Passion Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  Flora, the young housemaid, was with her, watching as Juliana created the charming arrangements before periodically bearing off the finished product to the various rooms in the main living areas. Flora’s return from one such errand coincided with the marquis’s arrival.

  Just as Flora stepped back into the room Juliana heard the voices of Hudson and the marquis coming down the hall as they walked toward her father’s study. Their voices were very clear as they approached and, standing next to Juliana, Flora exclaimed, “My goodness, but we have had company today! Here his lordship has come to call on the master this afternoon, and this morning, Mr. Cordell was closeted with him in the library.”

  Juliana stiffened, hardly aware of Ormsby being shown into her father’s study. Asher had been here? This morning? To see her father? A sense of foreboding bloomed within her. Surely, Asher wouldn’t…Her eyes narrowed. Oh, yes, he would! That devil!

  With admirable restraint, Juliana said airily, “Really? It must have been very early.”

  Flora shook head. “Not when Mr. Cordell came to call. But Hudson said that you could have knocked him over with a feather when one of the servants from Fox Hollow was here pounding on the door before eight o’clock with a message for the master.”

  Juliana’s heart sank, but she forced a smile. “Well, I’m sure that there was reason for it,” she muttered.

  Flora nodded. “Most likely something to do with Mrs. Manley.” Losing interest in the subject, Flora glanced at a big bouquet of pink and white lilies, deep green wispy fern wands framing the heavy blossoms, and said, “Shall I place this one on the table in the hallway?”

  “Yes, that would be perfect.”

  Left alone, Juliana stared blankly at the wall in front of her. Asher had been to see her father! She bit her lip. His visit might not have anything to do with her…or with what happened between them last night, but if his desire to see her father this morning had been to do with Mrs. Manley, her father would have mentioned it. Not that her father told her everything, but there had been plenty of moments today for him to mention Asher’s visit, yet he had said nothing. Not a word. Which was odd. Out of character. But if the visit involved her…She frowned. Now that she thought about it, there had been a pleased air about her father all day and she’d caught him looking at her with an indulgent gleam in his eyes from time to time, and then there had been that odd, little smile…. She’d put his manner down to the return of Thalia’s letters, but now she wondered.

  Uneasily, she considered what she knew. Her father had been silent about Asher’s visit this morning and Asher had never once indicated that he intended to call upon her father, at any time, let alone this morning. It was possible that there was an innocent reason behind Asher’s visit and her father’s reticence, but she didn’t think so. Only one explanation fit perfectly—they were scheming against her.

  A glitter in her fine eyes, she paced around the small room. Asher had asked her to marry him and she had accepted him…and then she had retracted her acceptance—somewhat forcefully, she confessed with a half-contrite smile, remembering the sound of her hand slapping his cheek. The question was, had Asher accepted her retraction? Knowing him, she suspected not, and that made his visit to her father this morning suspicious. He was trying, she guessed, to out-maneuver her.

  She had not been a party to the meeting between her father and Asher, but if she was inclined to wager, it was better than even odds that Asher had tried to cut the ground beneath her feet and had offered for her. She smiled tightly. Her father probably fell on his neck with delight, but it didn’t matter if her father approved of the match or not—she was of age, a widow with control of her fortune, and no one, not even her father could compel her to marry Asher Cordell.

  If Asher had offered for her and her father had given his approval to the match, it would explain everything. Scowling, she took an agitated turn around the small room as she examined her thoughts. If Asher had requested her father’s blessings and he had acquiesced, it explained everything, even that soft, fond expression on her father’s face. It would also explain why he had made no mention of Asher’s visit.

  Torn between laughter and fury, Juliana shook her head. Did Asher really think that her father could coerce her into marriage?

  The sudden boom of the door to her father’s study slamming shut and the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps wiped all speculation about Asher from her mind and she ran over to the door and peeked down the hall. Ormsby was striding toward the front door and the set of his head and ramrod stiffness of his back and shoulders indicated that the marquis was not happy.

  Hudson met the marquis halfway through the entry hall, but before the butler could reach the door, Ormsby brushed past him and snarled, “Get out of my way, you oaf! I can show myself out.”

  The front door was flung open and Ormsby charged outside.

  Following behind Ormsby as he had stalked down the hall, Juliana observed the scene between the marquis and the butler. She also saw the small, satisfied smile that flickered across Hudson’s face as Ormsby stamped out of the house. Gently, Hudson shut the front door Ormsby had left open in his haste to leave the house. Turning away and finding Juliana watching him, the smile still lurking on his lips, he murmured, “I fear the marquis has received some unpleasant news.”

  Her own smile beamed into being. “Why, yes, I believe that you are right. I don’t believe that the marquis will be coming to call very much in the future.”

  “Which is just as it should be,” Hudson said, and disappeared into the nether regions of the house. Walking toward her father’s study, Juliana’s expression was thoughtful. Had the servants known of Ormsby’s threats? She nodded slowly. They might not have known the exact details, but they had to have guessed that something was in the wind. She smiled. And that it wasn’t anymore.

  She tapped lightly on the door to her father’s study and at his command, entered the room. His hands clasped behind his back, Mr. Kirkwood was standing and staring out one of the windows that overlooked a section of the garden when she walked into the room.

  “Ah, did everything go as you hoped?” she asked softly. Mr. Kirkwood swung around to face her and the huge smile that creased his face brought forth her own.

  Walking back to his cherrywood desk, almost grinning, Mr. Kirkwood said, “I am sorry to admit it and it isn’t Christian of me, but by Jove! I enjoyed telling that treacherous blackguard precisely what I thought of him and his tactics. How dare he try to blackmail an innocent child like Thalia into marrying him!” A glint in his eyes, he muttered, “It was a pleasure to tell him precisely what I thought of his methods—and him! Enjoyed even more tossing his threats back into his face and ordering him from the house—and I promised him if he ever stepped foot on the place or ever approached one of my daughters again, that I’d take a horsewhip to him. Told him I knew about his little spy, too—and that I would be sending him packing within the hour.” His voice full of satisfaction, he continued, “He couldn’t believe it at first, but when I stood firm it dawned on him that something had gone seriously awry with his plans and that he had no power over us.” He smiled warmly at Juliana. “Thanks to you we will have no more troubles with Ormsby.”

  One of the servants must have told Thalia that Ormsby had left the house because she came into the study just in time to hear Mr. Kirkwood’s last statement and, rushing up to her father, she cried, “Oh, Papa, is the nightmare really over? Is Ormsby truly out of our lives? I no longer have to fear him?”

  Mr. Kirkwood enfolded his youngest daughter next to him. “Indeed, yes.” His eyes sparkling, he added, “I told him that I’d take a horsewhip to him if he dared to show his face near one of you or stepped foot on Kirkwood again.” A hardness that hadn’t been there before entered his face. “And by heaven, I would!”

  Nothing would do but that Mr. Kirkwood relate the encounter word by word for Thalia and when he finished speaking, her face was glowing and the joy of her smile was nearly tan
gible. “I cannot believe that it is finally over. That we are free from that horrid man.”

  A slight frown on her forehead, Juliana looked at her father. “Do you think that he might try to hurt us in some other way?”

  Mr. Kirkwood shrugged. “I have no idea. Until this happened I had never seen this side of Ormsby and I would never have believed that he would act in such a disreputable manner.” He sighed. “I can’t think of any way that he can harm us now, but I would warn both of you to be on your guard against him.” He gave Thalia a long look. “Particularly you, my dear. You must be careful.”

  Thalia shuddered. “I never want to see him again, let alone speak with him. He is a monster.”

  Aware of how easily her sister could work herself up, Juliana smiled and said quickly, “Since our troubles with the marquis appear to be behind us and you are on the mend, I think we should begin thinking about the house party we had to postpone.”

  Instantly diverted, Thalia clapped her hands together in delight. “Oh, yes! I cannot wait to see Piers again.” A faint blush stained her cheeks and she shot a shy look at her father. “And Papa can now announce my engagement to him.”

  Mr. Kirkwood lightly pinched her cheek. “Will marriage to Piers make you happy?” he asked, a hint of smile curving his mouth.

  “Oh, Papa, I wish it above all things,” Thalia breathed with shining eyes.

  Looking across at Juliana, he said, “Well, then, I believe that we have a house party to plan and an engagement to announce.” His eyes twinkling, he murmured, “I predict that it is going to be a busy, exciting summer for all of us.”

  His words were innocent enough, but Juliana detected an undertone in his voice that heightened her suspicions. Knowing her father and his abhorrence of discord, if Asher had asked for his approval of the match and he’d given it, it would do her little good to confront him with what she suspected. She half smiled. Poor father. Cornered, he’d mumble and stammer and deny everything.

  “How soon can we have the house party?” Thalia asked, breaking into Juliana’s thoughts.

  Pushing aside the vexing problem of Asher’s visit this morning, Juliana smiled at her younger sister. “I shall see to it that the invitations are sent out tomorrow.” She ran a critical eye over Thalia’s pale features. “While you are on the mend, I believe that it will be several days yet before you have recovered your bloom, so I think it best if the guests do not start arriving until a week from Thursday—that will also give us time to prepare for their influx.”

  “Why, that’s over ten days away. Surely, we could have it sooner,” Thalia protested.

  Juliana put her arm around Thalia’s shoulder and hugged her. “Indeed, it is,” she said, smiling fondly at her sister, “but, poppet, we cannot have your husband-to-be arriving and finding you looking pasty faced and haggard, now can we?”

  Thalia’s hands flew to her cheeks and her beautiful blue eyes widened. “Oh, indeed, not!”

  Ormsby rode away from Kirkwood in a white-hot rage, hardly able to think of anything beyond making Kirkwood regret those insulting words. His lips in an angry narrow line, eyes narrowed, he stared blindly ahead, not even seeing the few vehicles and horses that passed him. How dare Kirkwood speak to him in such a manner! How dare that country bumpkin order him from his house as if he was a thieving servant! How dare he! He was Ormsby! No one spoke to him that way. No one. Scarlet flooded his cheeks. And no one, he thought viciously, denied him what he wanted.

  Long before she had burst onto the scene in London and become the darling of the ton, as he had watched her bloom from a pretty child into a stunning beauty, he had determined that Thalia Kirkwood would make him a worthy bride. Her family, while not of the first stare, was respectable, and with his wealth, her dowry meant nothing to him, but her loveliness…her loveliness was without parallel. He had laid his plans accordingly and begun a stealthy courtship of the innocent beauty right under her father’s nose.

  When the Kirkwoods had removed to London for the season, he had been supremely pleased with Thalia’s conquest of the city and the ton and he had savored the moment he would sweep aside all the young fools clustered around her and claim the exalted beauty as his bride. Oh, the envy and jealousy that would burn in the breasts of her spurned suitors when she accepted the hand of the powerful Lord Ormsby. He had spent many an enjoyable hour imagining that moment. What he had never imagined was that Thalia would fancy herself in love with that cub, Caswell, and spurn him or that her father would allow her to follow her heart. It never occurred to him that she would turn her back on the vast Ormsby fortune or that she would prefer a mere earl to a marquis. She had wounded his vanity and his consequence and his determination to marry her had only intensified.

  He would have preferred not to use the letters to get his way, but Thalia’s featherbrained insistence that she loved Caswell and would only marry the young earl had left him no choice. He’d been confident that the threat of blackmail would turn the tide in his favor and until today his threat had seemed to be working. But something had changed…. A prickle of unease slid through his fury. He could only think of one thing that could have changed, only one thing that would have given Kirkwood the courage to speak to him in such a manner. With sudden urgency, he whipped his horse into a breakneck gallop.

  Arriving at Ormsby Place, the marquis threw the reins of his lathered horse to the waiting footman and strode into the house. Brushing past his butler, he made straightaway for his study. Entering it, he shut the door behind him and glanced around the handsome room. Nothing seemed out of place. Crossing to the Gainsborough, he considered the painting and the area around it for several moments. Again nothing seemed to have been moved or changed. Lifting down the painting, he opened the safe, his body freezing the moment he realized that the oilcloth-wrapped packet was gone.

  Struggling against the rage that choked him, Ormsby made himself check the contents of the safe, his racing heartbeat slowing when he found the Ormsby diamonds and the other jewels; only the letters were missing. With a curse, he slammed the door to the safe shut and threw himself down in a chair. Looking at the intricate pattern of the Turkey rug on the walnut parquet floor, he grappled with the knowledge that an exceedingly clever thief had invaded his home. He wasn’t surprised that the letters were gone; he suspected as much the moment Kirkwood had as good as thrown him from the house. Thalia’s weren’t the only letters lifted from the safe, though, and that widened the pool of suspects for the theft.

  His face harsh with concentration, he dismissed the letters from the erring wives—the scandal they would face should the letters become public would be unpleasant, but not so unpleasant that they would have dared to hire someone to steal them. Now Lord…and Colonel…For them, if the letters became public, it could very well bring them utter ruin—if they escaped the gallows. It was possible that one of them had been desperate enough to break his power over them and had hired someone to steal the letters.

  He frowned. The thief had been after only one thing—the letters. Whoever had opened the safe and taken the letters had left behind a fortune in jewels and no common thief would have done so. No. The thief had been after only the letters. And had been astute enough to ferret out the location of the safe and able to open it without difficulty. His gaze swept the room again. The intruder had left no sign of his invasion and Ormsby wondered—if not for the interview with Kirkwood today—how long it would have taken him to discover the theft.

  His eyes narrowed. Which begged the question: when had the theft taken place? Based on today’s interview with Kirkwood, he was convinced that it had to have occurred very recently—once the letters had been returned to Kirkwood, Thalia’s father would have acted immediately, but it hadn’t been until today that Kirkwood had confronted him. So the theft had to have happened, he realized, after that bloody awful dinner at Kirkwood’s on Friday evening but before Sunday morning when he had received Kirkwood’s summons. If the theft had been accomplished prior to dinner
on Friday evening, the meeting with Kirkwood would have taken place that very night. If it had been done while he was dining at Kirkwood’s Friday night, the request for his presence would have arrived on Saturday morning, but it hadn’t….

  Ormsby stood up and took a turn around the room, thinking hard. Last night he had dined at Apple Hill. His mouth thinned. It had been very late when he had returned. The logical time for the theft to have occurred was while he had been occupied with that fool Denning. Satisfied he knew the timing of the theft, he next considered the identity of the person who had had the most to gain by the theft and who was the likeliest person to have set the thief on him.

  Again, he dismissed the adulterous wives. They were silly women easily manipulated. But his two treasonously-inclined-gentlemen, they were another kettle of fish. Either one of them could have risked the robbery. He frowned, staring down at his boots. They’d been in his pocket for years. Why would either one of them strike now? No. It wasn’t one of them. Which left Kirkwood…

  Ormsby nodded to himself. Of course. Kirkwood was the culprit. That Kirkwood had had the gumption to hire a thief to steal the letters surprised him. He would never have expected it of him, but that eldest daughter of his…

  The knock on the door to his study brought his head up, and he barked, “Yes? What is it?”

  “Er, my lord, Colonel Denning has come to call,” replied his butler, Baker, through the door.

  Ormsby cursed and his hand clenched into a fist. The last thing he wanted at the moment was Denning’s company. But aware he had no choice, he snapped, “Bring him here and prepare some refreshments.”

  The sight of Denning’s smiling face did not lessen Ormsby’s foul mood, but he forced a cordial expression and greeted the other man. Once they were seated and Baker had served them some hock and left the room, Ormsby asked, “And what can I do for you?”