“He did what?” His shoulder jerked from under her. “Give me the key. I’m going over there—”
“And what?” Seeing the ire, so purely paternal, sparked life into her heart. “You’ll threaten him into marrying me?”
“Hardly. I’ll threaten his life if he dares to come home again.”
She nearly laughed. “Papa.”
“I’ve said it before—I’ll not give you away so soon. I won’t do it.” He looked almost, nearly serious. And it almost, nearly made her wonder if that’s what Justin wanted—to marry her.
It sent an uneasy thrill through her middle. Did she want that? Did she want a lifetime in his arms? Maybe … possibly. The kiss had been beyond anything she had dreamed. But what if they couldn’t be in love and still be friends? Was it worth the trade?
She gripped her father’s hand again. “Could we focus, please? If it isn’t too much trouble?”
He pursed his lips, one of those British glowers in place. “He hurt you.”
She dragged in a long breath. “Because everything’s changed.”
“Everything does.” The offense faded from his eyes again, and that hard-won, ready-to-be-amused peace replaced it. “That’s no reason to scare a decade off your father’s life and break his heart with your tears. Change can be so very good.”
She settled back against the couch and rested her gaze again on the crackling fire. Some change was good, yes. Coming home. Finding Papa. But what felt like a risk three months ago felt safe as a pony in contrast to this. “Sometimes. Sometimes it can tear us apart. How are we to know which is which?”
“We can’t. But we can pray.” He cradled her fingers between both his hands, effectively pulling her gaze back to his. His eyes shone with certainty. “And know that whatever comes, we’re not alone anymore. And that, my dear, certainly changes everything.”
Brook managed a smile, then looked again to the fire. Before, it had always been Justin beside her through the hard places. Her cold supposed-father ignoring her existence. Now she had Papa to work through the questions with her.
Her fingers found her necklace and freed it from the collar of the livery jacket so that she could toy with the dangling pearls. Questions, so many questions plaguing her.
And Justin still didn’t even know what they were.
Eighteen
FIVE MONTHS LATER
LATE APRIL 1911
The sun shone through the window, the birds chorused their pleasure, and Brook dug her fingers into her palm. He would not leave the quicker if she shouted. Tempting as it was. “You cannot honestly have expected anything different, Lord Pratt.”
He prowled about her mother’s drawing room, a stain of shadow against the jewel-toned fabrics. Though he smiled, it could shift to a snarl at any moment. “I beg you to reconsider, my lady. I can give you all you could ask for in a husband. Independence, respect, affection. And you could stay here, in the area you’ve come to love so well. When we combine our estates, we will be the single greatest landowner in Yorkshire.”
When? When they combined their estates?
Un. Deux. Trois. She dragged in a seething breath. “We both know it’s that property you want, not me.”
His gaze raked over her much as it had her first morning by the sea. At once hot and cold. Lingering and dismissive. “I assure you, my lady. I want both.”
Had he been close enough, she would have slapped him. “Watch yourself, Pratt.”
“I would rather watch you.” Kitty would call the note in his voice charm—she must have been deaf to the conceit and greed. He slid around the wingback chair with the look of a panther readying to pounce. “Come, darling. Who else would overlook your eccentricities?”
She bristled when he motioned toward her trousers. She only wore them riding, and only since the split skirt was ruined with blood and mud.
“I don’t much care if anyone ‘overlooks my eccentricities.’” She planted her hands on her hips to prove it. “Let them think what they will. I will be who I am, and I will make no apologies. And if that means I eschew society and forgo the marriage mart … well, what a shame.”
Something flashed in his eyes, dark and impatient. “Do you think Stafford will come home and sweep you into his arms and make you a duchess?”
Silence was the only answer she would give, along with a glare she hoped was stony and cool.
But her fingers dug deeper into her palms.
“But why would you want that?” The corners of his lips pulled up, though she wouldn’t insult the word smile by calling it such. “You’ve the shared history, I realize. But you must have seen the man he’s become. No room in his heart for anything but the duchy. He’ll be like his uncle—cold, hard, unbending. A wife for the sole purpose of providing heirs, a mistress on the side whom he can dismiss at will. Safe and controlled and measurable.”
He prowled closer. “Does that sound like you, my dear? Safe and controlled and measurable?”
What she wouldn’t give for another six inches in height, so she could meet him eye to eye. A narrowing of them would have to suffice, and a tilt of her chin. “You know nothing of us.” And given that she didn’t know what she wanted when it came to Justin, Pratt certainly couldn’t.
“I know you write to him every week. I know he hasn’t written back to you even once.”
A tempest crashed over her. More aimed at Justin than Pratt, but as he wasn’t handy, she unleashed it where she might and slashed a hand through the air. “How could you possibly—”
“Have you never actually spoken to the postmaster in Eden Dale? Friendly chap. Talkative.”
She drilled a hand into his shoulder, pushing him back a step. “To whom I write is none of your concern!”
His dark eyes snapped, and he closed his hand around her wrist. “Now who had better watch herself?”
Stupid. She should have retreated. Now when she tugged, his fingers tightened. “Release me.”
Instead he raised her wrist higher and placed a kiss on her palm.
Her skin turned to ice. Kitty was due any minute, and if she came in upon this, it would break her heart. “I said—”
“I heard you.” So calm, so mocking. He lowered her wrist but didn’t let it go. “Or do you think to turn to Worthing? Don’t put your hopes there, my darling. He may flirt with you as he does every other female, but he doesn’t intend to marry you. His estates are still flush from his mother’s dowry, and he enjoys the hunt far too much to settle with just one woman before he must.”
Her nerves snapped. Without question, Brice flirted too much, with everyone. But she and Papa had stayed two weeks in Sussex with the Duke of Nottingham’s family last month, and she had spent countless hours talking with Brice. There were moments when it wasn’t just flirtation. Moments when he seemed to gaze into her very soul. Moments when she wondered if his lips would ignite the same fire Justin’s had … and moments when she was sure they wouldn’t. “You know nothing about my thoughts. Don’t hazard to guess.”
“I know more than you think.” He finally unfurled his fingers, letting her go. Stepped to the window. “I’m not a bad option for you, Brook.”
She had never given him permission to call her that—but pointing it out felt weak. “I don’t need an option, Lord Pratt.”
His eyes narrowed at whatever he saw out the window. “I daresay you will when Kitty is through and your reputation is slashed to ribbons.” He nodded in the direction of the drive.
“You think to frighten me with that threat? Kitty is one of my dearest friends.” Brook moved to a different window and spotted the familiar Rushworth carriage. An open one today, displaying Catherine in all her splendor. No Rush beside her, which meant no leash on her tongue. It always made for a more entertaining visit. Though it did occasionally make Brook wonder what her cousin said about her when she wasn’t in the room.
“My cue to disappear, I think.” Pratt spun and reached for the hat he had tossed to a table when he barged in
fifteen minutes prior. “And if you would deny having seen me …”
Brook sent a pointed look toward the stables, in front of which his Benz was parked.
“Say I’ve been with your father the whole time.”
“And why should I?”
“I saved your life—now I’m calling in the favor.”
Justin would have said it with irony. Brice with mirth. Pratt delivered it with nothing but harsh sobriety as he reached the door in a full-length stride.
She shook her head and sent a glance to the painting from which her mother reigned. Forever captured in the Frederick Worth gown Brook had discovered in her wardrobe, still beautiful with its deep green fabric shot through with gold. In the painting she wore the emerald and diamond necklace Papa had first shown Brook.
And the bracelet she had worn to the hunt. The one Lady Catherine had admired. Rubies and diamonds.
Actually, Kitty always took note of whatever jewelry she wore. In part it seemed polite interest, but Brook had begun to wonder if her cousin believed those tales her mother told … or if, perhaps, Henry Rushworth—who had never replied to their letter—had taken something from his brother and sister-in-law and sent it to Brook’s mother. It would explain the letter—and Catherine’s veiled interest.
Fire eyes. Rubies? Diamonds? It seemed it ought to be one or the other. Unfortunately, that barely narrowed down her mother’s collection.
Mr. Graham cleared his throat from the drawing room door. “Lady Catherine Rushworth, my lady.”
Brook glanced down at her trousers. She could change first, but she still hoped to have time for a ride this afternoon. “Show her in, Mr. Graham. Thank you.”
The butler bowed and disappeared.
It was scarcely half a minute later that Catherine stormed in. “Where is he?”
Brook sighed. “And a sunny good-day to you, cousin.”
Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes. “I saw his car.”
Brook nodded, pressing her lips together. When would Catherine see that Pratt wasn’t worth her affection? That he would do nothing but hurt her? “I don’t know where he might have gone.” For all she knew he was cataloguing the silverware he intended to add to his estate. Though if he tried it, Mr. Graham might personally give him the heave-ho.
Worth seeing, that.
Catherine advanced with startling speed. No amusement sparked in her green eyes today, no promise of biting jests or shared laughter. Just fierceness. Desperation. “You’ll not have him.”
The him must still be Pratt. Though why Catherine thought Brook wanted him, she couldn’t say. “On that we agree. You know I would never—”
“Don’t try to placate me. I know very well he was going to propose before you leave for London, but I am the one he will be marrying. Make no mistake about that.”
Brook almost put tongue to a flippant answer, but that glint in her cousin’s eyes stilled it, made her opt for seriousness instead. “Catherine, I assure you I have no intention of marrying Pratt—or any man who is out only to get Whitby Park.”
Catherine lifted her chin. “At least you have brains enough to know that’s all he wants—all any man will want, once the gossips in London realize you’re cut from the same cloth as Whitby.”
Brook took an abrupt step back. “Why are you acting this way? I thought—”
“We were friends?” The glint in her eyes was ice, hard and deadly. “For a girl raised by a prince’s mistress, you can be charmingly naïve, cousin.”
Brook staggered another step back. She had spent more time with Catherine than with Regan or Melissa, had thought … All these months, she had ignored Papa’s mutters about the Rushworths, had chalked it up to a lingering animosity toward his would-be rival for Mother’s affections. “What are you saying?”
Catherine shadowed her, no light in her eyes to speak of life. No curve to her lips to say she was joking now. “I’ve suffered your company long enough. Listening to you go on and on about that stupid beast of yours, your ridiculous cars, your precious duke—and now Worthing to boot. But I’ve had enough. Your family has taken enough from mine. First the Fire Eyes, and now Pratt.”
Though the glare hadn’t cooled Brook’s blood, the words did. She felt sculpted from ice. “The Fire Eyes?” She couldn’t move. It hurt too much. “You? You were the one who hired him?”
Lady Catherine lifted her perfectly plucked brows. “Hired whom, darling? I can’t think what in the world you’re talking about.”
Brook’s fingers curled into her palms, finding the marks they had left from Pratt’s visit. The Rushworths had been in the area that night, hadn’t they? Somewhere in the muddle of memory, she remembered spotting their carriage leaving Delmore. But how, how could her cousin, her friend have a part in it? “I could have been killed, and I don’t even know what these Fire Eyes are!”
Before she saw it coming, a hand connected with her cheek, and Catherine followed it with a push that sent Brook stumbling back into a chair. “How stupid do you think I am?”
She stood again, though slowly, ready to defend herself this time.
Her cousin spun away. “Did you honestly think it would look like a coincidence, sending your duke off as you did, to the very place they were found? You’re just like your mother.” She wheeled around again, looking as though she would lunge.
Brook stood prepared.
Perhaps that was why Catherine stopped and contented herself with another snarl. “You see how it ended for her. Don’t make the same mistake, my lady.”
Now it was Brook who lunged, though Catherine charged for the door. She caught her by the elbow in the threshold. “What are you talking about? What happened to my mother?”
Catherine jerked her arm free and produced a heartless smile. “How am I to know, cousin? I was not yet two when she suffered that unfortunate accident. But I will say this.” She stepped into the hall and dragged a scathing glare down Brook’s riding habit. “Your family seems to have bad luck around horses. Perhaps you ought to take more care.”
Oh, she would take care all right. She would take care to get to the bottom of whatever this Fire Eyes business was—and would assuredly not be intimidated by the likes of Catherine Rushworth.
Tempted to slam every door she could find, Brook stormed for the stables. And told herself the tears burning her eyes were from anger and not hurt at the betrayal.
Deirdre would have screamed, had the hand over her mouth not cut off all her air. It took her only a moment to recognize the hand, the arm, the familiar cologne. Pratt. Her panic increased when he pushed her into the empty parlor and clicked the door shut behind them.
Drawing a steadying breath in through her nose, she reminded herself that he was like any other beast, able to sense her fear. Calm was her only hope.
His fingers peeled off her mouth, and he spun her around. Eyes hard and dark as jet, he backed her into the wall and trapped her there with an arm on either side of her. “I’m done being kind.” His voice came out low and deadly. “She refused me.”
Deirdre’s whole body shuddered. “I tried. She is willful and—”
“I know what she is.” One of his hands closed around her throat. Not squeezing, but making it clear he could. His gaze burned into hers. “I have a man in your village, ready to light a torch and toss it to the O’Malley roof one night if I but give the word.”
He didn’t need to tighten his fingers—his words choked her, and she had to shut her eyes against the sight of him. Though then the images of her mum and siblings swam before her, from strong, near-grown Killian toiling in the fields, all the way down to little Molly. “What do you want from me? I’ve done all you asked.” Stolen things. Told him things her ladyship would hate her for telling. She would get sacked, possibly arrested, if ever the Whitbys discovered it.
But she had risked it, because she had known his favor would turn to threat if she refused. That the wee ones would pay for it if she tried to do the noble thing.
He
eased away, dropped his hand. “Nothing yet. But when I ask, I want no questions. I want obedience. Are we understood?”
Her stomach churned, and bile rose in her throat. A blank check for evil—that was what he demanded.
And she had no choice but to nod.
Justin pressed the brake longer than necessary. Waited, though the carriage had long since passed, to turn the wheel. And when turn it he did, it was with a sigh. Brook must be furious with him—no, worse than furious. Hot anger would have been banked, cooled.
She would be ice.
Eden Dale lay behind him, Whitby yet ahead, but he let the Rolls-Royce motor its way up the long, winding drive to Whitby Park. He had already done his homework. Phoned Thate … and Cayton … and Aunt Caro to be sure no one had heard conflicting information. To guarantee that, indeed, the Whitbys would be at home yet today, not already in London for the Season.
That was part of the plan. Catch her here, where she was most comfortable. Where he could more easily get her alone.
That was critical. Utterly critical to his plan. Given the beautiful spring day and the looming departure, he was hopeful he could find her out of doors. The gardens … the seafront … anywhere he could come upon her by herself. Where he could charge right up to her, turn her around, and kiss her.
By his calculations, he may well end up with a fist to his gut or a palm slapping his cheek. But that would be fine—it would get her back to fury, take her from ice to fire. From there, it would be a matter of apology and confession.
“Please, Lord.” His chest had felt so tight for months. Too many times he had relived that kiss outside his townhouse, the way she had clung to him, met him measure for measure. He could win her yet. He could. There was a fire inside her for him, and he could fan it, turn one kind of love into another.
He hoped. But then, all the letters he wrote, pouring out his heart … and she had never written him back. Not except that once—a letter that had made precious little sense. A collection of still and again and yet that appealed to a context he didn’t have.
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