“Don’t rush off,” Mr. Renfrew told his cousin. “Introduce your lady to the others. It’s said you’re to spend the winter. She’ll need to be on calling terms with the neighbors.”
Rodney mumbled something and passed on, allowing others their weekly opportunity to greet the vicar. He’d have to do as Ger said, of course. If he was to have any freedom, he needed to claim acquaintance with his neighbors. And if Beth began to feel imprisoned at the Refuge without female companionship, she’d be off to London quick as cat could lick an ear. He’d never doubted her independence. Yet he liked the little Brockman, he truly did. As he liked Dartmoor, a barren land with wind that could turn from a sigh to a shriek in a matter of minutes, with water that could gurgle benignly over granite boulders then transform into a raging torrent after a good hard rain. The paths wandering over stiff moor grass, past granite precipices, skirting the bright green slime of the bogs. Until fog came down and turned harsh beauty into imminent danger.
But he had needs. Urges he had not thought himself addicted to. In London he could play the gallant with Beth, then retire to his secret place in St. John’s Woods, indulge his baser needs to his heart’s content, and be the charming darling of the ton the next morning. He had hoped the challenge of Dartmoor would be enough to alleviate his need for something different, darker, but he’d discovered it wasn’t so.
The tension had been negligible at first. He was certain he could handle it. His wife was soft and willing, eager to learn. But lately he’d caught increasing flashes of anxiety in those wide amber eyes. Last night had been one of the worst moments of his life. He’d come close to failure. His father was expecting a next generation of Renfrews and his cock had stuck at half-mast.
And now the little Brockman was sure something was wrong. What would she write to her father? That her husband was a failure? That the Merchant Midas had wasted his brass?
Well, bloody hell! He needed. He wanted. He had to have . . .
Definitely not the prissy little princess.
The neighbor idea wasn’t going to work. Beth now had a small coterie of females with whom she exchanged calls. Hopefully enough to keep her from bolting. But with that many female mouths yapping nineteen to the dozen, he’d never be able to create a false night out for gaming. Nor would his nearest neighbor, Squire Blunden, back up any lie he might tell. The local magistrate was as straight-laced as the past century’s creaking corsets he still wore. So business in Exeter it would have to be. Beth was young and inexperienced enough to believe him. This time.
But if he didn’t find release for the violence building inside him, he was going to explode, do something he’d infinitely regret.
He really liked the chit. If only she were less bright . . . and more biddable.
Christmas was everything Beth had dreamed of in the halcyon days before her marriage. Garlands of green, the smell of spices and roasting meats, the warmth of a Yule log of ash burning steadily in the huge fireplace in the hall. Smiling faces, cheerful voices, a dusting of snow. Pungent punch and a variety of sweetmeats for the carolers who came all the way out from the village to serenade their Christmas Eve. And a Rodney who seemed to be reincarnated into the lover she had known in London. For the past ten days—ever since his trip to Exeter—he had come to her bed with smiles and vigor. Enthusiasm. Perhaps the business he’d completed in town had been troubling him, Beth thought. Or had he simply needed time to adjust to being married? Had he, perhaps, resented her intrusion into his life, even though he cared for her? Whatever the reason, she was thrilled to have her Rodney, her lover, her husband, restored to her. If only she could conceive a child, all would be perfect.
Time enough, Tildy wrote. It’s early days yet. Get to know each other first. But Beth couldn’t agree. The lack of a child was the last barrier between herself and Rodney, she was sure of it. If she were with child, he would be pleased with her. She would be fulfilling her duty. And her father? Tobias would be over the moon. Beth almost laughed out loud. Papa would be ecstatic. A grandchild to carry the Brockman fortune into a third generation.
But her child would be an aristocrat. A Renfrew, brought up to take his place in the House of Lords and scorn the Merchant Midas who had put him there.
Not if she could help it. Never!
And if she had a girl? Would the child be as empty-headed and frivolous as so many of the chits she had seen in the ton? Again, never! She wouldn’t allow it. She’d have her Tildy back. Or if her sainted governess preferred her comfortable retirement, she’d find someone like her. Someone who believed women should be as educated as men. Independent, free-thinking, yet always crowned by a polished veneer of impeccable manners.
A vision of the arrogant, self-righteous prig which could result from her flight of fancy caused Beth to wrinkle her nose in disgust. A rueful smile acknowledged her foolishness. She was ready to fight to the death over the education of a child not yet conceived. To sit brooding in the drawing room when the house was alive with the joy of Christmas. Rodney, currently topping off their sumptuous Christmas feast with a solitary nip of port, would soon be joining her. The servants had the rest of the day off. She and Rodney would be alone in their wing of the house. Perhaps . . . perhaps this time would be the right time. A wonderful shining night to make a child. Beth’s body stirred into life, eager, more than willing.
When Rodney sauntered in, trailing the scent of brandy, cigars, roast goose, and ginger, Beth stood and smiled. Wordlessly, taking him by the hand, she led him toward the stairs.
Bellerive, Winter 1817
It took a while for the story to come out, for tight-lipped silence to give way to the age-old urge to gossip from which the males of the species were not exempt. Jeb Fowler, the overseer, was better at cracking a whip in the fields than seeing to the accounts. And not averse to feathering his own nest, Terence surmised, after the death of Rochelle’s brother Raoul, followed within the year by the death of her father, Henri Dessaint. Jeb Fowler also enjoyed his liquor. After Terence’s first two weeks at Bellerive, the two men had grown comfortable settling down in the evening to whiskey, cigars, and highly informative conversations.
As far as Terence could see, most of the problems on the plantation could be solved by competent financial management. If a man could overlook the need for cheap labor, which meant owning massive amounts of slaves, then Bellerive and many of the other great plantations were the New World’s version of India’s riches. Cotton, sugar cane, rice. Staples needed everywhere. Terence was no man’s fool. The ideas of William Wilberforce would cross the Atlantic. It was inevitable. And when the rumblings of the anti-slavery movement gathered strength, the plantation economy could crumble.
But the land would still be there. The rich arable land, the nearly endless forests, the broad navigable rivers. While still in London, he’d studied the explorers’ maps. From the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, the vast Louisiana Territory excited his imagination, warmed his blood. He suspected few people had the vision to comprehend what the fledgling nation had purchased from France not fifteen years earlier. He did. And he wanted to be part of it. The lure was enormous.
Even Tobias had not realized . . . or he would not have sent him here. He wanted his prime henchman temporarily distracted, not seduced into never coming home.
Speaking of seduction . . .
As Terence stood at the window of his luxurious bedroom overlooking the gardens behind Bellerive, Tobias’s sharp words rang through his head like the clanging of alarm bells. Fuck the blasted woman if you want, but back you’ll come as I’ve always planned. If Terence hadn’t been certain even Tobias would never stoop so low, he would have sworn Rochelle Dessaint was a woman chosen out of a New Orleans brothel, hired to seduce the strong right arm of Tobias Brockman & Company. The only time he had seen her wear a gown from which her lushly ripe breasts were not in imminent danger of falling out was when she had startled him one morning by appearing at break
fast en déshabillé. Though her frothy, ruffled wrap in virginal white covered every inch from her chin to her toes, the garment was close to transparent. Terence had fixed his eyes on his food and kept them there, castigating himself for a coward even as he did so. The woman was a menace, her motives as transparent as her gown. She needed a strong hand at Bellerive. She had found one.
The next morning Terence had begun his current habit of riding out before breakfast, then having food brought to the desk in the estate office where he was still trying to bring some semblance of order to the plantation’s woefully mismanaged accounts. He also began to encourage Jeb Fowler to talk about more than the running of Bellerive. The raised eyebrows, shrugs, pursed lips, and veiled hints finally devolved into as ugly a tale as Terence had ever heard. He’d made himself indispensable to Tobias Brockman by his ability to sort through tangles, to see through the twists and turns of a situation and cut straight to the heart of it. Terence O’Rourke was a “fixer.” A man who got things done. But in this case . . . damned if he could figure out what was true and what was false.
That Henri and Raoul Dessaint were gamesters he could understand. That they were men who needed to find recreation in New Orleans he could understand. That they made trips to the female slave cabins he could understand, if not condone. But that Raoul Dessaint had died in a duel with his sister’s fiancé, Armand Beauchêne, was less comprehendible. The alleged reason even less so.
“There was a girl Raoul visited. A slave,” Jeb Fowler told him. “When he turned away from her, yet wasn’t making no trips down to New Orleans, she started asking questions. The girl was a house slave herself, so it didn’t take long to find out what she needed to know. And I guess her tongue got to wagging—as women do.” The overseer flashed a wink. “And quicker ’n lightning word got round. Fact is, Armand Beauchêne heard it from his valet de chambre. Brave man, I’d say. First time he give his master a hint, Beauchêne knocked him across the room. But no fool, he. A proper gentl’man is Armand Beauchêne. He begun to watch the two of ’em—Rachelle and Raoul— real close. Saw clear enough what’d been right under his nose all along.”
Terence didn’t want to believe what hadn’t quite been said. But the nasty idea reared like a monster in his mind. As it evidently had with Rochelle Dessaint’s fiancé. “So he challenged Raoul,” Terence declared flatly. “Duels are allowed?”
Fowler snorted. “Round here they surely are. Them Frenchies are right sensitive about their honor. Beauchêne more than most.”
“So he won the duel, but rejected Mademoiselle Rochelle?”
Fowler snorted, eyes darkly gleaming with a look Terence couldn’t quite pin down. “Beauchêne was fighting for his honor, not hers. Left her flat. Nor will any of the other fine Louisiana gentlemen have her. Not for all her acres. Oh, there’s been offers, but not from any she’d look at twice. Shit beneath her feet, that’s what we are. Got her nose stuck up pretty high for someone’s been had by her own brother.”
So that was the way of it. Jeb Fowler had tried for Bellerive’s owner and failed. “I wonder,” Terence said softly, “if anyone asked themselves if she was willing.” He should, of course, be declaring he didn’t believe the overseer’s tale. But he could feel the truth of it in his gut.
Fowler topped up Terrence’s whiskey, plunked the bottle on the table between them. “You’re so all-fired tolerant, maybe you should marry her y’rself,” he challenged softly.
Terence ignored the jibe. Jeb Fowler might be an ill-educated lout, but he was valuable for a variety of reasons. This was no time to pick a quarrel. “I’d wager marrying a manager for Bellerive isn’t what the lady wants or needs,” Terence mused aloud. “I was wrong about that. Sounds like she needs to sell up and get as far away from here as possible.”
Why, then, was the girl so hell-bent on seduction?
“Could be right,” Fowler mumbled, reaching for rum instead of whiskey. “Why don’t y’ take her back to England?” The rum gurgled down his throat straight from the bottle. Leaning back in his chair, the overseer contemplated his drinking partner, an owlish grin on his face. “Good idea that, eh? Can’t get much farther without going to China. Whatdaya say, O’Rourke? A rare handful she is. Prime article, ain’t that why you call it? No need to marry her. Set her up in one of them fancy houses you English gents have for your petites poules.”
Terence stared as Jeb Fowler took another long pull on the rum. That last remark should have done it, yet he couldn’t summon the outrage he should be feeling. Instead of kicking the overseer into the middle of next week, he was almost . . . grateful. Fowler, though unintending, had just explained why Rochelle Dessaint was after him. The poor girl probably thought he was her entrée into London society.
If she only knew! The irony was exquisite. If Rochelle Dessaint wanted to be a queen of society, then she’d best stay in the United States.
“Shocked you, didn’t I?” Fowler chortled. “Too much for your fine London ways? You’d better get used to it. In this country we live dangerously.”
“What happened to Henri Dessaint?” Terence asked, changing the subject with no attempt at subtlety.
“Figured it all out after the duel, sort of fell into a bottle, never came out. Only lasted eight months past the boy’s death.”
“How long—”
“Goin’ on three years now. She was sixteen when the scandal broke, Raoul, twenty.” The overseer shook his head. “Bellerive’s not been the same place since.”
The next evening, after yet another supper Terence would sorely miss when he returned to England, he followed the Bellerive ladies into the salon, adjusted the firescreen for Madame DuBois, poured out brandies for Rochelle and himself. A nightly routine which even the elderly chaperone seemed to enjoy.
Rochelle wore the stylish puffed sleeves and billowing skirts of the new fashion with more grace than Beth, he had to admit. The girl from Louisiana carried her height well, her sun-kissed coloring perfect for her burgundy satin gown. The ruby and diamond necklace was far too sophisticated for an unmarried lady, but the large pear-shaped ruby pointing the way toward the shadows between mademoiselle’s magnificent breasts, the smaller diamonds and rubies glowing against her warm and inviting skin were perfect. Exquisite. Terence held a brief battle with himself as his eyes refused to look away. When he finally located her face, Rochelle’s green eyes betrayed a mix of triumph and amusement.
Hell and damnation! In London the girl would make a fortune. Ruthlessly, he tamped the fire in his groin, swallowed the lump in his throat. “Tell me, mademoiselle—”
She cracked her fan on his wrist, pouted prettily. “How many times must I tell you? My name is Rochelle.”
He supposed it was time to bend a little. Negotiations for the plantation would be easier now he had a better idea of what was going on. If he could just get the damn books straightened out, he could work with the trustees, the Dessaint’s man of business in New Orleans, and have the deal done in no time. But, first, he needed to be sure he understood the situation. The girl might scare the hell out of him, but he felt a responsibility. Tobias had told him to deal with the whole mess at Bellerive. And that’s exactly what he intended to do.
Mademoiselle Dessaint made a striking picture, sitting on a cream brocade sofa, the black lace trim on her burgundy skirts artfully arranged around her. Terence had always had a weakness for beautiful things, and she certainly was that. Summoning an innocuous, nearly avuncular, smile, he seated himself beside her. “Tell me . . . Rochelle, if my company purchases Bellerive, what are your plans for the future?”
She took her time, fluttering her thick black lashes, taking a deep breath, the better to display her heaving bosom. “Why, mon cher Terence,” she purred, “I plan to cut a swath in society. What else?”
He should have annihilated her dreams, telling her, flat out, that her wish to flaunt herself in London society effectively excluded him as husband material. But the manners drummed into him by Matilda Spencer pre
vailed. Perhaps he was reading too much into the minx’s behavior. Perhaps the truth would be wasted. It was entirely possible she was toying with him, fully aware he was little more than a glorified man of business.
Sometimes he himself wondered just what he was. At one time much of his work had been problem-solving by knocking heads together. That’s how he’d met Jack Harding. That night in Lincolnshire had also been the first time he’d broken the leash, using his own discretion to save Jack from the militia, from transportation or the hangman. Since then he’d grown into much more than a raw strong-arm boy. He’d read almost as much law as a solicitor, become an astute accountant, absorbed the inner workings of vast holdings in mills, mines, and ships. Yet he still wasn’t considered fit to do more than wipe the boots of much of Britain’s nobility.
There was much to be said for the more liberal attitudes of the New World.
Terence slapped his riding gloves against his thigh, smiled grimly out over the gardens to the fields beyond. His timing was off. He was going to be late for his ride. Rochelle might already be lying in wait below. Thank God the mansion boasted a back stairs.
Terence’s careful evasions did not outlast the celebration of the new year of 1817. Rochelle, announcing she was determined to honor her guest by holding Bellerive’s first party in years, organized an elaborate and colorful event which, Terence suspected, rivaled the finest London could offer outside the palaces of royalty. Though much sought after at parties held by London’s wealthier merchants, he tended to avoid them. So much so, he’d almost forgotten the satisfaction of holding a beautiful woman in his arms as he swung around a polished floor under the blaze of a thousand candles, catching a myriad scents wafting from beautiful magnificently dressed women.
No one here regarded him as one of the hired help, a problem-solver disguised in black tailcoat and silver-shot vest. He was a wealthy Englishman, a man to be courted. The recipient of hearty handshakes, the object of fluttering fans and fluttering hearts.
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