by Darcy Burke
Having found his way out from his entanglement with Lizzie, Richard vowed to keep Miriam safe from harm if the girl was foolish enough to marry him.
“We can’t see each other this way if you want your scheme to work,” Richard said slowly. Outside, crickets sang. An owl hooted in the distance.
Lizzie looked as befuddled as a lost puppy. The kind of puppy that looked adorable, then bit a chunk out of your flesh at the first opportunity. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I won’t stand a chance of seducing Miss Walsh if you cling to me like a vine.”
Lizzie gave him a full-lipped pout. “Of course, I would give you the space you need during the day. But why would you not want to see me at night, discreetly?”
Because you disgust me. But Richard could hardly say that to the mother of his child. “Because coming to my rooms is the antithesis of discretion. How well do you think it would go with Miss Walsh if she heard of a woman visiting my rooms at night whilst I am pursuing her affections?”
Lizzie pouted. “Truly, I don’t see why it matters.” Good lord. What a child Lizzie was.
“A gentleman doesn’t woo one woman while carrying on a public liaison with another, Lizzie. I must focus on Miss Walsh if you want me to truly sweep her off her feet.” Richard deliberately chose the words Lizzie herself had used. She eyed him as if he were a worm trying to wriggle off a fishing hook.
“Fine. But I want to be informed at every step as you court Miriam.” She brightened. “Seduce her quickly, so she has to marry you. We could have her fortune even before the baby arrives. Once you’re married, you can use her money in any way you want.”
Richard grimaced. “Yes. But you cannot.” Lizzie narrowed her eyes at him.
“You must let me do this my way, or it won’t work.”
“All right then. For the baby.” She reached for the bottle of wine and clinked it against his glass before taking a deep swig. A trail of crimson dropped from the corner of her mouth like a drop of blood. Richard suppressed a shudder.
“Best put that away now, don’t you think?” he asked with deceptive softness.
Lizzie wiped away the stray drop. “Oh, be like that, then.”
She snatched up her dress, clearly expecting him to rush after her and soothe her ruffled feelings. But Richard simply watched from the bed until she opened the door, cast him a glare of affront, and slammed it hard behind her.
Richard almost hoped that someone had heard Lizzie’s noisy exit. Anything that might foil this vile plan to steal Miss Walsh’s fortune was worth the risk. His thoughts galloped—what if it wasn’t his, what if there was no child, what if—what if—what if... How would he prove it? No one here would defend his honor. No one back home in England would believe him if he protested his innocence—and rightly so; he is anything but innocent of wrongdoing. He snatched up the wine bottle and downed the remnants. Self-loathing curdled in his stomach, hot and hard and hollow.
Chapter 5
Miriam glanced quickly up the beach for the hundredth time in as many minutes. Perched on a rickety chair in the sand beneath a sort of tent rigged from a length of striped linen and scavenged pieces of driftwood, she let the wind flap the pages of her book like a bird’s wings. Every few minutes, Mrs. Kent leaped up to secure a flap that had been tugged loose by the breeze. Miriam hoped the effect was charming, for she expected the entire contraption to collapse and suffocate her at any moment.
She dug her toes into the sand as though she could bury her impatience. It had been an hour since they had arrived for sea bathing. In another hour their little party would depart for a lavish midday meal taken in the shaded glen a short drive from their boarding house. There was no sign of Lizzie.
There was no sign of Lord Northcote, either.
Miriam saw in her mind’s eye the way his dark hair ruffled in the breeze. She imagined the soft texture were she to run her fingers through the length of it and swallowed. His cheekbones were as sharp as oyster shells that cut her feet on the rocky beach. Behind his lashes the man’s eyes were pools of dark promise, as rich and as tempting as chocolate.
Lord Northcote had an air of mystery about him. What was he doing in New York? Was he truly exiled, as Lizzie had claimed?
Why did she care?
She didn’t, Miriam decided. There was no denying her fascination, but she hardly knew anything about the man other than his name and that he was what Mrs. Kent would call as handsome as the devil. Mrs. Kent held a puritanical view of pleasure. Even innocent pleasures led inevitably to hell. Miriam felt that pleasure was there to make life interesting, and that she did not partake in enough of it.
Miriam felt as though she had spent her whole life waiting for something to happen. As a child she had yearned to play with other children. She had desperately wanted to climb trees, run through the grass, and tumble like a weed through long afternoons of no responsibility. Instead, her fickle lungs demanded she remains indoors much of the time. To amuse herself, Miriam had read the classics in Latin and French when she tired of reading them in English. When possible, she had followed at her father’s side when he went to visit the lumber mills that were the source of her family’s considerable fortune. She had learned the language of business at his knee, when other children were climbing trees, playing hide-and-seek, or jackstraws.
Then, she had been sent to school. Miriam had hated girls’ boarding school. Upon her return home that summer, she’d quarreled with her father, Livingston, for the first time. The episode had provoked an asthma attack so potent that Miriam had nearly died. An unorthodox physician had pumped her body full of caffeine and belladonna extract and saved her life.
Livingston Walsh, terrified of the prospect of losing his daughter, relented and allowed her to skip the next two years of schooling. Mrs. Kent had arrived, and Miriam had a degree of freedom to pursue whatever interested her intellectually. What she’d lost in privacy with an attendant, she had gained in physical mobility. With Mrs. Kent at her side, Miriam’s father had felt more comfortable allowing her to explore the world.
School proved to be unexpectedly fun the second time around. Mrs. Kent was stationed at the school, on call but not shadowing her. In the sterile, spacious girls’ dormitory, then-sixteen-year-old Lizzie had been a beacon of fun, irreverence, and trouble. She was well-liked. Miriam felt so grateful to Lizzie’s inclusion of her in her antics that it had given Miriam only a moment’s pause whenever matters veered out of control.
Shortly after their third year, Lizzie had come out. Within weeks, she married the besotted middle son of the wealthy Van Buren family, shocking everyone. Yet only months after their hasty, lavish wedding, Lizzie had privately split with her husband. Since then, Lizzie had danced at the edges of good society, neither good enough to be fully accepted nor badly behaved enough to warrant full condemnation—until she’d taken up with the handsome foreigner named Northcote.
Miriam scanned the beach again. There were no handsome men traversing the sand. His lordship wasn’t coming. Now that she’d met him, Miriam understood the risk Lizzie had taken. Arthur was nice. But Richard was compelling.
“Mrs. Kent, I fancy a turn sea bathing,” she said.
Her companion jerked her chin up from the book she was reading, a book of psalms, which while fine in their place seemed altogether too serious for the beach. “Are you certain that you are strong enough to resist the tide?”
“Yes, Mrs. Kent. I am certain.” Miriam rose and shook the sand from her skirts. In their little cove, it ought to be perfectly safe. She removed her scarf and hat and set them aside.
“Do at least wear your bonnet,” her keeper admonished. Miriam sighed. Dutifully, she returned the broad-brimmed straw hat to her head. A hot, ungracious thought seared through her. Why couldn’t she be more like Lizzie, thumbing her nose at the most basic conventions? Miriam sighed.
Why couldn’t Lizzie be more like her, obedient to even the most inconsequential rules? With their traits better split
between them, they could have both been perfect women, instead of two utter failures of proper womanhood.
The tide sucked at her skirts. Miriam rejoiced in the ocean spray dampening her cheeks and lashes. Cool drops revitalized her spirit. Lizzie and other friends were splashing in the cool water, meeting each wave as it crested and broke at their knees. One of the lads was flirting with Lizzie. He picked her up and tossed her into deeper water. She came up sputtering.
“Miri! The water is almost bearable, don’t you think?” she giggled. Lizzie’s teeth were chattering.
“By Atlantic standards, perhaps,” Miri laughed. Her skirts were wet and heavy around her legs. As refreshing as the saltwater was, she knew she would not be sea bathing for more than a few minutes longer. “Where is your foreign friend?”
Lizzie’s expression shaded. “We have had a falling out. I don’t know that he’ll come today.”
She reached behind her and splashed the lad who had sent her into the wave. “Cheeky brat!” he yelled, slapping water back at her. Miriam stepped out of the way. A child, no more than eight, paddled by. Recognizing him, Miriam caught his ankle. He flipped onto his back and kicked free, knocking her into the water.
Miriam laughed when she surfaced, shaking water out of her face. The hat was gone, floating a few feet away. The boy retrieved it and tossed the soggy thing to a friend, who caught it and pretended to use it as a bucket.
“Look out!”
A large wave caught her off-guard. Miriam tripped over her skirts and fell with a splash. Lizzie bobbed in the waves a few feet away, her bare foot propped against her new lad’s chest. Though everyone looked younger while wet, Miriam guessed the man couldn’t be more than twenty—hardly older than Lizzie herself.
Bobbing in the water, Miriam felt the weight of her skirts lighten. They swirled around in the sandy silt churned by waves and feet. She turned her face to the sun. Lord Richard wasn’t coming today. Freckles be damned.
“Look out!”
Miriam rolled aside. The ruined hat, now a toy, plopped where her face had been a moment before. Lizzie laughed hysterically. “Good aim, Spence!”
“That’s my head you were aiming at!” Miriam laughed and tried to kick water at him but was hampered by her skirts. She recognized Spencer Laughton as one of Lizzie’s many distant cousins. The Laughtons had taken a family mill and, over two ruthless generations, turned it into an enterprise stretching from Chicago to New York. Lizzie’s mother was a Laughton, as well.
“Aye, and I’d have nailed you too if Lizzie hadn’t shouted warning!” Spencer splashed away, out of range. A dark scowl flitted over Lizzie’s face. Miriam turned to glance over her shoulder. A tall, well-formed man dressed in white linen sauntered up the beach. A frisson of anticipation skittered through Miriam. She forced her attention back to Lizzie.
“Hmph. If he thinks he can just show up late and pretend that everything’s all right, Lord Fancypants has another think coming.” Lizzie turned and dove in the water toward Spencer. She popped out of the water and kissed him square on the lips.
A beat of collective astonishment settled over the beach. Even Spencer’s eyes had grown wide as wagon wheels. He alone looked pleased. The youngest child whooped, and the spell broke.
Miriam glanced up the beach to where the Englishman had stopped. From this distance and with so short an acquaintance, she could detect no sign of irritation. Instead, he casually bent to pick up something from the beach. She felt cold standing there ankle-deep in the water, so she splashed her way out and worked her way up the shore in the direction of her tent. By the time she collapsed in its shade Miriam was panting. Mrs. Kent fluttered nervously at her side as they spread Miriam’s sand-crusted skirts wide to dry.
“May I sit?” a man asked in a wonderfully accented, low voice. Miriam could close her eyes and listen to him talk all day. His voice vibrated through her. Miriam had been waiting for so long for something to happen to her, and now she began to wonder if Lord Northcote was it. Lizzie was done with him. She had said as much herself. Surely that made it all right?
“By all means,” Miriam replied as though she wasn’t shivering in sodden, sand-spattered linen. Mrs. Kent cast them both a baleful glare and wrapped a sun-warmed blanket around her shoulders.
He was silent for several minutes. “I would guess that Lizzie has told you that she and I have parted ways.”
“Yes, she has indicated as much.” Perhaps it was simply the harsh light of the beach, but Lord Richard appeared off, his expression pained, his tanned skin faintly ashen. It seemed an odd phrasing: I would guess. Maybe the English had a slightly different way of discussing delicate matters. She had heard that Americans were considered overly forthright. Lizzie more than most.
“Well. It is true,” he continued, shifting his weight back onto his palms. Lord Northcote possessed admirable arms. His were corded with muscle and sprinkled with dark hair. He sounded oddly resigned.
“Did you not want the association to end?” Miriam asked as delicately as she could.
“On the contrary, I am thoroughly pleased by it.” Lord Richard glanced at her. “Lizzie washes into one’s life like one of those waves and recedes just as quickly. I am free to pursue a closer acquaintance with you, Miriam.”
Miriam felt her heart swell and pump erratically in her chest. “Me?” she finally squeaked.
The man’s thick lashes lowered and rose like curtains. Tiny crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. “You, Miriam. What do you think our falling out was about?” Lord Northcote reached out one large, warm hand and enfolded her fingers within his. He placed something hard in her hand. “May I call on you this evening, Miss Walsh?”
“Yes,” Miriam replied breathlessly. “Yes, please, do.”
Lord Northcote pushed off the ground and rose in a fluid motion that made Miriam’s heart flip. He bowed and sauntered away, unconcerned by the awkwardness his presence had brought to the stony beachfront. Miriam opened her hand looked down at the object in her palm.
An oyster shell. Oysters were supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Innocent girls were not supposed to know of such things, but she was well-read in the classics and girls at school had liked to pass around scandalous reading material.
Had Northcote known she would recognize the significance, or was Miriam reading too much into it?
“Miss Walsh?” Mrs. Kent hovered nearby. “Miss Walsh, it is past time to be headed back to our lodgings.” The older woman wore a pinched, worried expression.
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“I do like him, in fact, what little I know of him. But I do not like Lizzie and never have, as you well know. That he has been…” Mrs. Kent trailed off. “If they were involved, then it does not speak well of him. You deserve someone who is entirely honorable, not someone who flits from girl to girl in the space of an afternoon.”
The thought turned Miriam’s stomach. Lizzie was great fun but careless of the consequences of her actions upon others. Worse, she had a temper and a mean streak. Together the women disassembled the makeshift tent.
“You aren’t having trouble breathing?” asked Mrs. Kent worriedly.
“No. The sea air is beneficial.”
“Mrs. Kent, I would like to see Lord Richard again,” Miriam said as she shook the sand from her still-damp skirts and accepted a small stack of poles. Her nurse labored to hoist the heavy roll of tent canvas.
“This evening is your aunt’s Dance Beneath the Stars,” Mrs. Kent huffed warily. “I expect you may have a dance with the Englishman before retiring. There are always more ladies than there are partners. Mark my words, though, Miriam. Handsome men bring nothing but heartbreak.”
Chapter 6
Miriam had brought few gowns to the shore. She regarded her options critically, thinking of the gilt-threaded, bejeweled creations hanging in her wardrobe at Cliffside, her father’s country residence.
“The gray silk is beautiful on you,” Mrs. Kent opined.
&nb
sp; Lord Northcote had not called. Miriam had secreted the oyster shell beside her paste jewels for temporary safe-keeping. She brought it out when she thought her companion wasn’t looking to thumb the smooth interior. A gift whose significance was wholly unsuitable to an unmarried woman. The doctor and her father had advised her against marriage. An asthma attack could harm a baby or prove fatal in childbirth. Miriam chafed at the restriction. A man who had allied himself with Lizzie seemed like the kind of man who could offer a rebellion against the strict limits upon her life.
“I was thinking the rose is prettier on me. It brightens my complexion, don’t you think?” Miriam asked, holding one aloft. The soft evening light filtering in through the window added a radiance she didn’t ordinarily possess.
“Both are lovely.” Mrs. Kent clearly preferred the gray silk. Miriam chose the pink anyway. Mrs. Kent set to arranging Miriam’s hair, threading imitation pearls into her glossy dark curls. Mrs. Kent wore her usual shapeless black dress. At her side hung the leather case that the physician had given her to aid Miriam during an asthma attack. It contained a light bowl, a flask of hot water which Mrs. Kent dutifully refreshed before each excursion, and vials of vile substances. Though Miriam hated the constant reminder of her physical limitations, she loved Mrs. Kent, who had been more mother to her than her own unremembered one.
Music spilled out over the verandah of the party. Each summer, Lizzie’s aunt hosted a gala at the shore. There was dancing, punch, and a pig roasted on a spit. The punch was liberally spiked, and last year even Mrs. Kent had enjoyed a glass or two. Miriam stood with her family at the edge of the party, scanning the crowds for Lord Northcote. For the second time that day, he hadn’t joined the party. Perhaps he didn’t know he was invited. How lonely for him to be left out of the festivities, especially with his parting from Lizzie.