The Lost Heiress

by Roseanna M. White

  Which left him only one choice. He must put Stafford in order first. And trust that if the Lord meant Brook for his wife, she would be waiting for him once he had.

  He trailed the duke out of Cayton’s study, telling himself not to worry. She had always waited before. Always welcomed him to Monaco with sunshine and a kiss on each cheek. Had always made it clear he was her favorite person, aside from the prince. There was no reason to think she couldn’t fall in love as he had. No reason to think another absence from her would change the bond between them, just because she was in England now.

  With her family.

  In a new home.

  With all the nation soon to be clamoring for a peek at the princess-turned-baroness, and sure to be enamored with what they would see.

  No, no reason at all to doubt.

  The room felt familiar. Brook trailed a finger along the edge of a shelf as her eyes drank in the honeyed woods, the polished metals, the touches of color and play of light. It smelled of faded flowers and crisp air, of comfort.

  Her mother’s chamber felt familiar, but not as Whitby Park itself had when she first saw it. It stirred no imagined memories. What it brought to mind, rather, was the feel inside the sanctuary of Cathédrale Notre-Dame-Immaculée. Reverence. Sanctity. A heritage preserved with tireless care.

  The dressing table still sat in the corner, no doubt as Lady Whitby left it. A hairbrush beside a bottle of perfume, at an odd angle. A necklace glinting gold as it snaked around a pot of powder. A book still sat on the bedside table, a slip of paper marking a page halfway through. The Count of Monte Cristo.

  Brook smiled, though it faded fast. She had read the novel two years ago. It seemed her mother had never finished it.

  She stifled the urge to peek into the armoire. Were she to do so, she suspected she would see a rainbow of old-fashioned gowns.

  Time here had stood still.

  Whitby halted by her side, regarding the room with the solemnity of the sanctuary’s priest. “Mary accuses me of making it a shrine. I’ve never known how to explain to her that I did not keep it just so for my own benefit.” He moved to a chair with a length of wispy fabric draping the arm. Gathering it in one hand, he seemed to look into the past, perhaps to the ivory shoulders it had once graced. Then he let it slide back to its place. Just so. “But when I came in here after her funeral … or for months after … I felt that—that it was not finished. There were too many questions unanswered. And you, still missing. How was I to move on? It would have been wrong.”

  Brook slid to the window and touched the fleur-de-lis pattern in the velvet drapes. She looked out but scarcely saw the maze cut into the shrubbery. Instead of the midday sun, she saw darkness. Heard thunder rumbling and felt the sizzle of lightning.

  That dream had plagued her again last night.

  “Are you all right, Brook?”

  “Hmm?” Her hand had found her pearls again.

  Her father’s gaze focused upon her fingers, and a corner of his mouth turned up. “Your mother used to do that too, when she was lost in thought.”

  A thought that brought the burning back to her eyes. “With this necklace?”

  He frowned. “That one?”

  “Maman said she was wearing it that night.” She touched the pearls and then lowered her hand.

  Her father’s face went taut. “What else did she say? Did she explain why … why Lizzie did not send you back to me?”

  “No.” Perhaps it was in the journal. She should look, for his sake if not her own. Though—she frowned—she could not recall seeing it among her things since she arrived. Mademoiselle Ragusa must have slid it somewhere for safekeeping, but where? “She said only that we were in a carriage accident. That my mother took this necklace off and made her swear to keep it for me. I … I suppose I always assumed it was from you.”

  He straightened his shoulders, forcing the torment from his face, and stepped closer. Narrowing his eyes upon it, he shook his head. “I never bought her pearls. They were, at the time, more for an unwed girl than a married woman. Perhaps her family gave it to her, though. For her debut, likely.”

  And why would that make disappointment seep through Brook? “You do not recognize it?”

  Amusement glinted now in his gaze. “Lizzie had no shortage of pretty baubles. And I took great pleasure in showering her with more. Here.” He motioned Brook to the left, toward a door he opened to reveal a dressing room bursting with those gowns in every shade and hue, the leg-o’-mutton sleeves the height of fashion eighteen years before. While Brook let her eyes feast on the fabrics and colors, her father headed straight for a cabinet built into the corner and pulled open the drawers. When he waved a hand at them, she noted the harder rainbow within. Rubies and topaz and emeralds and sapphires, garnets and jet and diamonds.

  More memories assaulted her. Not of this room, this mother. Non, now her mind went back to the little flat she had shared with Maman in Monaco-Ville before her death. She remembered playing with Collette’s necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Asking for the name of each jewel. Holding it up in chubby fingers to see how it would look on her.

  And Maman would laugh that crystalline laugh, would sing the names of the gems to her. Would refuse to answer her questions of where each piece came from.

  Now Brook was old enough to understand that Collette had once accepted such gifts from wealthy patrons like Prince Louis. But she had given up such a life to be Brook’s mother. To raise her with a better example.

  Whitby lifted a collar necklace heavy with diamonds and emeralds. “I gave Lizzie this to celebrate our first anniversary. To match her eyes. The color of emeralds, with the light of diamonds.”

  Brook’s heart ached for him. His tone was still so full of love. Of the pain of loss. How could he have survived so long without his Lizzie? “It’s lovely.”

  His expression shifted, and his smile seemed lighter. “It is yours now. All of them are.”

  “Non. Je ne peux pas.” She stepped back too quickly and knocked her heels into the door, sending it into the wall with a bang.

  Her father looked at her as though she had spoken in Greek instead of French. “Why can you not? I certainly am not going to wear them.”

  A breath of laughter escaped, despite herself. Still, she could not lay hold of English and spoke in French. “Tout le mond pensera …”

  He lifted a brow. “What does it matter what everyone thinks? Yes, plenty will declare that you have come back solely to inherit my fortune. But is that why you came home?”

  He asked the question with no doubt in his tone. But with discerning eyes. Eyes that had seen through imposters, eyes that had continually scanned the horizon for his lost daughter.

  Brook sighed and shook her head. “But I don’t want to bring scandal and gossip down upon you.”

  He snorted a laugh and put the necklace back, picking up a shorter string of diamonds in its stead. “I am an old favorite of the gossip-hounds. Eccentric Whitby, the recluse of North Yorkshire. According to your aunt, I have been seen haunting the abbey’s ruins along with all the other ghosts, prowling the roads waiting for your mother’s carriage to appear, and grabbing random blond children in the streets to see if they are my missing child.” He held up the bracelet, indicated her wrist.

  She stretched it out and let him fasten on the clusters of diamonds.

  “Poppycock, of course. I only haunted the abbey once and couldn’t tolerate the draft. I simply had to swear off it.” He put on that crooked smile again and dropped his hands with a nod. “There. It suits you well. And she would be glad to know you have it. That piece has been around, I think, since the first Baroness of Berkeley.”

  Brook let her wrist fall to her side, let the bracelet come to a glimmering rest against her hand. The prince had given her jewels before, but she had rarely worn anything more than the pearl necklace. All she had ever wanted was her own place. Her own things. Her own identity.

  She had never known what those were.
“So long as you are certain. I have lived long enough on a borrowed name.”

  He motioned her back out of the dressing room. “Then take the one that is yours—it has been waiting for you all this time.”

  She stepped back into her mother’s room, surrounded by her mother’s things. And realized that he hadn’t kept the room just so for himself—he had kept it for her. So that when she came home, she would find bits and pieces of the mother she had lost.

  And the father who loved her enough to preserve it for her. A nod was all she could manage.

  He must have spoken the language of nods well. He returned it with one of his own and led her back into the hallway, to the next door down. His room, she knew, and when he motioned her to follow, she stepped inside.

  In many ways it was like the prince’s chambers. That same masculine presence, the lingering scent of shaving soap, the glass case of cufflinks bright against deep colors. But here, the windows weren’t open to a warm, salt-tinged Mediterranean breeze, she couldn’t look out to see terra-cotta roofs lining the streets. Couldn’t hear the music of shouting, laughing tourists, street performers, and bustling city life. She saw only green through the glass, heard only the muted chirping of birds.

  She halted a step inside while Whitby strode directly to a chest of drawers against the far wall. Opening the third drawer, he moved aside some folded fabric and withdrew an ornate cigar box. He put the drawer to rights and was in front of her in the next moment, the box outstretched.

  She knew it must be the letters from her mother. And though she still felt a little odd at the thought of reading them, it was obviously important to him that she do so. That she know their story so she could understand her own.

  “Thank you.” Such feeble words. But they were all she had, so she said them again as if to seal them. She offered him a smile and lifted the box. “I shall go and put them in my room. Then we can meet in the library?”

  His smile was warm, the long-borne pain hidden again under fresh joy. “Perfect.”

  She hurried down the corridor, along another, along the maze of them until she reached the Green Room. Whitby had said they would move her to the family wing tomorrow, into the room that had always been meant to be hers. So she wasn’t surprised to find Deirdre in her chamber, refolding and packing all the gowns that had only been out of her trunk for a few days. With a brief smile of acknowledgment, Brook bypassed her and went to the dressing room.

  The journal had been in the bottom of her trunk. But if the mademoiselle were putting it away, she would likely store it with the letters—she knew they were her maman’s, and that the book was too. It would be the logical place for them. But no leather peeked out. She didn’t see it on any shelf, or in any drawer in here. Perplexed, Brook set the new collection of missives down and headed back to her bedroom. With her regular reading, perhaps? Dracula or La Bible? Both of those tomes rested on her bedside table … but no journal.

  Deirdre cleared her throat. “Can I help you find something, my lady?”

  Brook sighed. “Yes, perhaps you’ve seen it. I had a leather journal in my trunk, an old one. It was my maman’s.”

  The maid’s face remained blank. “A journal? I can’t recall seeing it, my lady. But I shall keep an eye out for it as I repack everything.”

  Brook couldn’t have lost it. She knew she had packed it, she had put it in the trunk first thing, before Odette had added her gowns. Casting her gaze around the room again, she nodded. “Thank you. It must be here somewhere. I haven’t even read it yet, I …” She shouldn’t blabber about it to the staff. Summoning a smile, she nodded Deirdre back to her task. “I’m sure you’ll find it as you pack, thank you. Will you let me know when you do? I’ll be in the library.”

  With Deirdre’s quiet assurances following her out, Brook slipped into the hallway again. So much for being able to offer her father answers. Apparently they would have to wait for another day.

  Eleven

  Deirdre had finally managed to escape the house, and without anyone making her wait so they could walk to the village together. Not that she would have minded Hiram’s company, but she needed the time to clear her head.

  The rain poured down in earnest. Her half boots would be a muddy mess, and though she had donned her oiled cape and had her brolly opened above her, every time the wind gusted she got a face full of water.

  And naturally, when she reached the crossroads there was a carriage bearing down, ready to slosh by and send that entire puddle upon her. She backed up, hopefully out of splashing distance.

  The carriage pulled to a halt. For a moment she thought it must be someone in need of direction—then she saw the dark scowl on the man that swung open the door. Pratt. “Have you got your days confused, my lovely?” Not giving her time to answer, he jerked his head. “Get in. And make it quick.”

  She told herself to be grateful for the escape from the rain. Though he would likely deduct the price of cleaning up her mud from her next payment. With a glance over her shoulder to be sure no one would see, she closed her umbrella and hoisted herself up.

  The interior was dim and smelled of spice and rain. Pratt tapped the ceiling to order the driver onward, never taking his eyes from her. “I expect you have an excuse for missing our rendezvous yesterday.”

  Her umbrella was dripping a lake onto his floor. “The Duke of Stafford came unexpectedly. I could not be spared.”

  “The Duke of Stafford.” His glare chased away the light. “Why?”

  As if she dared to interpret the mind of a duke. “On his way to Azerley Hall, he said. Thought to stop in for tea so he could meet the new baroness and Lady Melissa, whom your friend Cayton could scarcely take his eyes from.”

  “Is it official, then? Whitby has accepted this performer’s daughter as his own?”

  She nodded, not bothering to ask how he knew that much, lurking around as he always did. “Although … you know French, don’t you, my lord?”

  His answer was the arch of a dark brow.

  Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea. But she had already smuggled the book out in her handbag, she might as well see it through. She drew out the leather journal. “Her ladyship had this with her. I thought …”

  “Leave the thinking to me.” He snatched it from her hands though, and flipped to the first page. The way his gaze darkened, she couldn’t be sure if the words he found pleased or angered him. “This isn’t the baroness’s.”

  “The singer’s. The baroness hasn’t even read it yet.”

  There, his lips turned up.

  Because she figured it would only improve his mood, she added, “I am to be her lady’s maid. His lordship will announce it after prayers tomorrow.”

  “Moving up in the world, are we?” Yet his gaze said she was worth no more than ever. “Your instincts were good with this. And you’ll be even more useful now. Earn her trust. And pay especial attention to her relations with Abingdon—I won’t have him marrying her before I can so much as get a proper introduction.”

  She hesitated, reached halfway out. “The journal, my lord. I need it back, to return to her things. She was looking for it yesterday. If you could just take a peek to see if it verifies the story she told …”

  That quickly, his mood turned. “My French is not so flawless that I can just glance at it. I’ll read it at Delmore and return it when I am through.”

  Unease clawed at her, but she knew better than to argue—it would only make him more determined. She cast around for something to distract him before he decided to keep it forever. “Lady Ramsey is throwing a house party in a fortnight’s time, at Whitby Park. You are to be invited.”

  His smile reemerged. “Good.” Eden Dale was already coming into view, and Lord Pratt smacked the roof again, calling out, “Stop here!” Quiet and cold, he added to her, “Can’t be seen together, can we?”

  “No, of course not.” If only she had her old bin of brushes and cloths so she could wipe up the mess. “So sorry for the mud,
your lordship.”

  “I have servants to clean it.” Quick as a snake, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to his side of the carriage, pressed his mouth to hers.

  More poison than kiss, more shackles than embrace. She endured it—and promised herself a thorough scrubbing when she got home.

  He chuckled as he pulled away. “I saw her, you know, the other morning. She is nearly as beautiful as you.” He dragged his finger down the side of her face, from temple to chin. “It will not be a hardship to marry her. And even less of one knowing you come with her.”

  Deirdre prayed he wouldn’t detect her shudder. She said nothing. But when he let her go, she lunged for the door and exited with more speed than grace.

  His laugh joined with rumbling wheels and pounding rain as the carriage rolled on again.

  She had left her umbrella inside. And deemed getting wet an even trade for escaping him.

  The horse was black as midnight and skittish as a phantom. Brook knew the moment she stepped into the stables and clapped her gaze upon the stallion that he would be her mount of choice. She had little use for a docile horse—when she rode, it was to give herself over to wind and earth and sky, to lay bare her soul to the Father who had crafted both beast and land across which it flew. When she rode, it was to push herself to the edge of reason and safety.

  When she rode, she lived.

  The stable master slurred some response to her question of the horse’s name that she could scarcely understand, so thick was his accent. The groom interpreted with, “Him? Nay, milady, you don’t be wanting Oscuro.”

  “Oscuro.” She whispered the name, but not as he had done, with the dreadful British enunciation. She accented it as the Italian dictated. Oscuro, the unknown darkness.

  Perhaps the horse knew his name had been said wrong all this time, for he tossed his black mane and nickered. Of course, he also reared up and pawed.

  She made for his end stall.

  “He ain’t tame, milady!” The groom jogged to her side. “He was bred for the races, but he wouldna tolerate a rider. Broke his trainer’s leg, he did. His lordship’s only keeping him to stud.”