulteress. It was almost funny—if Charles Cooper really was her husband, he might be eager to get out of his marriage now that he’d met his in-laws.

  Louisa sighed. This worry was getting her nowhere. Whatever Grace was up to, she’d be foiled—Charles seemed unbribable, unless he really was a good actor. Mrs. Evensong had picked well. Louisa had confidence in his honor and honesty—he didn’t have to tell her what Grace had said, but he had. It would have been easy for him to betray her—he didn’t owe her anything, really. Didn’t even know her.

  She touched her lips. He had not kissed her as a stranger.

  She extinguished the lights and climbed back into bed, her thoughts jumbled. Louisa had been kissed before.
And more. She’d not been as much of an idiot lately as she’d been with Sir Richard—she liked to think she’d learned her lesson, and a hard lesson it had been. But there had been a few times over the past year when she considered giving herself away again, this time with no expectation of marriage. She would never get married.

  Louisa shut her eyes, pulled up her nightgown, and touched herself. Who needed a man when she had fingers? She eased into her mattress, circling damp flesh, willing herself to relax.

  Relaxation, like sleep, was difficult. Was it because Charles Cooper was just yards away? There were three doors between them. But had she locked her dressing room door to the bath chamber?

  He was not the sort of man to enter a bedroom without an invitation—she would stake her life on it. So why was she so nervous? Was she afraid he’d discover her in her shameful attempt to reach bliss?

  No. It was not shameful—she did not care what any book or anyone said to try to frighten her with to control and diminish her. She was human. She had needs, and it was ever so much easier to do for herself than place herself at any man’s mercy. Men didn’t care for anyone’s satisfaction but their own. Charles Cooper was probably just like that, brutish in the bedroom. Taking. Staking.

  But what if he watched her at a safe distance, his blue eye smoky with desire? Louisa pictured him at the doorway, his dressing gown unbelted, his chest bronze in the firelight. He would direct her from afar, his voice thick with arousal. Tell her where her hand must go next, instruct her to remove the nightgown that suddenly felt so hot and scratchy. She would listen carefully and obey, as white as the linen sheet she lay upon, wet with her own dew. A small cry escaped and she plunged into herself, frantic to keep flying, so close, so close—

  And then she heard a crash. A low, agonized groan. She snatched her hand away and listened to the real world around her. The wind was blowing outside as usual, rattling the mullioned windows. Her bedside clock was ticking, the fire rumbling down. And two rooms away, Charles Cooper was shouting, barking out orders to phantom soldiers.