“Er, did Chance happen to mention how long he would be staying at Walker Ridge?” Fancy suddenly asked with a hint of constraint in her voice, her cheeks burning.
Caught up in her own thoughts of Hugh, Ellen noticed neither the faint color that pinkened Fancy’s cheeks nor her sister’s tone. As they reached the doors to their rooms, she said carelessly, “Hmm, he did say something about having some unfinished business here—but he did not actually say how long he thought it would take him. I suspect he will be gone in a day or two.” A yawn suddenly took Ellen. Laughing slightly, she said, “I am so glad that Mrs. Walker ended the evening. I was terrified that Jonathan’s mother was going to ask me something and I would answer her with a loud snore.”
The sisters took their leave of each other, and Ellen disappeared into her suite. Ora was waiting when she entered the dressing room, and Fancy was grateful for her ministrations as the black woman helped her from her gown and undergarments and carefully put everything away. Dismissing Ora for the evening with a smile, Fancy brushed her long dark brown hair and then, wearing a demure night rail of finest cambric, sought out the big featherbed.
Under any circumstances the bed would have been sheer bliss, but after the days she had just spent sleeping on the ground, it was a great deal more. Snuggling her cheek against the lavender-scented, linen-cased pillow, Fancy sighed deeply. Oh, my. Perhaps she would sleep here for a week—at least. And not once, she vowed fiercely as sleep overtook her, would she dream of that blue-eyed devil Chance Walker.
Chapter Eight
Fancy may have slumbered deeply, but sleep did not come easily to Chance that night. Awake and restless, he prowled the large, handsomely furnished bedchamber that had been set aside years ago for his exclusive use during his visits to Walker Ridge. He kept a few personal belongings here, primarily a change or two of clothing, which had enabled him to dress as he had this evening, and one or two other odds and ends. Not that he stayed often these days, he thought with a twist of his lips. And when the sad time came that Walker Ridge fell into Jonathan’s greedy hands, well, he damn sure wouldn’t be staying here at all.
One end of the room was the sleeping area, with a huge four-poster bed in fine mahogany and swathed in burgundy silk hangings. The opposite end of the room had been arranged into a sitting area, with sturdily constructed chairs and a few marble-topped tables strategically placed nearby, a painted canvas rug in shades of gray and ebony upon the floor. Along one wall sat a massive oak sideboard that held an array of glasses and snifters and crystal decanters filled with various potent spirits. After helping himself to a snifter of brandy, Chance sprawled comfortably in an overstuffed chair of oxblood leather, his head resting on the high back, his long legs stretched in front of him. His unruly hair had been freed from the black silk bag and waved at his temples and along his jaw as he relaxed in the chair. Earlier he had tossed off the cravat, jacket, and waistcoat, leaving his white linen shirt half undone. He looked very much at ease. Sipping the brandy, he stared blankly at the floor, the events of the evening turning slowly in his mind.
He would have liked to convince himself that this evening had been no different from scores of other evenings he had spent at Walker Ridge, but he knew he would be lying to himself. Fancy’s presence, and her presence alone, had made it distinctly memorable. Recalling the swift stab of pleasure that had knifed through him when he had turned and seen her in the soft, fading sunlight of the red salon, he grimaced. She had been utterly lovely as she had stood there in her silken gown, her thickly lashed topaz eyes wide and uncertain, the end of that one long, dark curl resting so provocatively just above her small, tempting bosom. His heart had seemed to stop at the first sight of her, and as he’d stared, he’d known a mad impulse to stride across the room, to brush aside that strand of hair, and to press his eager mouth to the soft flesh where it had lain.
He scowled. Damned silly romantic notion. And if there was one thing he was not, it was romantic, especially not after Jenny. No, Jenny had taught him in the cruelest possibly way that women did not want romantic fools. What they wanted were black-hearted scoundrels like Jonathan. Chance took another, larger sip of his brandy, his dark thoughts following a too-well-traveled path as he dwelled upon Jonathan’s perfidies.
The enmity between Chance and Jonathan that had brought about Jenny’s death was of long standing, so much so, in fact, that Chance could not remember a time when he had not viewed the heir to Walker Ridge as his enemy. He had been just four years old or so the first time he had come with his adoptive parents to visit at Walker Ridge, and right from the beginning, Jonathan, not quite six at the time, had been blatantly hostile.
Andrew and his wife had actually come to see Morely, but the overseer’s house where Morely had been living in those days was very small. Sam and Letty, just returned from their prolonged stay in England a few weeks previously, had graciously encouraged Andrew and Martha to stay with them at the big house during their visit. They were, after all, family.
It had been assumed that Chance and Jonathan, so near each other in age, would become friends and enjoy playing together. Such had not been the case—and whether Jonathan, used to being the focal point and darling of the entire household, had merely been spoiled and had not appreciated the fact that he was now forced to share the attention of the adults with another child, or whether it had simply been a case of instinctive dislike, Chance was never certain. Not that it mattered. But from the moment they had first met, they had been at each other’s throats, bloodying each other’s noses often in childhood and then, as they had grown up, moving onto more dangerous ways of competing against each other.
It was fortunate that Chance and his adopted parents lived some distance away from Walker Ridge and its inhabitants and that visits between the two households were not frequent. Morely came often enough to stay with Andrew and Martha—three or four times a year to assure himself of Chance’s continued health and well-being. Upon the rare occasion, Sam and Letty also stopped for a brief visit, usually on their way somewhere else. But never Constance and Jonathan.
When Chance grew older and, at Morely’s request, spent more and more time at Walker Ridge and sometimes at Morely’s own plantation, Fairview, the two young men did not always meet. Like many of the wealthy planters’ sons, Jonathan had been educated in England and had been gone from the Colonies off and on for much of his youth. But they met often enough, and any hope that they would eventually outgrow their initial dislike of each other was finally abandoned by everyone by the time they had reached maturity.
The friction that existed between Chance and Jonathan, and to a lesser extent between Chance and Constance, had not endangered the fond relationship that had sprung up between Chance and Sam and Letty. If anything, Jonathan’s hostility and Constance’s cool disdain had appeared to make Sam and Letty all the more determined to see that Chance felt welcome and comfortable at Walker Ridge whenever he came to visit. Over the years a warm and affectionate bond had formed between them. Morely had always been there, hovering uneasily in the background, but Chance had realized long ago that it was Sam and Letty to whom he owed so much. Sam had taught him a great deal, and it was their championship of him that had led everyone in the family to overlook his bastardy and accept him as a member of the sprawling Walker clan. Everyone, that was, except Jonathan.
Jonathan had always deeply resented Chance’s sporadic appearances at Walker Ridge, and he had also been openly jealous of the easy relationship between Sam and Chance. Constance had not liked it, either, but she had objected more because she followed Jonathan’s lead and thought it disgraceful that Morely had managed to insinuate his bastard son into the Walker Ridge household than from any deepseated aversion of him.
It was odd, Chance mused, but in the beginning Jonathan’s attitude had never really bothered him. In fact, he had often found it amusing—which naturally only infuriated Jonathan all the more. Goaded, Jonathan issued a series of petty challenges—a horse race,
a shooting match, the charms of a tavern maid, or any other number of small competitions. The friction between them had not been of great import until Chance had begun to make his own fortune and had won that large tract of land from Jonathan. No, he conceded bitterly as he sat sipping his brandy, the rivalry and enmity between them had not turned so very ugly and vicious until after Chance’s thorough trouncing of Jonathan in that card game. It was then that Jonathan’s gaze had fallen upon Chance’s wife, Jenny.
With a wrench Chance tore his thoughts away from that still-painful episode. He was not going to dwell on that portion of his past. No, he had a future to plan, and if that future, he decided grimly, had roots that led directly to the past, well, he wasn’t going to think too deeply about it.
He tossed off the remainder of the brandy and, after generously refilling the snifter, stalked the confines of his room. The outrageous notion of seeking revenge by taking away Jonathan’s proposed bride had proved not to be a fleeting one for Chance. He’d thought of little else since the idea had first occurred to him—that and how very much he would enjoy bedding the lady in question.
Chance had waited a long time to take revenge against Jonathan for Jenny’s death, coldly eschewing other ways of vengeance, such as a duel, in favor of a method that would hurt Jonathan where he lived—in his overweening pride. A duel would be over in a matter of minutes, and while Chance would not have minded killing Jonathan outright and there was no question in his mind which one of them would be the victor, there was a burning need deep inside him to make Jonathan suffer, to suffer as no doubt poor Jenny had suffered during those anguish-filled days before she had killed herself. No, he did not want Jonathan dead. He wanted him very much alive. Alive and suffering the pangs of damnation for the rest of his life, knowing that his enemy had snatched from underneath his very nose the one woman he had wanted as his bride.
A wolfish smile crossed Chance’s face as he prowled about the room. Oh, yes, he was definitely going to enjoy every minute of Jonathan’s pain.
Aware that what he planned to do would have wideranging ramifications, Chance considered it carefully, wincing just a little when he realized that Jonathan was not going to be the only one affected. He grimaced. Sam and Letty weren’t going to be very happy with him, and he could not say that he would blame them if they threw him from the house and commanded him never to return. He would be sorry if that happened, but he hoped that in time they would forgive him.
As for the duchess . . . He grinned. She would probably never forgive him, but he was looking forward to teaching her that marriage to him would not be such a very bad thing. Of course, she was going to be furious and she wasn’t going to like his methods one damned bit, but it could not be helped. He had to strike quickly and with such devastating effect that there would be no way she could escape the consequences—or Jonathan could figure out a way to snatch victory from defeat.
If his conscience pricked him at all at the calculating way he was rearranging Fancy’s life for his own reasons, Chance coolly ignored it. He told himself that Fancy was not in love with Jonathan; he had been able to ascertain that interesting fact for himself as he had watched them together all evening. She had been married before; she was not a young maid with a head full of silly dreams. If she was not in love with Jonathan, then her reasons for marrying him had to be practical ones. While he might not be able to provide her with the stature and wealth that marriage to Jonathan Walker would have, she would not be destitute, either. He would be a good husband, faithful and kind and generous, he told himself, not only with his money, but with his body as well. For a second the memory of the kiss they had shared drifted tantalizingly through his mind, and a throbbing heaviness suddenly pooled between his legs. Oh, yes, he definitely would be extremely generous with his body. And he was offering her, well, not offering, Chance conceded dryly, but he was going to do the honorable thing and marry her—not just seduce her and abandon her to her fate as some bastards might. Jonathan was a self-centered, hard-hearted son of a bitch—he would never make Fancy happy. Someday she might even come to be grateful for having been saved from marriage to Jonathan.
Convinced that he would almost be doing Fancy a favor by cold-bloodedly compromising her and forcing her into marriage with him as a means of taking revenge against Jonathan, Chance tossed off the remains of his second snifter of brandy and glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel of the fireplace in his room. After midnight. He had several more hours to wait. Deciding that a few hours of sleep would not be amiss, he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
Chance woke less than an hour before dawn, the candles guttering in their holders, spilling uncertain light into the room. After rising from his bed, he stretched and splashed some water into his face from the pitcher on the washstand, then dragged his fingers through his sleep-tumbled hair. He eyed the brandy, wishing fervently for a cup of hot coffee, but brandy would have to do. A couple of swallows burning a path to his stomach, he carefully set down the snifter and took a deep breath. And now to greet his bride-to-be and set events in motion.
The faintest hint of dawn was breaking as Chance stepped into Fancy’s suite of rooms a few minutes later. A casual conversation with Ellen the previous evening had elicited the fact that she had chosen the rose suite, while Fancy had taken the yellow suite. It would not do, Chance thought with grim amusement, to find himself in the wrong bed. As he moved stealthily toward the bedchamber, it occurred unpleasantly to him that the notion of stealing Jonathan’s bride might not have been half as appealing if Jonathan’s choice had been Ellen. Not wishing to examine his motives too closely, Chance pushed those thoughts from his mind and silently entered the bedchamber.
Once he had reached the edge of the bed, he swiftly removed his clothing. Brushing aside the filmy hangings, with great care and stealth he slowly slid into the bed beside a sleeping Fancy.
Fancy stirred slightly as his weight dipped the mattress and tipped her next to him, but she didn’t wake as he carefully settled himself beside her. Chance could feel the warmth of her body next to his naked skin, and the urge to touch and kiss her into wakefulness flooded through him. With an effort he stifled his base thoughts and forced his unruly body to behave. There was no need for an actual seduction. Just his presence in her bed would be enough to thoroughly compromise her. Until she came to the realization that her fate was sealed, he was willing to wait to discover all her charms.
Fancy wasn’t certain when she first became aware that she was no longer the solitary occupant of the big bed. Waking slowly, she stretched luxuriously and blinked sleepily at the yellow sunlight shining into the room. She had slept deeply, dreams of Chance kissing her, touching her, making love to her, filling her mind and leaving her languid with imagined fulfillment. She was reveling in the softness of the mattress when she became conscious of the comforting, solid warmth that was pressed intimately against her backside.
Instantly awake, she jerked upright with a gasp, clutching the sheet protectively to her bosom. Her eyes widened in shocked horror as she looked in Chance’s direction and became aware of his indolent pose in her bed, his arms behind his head as he watched her, the naked expanse of his broad chest rising above the sheets.
Fancy scrubbed her eyes and pinched herself, certain she must be dreaming. Chance Walker could not be in her bed.
“Morning, Duchess,” he drawled, his blue eyes gleaming, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed. “Get out of my bed immediately. You have no right to be here. Oh, my God. What if someone were to find you here?”
Chance looked hurt. “You mean last night meant nothing to you?”
Fancy appeared uneasy. “What do mean, ‘last night’?” she asked nervously, explicit memories of her dreams flashing through her mind. Her cheeks flushed. Surely he didn’t know that she had dreamed of him? And she had merely been dreaming, hadn’t she?
Chance watched with undisguised in
terest as the roses bloomed in her cheeks. Now, what the devil had brought that on? His eyes narrowed. “You do not remember?”
Fancy took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. She had done nothing wrong, and those dreams, well, those dreams had been just that—dreams. Fixing him with a glare, she said sharply, “Of course I do not remember—there is nothing to remember!”
“That is not exactly how I recall our time together, Duchess.”
Fancy’s eyes blazed. “Don’t call me Duchess.”
“Lady Merrivale? Are you awake?” called Constance as she came into the room carrying a large tray that held a silver coffeepot and some fine china cups.
Fancy paled, a look of blind panic crossing her face. “Oh, my God,” she moaned. “Jonathan’s mother. What is she doing here?”
“Probably making certain that she has you all to herself,” Chance murmured, a satisfied grin on his face. He’d assumed that it would be Ora who first discovered his presence in Fancy’s bed and spread the word, or even Ellen, but this was a stroke of pure luck. For a moment he almost thought kindly of Constance.
“I was hoping that you were awake,” burbled Constance from the other side of filmy half-concealing bed curtains as she looked around for a place to set the tray. “I thought this would be a good time for us to have a little chat . . . without any interruptions.” She gave a tinkling laugh. “I know it is very bold of me to just march into your bedchamber this way, but considering the situation between you and Jonathan . . . I don’t feel that we need to stand on ceremony with each other, do you? Why, we are already practically family.”
Her heart pounding in her breast, filled with a mixture of fury and sheer terror, Fancy shot Chance a blistering look. “Not a word out of you,” she snapped. “Not one word.”
“What was that?” Constance asked brightly. “Did you say something, my dear?”
“N-n-nothing,” Fancy stammered as she sat there, inordinately grateful for the gauzy bed curtains that half-hid the interior of the bed. In horrified fascination she stared at Chance, willing him to disappear. Willing herself to wake up and discover that this was all a nightmare. The sheet was still clutched protectively to her bosom, and her thoughts tumbled chaotically through her brain. If Constance, if anyone were to discover Chance in her bed . . .
A Heart for the Taking Page 14