The Lost Heiress

by Roseanna M. White

  “But stealing?” Her ladyship stepped away. Perhaps she’d hop in her car and leave Deirdre to find her own way home—heaven knew it would serve her right. As would finding all her things tossed to the curb when she got there. “Did that seem harmless too? Did he pay you more for that?”

  Deirdre winced at the bitter tone. “I couldn’t get out. He turned to threats, if I tried. First that he would force me to his bed and then … then he threatened my family. Said he had a man in my village ready to burn the house to the ground.”

  “So you come to us!” The baroness spun to face her again, her face a combination of anger and pity. Her accent deepened, the French curling around her vowels and consonants as it did in those first moments when she awoke from the nightmare. “Did you not pause to think that we could have helped? That we could have protected them? Protected you?”

  Had she? No. Never. Perhaps because she couldn’t imagine they would go so far out of their way to help her—though they had just proven they would. Perhaps because she had never really believed that their good could win out over his evil. “I’m sorry, my lady. I know you have to dismiss me, at the least, perhaps even have me arrested for tampering with the mail. But I couldn’t keep lying to you.”

  If he was merciful, his lordship would take action now and not wait until they got back to Whitby Park so he could make an example of her before the rest of the staff. If she were beyond lucky, he would not involve the law, in order to keep his name from the press again.

  The baroness pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, under the sloped brim of her hat.

  “Well, well. Are the conspirators squabbling?”

  Deirdre jolted at the voice, her gaze flying about the area until it clapped upon Detective Cole. Without allowing herself to think of the audacity of it, she stepped in front of her ladyship. “Detective. Have you come to talk to my uncle? He is awake, and he saw much of what happened yesterday.”

  The man tilted his lips into a patronizing smile. “Oh, I already know what happened.”

  “Good.” She lifted her chin, even if she had to clutch her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Then you know it was an educated man what stabbed him, one he didn’t know well.”

  A condescending chuckle joined the smile. “That doesn’t much narrow it down, does it? Given that the major has been on the subcontinent for almost two decades. Which is why—” he took a step nearer, and Deirdre could see the hard light gleaming in his eyes—“I find it so very odd that you, niece to his batman, end up working for them, the house of the major’s archrival.”

  Her back stiffened. “My uncle recommended me there—he said it was the finest house he’d seen.”

  The baroness stepped to her side. “And you are better versed in ancient gossip than I supposed, Detective, if you know of that old rivalry. But let me guess—my cousins told you.”

  He inclined his head.

  “Did they also tell you of the argument between the major and his brother—their father?”

  Such darkness … so like that always in Pratt’s eyes. Deirdre shuddered.

  The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Over the diamonds. Which are by rights theirs, but which they believe you have. Their theory … Lady Berkeley … is that when the major tried to reclaim them, you had him killed.”

  Her ladyship drew herself up—but Deirdre’s gaze was snagged by a new figure striding their way, fury in His Grace’s every movement. She reached for the baroness’s hand and gave it a little tug to get her attention.

  Lady Berkeley shifted and made a quick half curtsy. “Good morning, Duke.”

  “My lady.” The duke packed a world of feeling into the greeting, though it was the detective he speared with his glare. “Detective.”

  “Your Grace.” Cole’s face went harder, a shutter coming over the gleam in his eyes. “Excuse us, but I’m engaged in official business with the baroness.”

  “No you’re not. You’re engaged upon harassing a young lady whom your superiors have verified had absolutely no motive for arranging the death of her cousin.” He jerked his head, a clear dismissal with an undertone of threat. “I suggest you return to Scotland Yard and take a look at the papers sent over by the major’s solicitor.”

  The detective held the duke’s gaze for a long moment, then glanced back to the baroness. The muscle in his jaw ticked.

  His Grace moved nearer, looming over Cole. Deirdre hadn’t thought the detective short, but in that moment he looked it. “And I suggest you tread carefully.”

  “I always do.” Cole narrowed his eyes. “What exactly is your interest in all this, Your Grace?”

  The duke lifted his brows. “You’re a detective. Figure it out.”

  “Oh, I will. Rest assured.”

  His Grace stepped aside and made a flourishing gesture indicating the detective ought to leave. “It oughtn’t to take you too long, if you know how to do your job. And do have a lovely day.”

  Cole stalked off toward a horse hitched at the far corner of the hospital. The duke watched him for a moment, then spun back to them. His face had gone hard as granite, and fury blazed brighter than ever in his eyes as he locked them on the baroness. “O’Malley, excuse us for a moment.” He took the lady’s hand and pulled her the opposite direction.

  Were it anyone else looking at the baroness with such anger, Deirdre may have refused. But she wasn’t about to get in the way of a man in love.

  Justin’s blood was a roar in his ears, his heart a thundering tempest. It had begun that morning, when he’d opened the paper to see her plastered on the front cover, with the headline of MURDER HAUNTS BARONESS BEAUTY nearly sending him into a stroke. Had her father not shown up within minutes, he would have been pounding on her door long before the nine o’clock hour she’d asked him to come. As it was, he’d spent his morning pounding on doors with Whitby instead, trying to find the solicitor that Rushworth used.

  It had done little to cool his temper. Justin pulled Brook into a poor excuse for a garden at the side of the hospital and, for lack of privacy, turned to Monegasque as he spun her to face him. “Are you insane or just stupid?”

  Not, perhaps, the best greeting if his aim were to keep her calm. But at the moment he had no desire for calm. He wanted a fight, and no one else in the world would give him the one he needed.

  She pulled her hand free and looked as though she wanted to slap him with it. “Excuse me?” Her words were in Monegasque too.

  Justin waved a hand at the world at large. “You have detectives chasing you with murder charges, a killer on the loose slaying people connected to these stupid Fire Eyes, and what do you do? You head out into the city, alone but for a maid, without ever pausing to consider for even one second that you could be next!”

  He expected her to shout. Instead, she went calm—but seething. “What do you know of it? You didn’t even bother to come this morning when I asked you to.”

  “Because your father came to my house at eight. I assumed you knew that and would wait for me—that while I was off pounding on solicitors’ doors with him, you wouldn’t be darting off on your own, trying to get yourself killed.”

  “I didn’t know.” Still, frustration overtook the realization in her eyes, and she pivoted away. “But how could you possibly expect me to sit idly by? It’s fine and good for you to put yourself into the path of all this, but if I so much as take my maid to visit her uncle, I’m either stupid or insane?”

  “You don’t think. Not about consequences. You never have.” He turned, too, and took a step to put himself in front of her again. “You chase whatever impulse seizes you, valuing your blasted independence above common sense.”

  “And what if I do?” Her eyes were ablaze, green fire spitting at him. “If it’s a fault, it’s mine, and one you’ve long known about. If you loved me like you claimed—”

  “If? You doubt me because I don’t applaud when you run headlong into danger?”

  Now the seething gave way to fuming,
and she sliced a hand through the air. “For once in your life, why can’t you accept the fact that perhaps a person isn’t wrong just because they don’t agree with you?”

  He took a step back. “When have I—”

  “When have you not? ‘You’ll not take the stage.’ ‘You’ll not race.’ ‘You’ll not get near that horse.’ You always have to be giving orders, the one in control, and it drives you mad when you’re not!” She surged forward, poking a finger into his shoulder. “Well, Duke, you’re not my father. You don’t get to dictate to me.”

  “You’re my son, Justin, not my nursemaid.” His father’s words rang in his head.

  Yet again, being blamed for caring. For wanting someone to take two minutes to think about consequences, about how a decision might affect someone else. Might affect him. How he might feel if someone drove off the road or ran pell-mell into the clutches of a murderer.

  He held his arms wide. “I guess that’s who I am. Who I’ve always been. If it’s a fault, it’s one you’ve long known about. What, then?”

  She breathed a laugh as dry as the withered flower stalk by her foot. “That would be the question, wouldn’t it?”

  The temper in his eyes went darker, calmer, more treacherous. Turned to ice.

  No. He had already lost his father—he wasn’t going to lose Brook. He couldn’t lose Brook. Not to this Fire Eyes insanity, and not because of his own mistakes. He swallowed, breathed, sent heavenward a silent prayer. “Just tell me. Tell me what you need me to be.”

  “Here.” She thrust her hand downward, pointing at the ground by her side. “I need you to be here, but you never are.”

  “I’m here.” He stepped forward, clasping her elbows.

  She wrenched free. “You’re not. Even when you are, you’re not, you’re behind that dashed wall you’ve built.”

  She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her stomach. “You won’t … ever since I came here, you …”

  When she averted her face, he caught the glistening of tears in her eyes. He reached out again, but she retreated and shook her head. “I thought I loved you. That we could make it work, but … but we don’t. We don’t work anymore. You can’t just kiss me again and set the world to rights. Maybe … maybe God only meant you to bring me here. Maybe friends is all we were meant to be.”

  The earth beneath him crumbled, opened, swallowed him into its yawning darkness. “I can’t just be your friend anymore.”

  “I know.” She held herself tighter. “I guess that means we’re … nothing.”

  He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. It was unfathomable. Because he needed her so much—how was it possible she could bid him farewell so easily?

  Yet she did. She stood there for a moment, no tears spilling over their rims, no uncertainty shaking her. And then she turned and walked away, her arms still clutched around her stomach.

  Justin could only stand there in the pathetic little garden and let his eyes slide closed. He tried to pray, but he had no words. Just a cry that came from his gut but couldn’t find purchase on his tongue. And so it echoed through him, clanging and pounding. An accusation.

  A desperate plea.

  Twenty-Six

  My lady—”

  “Don’t.” Brook didn’t even look at Deirdre as she slid into the driver’s seat of the roadster. She had already cranked it and had the key in her hands. Steady, those hands. As steady as her voice. Because inside, she’d ground to a halt. Still, if not peaceful. Too still for shaking. Too still for words.

  Deirdre said nothing more. Brook didn’t let herself wonder what she had meant to say—no doubt it was some question about what she intended to do with the knowledge that she had acted as Pratt’s spy. But Brook couldn’t think about that right now either. She could only think of pressing the clutch, the accelerator, the brake. Where to turn, when to signal. How to park, and then to put one foot in front of the other to lead her inside.

  She paused at the door but still couldn’t look at her maid. “O’Malley, when we get inside, I want you to pack—”

  “My things. I understand.”

  “No. Well, yes. But mine too. We’re going home.”

  “We …” Wisely, she said no more.

  Not in the mood to wait for a bell to be answered, Brook pushed open the door. She bypassed the drawing room with its laughter and crowds of near-strangers and headed straight for the study, where Papa was most likely to be.

  Aunt Mary was there too, leaning over his shoulder and pointing at some paper or another on the desk. They both looked up when she entered. Her aunt smiled.

  Her father, when he saw her face, stood. “What is it?”

  Words. The only ones she could find were French. “Can we go home, Papa? Please?”

  “What?” Her aunt had obviously understood, given the outrage in her eyes, though she answered in English. “Absolutely not! You are the darling of Town, you cannot possibly leave before the king’s coronation—”

  “Of course we can.” Papa’s voice was low and soft, his eyes seeing far beyond hers. “Did your Justin find you?”

  He tried, and failed, to pronounce it correctly. But his name still made a sob well up in that empty place, lodge in her throat. “He is not my Justin. He will never be. I … I want to go home.”

  “Of course.” He came around the desk and pulled her to his chest. “My darling girl.” He said no more, because he was Papa, and he understood when silence was all that could soothe.

  Aunt Mary, to her credit, held her tongue, too, and didn’t even faint. She just whisked by them. No doubt to go somewhere private to bemoan her niece’s utter ignorance of society.

  Or perhaps to get reinforcements. A minute later, when Papa drew away, Melissa was there with wide eyes. “You’re leaving?”

  Brook held out a hand for her cousin to grip, though she couldn’t manage a smile. “I have to. I don’t suppose you want to come?” She could use a friend to laugh with, to mourn with—one who may have been reserved at first but who loved her now. Who never feigned feeling just to turn on her.

  But Melissa sighed. “I can’t. Mama would have a fit—and I need to stay here and snag myself a husband.”

  “Oh, Lissa.” She tugged her in for a tight embrace. “Not out of spite. Don’t marry out of spite. You’ll be stuck with him for all your life.”

  “I know.” Melissa pulled away, her face somber. “I promise. But I will stay. You need your open spaces and ocean to cope, I need my crowds and laughter.”

  To that she could only nod. Papa, it seemed, was the only one who related to her need. So it would be just them again, and the staff who knew how she liked her coffee and sausage and to stir the fire earlier than usual in her grate.

  And a maid who would sell her secrets to a land-grubbing neighbor—but she would ignore that for now. She would get home, get settled. Then talk to Papa about Deirdre.

  If she were empty inside, should it not have made her feel lighter? But her legs, as she turned for the steps, felt heavy as despair.

  Justin exited the House of Lords and paused a moment to look up at the grand, towering facade of the palace. For years, anytime he saw Westminster’s pointed spires and gothic styling, he had dreamed of being inside its cavernous chamber, taking the seat reserved for him. Facing the throne.

  A lot of good he was doing, finally there but his mind a few crucial miles away. He wanted to focus on the laws and debates—but he couldn’t, not when Brook was still in danger … and had dismissed him so summarily.

  His feet hitched when he caught sight of the figure leaning against a shining new Austin parked a spot away from the Rolls-Royce. Maybe Worthing was waiting for his father—Justin had noted the Duke of Nottingham chatting with a few other lords of his generation after the session ended. With any luck, the son wouldn’t even notice Justin walking by. He could hope. He had, after all, spent half the night on his knees in prayer before exhaustion had claimed him. And then the other half sleeping
on his hard floor. Surely that was penance enough.

  Apparently not. Worthing straightened as Justin neared, that annoying grin on his face and his hands in his trouser pockets. “Stafford! Good day.”

  A sigh fisted in his chest. He had no fight left in him. But little patience either. “What do you want, Worthing?”

  The idiot man’s grin only grew. “To earn your eternal gratitude. She left Town this morning.”

  “What?” Justin’s feet planted themselves a few feet from Worthing, refusing to go a step farther. “For Yorkshire?”

  Worthing nodded. “Would have left yesterday afternoon, had it not taken so long to ready. But at first light …” He pulled one hand out of his pocket to illustrate his point, imitating a car driving away—complete with muted engine noises.

  Had it been Thate, and news of someone else’s leaving, Justin would have laughed. “She told you she was going though.”

  The grin turned patronizing. “Yes, you see, we take part in this bizarre social ritual called conversation. You should give it a try sometime. It’s when you exchange words—at a normal volume—for the purpose of sharing information, rather than for accusation or inflicting emotional pain.”

  Justin’s shoulders slumped. Even at that, he could muster no anger. He was too weary. “It wasn’t all me. I started it, I grant that, but—”

  “I know.” Worthing clapped a hand to his shoulders, as if they were the best of friends. “She told me what was said, and I told her she was being an idiot, that you had a perfectly valid point and that you wouldn’t have been so very fearful if you didn’t love her so much—and had you not suffered enough losses this year. But you know Brook.” He rolled his eyes and dropped his hand. “A mite stubborn, that girl.”

  He … he had defended him? To Brook? Justin stared at him for a long moment. “Why?”

  “Is she stubborn? That is a question only the Almighty can answer. But if you mean why did I say such things to her, the answer ought to be obvious.” Worthing met Justin’s gaze, held it. “She’s wrong. I don’t know why she’s so set on denying what she feels for you when it’s obvious to anyone who sees her watching you, but she’s wrong. You are meant for more than just getting her to England. God isn’t finished with the two of you yet.”