IN THE GARDEN OF DECEIT
by
Cynthia Wicklund
PUBIT EDITION
***
PUBLISHED BY:
Cynthia Wicklund
In the Garden of Deceit
Copyright 2011 by Cynthia Wicklund
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THE GARDEN SERIES
In the Garden of Temptation
In the Garden of Seduction
In the Garden of Disgrace
In the Garden of Deceit
***
PROLOGUE
London—April, 1859
“Earl Lonsdale?”
James Tremont glanced up through a belligerent, alcohol-soaked gaze. “Who wants to know?”
“Name’s Archibald Campbell, my lord.”
James set his glass of rum down and looked at the speaker. “Don’t know you,” he said rudely.
“Vulgar place for a gentleman to drown his sorrows,” came the disparaging reply.
Goaded by the wry disapproval on the man’s face, James took in his surroundings, the smoky tavern, the rowdy patrons, the pathetically thin serving girl who had been sending him flirtatious glances since the moment he had passed over the threshold. The stench of sweat, cabbage and old ale oozed upward from the greasy floorboards. And should he decide to run his thumbnail across the surface of the table he was sitting at, he would certainly peel back years of caked grime. He shuddered to think what that grime was composed of.
James gave a derisive shrug, focusing on the stranger once more. Around sixty, James guessed, he was as ordinary as one could be—until he met his dark eyes, dark as his hair. Intelligence unnervingly perceptive stared back at him. Well, well…
“I have a proposition for you, my lord,” the man said, “one that will, ah, solve your predicament.”
A hostile silence ensued. “You know about that?”
“It’s not a secret.”
James grimaced, distaste causing the rum on his tongue to turn bitter. He took another gulp of his drink, swallowing his pride with it.
“What d’you want?” he muttered.
A grin split the man’s face. He was obese and squat, his vest threatening to pop the very buttons that held it together. Black hair topped a round face that had begun to sag. He had an enormous fold of flesh under his chin, emphasized by a collar that was too tight, and his large nose bulged at the end as if the collar were putting pressure on that feature as well. Mutton-chop whiskers only added to his corpulent appearance.
He pulled up a chair, and for the first time James noticed the cigar he clutched in his left hand. The smoking end was wet and slimy as though he had been sucking on it for some time. The other end had gone out.
Disgusting.
“I’m a rich man, my lord,” Campbell began. “My only child, a daughter, will be my heir as will any children she might have. But I’m not satisfied with the marriage opportunities she has received thus far. I want better for my Amanda.”
Naturally. James had the unpleasant notion that he already knew where this conversation was headed. “You are looking for a husband for your daughter—Amanda?—a man of rank, and you are willing to pay a small fortune to acquire him. Correct?”
“A large fortune, my lord. Enough to pay every note you owe and every obligation you have and still provide an income to live a lavish lifestyle.”
Knowing no more than he did right now, James was ashamed of the sudden hope that flared in his breast. “Since you are seeking a title, Campbell, your options are limited. You risk attracting a man who cares only for the money. Rank without character is hardly a bargain.”
“I want Amanda to have opportunities beyond money.”
“I’m assuming your daughter has no rank of her own? Most of the peerage will consider her a means to an end. A necessary burden for the man who marries her.”
“But her children will be his children. Who would ignore the offspring of, oh…an earl, let’s say?” He winked.
James wasn’t fooled. The man wanted to be grandfather to a title. He had everything money could buy, and now he wanted what money couldn’t buy. Respect.
“Don’t you want your daughter to marry someone who cares for her?”
“You’ve not met Amanda, my lord.”
No he hadn’t, but if she was in any way her father’s daughter, she could not be a pleasure for the eyes.
For long moments James stared at him. These past weeks had been miserable, uncertainty his constant companion. Could he afford to ignore this opportunity just because it wasn’t the solution he had been seeking?
“All right, I’ll meet your daughter. But I make no promises beyond that.”
Mr. Archibald Campbell beamed a satisfied smile at him, and James had the impression the man rarely lost at anything he put his mind to. Grunting, Campbell placed his hands flat on the table, cigar wedged between two fat fingers, and hefted his bulk from his seat.
“I’ll be in touch, my lord.” Still smiling, he turned to leave, taking several steps before returning to James’s table. “One more thing, my lord.”
Uh oh. “Yes?”
“Amanda knows nothing about my efforts to gain her a husband. She’s a headstrong girl. Proud. It will be your duty to convince her that your intentions are genuine.”
Well, bloody wonderful!
All James had wanted was some solitude and a few drinks to forget his troubles, one night without wondering how he was to manage an unmanageable future. But even in this obscure, lowly tavern his troubles had run him to ground. Clearly, he was not to find peace anywhere.
His days had not always been so uncertain. He had been a world traveler, settling in the West Indies, living the life most men only dreamed of, until an urgent missive had brought him home. His father, rest his soul, had passed away, leaving James a run-down estate, a house full of eccentric relatives who were depending on him for support, and a bank account that had plunged into the red. He had been in England for two months and, at the age of thirty-two, he had no more idea how to solve his problems than he had when he first arrived.
James waved at the serving girl again and pointed to his glass. Time to think about his worries tomorrow. Tonight he was going to finish getting drunk.
***
CHAPTER 1
James stood on the step of Archibald Campbell’s townhouse, a little appalled by the grandeur of the residence. He knew few aristocrats who lived in such opulence. The townhouse was new, the sign of a more ornate—some might say outrageous—mood in architecture. If he were a man prone to gambling, he would lay odds that the interior was as striking.
He was not disappointed.
The earl was led by a stiff-necked butler into an entry hall that was as large as a small drawing room. Which meant the drawing room on the first floor was immense. It was rich in color and ornamentation, furniture in the latest style, what one would expect from a man who had a great deal of money and marginal taste.
Perhaps he was behind the times, he thought, having been away from England for so long. But his grandmother, had she been alive,
would never have approved of such a flamboyant display of one’s wealth. Of course, she was from a different era when restraint also meant refinement.
The butler sat him on a red brocaded sofa that looked more like a parlor decoration than a piece of furniture. It was, however, well-sprung, he noted wryly, surprisingly comfortable. James was served claret and asked to wait while the servant informed his master that he had company.
Archibald Campbell bustled into the room moments later. “Lord Lonsdale, how good to see you. You came just as you said you would.”
The earl’s lips quirked as he came to his feet. “No promises, Campbell, remember?”
The man nodded. “Archie.”
“Of course,” James said drily. “Archie.”
“Have you been waiting long, my lord?”
“No.” From the periphery of his vision James saw someone appear in the doorway to the drawing room. “Just time to take one sip,” he glanced in that direction, “of this fine claret—”
His mind, clear and easy, suddenly ceased to function. He stared, aware that his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. Standing on the threshold was a young woman, tall and sylphlike, hair in a chignon of shiny black, with eyes to match, and a face that took his breath away.
Archie also glanced toward the door. A grin lit his features. “Manda, come in and meet our guest.”
She glided into the room, a moderate hoop skirt gently swaying with the movement of her hips. She wore a deep lavender gown, and that was her color for certain. Although James couldn’t imagine any color not enhancing this woman’s beauty. He was glad for his own height, for as she came abreast of him, she had to tilt her head only slightly to look him in the eye.
And look him in the eye she did. It was a searching look, friendly but cautious.
“This is my daughter, Amanda Campbell,” Archie said.
“James Tremont.” Bemused, he introduced himself, feeling like a callow youth without an ounce of worldly experience.
She nodded graciously. The hint of a sultry smile touched her mouth, and the earl’s stomach dropped in a purely sexual response that startled him.
He turned a bewildered gaze on his host. “This is your daughter?” Even as he spoke, he realized how rude he must sound. “Ah…perhaps that came out wrong.”
Archie laughed delightedly. “Came out the way it comes out of everybody.”
Amanda put one slim arm around Archie’s shoulders and touched her forehead to his. She had to lean down to do so because she was taller than her father by at least half a head.
“Don’t I look like my papa? Everyone says I do.”
She joined Archie’s laughter, hers a warm melodic sound, and James found himself grinning at her like a buffoon.
He did his best to recover his composure, attempting to join in what was obviously a family jest. “I suppose you do look like him a little, same color hair, same color eyes.”
“See, Papa, I told you.”
She cut her gaze to James, and again that provocative smile caused his gut to tighten with anticipation. His mood when he had entered Archie Campbell’s home was to do the perfunctory and take his leave. That plan was completely upended. With no thought beyond the moment, he decided he was looking forward to the evening.
***
Amanda spooned the last of her custard into her mouth, rolling the sugary bite on her tongue before swallowing. James—he had insisted she call him James—and her father were regaling each other with tales of their youth, misspent to hear the two men tell it. She had laughed more in the last hour than she had in months.
She had little to offer the present conversation from where they communed in her father’s grand dining hall. But the earl was as aware of her, if she understood the signs, as she surely was of him. When he looked at her, she felt a catch in her throat that was thoroughly disconcerting.
James Tremont was handsome, about as handsome as a man could be and still be only human. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with hair nearly as dark as her own. However, his eyes were a light blue, clear and wintery, which was strangely at odds with the warmth she saw lurking there.
He was congenial and urbane, but she did not detect any snobbery on his part. Amanda had expected the snobbery. He was an aristocrat after all. And she was not. As the nineteenth century reached its midpoint, there were those who felt the lines between the classes were gradually blurring, that tolerance was becoming the norm. There wasn’t an Englishman alive, highborn or lowborn, who truly believed that.
With the ending of the meal, Amanda pushed back her chair. “Well, gentlemen, I’ll leave you to enjoy a brandy and smoke.”
The protest that followed from both men was gratifying.
“Manda—” began her father.
The earl interrupted. “Miss Campbell, I much prefer your company to spirits.” He raised his brows at his host. “Archie?”
“Absolutely. Manda doesn’t mind my cigars, do you, my dear?”
“Of course not, Papa. And you may smoke as well, my lor—er, James.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“One of the few.” Amanda smiled her surprise. “Congratulations.”
Her father winked at the earl. “Manda don’t approve of cigars. She thinks they’re not good for you.”
“Stands to reason, Papa. If smoke makes a hearth black with soot, what does it do to your lungs?”
Undeterred, Archie puffed a cigar into life, and the sweet aromatic smoke drifted around the table. “She don’t much care for whiskers, either,” he said after exhaling. He coughed a watery cough, proving her point about smoking.
“You don’t?” James, who was clean-shaven, sent her another one of those warm looks that made her breath catch. “Why is that?”
Amanda shrugged one shoulder. “A peculiarity of mine, shared by a lot of women, if you ask me. Why have you avoided that style?”
“Living in the tropics is very sultry. I found facial hair added to the discomfort.”
“If you don’t like heat,” she said, “why would you choose to live in such a warm part of the world?”
“Never said I don’t like heat,” he murmured, his gaze hooded.
For several moments they stared at one another, allowing his words to simmer between them. Only when her father coughed again, did Amanda realize how the silence was lengthening.
She licked her lips nervously, and the earl’s piercing blue eyes shifted to her mouth, resting there momentarily before he turned to her father.
Whew! she thought, an inexplicable desire to fan herself. When she agreed to hostess her father’s small dinner party, she’d had no idea she would find the evening so stimulating or the company so…disturbing.
“You know, Manda,” Archie said, “I think James would enjoy a walk through our garden.”
“Yes?” she asked weakly, looking to the earl.
“Splendid idea,” James responded.
Amanda reached for her gloves, which she had removed while eating, putting them on hands that shook slightly. She stood from her chair with the earl’s assistance. They linked arms and she escorted him to a sitting room in the rear of the townhouse. Two sets of French doors led to a small terrace, which in turn led to several steps that descended into a long and narrow garden.
She turned to her father, who had followed them to the door. In that look she tried to convey the uncertainty she was feeling, but he chose to ignore her, waving them on with a benign hand.
“Take your time,” Archie said, seeming almost unfatherly in his effort to please.
Amanda shot him another glance over her shoulder, this time expressing consternation, but he ignored her again, moving back into the sitting room. She could have sworn he was humming between puffs on that confounded cigar.
“My father is very accommodating this evening,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as piqued as she felt.
“I’m glad he is.”
The sensual voice next to her ear caused Amanda to swing her h
ead in the earl’s direction, and that brought her face very close to his. He was watching her, his compelling eyes shining with something she couldn’t identify. Whatever it was made her nerves quiver with expectation. She quickly turned away and took a deep, shaky breath.
The brick path was lit by Chinese lanterns, and the cool night air, fragrant with the blossoms of early spring, felt wonderful on her flushed skin.
“It’s chilly,” James said, his voice as impersonal now as his gaze was not.
“It feels good,” Amanda said breathlessly. “It was rather, ah, stuffy inside.”
Rather stuffy out here, too, she thought. Why did her chest feel so tight? Couldn’t be nervousness, could it? She was a sophisticated woman and, at twenty-four years, had been courted by many men. Where was the town polish that was usually hers, the confidence she felt when socializing with the opposite sex? Earl Lonsdale was just another man, albeit a high-ranking one.
He was not courting her, she reminded herself. They had only just met. The earl was merely indulging in a little lighthearted flirting, to which she should respond in kind as any fashionable female would.
They strolled the garden path once, then twice, her hand resting lightly on his coat sleeve. A stone bench was positioned not far from the terrace, and James led her there as they circled for the third time.
“Would you like to sit in the moonlight for a little while?” he asked.
Amanda glanced inside the townhouse. Her father sat in his favorite chair in the sitting room, facing away from the French doors. A curl of smoke floated above his head and, from the looks of it, he was perusing the morning paper, which she was certain he had already perused thoroughly at breakfast.
“I suppose that would be all right.”
The earl waited politely while she arranged her skirts so her crinoline did not pop up and embarrass her. He sat next to her, and for long moments she was aware of him studying her profile.
“You are a beautiful woman, Amanda. And I’ve been around the world and seen quite a few. Imagine, I had to come home to England to find the fairest lady in the land.”
In the Garden of Deceit (Book 4) Page 1