An Unexpected Gentleman (The Haverston Family Trilogy Book 2)

by Alissa Johnson

  Nothing about Connor indicated he felt even a sliver of regret. There was an insolent quality in the way he looked at her, an irreverence in his tone when he spoke. He seemed to her to be an altogether different man than the one she’d known in the garden.

  She briefly considered going with plan B, which was to throttle him until he was very sorry indeed, but ultimately settled on plan C.

  “Why?” she snapped. “Why have you done this?”

  “To keep you out of Sir Robert’s grasp.” He held up the glass. “Drink?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “You’ve come for an explanation, haven’t you?” He waited for her nod. “Then sit. It’s a lengthy story, and I’d just as soon not stand for the telling of it.” He smiled as he came around the settee. “It’s been something of a trying day for me.”

  She reconsidered plan B, but ultimately ground out, “How thoughtless of me,” and took a seat on one of the chairs.

  Connor sat across from her, leaned back against the cushions of the settee, and set his elbow on an armrest. “Comfortable?”

  She responded with narrowed eyes.

  “Excellent.” He stretched his legs out before him. “My father, as you may have guessed, kept two homes. One with his wife and heir and another, sixty miles away, with his mistress and son. The arrangement was not a secret. I was acknowledged at birth, and raised as the well-loved son of a wealthy baronet. My mother and I wanted for nothing—funds, education, my father’s time and attention. All were to be had in abundance. We even enjoyed a limited taste of respectability in our little hamlet. My father made certain of it.”

  He paused to take a sip of his drink, and she almost filled the silence by proclaiming the baronet a good man. But then she realized the baronetess might have felt quite differently.

  Connor’s mouth curved. “You see the predicament. I cannot answer for my father’s treatment of his wife and Sir Robert. I knew him only as the man who made my mother laugh and taught me how to hunt quail and seat a horse.” He tapped his finger again. “We were happy.”

  “Sir Robert was not,” she guessed.

  “His mother certainly wasn’t. And who’s to blame her? Her husband’s flagrant infidelity must have been a constant source of humiliation. She took her own life when I was thirteen.”

  “No, she drowned,” Adelaide countered. Sir Robert had told her the story of his mother’s death not three weeks ago. “She went for a walk along the banks of the estate’s lake, slipped, hit her head—”

  “She went for a walk in the estate’s lake. The only rocks involved were the ones stuffed in the apron that was tied about her waist.”

  It was a horrific image. “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “No, but Sir Robert could. It was he who found her.”

  That was worse. “He told you this?”

  “Indeed. Two years after the fact, and two seconds before he hit me over the head with the butt of a pistol and delivered me into the hands of a press-gang.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, as if he were relating the story of someone else. She hoped he was. The alternative was unthinkable.

  “I don’t believe you. It is illegal to impress a boy under the age of eighteen.” She felt foolish for the statement almost before she’d finished saying it. It was well known that a blind eye was often turned to infractions. The war had needed ships, and ships required able-bodied sailors.

  “I don’t believe Sir Robert would be capable of such a heinous deed,” she added, lamely. “He’s not a monster.”

  “Believe what you like. But the truth is, a carriage accident had taken my father and mother not six weeks earlier and Sir Robert saw an opportunity to rid me of my inheritance and simultaneously rid Britain of a . . .” He glanced at the ceiling, remembering. “ ‘Murdering bastard son of a whore,’ I believe he put it.”

  “Murdering?” She didn’t want to believe that either.

  A lazy shrug of one shoulder. “He holds me accountable for his mother’s death.”

  “That is preposterous.”

  “Unjust at the very least. But by Sir Robert’s reasoning, if I’d not been born, I’d not have been acknowledged, and if our father had not acknowledged me, he could have kept his mistress in secret and his mother would have remained blissfully unaware of her husband’s philandering ways.”

  As she’d already used the word preposterous, Adelaide found herself at a loss of anything more to say. Her mind whirling, she rose from her seat without thought and began to pace. It was difficult to maneuver in the confines of the small parlor, but she found the space in front of the fireplace to be adequate.

  Connor set his drink aside and cleared his throat. “Adelaide—”

  She silenced him with an impatient shake of her head. She wanted the quiet to think. There was so much to absorb and consider. Too much. And why the devil did she have to do either? Even if Connor’s story were true—and she wasn’t altogether convinced that it was—she’d not been the one to toss him to a press-gang. Lord knew, she didn’t have his lost inheritance.

  She stopped and faced him. “Mr. Brice, I am sorry for . . . any unpleasantness you may have endured, and I am equally sorry that you and your brother should be so at odds, but this . . . none of this has anything to do with me.”

  “Unpleasantness,” he repeated softly. “Do you have any idea what life is like for an impressed sailor? What it was like for a fifteen-year-old boy?”

  “No, however—”

  “A hell beyond your reckoning. It took me nearly a year to escape. Almost two more years of sleeping in the gutters of Boston before I had a permanent roof over my head, and more than a decade before I amassed the wealth I needed to return to Scotland. I’ve waited half my life for my revenge.”

  “Revenge. You . . . All of this . . . I am your revenge?”

  He stood up, slowly, and walked to her, a smiling golden devil. “You are a prize, sweet. But not the prize. I’ve a long list of treats in store for my brother.” He brushed the backs of his fingers along her jaw. “You’re but the first order of business.”

  Her fingers curled into her palms at the callous words. She wanted to slap him. Never before had she been tempted to raise her hand to another human being. But, oh, how she wanted to now.

  “You . . . selfish . . . arrogant . . .”

  “Bastard?” he offered.

  “Liar,” she bit off. “I don’t believe a word, not one word of your story.”

  “You’ve had more truth from me today than you would in a lifetime with Sir Robert.” He bent his head and softly asked, “Would you like to know who owns your brother’s final debt?”

  “What has that to do with . . . ?” The insinuation seeped in slowly, like a thick poison into her blood. “Another lie,” she whispered, but there was little conviction behind it.

  “Ask him. Wolfgang’s not half bad at keeping a secret, but he makes for a poor liar.”

  She shook her head, rejecting his words, even as she demanded, “Tell me what you’ve heard.”

  “It’s for Wolfgang to tell you.” He straightened with a small shrug. “You’ll not believe it from me anyway.”

  Because he was right, and she detested that he should be right, she changed the subject. “You’d no right, no right to drag me and my family into an ugly feud with your brother.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he agreed easily. “And yet, it was the right thing to do.”

  She tried to speak through her fury but managed only a strangled sound in the back of her throat.

  Connor had no trouble expressing himself. “Be reasonable, Adelaide,” he cajoled. “Better yet, be unreasonable. Marry me and enact your own revenge. I’ve a fortune you can squander, homes you can burn to the ground—”

  “Then where would I put my second family?” She spat. She was shocked at her own words. Shocked, and pleased.

  His lips tucked down in a thoughtf
ul frown. “I’m afraid I have to insist on fidelity.”

  “You humiliated me,” she ground out.

  His gaze skittered away for a split second before returning to hers. It was the smallest of movements, the stingiest hint of discomfort, but it was something. It was enough. She felt a burgeoning sense of power, of righteousness, of pure spleen.

  “You humiliated my family. You tore my name to shreds and show not the slightest hint of shame now to be holding the remnants of it ransom. Do you think I care one jot for your insistence? You’ll pay for what you’ve done. You’ll pay dearly. And the punishment will be of my choosing.”

  He cocked his head at her. “Is that a yes?”

  The sound that emerged from her throat was too strangled to pass for a true snarl. Out of insults, she snatched up her cloak, spun on her heel, and headed for the door.

  “Adelaide.”

  His tone was soft and undemanding. The sudden change startled her into turning around.

  He looked at her without smiling, spoke without humor. “Humiliating you was never my intention.”

  She absorbed that silently for a moment. “Is that an apology?”

  “It is.”

  She didn’t believe for a moment he was in earnest. The man changed his nature as if he were trying on a closet full of new coats. She didn’t care for the cut of anything she saw at present.

  She tipped her chin up and looked down the length of her nose. “How noble of you. Let us see how sorry you are after I’ve done with you.”

  Pleased with what she felt was a very fine parting shot, she spun about again to leave.

  “You’ve forgotten your shoes.”

  She stopped, felt the cool floor on her toes through her stockings, and grimaced. Damn and blast. She didn’t remember even taking them off. Wiping her face void of any expression, she straightened her shoulders, turned about, again, and did her utmost to retain a regal appearance as she scanned the room for her misplaced footwear.

  “Far side of the chair,” Connor said easily. “Why did you take them off?”

  It was a habit she developed years ago to keep her penchant for pacing from wearing out soles faster than she could afford to have them replaced. But no force in heaven, earth, or hell could have dragged that admission from her lips.

  She crossed the room in silence instead, snatched up her slippers, and began to pull them on where she stood.

  “Did you walk all the way here in those?”

  It wasn’t necessary to look at him to know he was scowling. She could hear it in his voice. She remained stubbornly silent, determined to be done, absolutely finished conversing with the man.

  “I’ll take you back in my carriage,” he decided.

  Apparently, she wasn’t finished. “No.”

  “I’ll saddle a horse for you—”

  She didn’t know how to ride. “No.”

  “I can’t allow you to walk about—”

  “Allow? You forget Mr. Brice, you are not my husband.”

  “Not yet.”

  She gave him a withering stare. “Do you really believe I would chose you over Sir Robert? That I would cast aside the affections of a perfect—”

  “Coward?”

  It only added to her anger that the same word had crossed her mind. “Gentleman. And bind myself to a man who wants me only as a means to render his brother miserable?”

  “Sir Robert is miserable by nature. I would marry you to see him furious. He turns a glorious shade of purple.”

  “This is a jest to you.” Disgusted, she marched out of the room.

  Connor followed. “On the contrary, I take my revenge quite seriously. You ought to consider doing the same.” He stepped in front of her and grinned. “Marry me, Adelaide. Render my life a living hell.”

  She shoved him aside, threw open the front door, and strode out.

  The moment Adelaide disappeared, Connor let his smile fall. He retrieved a pair of pistols from the drawer of a small side table, then walked to the door that connected the parlor to a study. With a quick tug of the handle he swung the door open. Gregory and Michael tumbled in from the other room, a stumbling mass of arms and legs. Connor took hold of the older man and let Michael fend for himself.

  Michael caught himself on the windowsill, narrowly avoiding rapping his head against the glass pane. “Damn it, boy. Might give a man warning.”

  “A man might have better things to do than eavesdrop like an old hen.” Connor let go of Gregory and held the pistols out. “Take these. Follow her back.”

  No one with a pair of eyes and an ounce of sense would mistake them for a pair of highwaymen. But two finer shots were not to be found in all of Scotland.

  “No call for being short,” Michael grumbled.

  “Were you thinking we’d have let our lass walk home alone? On our way out the study door, we were.” Gregory shook his head took and off across the room.

  Michael caught up to him, grumbling. “First he’s gone soft, now he’s touchy as a teething babe.”

  “Sure and he is, on account of being sorry for bungling this business with the lass.”

  Connor rolled his eyes—teething babe, indeed—and resumed his seat as the front door opened and closed. Despite the belated apology to Adelaide, he wasn’t all that sorry. He regretted she’d been hurt, but a compromising was a small slight compared to what she would have to contend with in a marriage to Sir Robert.

  In this case, the end justified the means. Even when the means involved infuriating Adelaide. In fact, he’d rather liked infuriating Adelaide. She was magnificent in her anger, an absolute pleasure to watch as those soft brown eyes turned molten with fury.

  Connor rolled a knot out of his shoulders. It was possible he’d enjoyed the sight a hair too much. He hadn’t intended to, but it had pricked at him to hear her make excuses for Sir Robert while she berated him. Even worse had been seeing the line of strain across her brow when he’d opened the door.

  And so he’d poked at her for his own pleasure and because it was easier to see her anger than her fear. Undoubtedly, it would have been easier in the short term if he had soothed her temper with honeyed words.

  There were a thousand easy lies that may, or may not, have served to appease her now . . . but would most certainly have enraged her later.

  Adelaide was generous, and far too trusting for her own good, but she wasn’t a fool. She might succumb to fine speeches and false flattery for a moment, but only for a moment. In the end, she was a woman who preferred an ugly reality to an attractive lie.

  Let Sir Robert fill her ears with saccharine venom and see what good it did him. For that matter, let Sir Robert fill her ears with the truth, see what good that did him. It bloody well didn’t matter what Sir Robert said now. After she spoke with her brother, the matter would be settled. Adelaide would become Mrs. Connor Brice.

  She would be his. At last.

  Suddenly restless, Connor rose and wandered into the study. There was a small wooden carving sitting on the desk—the perfect likeness of Adelaide as he’d known her through the bars of his cell window, with a child in her arms and the light of determination and courage on her face. Gregory had fashioned it out of oak with a small knife he’d paid a guard to smuggle in. Gregory had made a good half-dozen carvings in prison and passed them off to Freddie to sell with the pretense that they’d needed the money. In truth, Gregory had been taken with Freddie and liked listening to the pretty lass exclaim over his skill.

  So Freddie had sold the carving in the nearby village of Enscrum, and Connor had paid a guard to bring it back, with an extra coin to be certain the pretty lass remained none the wiser. In truth, they’d all been a little taken with Freddie.

  Connor picked the carving up and turned it over in his hands. “Taken” did not begin to describe his reaction the first time he’d seen Adelaide.

  He remembered that February day with perfectly clarity. After three months of being incarcerated, he’d glanced out the cell wind
ow with little expectation of seeing more than the depressingly familiar view of the frozen courtyard. But what he’d seen was Adelaide—standing in the bitter winter wind with her worn coat whipping about her ankles, and her arms wrapped protectively around an infant cocooned in a sea of blankets.

  She’d stopped to speak with a guard and turned her face up when the guard pointed at the second floor of the debtor’s wing.

  Connor hadn’t been able to see the color of her eyes. He hadn’t known her name, where she’d come from, or why she was at the prison. But none of that seemed to matter. He’d experienced the most excruciating longing to reach out and touch, to brush the back of his hand against the cool silk of her wind-kissed cheeks, to draw her into the shelter of his coat and feel her grow warm in his arms.

  He’d never before had such an immediate, visceral reaction to a woman. He’d known instant lust, even immediate fascination. But he’d never known such a hollow longing. He’d realized it was illogical, even embarrassing, but he’d reveled in every fantastical second, drank in every inch of her until she nodded to the guard and disappeared into the prison.

  He’d turned from the window then, disturbed that he should be so powerfully affected by a mere glimpse of a woman. That was the sort of maudlin nonsense to which other men, lesser men, succumbed. Dandies spoke of the angel they had seen from across a crowded ball room. Poets waxed on about the captivating maiden they had spied from afar. Men of sound mind were not taken in by that sort of romantic rubbish.

  He’d gone too long without the company of a woman, that was the trouble. Abstinence did terrible things, unnatural things, to a man’s mind. And yet, twenty minutes later, he’d gone back to window. And he’d gone back again and again—every Saturday for months, hoping for that next glimpse.

  He’d built harmless fantasies around her when he’d thought her married . . . Mostly harmless . . . A man couldn’t be blamed for the odd lurid thought. Once he was free and had access to all his funds, he would pay her husband’s debts anonymously, and perhaps set something aside for the child.

  When he’d learned her name and that she was coming to visit a wastrel brother, Connor decided he’d clear the debts and give Adelaide the home and income her brother was clearly incapable of providing. The notion of marriage was considered and rejected. He didn’t want the responsibility of a wife distracting him from his quest for revenge. Perhaps after . . .