"I will be the judge of what is necessary to fulfill my duty where my own sister is concerned. The Honorable Philip Montgomery has already offered to see how you fare."
"Philip Montgomery?" Norah's dismay increased a thousandfold. Anyone but him! She had cherished a schoolgirl's crush on Montgomery since she was scarce fourteen—and she couldn't count the number of times in the ensuing years the elegant aristocrat had caught her staring at him like a love-sick ninny. "Oh, Richard, please tell me you did not confide the circumstances surrounding my betrothal to Philip Montgomery!"
Richard looked genuinely hurt. "I'm not quite the insensitive dolt people think me! I made your engagement sound quite romantic, as if this Irishman had swept you off your feet. Of course, Montgomery was positively surly when I told him the story. But then, he is suspicious of anyone possessed of a drop of Irish blood. They've had an estate near Sligo for two hundred years, and I vow it's been nothing but agony for them. Ungrateful devils, those Irish. Never appreciative of the lengths we English go to to save them from themselves."
Norah pressed a hand to her cheek, her skin hot despite the chill of the wind. There had been a time she might have taken some pleasure in Montgomery's apparent unhappiness over her betrothal, daring to attribute it to some secret flight of passion. But she had long before abandoned any foolish girlish dreams about the handsome aristocrat. Great beauty might overawe a suitor into excusing a meager dowry, or a generous dowry might prove an irresistible ornament to plainness. Norah had never deluded herself that she had either to attract such a matrimonial prize.
"Richard, it will take some time for me to become— become accustomed to my new surroundings. My bridegroom, his daughter. I would rather not have to do so before an audience."
"I hardly think Montgomery is planning to move into a room beneath the castle stairs." Richard clasped her hands with an affectionate chuckle. "You cannot spend your entire marriage hiding from former acquaintances. What better way to have news of your happiness carried to the witchy chits who snubbed you?"
"A lovely plan, assuming there is happiness for Mr. Montgomery to carry tales about." It was the closest she could come to confessing her fears.
"There will be, sweeting. I'm certain of it." Richard turned as the doorway opened, passengers beginning to file out, bending their bonnets and the brims of their hats to shield their faces from the dampness.
Norah watched the parade of travelers make their way toward the ship, and a sudden fear of the unknown shivered in her breast. She reached out, grasping Richard's hand and holding on tight, her gaze sweeping the storm-darkened sky. "The weather—it seems so—so wild."
"Yes, but they say that a voyage begun in storm will end in bliss."
"I'll be certain to repeat those words of wisdom to the other shipwreck victims when we sink to the bottom of the sea." Norah gave a strained laugh, but despite her resolve to plunge into her future bravely, she couldn't help waving one hand toward the sullen sky. "Do you think this is an omen, Richard?"
"No, I think this is a storm. We've had them before, you know."
"Those were someone else's omens. This one is mine." Norah worried her lower lip with her teeth. "I don't know, Richard. I just wish that I—I had some idea what he is like. This Sir Aidan Kane."
Richard heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I only know what I found out before I gave you Kane's letter—and, I might add, I've recounted my discoveries to you a dozen times. Aidan Kane is a war hero who saved his entire regiment in some deliciously noble fashion during the Peninsular War. His wife died in a tragic accident. Since then, by all accounts, he's been a reclusive widower, living at his Irish estate of Rathcannon with his daughter—quite brokenhearted, I daresay. He needs you, Norah."
He needs you.... Norah had clung to those words, knowing all the while that it was probably the most dangerous of all feminine delusions—the irresistible desire to heal a man whose spirit had been wounded.
Richard's soft laugh jarred her from her thoughts. "Of course, unless you hustle aboard that ship, you may never be wed at all."
Norah cast a helpless glance toward the ship, the last of the passengers trailing up the plank that led to it. Richard called out to two sailors nearby.
"You there, take Miss Linton's trunk to her quarters."
There was something terrifyingly final in watching the two burly men heave Richard's gift up from the platform and carry it away. Raw panic swept through every fiber of Norah's being.
"I can't—I don't think I can... Oh, Richard, you do think I'm doing the right thing?"
"I am certain of it."
Norah flung herself into her stepbrother's arms, embracing him fiercely one last time. "I'll never forget your kindness, Richard. Never. I pray God will reward you for it."
He smiled. A glittering smile, vaguely disturbing, like a solitary ripple disturbing a glass-smooth stretch of lake.
"I hope I won't have to wait long enough to receive a heavenly reward, my dear. You see, I've just struck three wagers that should make me a very wealthy man, little sister. And the first... the first is well on its way to being won."
* * * * *
A log blazing on the marble hearth fell apart, crackling, snapping, yanking Norah back from memories of the storm-swept wharf to the quiet bedchamber that mocked the dreams she had held for such a brief time.
It was as if an eternity had passed since she'd mounted the gangplank, and watched Richard wave goodbye to her as she left behind everything she'd ever known, sailing into an uncertain future.
A future that now seemed almost as bleak and far more dubious than the one she'd left behind.
Norah was exhausted. Disappointment more bitter than any she'd ever known made her eyes burn and her spirit ache for the foolish young woman who had stood outside in the English rain such a brief time before, her head stuffed with dreams, her heart daring to hope for the first time since she could remember. Hope—not for happily ever afters and miracles. Not for the grand passions that were legend spun. But, rather, for contentment, peace.
Someone to need her.
But there was no one here who could fill that place for her. There was no sweet miracle awaiting her within Rathcannon's stone walls. Only a deeper echo of the loneliness that had tormented her from the time her father had died. Only an underscoring of a hundred shortcomings that had made her stepfather despise her. Only another empty, aching place with nothing to fill it but Norah's own most secret tears.
CHAPTER 3
Richard Farnsworth stared down at his father's wife, her face pale, her eyes dark with the shadows that rarely left them. He could even pity her at times. God knew he'd been every bit as beaten down and awkward years before, bludgeoned into submission by Winston Farnsworth's relentless will. Yet staring into Corabeth Linton Farnsworth's face always made him damned uncomfortable too. Maybe because it forced him to remember....
"I don't mean to disturb you, Richard, dear," she breathed in a tremulous voice, one thin hand clinging to his coat sleeve. "I know that you are very busy entertaining Viscount Cirlot and Lord Millhaven." She cast an apologetic glance toward the drawing room in which his friends awaited him. "But I had hoped that perhaps you might have received a letter—"
"Are you worried about Norah?" he inquired, his face a mask of concern.
The woman's sallow cheeks flushed, as if he'd caught her with a lover. "Your father would be most displeased with me for asking. He insists Norah should be dead to me. Yet a mother cannot help but worry. Ireland is such a wild place. And to go there, intending to wed a man she's never seen before—" A shudder racked Corabeth's slight frame. "It is so dangerous, Richard, to surrender complete power over her life to a total stranger. What if this man is cruel to her? A monster?"
Richard was more than aware why his stepmother viewed the state of marriage with such dread. It was a kingdom Winston Farnsworth had always ruled with the same petty tyranny he'd ruled his son and heir, ruled everyone that touched his life. Only Norah ha
d never buckled under to his tyranny. Proud, honorable Norah, with her unbreachable Linton dignity.
"Norah is fine," Richard insisted. "I'm certain of it. You must not allow yourself to get so overwrought. You know how impatient Father gets when you do." He pressed her hand so hard she winced a bit. "Didn't I tell you I had looked into this Irish knight's background to make certain he was suitable? Didn't I promise to take care of her? Surely you don't think I would have sent her off to be chained to some monster?"
Corabeth pleated a fold of her skirt, her eyes downcast. "Of course not! I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to my poor girl. I'm a fool to worry, and you must think me the most abominable nuisance."
"You know exactly how much I adore you and my little sister." He patted the woman's shoulder with studied gentleness. "In fact I have already arranged for a friend of mine to visit Norah, to make certain all is well. But if it would ease your mind, I would go to this Irish castle myself, to see that this Aidan Kane is treating my sister as she deserves."
"You would do such a thing? For my Norah?" Tears welled up behind thin lashes.
"Of course I shall, the instant I can afford to." Richard looked away, pensiveness stealing across his face. He gave Corabeth a boyish smile, full of embarrassment and regret. "I'm afraid I have had a rather bad run at the faro table of late. You won't tell Father?" He gave his cravat an anxious tug.
His stepmother regarded him with abject worship. "Poor boy, was it so very bad? Perhaps I can help you. I have a most generous sum set by for a lovely necklace I saw in the shop window, but it would please me so much more to help you."
"How could I allow you to make such a sacrifice? No. It was my own recklessness that brought me to this point, and I should have to pay the price for my mistakes. Even if I should be scooped into a sponging house, I could not take your coin."
"You shall indeed!" Corabeth insisted with more forcefulness than Richard had ever seen her expend on her daughter's behalf. "I insist. And if you do not allow me to do this for you, I shall... shall..." She was searching for a suitable threat, Richard knew. "I shall tell your father about your financial difficulties so he can aid you."
"No! No, you cannot!" Richard stalked away.
"I can and I shall," she insisted with a resolute nod. "Now you must go off to entertain those dear boys in the drawing room, or they will think you quite rude. After all, with Lord Millhaven just back from the Continent, I'm certain you have much to talk about."
Richard chuckled and pinched Corabeth on the cheek, watching her face brighten until he could see the faintest impression of the beauty she had once been. "You are so very good to me," he said. "I cannot imagine that my own mother could have been sweeter, may God rest her soul." His mother... haunted eyes, nervous hands, and dread pressing down on her until it suffocated her. As a boy, he'd been certain she'd died of it. He shoved the thought away as tears sprang once again to Corabeth's eyes.
"We shall take care of each other, dearest boy," she said, patting his hand. "I love you, you know."
Love him? Richard thought with a swift flash of bitterness. She didn't even know him.
He turned and entered the drawing room, drinking in the subtle scent of tobacco and leather that clung to the cream-colored plasterwork walls of his private domain. The two men lounging about the green baize gaming table glanced up at him with drink-bleary eyes, sated by Winston Farnsworth's finest brandy and by the attentions, this past afternoon, of London's most elegant courtesans.
"Cirlot wagered a hundred pounds you fell into the privy," Millhaven observed with a smirk.
Richard chuckled. "You'd best collect on your wagers now. By Christmas Cirlot won't have two coins to rub together. After I win my wager with him, he'll be forced to wed some dough-faced heiress just to keep himself out of debtor's prison."
"A new wager?" Millhaven perked up, rattling his dice box with interest. "One penned down in White's betting book, or one exclusively for our own entertainment?"
"Gawd, but Farnsworth wouldn't want this bit dragged out all over London!" Cirlot scoffed. "It's a masterpiece. And damn me if I can imagine either of us will ever be able to top it."
Millhaven licked his lips, his eyes glowing with greed. "Show me, Farnsworth," he demanded. "By damn, I cannot wait to see it."
Limping to the bookshelf in the corner, Richard reached for the small leatherbound volume on the topmost shelf and opened the pages.
"I cannot think you've been in town long enough to hear my family's momentous news, Millhaven," Richard said. "My stepsister should be making her way up to the altar even as we speak."
"The devil you say!" Millhaven snorted with a ribald laugh. "What poor sot is getting leg-shackled to her? Surely Montgomery didn't come up to scratch! His family would never stand for it."
"Montgomery? Marry a woman without a dowry or a title? Not for a king's ransom, though I have sometimes detected a certain wistfulness about him when he sees Norah across a room. I'm afraid the most Norah could hope for from that quarter is a brief liaison—and only then if someone else had the cunning to arrange it for her. No, my esteemed Millhaven, I have provided my dowdy little stepsister with a far more intriguing bridegroom. Sir Aidan Kane."
Never in their long, notorious association had Richard seen Millhaven so stunned. "You are a heartless bastard," the nobleman breathed. "Sacrificing your own sister to a man whose lust for women is outstripped only by his lust for the gaming tables? By God, they even claim he murdered—"
"You, above anyone, should know better than to heed idle gossip," Richard said, returning to the table. "I have provided Norah with a husband; as her brother I could do nothing less." He trailed one fingertip along a gold-embossed leaf bedecking the book's binding.
Cirlot splashed more brandy into his crystal goblet. "Just show Millhaven the book and be done with your infernal gloating."
Richard extended the volume to Millhaven. The drunken nobleman snatched it from him and scanned the lines penned on the page. Millhaven's face went still with awe.
"A thousand pounds, Farnsworth!" Millhaven exclaimed with stunned fascination. "I'll pay you a thousand pounds if you carry these wagers to the bitter end."
"Oh, I shall see them to the end, I assure you," Richard said evenly. "And when I do, I will achieve what I have desired for so long: Sir Aidan Kane's destruction."
* * * * *
There was nothing like a wedding to give a man indigestion. Even attending a ceremony in which another man put his neck in the matrimonial noose had always been enough to make Aidan lose his appetite for a week. And the threat of a prospective bride under his own roof was positively nausea-inspiring.
He sat at the head of the long table in Rathcannon's dining chamber, the candles guttering in the sconces, the remains of his solitary dinner long since swept away. Time could more easily be measured by the number of times the glass of Madeira in Aidan's hand had needed to be refilled than by the ticking of the clock on the mantle.
The celebratory birthday meal had—predictably—been a disaster. Wan and tragic as any beleaguered heroine upon a London stage, Cassandra had dragged herself to the table long enough to see if Miss Linton had come to dinner. When informed that the lady had begged to be excused, Cass had drooped back out of the room. Aidan hadn't had the energy to stop her.
Cassandra had spent the entire rest of the evening fortressed up in her tower chamber, waiting, no doubt, for the sound of her father's step on the stone stairs so that she could enact a truly spectacular bout of theatrics.
But Aidan wouldn't have dared that chamber tonight if every cutthroat in Ireland had been charging at his heels. No, Aidan thought, slinging back another fiery gulp of the liquor. There was no way in hell he was giving his daughter a chance to incite him to madness. A madness that could all too easily end at an altar with him trussed up as a human sacrifice.
Aidan grimaced. If he'd stayed in Dublin, right now he'd be sampling the charms of the beautiful if temperamental Stasia.
He would be playing at hazard or faro or piquet with a convivial tableful of men whose most dastardly intention toward him might be a simple sword thrust over a bad throw of the dice, or a swift, merciful pistol shot through some insignificant part of his anatomy.
He could be barreling down the road in a curricle race, grazing the wheels of passersby and listening to their curses with great relish. But no. Here he sat, his daughter in high dudgeon and some woman he'd never seen before setting up housekeeping for the night in the room adjoining his bedchamber.
Well, she wouldn't be inhabiting the chamber for long, by Triton's beard. He'd sent a rider off to make arrangements to hurtle Miss Dora—or was it Laura?—Lytton off to London post haste. By this time tomorrow night, the Englishwoman would be on her way, and he could set himself to important matters, like finding something to distract his daughter from her disappointment. Perhaps a new gown or a trinket, or that lovely little mare Adam Dunne was breaking over at Ballylaire. If Aidan could just convince him to part with it...
Damn, he was doing it again! Rewarding the rebellious chit for her mischief! How many times had Mrs. Brindle warned him that such a practice would only make the girl incorrigible. He'd brushed off the admonition as he had so many others. But now, confronted with the coil Cassandra's headstrong ways had embroiled him in, Aidan couldn't help but wonder if the Old Battle Axe was right.
Aidan's jaw clenched. Maybe it was time to take the girl in hand. Teach Cassandra some discipline. Oh, yes, and Aidan Kane would be such a perfect one to preach propriety to his daughter! The very notion made his head ache. Far better for him to light out for Dublin, maybe even London, and leave the taming of Cassandra to Mrs. Brindle. She needed a woman's touch, and the only women Aidan consorted with were of an ilk totally unsuitable to be held up as models for a proper young miss.
I don't want a wife, Cassandra. Aidan's words echoed in his mind, and he could see his daughter's face, determined and yet vulnerable, suddenly so infernally young.
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