“You there, take Miss Linton’s trunk to her quarters.”
There was something terrifyingly final in watching the two burly men heave Richard’s gift up from the platform and carry it away. Raw panic swept through every fiber of Norah’s being.
“I can’t—I don’t think I can… Oh, Richard, you do think I’m doing the right thing?”
“I am certain of it.”
Norah flung herself into her stepbrother’s arms, embracing him fiercely one last time. “I’ll never forget your kindness, Richard. I pray God will reward you for it.”
He smiled. A glittering smile, vaguely disturbing, like a solitary ripple disturbing a glass-smooth stretch of lake.
“I hope I won’t have to wait long enough to receive a heavenly reward, my dear. You see, I’ve just struck three wagers that should make me a very wealthy man, little sister. And the first is well on its way to being won.”
A log blazing on the marble hearth fell apart, yanking Norah back from memories of the storm-swept wharf to the quiet bedchamber that mocked the dreams she had held for such a brief time.
It was as if an eternity had passed since she’d mounted the gangplank, and watched Richard wave goodbye to her as she left behind everything she’d ever known, sailing into an uncertain future.
A future that now seemed almost as bleak and far more dubious than the one she’d left behind.
Norah was exhausted. Disappointment more bitter than any she’d ever known made her eyes burn and her spirit ache for the foolish young woman who had stood outside in the English rain such a brief time before, daring to hope for the first time since she could remember. Not for happily ever afters or the grand passions that were legend spun. But, rather, for contentment.
Someone to need her.
But there was no one here who could fill that role for her. There was no peace awaiting her within Rathcannon’s stone walls. Only a deeper echo of the loneliness that had tormented her from the time her father had died. Only an underscoring of the shortcomings that had made her stepfather despise her. Only another empty, aching place with nothing to fill it but Norah’s secret tears.
Chapter Three
Richard Farnsworth stared down at his father’s wife, her face pale, her eyes dark with the shadows that rarely left them. He could even pity her at times. He’d been every bit as beaten down and awkward years before, bludgeoned into submission by Winston Farnsworth’s relentless will. Yet staring into Corabeth Linton Farnsworth’s face always made him uncomfortable too. Maybe because it forced him to remember….
“I don’t mean to disturb you, Richard, dear,” she breathed in a tremulous voice, one thin hand clinging to his coat sleeve. “I know that you are very busy entertaining Viscount Cirlot and Lord Millhaven.” She cast an apologetic glance toward the drawing room in which his friends awaited him. “But I had hoped that perhaps you might have received a letter—”
“Are you worried about Norah?” he inquired, his face a mask of concern.
The woman’s sallow cheeks flushed, as if he’d caught her with a lover. “Your father would be most displeased with me for asking. He insists Norah should be dead to me. Yet a mother cannot help but worry. Ireland is such a wild place. And to go there, intending to wed a man she’s never seen before—” A shudder racked Corabeth’s slight frame. “It is so dangerous, Richard, to surrender complete power over her life to a total stranger.”
Richard was more than aware why his stepmother viewed the state of marriage with such dread. It was a kingdom Winston Farnsworth had always ruled with the same petty tyranny he’d ruled his son and heir, ruled everyone that touched his life. Only Norah had never buckled under to his tyranny. Proud, honorable Norah, with her unbreachable Linton dignity.
“Norah is fine,” Richard insisted. “I’m certain of it. You must not allow yourself to get so overwrought. You know how impatient Father gets when you do.” He pressed her hand so hard she winced a bit. “Didn’t I tell you I had looked into this Irish knight’s background to make certain he was suitable? Didn’t I promise to take care of her? Surely you don’t think I would have sent her off to be chained to some monster?”
Corabeth pleated a fold of her skirt, her eyes downcast. “Of course not! I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to my poor girl. I’m a fool to worry, and you must think me the most abominable nuisance.”
“You know exactly how much I adore you and my little sister.” He patted the woman’s shoulder with studied gentleness. “In fact I have already arranged for a friend of mine to visit Norah, to make certain all is well. But if it would ease your mind, I would go to this Irish castle myself, to see that this Aidan Kane is treating my sister as she deserves.”
“You would do such a thing?” Tears welled up behind thin lashes.
“Of course I shall, the instant I can afford to.” Richard looked away, pensiveness stealing across his face. He gave Corabeth a boyish smile, full of embarrassment and regret.
“I’m afraid I have had a rather bad run at the faro table of late. You won’t tell Father?” He gave his cravat an anxious tug.
His stepmother regarded him with abject worship. “Poor boy, was it so very bad? Perhaps I can help you. I have a most generous sum set by for a lovely necklace I saw in the shop window, but it would please me so much more to help you.”
“How could I allow you to make such a sacrifice? No. It was my own recklessness that brought me to this point, and I should have to pay the price for my mistakes. Even if I should be scooped into a sponging house, I could not take your coin.”
“You shall indeed!” Corabeth insisted with more forcefulness than Richard had ever seen her expend on her daughter’s behalf. “I insist. And if you do not allow me to do this for you, I shall… shall…” She was searching for a suitable threat, Richard knew. “I shall tell your father about your financial difficulties so he can aid you.”
“No! No, you cannot!” Richard stalked away.
“I can and I shall,” she insisted with a resolute nod. “Now you must go off to entertain those dear boys in the drawing room, or they will think you quite rude. After all, with Lord Millhaven just back from the Continent, I’m certain you have much to talk about.”
Richard chuckled and pinched Corabeth on the cheek, watching her face brighten until he could see the faintest impression of the beauty she had once been. “You are so very good to me,” he said. “I cannot imagine that my own mother could have been sweeter, may God rest her soul.” His mother… haunted eyes, nervous hands, and dread pressing down on her until it suffocated her. As a boy, he’d been certain she’d died of it. He shoved the thought away as tears sprang once again to Corabeth’s eyes.
“We shall take care of each other, dearest boy,” she said, patting his hand. “I love you, you know.”
Love him? Richard thought with a swift flash of bitterness. She didn’t even know him.
He turned and entered the drawing room, drinking in the subtle scent of tobacco and leather that clung to the cream-colored plasterwork walls of his private domain. The two men lounging about the green baize gaming table glanced up at him with drink-bleary eyes, sated by Winston Farnsworth’s finest brandy and by the attentions, this past afternoon, of London’s most elegant courtesans.
“Cirlot wagered a hundred pounds you fell into the privy,” Millhaven observed with a smirk.
Richard chuckled. “You’d best collect on your wagers now. By Christmas Cirlot won’t have two coins to rub together. After I win my wager with him, he’ll be forced to wed some dough-faced heiress just to keep himself out of debtor’s prison.”
“A new wager?” Millhaven perked up, rattling his dice box with interest. “One penned down in White’s betting book, or one exclusively for our own entertainment?”
“Gawd, but Farnsworth wouldn’t want this bit dragged out all over London!” Cirlot scoffed. “It’s a masterpiece. And damn me if I can imagine either of us will ever be able to top it.”
Millhaven lick
ed his lips, his eyes glowing with greed. “Show me, Farnsworth,” he demanded. “By damn, I cannot wait to see it.”
Limping to the bookshelf in the corner, Richard reached for the small leather bound volume on the topmost shelf and opened the pages.
“I cannot think you’ve been in town long enough to hear my family’s momentous news, Millhaven,” Richard said. “My stepsister should be making her way up to the altar even as we speak.”
“The devil you say!” Millhaven snorted with a ribald laugh. “What poor sot is getting leg-shackled to her? Surely Montgomery didn’t come up to scratch! His family would never stand for it.”
“Montgomery? Marry a woman without a dowry or a title? Not for a king’s ransom, though I have sometimes detected a certain wistfulness about him when he sees Norah across a room. I’m afraid the most Norah could hope for from that quarter is a brief liaison—and only then if someone else had the cunning to arrange it for her. No, my esteemed Millhaven, I have provided my dowdy little stepsister with a far more intriguing bridegroom. Sir Aidan Kane.”
Never in their long, notorious association had Richard seen Millhaven so stunned. “You are a heartless bastard,” the nobleman breathed. “Sacrificing your own sister to a man whose lust for women is outstripped only by his lust for the gaming tables? They even claim he murdered—”
“You, above anyone, should know better than to heed idle gossip,” Richard said, returning to the table. “I have provided Norah with a husband; as her brother I could do nothing less.” He trailed one fingertip along a gold-embossed leaf on the book’s binding.
Cirlot splashed more brandy into his crystal goblet. “Just show Millhaven the book and be done with your infernal gloating.”
Richard extended the volume to Millhaven. The drunken nobleman snatched it from him and scanned the lines penned on the page. Millhaven’s face went still with awe.
“A thousand pounds, Farnsworth!” Millhaven exclaimed with stunned fascination. “I’ll pay you a thousand pounds if you carry these wagers to the bitter end.”
“Oh, I shall see them to the end, I assure you,” Richard said evenly. “And when I do, I will achieve what I have desired for so long: Sir Aidan Kane’s destruction.”
There was nothing like a wedding to give a man indigestion. Even attending a ceremony in which another man put his neck in the matrimonial noose had always been enough to make Aidan lose his appetite for a week. And the threat of a prospective bride under his own roof was positively nausea-inspiring.
He sat at the head of the long table in Rathcannon’s dining chamber, the candles guttering in the sconces, the remains of his solitary dinner long since swept away. Time could more easily be measured by the number of times the glass of Madeira in Aidan’s hand had needed to be refilled than by the ticking of the clock on the mantle.
The celebratory birthday meal had—predictably—been a disaster. Wan and tragic as any beleaguered heroine upon a London stage, Cassandra had dragged herself to the table long enough to see if Miss Linton had come to dinner. When informed that the lady had begged to be excused, Cass had drooped back out of the room. Aidan hadn’t had the energy to stop her.
Cassandra had spent the entire rest of the evening fortressed up in her tower chamber, waiting, no doubt, for the sound of her father’s step on the stone stairs so that she could enact a truly spectacular bout of theatrics.
But Aidan wouldn’t have dared that chamber tonight if every cutthroat in Ireland had been charging at his heels. No, Aidan thought, slinging back another fiery gulp of the liquor. There was no way in hell he was giving his daughter a chance to incite him to madness. A madness that could all too easily end at an altar with him trussed up as a human sacrifice.
Aidan grimaced. If he’d stayed in Dublin, right now he’d be sampling the charms of the beautiful if temperamental Stasia. He would be playing at hazard or faro or piquet with a convivial tableful of men whose most dastardly intention toward him might be a simple sword thrust over a bad throw of the dice, or a swift, merciful pistol shot through some insignificant part of his anatomy.
He could be barreling down the road in a curricle race, grazing the wheels of passersby and listening to their curses with great relish. But no. Here he sat, his daughter in high dudgeon and some woman he’d never seen before setting up housekeeping for the night in the room adjoining his bedchamber.
Well, she wouldn’t be inhabiting the chamber for long, by Triton’s beard. He’d sent a rider off to make arrangements to hurtle Miss Dora—or was it Laura?—Lytton off to London post haste. By this time tomorrow night, the Englishwoman would be on her way, and he could set himself to important matters, like finding something to distract his daughter from her disappointment. Perhaps a new gown or a trinket, or that lovely little mare Adam Dunne was breaking over at Ballylaire. If Aidan could just convince him to part with it…
Damn, he was doing it again! Rewarding the rebellious chit for her mischief! How many times had Mrs. Brindle warned him that such a practice would only make the girl incorrigible. He’d brushed off the admonition as he had so many others. But now, confronted with the coil Cassandra’s headstrong ways had embroiled him in, Aidan couldn’t help but wonder if the Old Battle Axe was right.
Aidan’s jaw clenched. Maybe it was time to take the girl in hand. Teach Cassandra some discipline. Oh, yes, and Aidan Kane would be such a perfect one to preach propriety to his daughter! The very notion made his head ache. Far better for him to light out for Dublin, maybe even London, and leave the taming of Cassandra to Mrs. Brindle. She needed a woman’s touch, and the only women Aidan consorted with were of an ilk totally unsuitable to be held up as models for a proper young miss.
I don’t want a wife, Cassandra. Aidan’s words echoed in his mind, and he could see his daughter’s face, determined and yet vulnerable, suddenly so young.
I do want a mother! Cassandra had cried. Someone to teach me so many things….
“Papa?”
For a heartbeat, Aidan thought that the soft query was just his imagination. He angled a glance over his shoulder, to see Cassandra framed in the doorway. A cozy wrapper embroidered with bluebirds flowed to her toes. Her pale-gilt hair was tangled, and her eyes had that heavy look Aidan knew was the result of a bout of tears. Her fingers plucked at a ribbon tied about whatever she clutched in her hand.
She hovered in the doorway for long seconds, looking more than a little lost, as if wondering what kind of reception he would give her.
A wiser man might have remembered his sense of caution and steeled himself against her. Instead, Aidan opened up his arms.
Cassandra ran and flung herself into them, and Aidan cuddled her close, as he had when she had been barely an armful of ruffles and hair ribbons.
“Papa, I’m sorry you didn’t like the surprise. I truly thought that once you thought about it, you’d come to like her.”
Aidan stroked the girl’s hair. “I’m certain you had the best of intentions, sweeting. But you can’t just go about arranging other people’s lives to suit you.”
Cassandra sniffed, and Aidan rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief. Grasping her chin gently between two fingers, he turned her face up to his, dabbing at her cheeks as he had when she was small. A forlorn sob shuddered through her.
“I know, Papa. I know it sounds childish, but I wanted her for me. I kept thinking and thinking, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.”
“Get what out of your mind, sweeting?”
“That the worst thing in the whole world was to be all alone.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone.” His own voice was unsteady, and he reached out a hand to cup her cheek.
“But what would happen to me if—if you died?” The tremulous question struck Aidan with the force of a Celtic broadsword.
“How did you get such a notion in your head? There’s nothing to concern yourself—”
“You could get sick, Papa. There could be an accident. I’d have no one.”
“Despite my advanced age, I’m scarcely at death’s door. I’m not planning to die for a very long time.” He touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “The angels wouldn’t have me, and the devil would be afraid I’d take over his domain.”
“It’s not funny, Papa. My mother didn’t plan to die either. It just… happened.”
Happened? No, Aidan thought with a flood of bitterness, it hadn’t just happened. Delia Kane had put herself into danger on purpose, not giving a damn what the consequences would be as long as she could get revenge on the husband she hated. When the carriage had overturned, she’d had no one to blame but herself. She’d been reckless and foolhardy, courting disaster the way she had wooed countless lovers.
Aidan froze at the thought of revelations he didn’t want to face. Truths about himself that were sobering.
Wasn’t that what he did every time he rode away from Rathcannon? Dash himself into a hundred different situations where the mere flick of a sword blade, the blast of a pistol barrel, the wild charge of horse or curricle could send him catapulting into hell?
He’d made certain Cassandra would be cared for in the event of his death. His solicitors had enough money in trust to allow her to live in the luxury she was accustomed to. But as to who would protect her, shelter her… love her… he hadn’t dealt with that. It was too painful. But it was obvious from the expression on Cassandra’s face that she had thought about it enough for the both of them.
“Oh, Princess…” Aidan stroked her cheek, aching for her.
She was peering up at him through tear-spiked lashes, contrite, chastened, in a way that made Aidan suspect he’d do anything to see her smile.
“Papa, I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you before Miss Linton arrived.” A tiny crease appeared between soft blond brows. “I know it was… was probably a silly idea. But if you didn’t want to marry anyone else, I guess I hoped you wouldn’t mind very much if I asked you to marry her. Her letters were so wonderful. So…” She pulled the beribboned bundle from where it had been half hidden by the folds of her wrapper. “I brought them to you. I thought—thought you might want to read—” Her voice caught. “Never mind. I love you, Papa. I’m sorry I ruined your birthday.”
Lords of Ireland II Page 78