The Lassoed by Marriage Romance Collection

by Bell, Angela; Breidenbach, Angela; Carter, Lisa

  “He must be tired,” Katie said. She rose from her cushioned piano bench across the room.

  Henry hastened to stop her with a raised hand. “I’ll get him.”

  She sank back down, and he stood and went to the window. He stooped and lifted Georgie into his arms, hiding a smile at the way the boy’s legs dangled limply in the air. Aren’t we despondent tonight?

  “There, there, lad.” He patted Georgie’s back and stole a glance at Katie. Her face was turned unswervingly from him, but he could see her reflection in the burnished rosewood piano before her. She looked lovely in a blue taffeta dress that cascaded from the bench to the floor. He considered going over and talking to her but knew they would be keenly observed. Though the others were busy reading or sewing, he could feel their knowing looks. Noticing me noticing her. The thought made him want to clout someone.

  He hadn’t slept well these past weeks. Whenever he tried to doze off, he remembered that night with Katie, and berated himself for it. He also envisioned pulling her back into his bedroom and kissing her, again and again.

  Georgie’s pathetic sniffs brought Henry back to the present. The boy settled his plump cheek against Henry’s chest, his small body now relaxed. If only a grown man could be so easily consoled. Henry held the boy closer, rested his chin on the soft waves. Ah, Georgie, life is so complex.

  He’d just determined to do whatever was needed to get Katie alone, at least attempt an apology, when he heard a commotion coming from the direction of the entrance hall. He could identify Philip’s voice, raised in protest, and later, Manfred’s. But neither the footman nor the butler’s objections were very effective, judging by the swift footsteps that sounded in the hallway.

  Every eye in the room went toward the drawn red curtain. In an instant, it was swept aside.

  And then, just ahead of the two flustered servants, Simon the stranger strode into the room.

  Katie watched as if in a slow-moving dream as Henry brushed past her, Georgie still in his arms. He didn’t pause when he neared the stranger, but reached out, snagged the man’s sleeve, and pulled him back across the Oriental rug toward the curtain.

  “Come with me.”

  Something in her husband’s voice told Katie who the man was. The very person who could ruin us is standing in our drawing room.

  The chilling thought caused Katie to realize something else. It wasn’t only Georgie she was afraid for. She looked around the room at each face in turn, and a clogging sensation filled her throat.

  Thomas was perched on the edge of the settee, weight forward, as if prepared to lurch to his feet. His bold dark eyes and mannish form seemed incongruent with the flowery upholstery beneath him. Alice, seated across from Margaret at the center table, was motionless as a statue, her face wan under her blond halo. Even the matriarch herself, normally so composed, had an unusual alertness about her.

  The obstruction in Katie’s throat swelled when she looked at Henry. She knew he would do everything in his power to protect his family, to rid them of this threatening presence. A wash of tears made it difficult to see him, but she could envision him, wavy brown hair that hinted at auburn, aristocratically straight posture. A Baxter to the core.

  At times they were overly gratified with themselves, yes. The Baxters were stiff, reserved. Plagued by many flaws. Not Alice, of course, she has none. But Katie had learned to care for them.

  Especially Henry.

  She knew her hopes for a real marriage were futile. He could never forget her past, much less return her affection. He’d proved that by his actions the other night. Still, she couldn’t help herself.

  A sharp movement drew her focus to the front of the room.

  She watched as the stranger shrugged off Henry’s hand and crossed the floor. He approached the piano, and for a terrible moment, she was sure he meant to speak to her. But he turned and faced Margaret instead. Before he could open his mouth, he was jostled by the footman, who pushed his way forward, cheeks pink and eyes earnest.

  “I tried to stop him at the door, ma’am.”

  Margaret didn’t respond but looked past him to Manfred, gaze pointed. The butler gripped the footman’s shoulders and steered him from the room.

  When they were gone, Margaret lifted her brows at the stranger, her most noticeable movement so far.

  “My name is Simon,” he told her.

  At the distinctive inflection of his voice, Katie started. He’s English.

  His arms were slack at his sides, his manner unhurried. “I’m here on behalf of my employer. I fear I must speak candidly regarding a certain—”

  Thomas sprang from his perch and joined Henry, who was standing near Simon. “My brother and I will hear you first, sir.”

  Henry’s jaw was tight, his tone measured. “Yes, come to the library, where we may talk freely.”

  Simon ignored them both and continued. “My investigation brought me to Denver in the late spring of last year. I had to satisfy myself as to the origin of a certain member of your family, names being changeable, as they are.”

  Katie felt as though her chest were being squeezed between two heavy objects. She looked over at Henry. He returned her gaze, but other than the expected graveness, his expression was impassive. He must hate me for what’s about to happen. Warm tears threatened to spill, and she had to will herself to concentrate on what Simon was saying.

  “It didn’t take long for my ruddy good detective skills to unearth the truth about…” He blew a thatch of fawn-colored hair from his eyes and gestured toward Georgie. “You know.”

  Oh, yes, we know.

  “But of course I needed to be sure,” he went on. “The winter proved to be the most disobliging I’d ever encountered, so I waited until spring to conduct my interviews, chiefly one in the mountains, in the frostbitten netherworld you call Aspen.”

  Katie’s chest squeezed tighter. She braced herself for what was coming.

  “Once my suspicions were confirmed, I notified my employer. I felt obligated to tell him of my findings, you see, out of regard for his best interests—”

  He was cut off by a deep voice from the doorway. “But I didn’t care.”

  They turned as one, every soul in the room.

  The curtain had been pulled aside to admit a tall figure, an imposing man in a brown beret and high-buttoned gray suit. His eyes were fixed on one person, and one person only.

  “I had to see you, Maggie,” he said.

  Katie swiveled around slowly, slowly on her bench, to behold the ashen face of her mother-in-law.

  “Nicky,” she breathed. She half rose from her chair, folds of her skirt clutched in a trembling fist.

  Simon went to stand next to the imposing man, and faced the room. He looked so pleased, Katie wondered how she could have ever thought him threatening.

  “Allow me,” he said with an imperial sweep of his hand, “to introduce my employer, His Grace, Nicholas Morgan, Duke of Kentworth.”

  Chapter 12

  The realization that their menacing stranger hadn’t been hired by Arthur Randall at all, that he’d never intended to ruin anyone, caused a glorious, loosening sensation in Katie’s chest. But she had little time to revel in it, for her attention was once again captured by her mother-in-law.

  Katie hardly recognized her, this pale woman who groped with unsteady hands for her chair. As if she wants to assure herself that it’s actually there before she sits down.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” the duke said from the entrance.

  Katie glanced over and saw that he hadn’t moved. He was gazing at Margaret out of clear blue eyes, accented by distinguished silver brows.

  “No, you haven’t,” she answered. “I just—I never—I thought—” She drew in a long breath. Squared her shoulders. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

  A soft smile turned his lips upward. Margaret blushed under his unwavering gaze.

  She looks almost…girlish.

  Alice cleared her throa
t, a dainty sound. “Perhaps Katie and I ought to see to Georgie. It’s well past his bedtime.” She gave her husband a telling look. “And I know how you and Henry enjoy your after-dinner cigar.”

  Her gentle suggestion that they offer the pair some privacy was roundly ignored by everyone but the duke, who seemed suddenly aware that he and Margaret weren’t alone. His gaze broke from hers, and he removed his beret and glanced at Henry.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  Henry hesitated, then stepped aside to clear the path to his mother.

  The duke moved forward but stopped several feet short of her. “I heard some time ago, through a rumor I came to believe, that your husband had passed away.” He twisted the supple woolen hat in his hands. “Please accept my sincere condolences.”

  She nodded.

  The duke inhaled, pressed on. “As soon as I heard of his passing, I determined to find you. But I didn’t know your married name, the surname of this man you’d chosen”—he tilted his head and gave her a self-depreciating grin—“over me.”

  Margaret seemed about to protest, but remained silent.

  Perhaps she is remembering the presence of her sons. Katie was sure they wouldn’t wish to hear that their mother had preferred another man to their father.

  “I had never asked your fiancé’s name, not once.” The duke chuckled ruefully. “Hotheaded young fool that I was. I regretted it later, of course, this rashly cutting you out of my life. I didn’t have the faintest notion of how to locate you, so I called on my friend, Commissioner Henderson at Scotland Yard, and asked for his best man, preferably one who had connections ‘across the pond.’ ” He shot a look at Simon. “The commissioner gave me precisely that, and my new sleuth left for America. He docked at the New York harbor and began his search in New York City, as might be expected. Then he learned you’d moved, and followed your trail to Denver.” His eyes fixed on Margaret. “When he wrote me regarding your eldest son’s…indiscretion, and the subsequent marriage of your second son, I hardly heard him. All I cared about was that I’d finally found you. I boarded a ship that very day, hoping against hope I might have a second chance with you.”

  Margaret looked everywhere but at him. Her face, partly hidden beneath her fluttering fan, seemed almost despairing, and Katie wanted to come to her aid. Before she could, however, Alice stood and faced Thomas, her manner resolute.

  “Thomas, I think we should be getting home.”

  He didn’t protest this time, but followed her meekly from the room.

  Henry shifted the now-sleeping Georgie in his arms and addressed the duke. “I must take my boy to bed.” His expression turned warning. “But I shall be back very soon, in case my presence is needed.”

  Katie almost laughed. As if his fully grown mother requires a guardian. She rose from her bench to join him and was surprised when Margaret stopped her.

  “Stay, Katriane.”

  Katie sat back down, eyes wide. She watched Henry leave, then focused her attention on her mother-in-law.

  Margaret lowered her fan, still blushing but no longer hesitant. “You must understand, Nicky, when Cousin Sara invited me to join her family on their European holiday, I thought I’d be miserable. Leaving New York just before the social season seemed a dreadful idea.” Her brown eyes grew warm, like melting molasses. “But that winter I spent with you was magical. You’ve no idea. Until then, I’d always done the proper thing. But in England, at your charming country estate, with so many young people my own age, I became another person, one who could skate across the ice with abandon. Toboggan down a steep slope without a care in the world.” She shook her head slowly, met his gaze. “The trouble is, you were part of all that.”

  He seemed to understand her meaning, for he winced. “That was all I was to you? A moment of freedom?”

  “I thought so, yes. But I soon realized I’d been mistaken. Only…I was already engaged to Alex.” She shut and latched her fan, eyes fixed on the motion as though it required great concentration. “I never told you how earnestly my parents desired the match. They were thrilled about Alex. And Mother, whose health was poor, would have been devastated if her one and only child had remained across the ocean, never to return.”

  There was silence.

  “Did you love him?”

  Margaret looked not at him, but at Katie as she answered. “No. Not when I married him. I wed him out of family obligation.” She held Katie’s gaze. “Truth be told, though, I learned to care for him in time.”

  Katie ached inside. I already do, she cried silently. But your son doesn’t feel the same way.

  “And me?” The duke seemed to hold his breath. “Do I have any chance at all?”

  Margaret turned her head and looked straight at him. “Yes,” she said simply. “You, I always loved.”

  Henry basked in the September twilight. He sat in an armless wicker chair in the garden, surrounded by fragrant perennials and pungent herbs. He’d come outdoors to reorder his thoughts, to distance himself from his mother’s whirlwind courtship. No party had been too costly, no ball too lavish, no newspaper proclamation too flamboyant for the duke and his bride-to-be. Henry needed a moment to recover from the bustle of it all.

  After announcing their engagement, the duke and Henry’s mother had made plans for a winter wedding. Henry recalled her shining eyes when she told him she’d decided to be married in England, during the same month she’d first met her Nicky. Henry was glad for them, of course, but his own romantic affairs were so hopeless he had to force down a groan whenever he saw them together.

  The back door opened and shut, summoned Henry from his troubled thoughts. He turned to see the duke descend the steps and approach up the stone pathway.

  “May I?” The duke gestured toward the chair across from Henry.

  Henry nodded.

  The duke sat down, and moments passed. Sparrows scratched the damp soil; a swan spread its wings in the small pond. Otherwise, all was still.

  “I realized I never asked your permission for your mother’s hand,” the duke finally said.

  Henry managed to look past the fact that this man was taking his mother away from him, and instead saw the trembling fingers, steepled against the noble Grecian nose. “Certainly, you may have it.”

  The duke’s smile began slowly, then spread until crinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes. “I know it isn’t easy. I regret the necessity of stealing your mother away so permanently.”

  Henry picked up a pebble and threw it into the pond. “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped.”

  “Yes. It’s rather too bad you can’t join us. Katriane will be an adequate chaperone, no doubt, but surely you’ll miss her and Georgie.”

  Henry froze.

  The pond, the flower beds, the herb boxes became a haze of shapes.

  “Pardon?” It didn’t sound like his own voice asking the question.

  “When they accompany us on our voyage next week. Of course it wouldn’t do for an unmarried couple to travel alone, and your mother will need help if she’s to be properly fitted for her trousseau in Paris.”

  “And just when,” the frigid voice that wasn’t his asked, “will my family be returning to me?”

  A frown creased the duke’s brow. “After the wedding. I thought you knew.”

  Henry’s mind turned from frost to steel. “Oh, but I didn’t.”

  The duke put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Come with us,” he urged.

  “That’s not possible. I have a bank to manage.”

  “Let Thomas—”

  “Thomas is efficient, but not careful. He needs someone to temper his brash ambitions.”

  The duke hesitated. “It’s only for a few months. Surely you can be away for such a short time.”

  Henry pulled his shoulder free from the warm hand and stood. “Take Alice with you.” She, at least, is certain to return to her husband. “My wife and son are going nowhere.” With a feeble smile intended to soften his words, he dep
arted the garden.

  He had a thing or two to say to Katie.

  Chapter 13

  Henry strode into the girlish room without knocking, dismissed the maid mid-brushstroke, and thrust the door shut behind her.

  Despite the rage boiling inside, he almost stifled his tirade when he saw Katie, twisted in her chair to look at him, eyes startled and vulnerable amid her riot of curls.

  Almost.

  “Might I inform you,” he seethed, “that Georgie is my child, and I will not allow you to whisk him off on a perilous voyage, with his third birthday not yet behind him.” He glared at her. “And may I ask, whether you were ever planning to tell me about this little venture?”

  Katie rose from her dressing table, chin trembling, and laid the porcelain mirror on her dresser alongside several delicate perfume bottles. She faced away from him, fumbled with her chemise, presumably securing the loose ribbons at her neck.

  He clenched his jaw at the knowledge that she considered it necessary to be so modest in his presence. Not that it did much good. Her arms were bare and white, her shapely ankles exposed beneath her long slip. Such a vision mightily jeopardized his resolve, but he refused to be moved.

  “Well?” he prompted once she’d finished.

  She turned around, the evidence of tears on her cheeks. His resolve wavered.

  “You’ll pardon me for wanting to be of assistance to your mother.” She wiped at her cheeks with the inside of her wrist. “And for not guessing you’d miss Georgie. Until this moment, I didn’t know you thought of him as much more than an obligation.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  She sniffed. “Do what?”

  He hated himself for softening, for letting her tears affect him. “You know Georgie is my son in every way that matters—and I’m not about to lose him.”