An Heiress at Heart

by Jennifer Delamere

  The complete subjugation of her life into Ria’s was the only possible course. As Ria, she might at least find a way to make peace with this man. That would be her goal. She found she wanted to win this man’s respect. Only as Ria did she have a chance of making that happen.

  *

  She is lovely, Geoffrey thought. He could not deny it. Her gray gown, supposedly the dress of a young widow, only served to accentuate her violet-blue eyes. The area around the cut on her forehead was still bruised and purple, but even that could not detract from her beauty.

  Her skin was clear, but not pale. She had spent time in the sun. He dropped his eyes to inspect the cool hand in his. It was softer now than when he’d first held it. The calluses had begun to fade as Ria had been given time to rest and heal.

  Her polite and collected demeanor was a sharp contrast to the last time he had seen her, barely conscious and flushed with fever.

  She seemed to be working hard to make a good impression on him. “I must thank you for what you did for me.” She smiled at him, no doubt attempting to win him over with her beauty, as she had done with Edward.

  He steeled himself against its effects. He was not so easily taken in as his brother. He said, “You wish to thank me for running you over?”

  “I was at fault, since I walked into your path,” she responded with self-composure. “I’m grateful that you acted as swiftly as you did.”

  There was strength behind those riveting eyes—something Geoffrey certainly had not anticipated. He had a sudden flash of understanding of why his brother left everything behind to be with her. He was stunned as the thought came, unbidden, that he, too, might follow those eyes halfway around the world and not regret it.

  Geoffrey quelled the thought with a stern reminder to himself of the hard facts. Edward had allowed his passions to get the better of him, and Ria had been just as guilty for leading him to do it. Perhaps they had been enthralled with the idea of relinquishing all else for the sake of “true love.” In truth, what they had left behind were honor and propriety, and they had gained nothing for it but heartache and disaster. Geoffrey had many shortcomings, as he was well aware; but falling prey to foolish fancies was not one of them. He would not allow it to be.

  He let go of her hand and stepped back.

  Ria must have perceived the coldness behind his withdrawal. Undaunted, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. He was utterly unprepared for what she said next. “William must still be very angry, I suppose.”

  Geoffrey took a sharp intake of breath. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I hope he is not still bitter about what happened between us. I believe he knew as well as I that we would not be happy together. No doubt he is glad he married Annabel Harris instead.”

  Geoffrey stared at her.

  Evidently she misunderstood the reason for his stunned expression. She said, “I know about the marriage. I read about it in the society columns.”

  Geoffrey threw a confused look at Lady Thornborough. “Did you not tell her what happened?”

  “I thought it better to wait until today,” she replied. “Ria has been so frail. I thought the news could wait until we were all together.”

  Ria looked back and forth between them. “What have you not told me?”

  Lady Thornborough put a handkerchief delicately up to one eye. Even James cleared his throat and looked away.

  Geoffrey knew it was his duty to say it. “William is dead, Ria. He died last summer of scarlet fever. I suppose you missed that tidbit in the society columns.”

  Ria moaned softly, bringing a hand to her chest. The apparent depth of her grief was more than Geoffrey would have expected, given her cavalier treatment of William all those years ago. Perhaps she was realizing that by not returning to England sooner, she and Edward had given up the opportunity for a grand title.

  She swayed a little. Afraid she might faint, Geoffrey stepped forward and took her arm in his. Instantly he regretted the move. She was too close to him now, her nearness more powerful than he could have imagined. Her warmth radiated through the silk sleeve of her dress and spread like a thunderbolt through his body. Her bowed head came just to the level of his chin, and he found himself taking in the gleam of her blond curls. She smelled of fresh roses—a scent he had never found intoxicating until now.

  Lady Thornborough held out a hand. “Come and sit down, Ria. You must be mindful of your health.”

  Geoffrey knew he should help Ria to the sofa, but he found himself unable to move.

  James stepped forward and gently took hold of Ria’s free arm. “Please. Allow me.”

  Ria released her hold on Geoffrey. As she moved away from him, all the warmth seemed to go with her, leaving him chilled and yet somehow freeing up his mind to work again.

  He watched as James led Ria across the room to join Lady Thornborough. Even now, in a subdued mood, she moved with a grace that did not appear conscious or affected. He had always pictured Ria as a silly and headstrong girl. She had, after all, thrown away the opportunity to become a baroness in order to run away with a man whose prospects were far from certain. It was difficult to match that image with the woman in front of him. Perhaps maturity had been forced upon her by the events that had followed.

  On the other hand, he reminded himself with a mental shake, given the wildly unorthodox way she’d arrived on Lady Thornborough’s doorstep, perhaps she was not so changed after all.

  When Ria was seated, she asked, “What has become of Annabel?”

  “My sister-in-law preceded her husband in death by about twelve hours,” Geoffrey said uncompromisingly. He’d been hit hard by these deaths, and he saw no point in trying to soften the blow for Ria.

  Her mouth fell open in shock. “William and Annabel are dead?”

  Lady Thornborough patted her hand. “I knew you would take the news hard, my dear. That is why we waited.”

  “William and Annabel are dead,” Ria repeated quietly, as if trying to convince herself of the truth of it. She looked at Geoffrey, understanding dawning in her eyes. “You are Lord Somerville.”

  “That’s right, cousin,” James said. “He has been so for several months now.”

  “Several months?” Ria’s eyes narrowed. “How could that be? You did not yet know what happened to Edward.”

  “It was a conundrum,” Geoffrey acknowledged, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “What to do about a missing baron? A man whom no one has seen nor heard from in ten years? A man who by all accounts was dead. What do you suppose I should have done?”

  “Did you not even attempt to find him—to find us?”

  “Would you like me to give you a detailed account of the time and money we spent searching for you? Shall I describe each painful step we took, searching towns, cities, and ships’ manifests? Or will you have the decency to spare me on this point?”

  “If only we had known,” Ria said, her expression wavering between anger and compassion.

  “You most certainly would have,” Geoffrey returned, “if we had known where you were.”

  Ria dropped her eyes. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” Her tone did not match the affirmation of her words.

  “Do you doubt me?” Geoffrey demanded, irritated at being put on the defensive. After the hell he’d been through, he was not about to let this woman judge him. “Do you think I wanted this? Do you think I take pleasure in the title? I most certainly do not.”

  “That much is evident,” James said. “I must say you are taking entirely too slowly to the benefits of your position.”

  Geoffrey ignored James’s attempt to lighten the situation. He kept his gaze squarely on Ria. “Edward was already dead in the eyes of the law. Upon William’s demise, there was nothing left to do but to make it official. It is not what I would have wished. But it was what I had to do. Duty comes first. You would benefit by remembering that in future.”

  Ria’s mouth set in grim determination. “I am fully aware of my duty. That
is why I am here.”

  “Then do it,” he snapped. After all the years that had passed without knowing what had happened to Edward, he thought he would go mad if he had to wait even one hour longer. “Tell us where you’ve been, and what has brought about Edward’s death. And why, in all this time, you never once saw fit to contact us.”

  Chapter 8

  Ria’s gaze was locked on him now. The smiles she had given him earlier had vanished.

  James dropped into the wingback chair. “I do believe Ria is willing to tell us everything, Geoffrey, if we will give her the opportunity.” He leaned forward and propped his chin on his hands, looking at Ria as though he were at the theater and an exciting play was about to begin.

  Lady Thornborough motioned Geoffrey to another chair. “May I suggest that you sit down as well, Lord Somerville? We must allow cooler heads to prevail.”

  She phrased it as a request, but Geoffrey did not miss the implied command. This was a woman who was used to being obeyed—especially in her own home. Geoffrey did his best to suppress his agitation as he moved to the chair she indicated. He chided himself for allowing his anger to overrun the normally charitable aspects of his nature. Patience was a virtue, but the high demands of the previous weeks had caused him to run short on supply.

  “I will begin with your question, Geoffrey,” Ria said, her voice steady. “You asked why we didn’t contact you. But we had. Edward and I did send word from Scotland that we were married.”

  “We never received such a letter,” Geoffrey said.

  She frowned. “I know that now. The letters must have gotten lost, or were never posted.”

  “You didn’t post them yourself?”

  “No. We were rushing to board the ship, and had no time. Edward gave the packet of letters to a man on the docks—a sailor from another ship, I think it was. He seemed to me a rather disreputable-looking fellow, but Edward gave him the letters and the money, and he said he would post the letters for us. For all we know, he may well have discarded the letters and pocketed the money for himself.”

  “Once again we see Edward’s spectacular ability to make bad decisions,” Geoffrey said. “Was that the only time you wrote to us?”

  “Yes. We were stunned not to hear from you. We had left instructions where to reach us in Sydney. I suggested to Edward that maybe something had happened to the letters. I felt we should write again, but Edward was too proud. He said we would wait until we were properly established. He knew his family thought him incapable of succeeding on his own, and he wanted to prove them wrong.”

  “But, Ria, how on earth did you end up in Australia?” James asked. “You must tell us every detail.”

  “Of course.” She took a deep breath. “Edward and I eloped to Scotland, as you all surmised, even without our letter.”

  James smirked. “Married by the blacksmith at Gretna Green, were you?”

  “That is a vulgar expression,” Lady Thornborough said archly. “James, you will mind your manners today, if only for one hour.”

  “I beg your pardon, Aunt,” James said, although his eyes were still filled with mirth. “However, I believe a touch of levity can sometimes aid in the discussion of difficult subjects.”

  As if to prove his point, Ria laughed softly. “It’s all right.” She gave James an adoring look that, for some reason, Geoffrey found disconcerting. “In Scotland, of course, it would have been legal even if the blacksmith had done it. However, we were married properly—in the church, by special license.” She looked pointedly at Geoffrey as she said those words.

  “That is a comfort,” Lady Thornborough said.

  “Please continue,” Geoffrey said, anxious to get to the meat of her story. “We thought we had traced you as far as Edinburgh.”

  Ria nodded. “We had originally planned to go to Liverpool and take a ship to America. But we met a man who convinced Edward he could find better opportunities in Australia. So we left Edinburgh on a ship bound for Plymouth. From there we boarded a ship to Australia.”

  James leaned forward. “Did you plan to take the Sea Venture from Liverpool? That ship sank and all aboard were lost. When we never heard from you, we began to fear you had been aboard. Your names were not on the ship’s manifest, but we thought you might have used an alias.”

  “I’m glad we were not on that unlucky vessel,” Ria said with a shiver. “We might have been, if we’d kept to our original plan.” Again she looked pointedly at Geoffrey. “I suppose Edward made the correct decision in that instance.”

  Geoffrey would not respond to the goad. He would keep on the offensive. “I’m guessing it is true, however, that you were not using your real names.”

  “That is true. We were, in fact, traveling under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Smythe.”

  “Smythe?” James smirked. “How original!” But upon receiving a cold frown from Lady Thornborough, he said no more.

  “It served our purpose,” Ria said. “When we arrived in Australia, we met a man by the name of Mr. McCrae. He owned a large sheep farm in New South Wales, just beyond the Blue Mountains. He immediately offered Edward a position. They are so very short of free workers there.”

  “I’m sure they are,” James said. “As I understand it, most of the men over there are convicts. Or ex-convicts. The taint and the stain.”

  Lady Thornborough sniffed. “To think that the granddaughter of a knight and the son of a baron should take it into their heads to form associations with the criminal classes.”

  Geoffrey bristled. Years of working with the lower classes had taught him they were not “criminal” by nature. Many a good man was forced into disreputable acts owing to the grinding forces of poverty and the willful blindness of those more fortunate.

  “Are you telling me you did manual labor on a farm?” James said, incredulous. “How on earth did you survive?”

  “It was difficult at first,” Ria acknowledged. “Perhaps more for me than for Edward. He really threw himself into it.” With a frosty look at Geoffrey, she added, “He was determined to succeed.”

  “No one ever accused Edward of lacking in determination,” Geoffrey said. His brother was not lazy by nature, but he had been brought up in such ease and luxury that Geoffrey still had a hard time imagining him at work on a sheep farm.

  “Eddie soon became one of Mr. McCrae’s most trusted hands. He frequently traveled the road over the mountains, taking wool to Sydney and bringing back supplies. It was an important job.” She paused. Her eyes closed briefly, her face pinched with pain. “It was dangerous, too. On one of the trips, they were met about halfway through the mountains by bushrangers. In England we would call them—”

  “Highway robbers,” James finished for her.

  Ria nodded.

  “Edward was attacked by bushrangers?” Geoffrey asked. He had imagined Edward’s death might be due to accident or illness, but Ria’s tale was tending in a much different direction.

  “Three of them.” She took a shaky breath. “And that was Edward’s last trip across the Blue Mountains.”

  *

  For a moment, nobody breathed. The silence in the room was palpable. It seemed even to overpower the bustling street sounds wafting through the open windows.

  Geoffrey was watching her so closely that Lizzie thought he might bore a hole right through her. “Are you telling us Edward was murdered?”

  “I do not believe they intended to commit murder. They would have taken the money and gone, leaving the men tied up, to be found by other travelers on the road. But they didn’t plan on the way Eddie and Tom would fight back. They—”

  “Wait a minute,” James broke in. “Who is Tom?”

  “Tom was another of the ranch hands.” She did not add, Tom was Edward’s best friend. The friendship the four of them had shared was closer than many families. It was precious, and for her own sake, Lizzie wished to speak of it as little as possible. “The bushrangers thought they had an easy mark. They were all on horseback, and Eddie and To
m were driving a bullock dray.”

  Perplexed, Lady Thornborough said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “A bullock dray is a very slow-moving oxcart,” Lizzie explained. “There was no way they could outrun the men on horses. However, Eddie and Tom were not willing to be parted from their money and their goods so easily. Shots were fired, and there was much confusion. At the end of it, Edward was…”

  “Dead,” Geoffrey supplied, his voice flat.

  Lizzie shook her head. “Not dead. But he was grievously wounded.”

  She did not need to draw them a picture. She knew they could well imagine Edward bleeding on the dry ground. Geoffrey’s face contorted, as though he felt his brother’s suffering.

  No one spoke. Lady Thornborough put one hand to her heart and held a scented handkerchief to her face with the other. The clock ticked loudly in the silence.

  “Go on,” James encouraged gently. “What happened next?”

  “When he saw that two of his fellows were dead, the third bushranger got on his horse and raced away.”

  “Edward and this man Tom killed two bushrangers?” James’s voice was filled with admiration. “Incredible.”

  Geoffrey’s hands clenched. “What happened to Tom?”

  “He was injured, too, but he managed to get Edward onto one of the horses, and rode to the farm as quickly as he could. Eddie was in a bad state. He was bleeding profusely from his left side. Tom had been hit in the thigh and nearly fainted along the way from loss of blood. But he was determined to bring Eddie back.”

  “Why did Tom take him to the farm?” Geoffrey asked. His voice was sharp, holding an edge of accusation. “Surely it would have been better to go to town for medical help?”

  “That was what Tom wanted to do. But Edward insisted on going home.”

  “The fool!” Geoffrey stood and began pacing the room. “He may have brought about his own demise.” He glared at Lizzie. “What kind of man is this Tom? Why didn’t he insist on the proper course of action?”

  Lizzie glared back. “I believe he did the right thing.”