by Darcy Burke
“I’m glad it’s not a done deal before I had a chance to meet the blighter. You had me worried there for a minute,” Livingston chuckled. “Who is he?”
“Lord Richard Northcote,” Miriam offered with a note of pride. Her father’s expression darkened.
“I’ve heard of him. He has some affiliation with Howard Shipping Enterprises.” Livingston’s mouth formed an o, as if he were about to speak, then closed. All he said was, “Shall we take a walk uptown later this afternoon?”
“Of course,” Miriam replied. They went every day, weather permitting. “Tomorrow, however, I beg leave to entertain a guest in the afternoon.”
Her father winked in response. Her nerves settled, like a flock of birds on a tree branch, ready to take flight again at the first glimpse of the fascinating, mercurial man who’d captured her imagination—and possibly her heart.
Yet ten full days would pass before Miriam laid eyes on Lord Richard Northcote again.
Chapter 9
The first three days without wine, or whiskey, or any sort of drink at all, left Richard a shaky, aching mess. The only company he could stand was Howard’s. His friend’s delight upon learning that Lizzie was no longer in the picture was tempered by Richard’s immediate substitution for a new love.
Besides, as angry as he was with his lover’s plotting, Richard told himself he missed Lizzie’s company. At least she badgered him to get out of bed, or into it. Without her Richard was forced to think about honoring mealtimes. He couldn’t rely on her to remind him to eat. For several days, Richard missed his landlady’s provided breakfast and went to Howard’s warehouse with a stomach so empty it rumbled loud enough for others to hear.
“You’re not moping over the red-haired woman, are you?” demanded Howard. He didn’t like to speak Lizzie’s name. Claimed it summoned the devil in the flesh.
“Of course not,” Richard lied. True, he was in a sulk. He did not wish to court Miriam under false pretenses or possibly at all. After sending the rash letter, he had sent a second making his excuses. The part of him that Richard only listened to when his muscles burned with the effort of unloading and reloading ships whispered in his mind that the longer he waited to call on Miriam, the more likely the attraction was to fade. With distance, he hoped he wouldn’t hold so much appeal to a fragile young lady. With time, his awkwardly genuine desire to touch her would surely diminish.
Once his hands were steady without drink, Richard debated hourly whether he ought to visit Miriam. Each time, he resolved to leave Miss Walsh in peace. As his need for wine crested and crashed, Richard buried himself in long hours of hauling freight to support his future child.
Lizzie, of course, didn’t think this at all sufficient. Although she’d publicly reconciled with her husband—her affair with Spencer had ended preemptively after his ignominious defeat at Richard’s hands—Richard held no doubt their reunion was grounded in the thinnest layer of reputational self-preservation.
One afternoon, about a week after their separate return from the Pines, Richard found Lizzie waiting on his unmade bed when he arrived home from the warehouse. His skin was crusted with dried salt. He looked forward to filling a hip bath with warm water and sinking into it, but that meant hauling buckets from the well, starting a fire in the stove of his too-warm apartments, and then emptying the tub into the rear yard. It was such a bother, having to perform these menial tasks himself. Richard had developed a new appreciation for the servants who’d hauled endless buckets of water up and down stairs to keep him clean back in England. Here, he could afford only a twice-weekly maid to keep his rooms from falling into total disarray.
“Have you been to see Miriam, yet?” Lizzie demanded idly, with an ice pick in her tone. She turned the page of her fashion magazine. The dress she wore was new, made of creamy linen embroidered with green trim. In it, Lizzie looked cool and resplendent. There was no hint of the licentious woman who had taken him on that very bed many times over the past several months. Lizzie barely glanced up at him.
“You know I haven’t,” Richard replied. A weariness he couldn’t attribute to hauling cargo crept over him. Lizzie’s presence fatigued his very spirit. He wanted her gone.
“I haven’t told Arthur yet.”
Another page flipped past. Lizzie had folded up the bottom corner to mark the page.
“About our baby,” Richard clarified.
Green eyes met his, slowly. Beneath the glacial indifference, Richard saw a barely-banked cold fury that chilled his marrow.
He’d hurt her. It didn’t matter how impractical her desires were. What Lizzie wanted she went after with the tenacity of a badger.
What she’d wanted was him.
“Yes, about the child we are making.” Lizzie returned her attention to the periodical she was perusing. She shifted back, displaying her breasts. The linen gown draped over his tangled quilt, revealing nothing. It was cut, he realized immediately, to hide a growing belly.
“You might yet lose it.” The wish popped out of his mouth without intervention from his brain. The thought of siring a child with Lizzie, of all women, sent a shudder through him. He wished he’d thought of that before falling into bed with a woman he’d never liked and since come to abhor. “I see advertisements for mother’s helpers, to bring back the menses, in every newspaper. It can’t be that difficult.”
Lizzie rolled back and sat up in a single, fluid motion. Her eyes went wide with purposeful astonishment.
“Are you asking me to kill our child?” she asked quietly.
In Richard’s view, this was mighty early to refer to an invisible bump growing in Lizzie’s belly as anything so momentous as a child. What if he went through with seducing Miriam and Lizzie miscarried? Being a coward when it came to arguing with Lizzie, he changed the subject.
“There is no hope of a marriage between us, Lizzie. Even if I could give you the status and wealth you crave, what you’re after is entirely dependent upon the arrival of a person who will never thank you for being born into a loveless partnership. You have nothing to offer the infant but unhappiness.”
He hadn’t intended to circle back to the initial topic, yet Richard’s tongue had spoken what his brain hadn’t meant to say out loud.
“If I hadn’t already hated you, Richard, I’d start right now.” Lizzie pushed herself off the bed and shook her skirts straight. The waistline was defined but high, disguising any mild bulge that might or might not have begun to show. She caught him inspecting her midsection and smirked. “If you’re hoping for a reprieve from responsibility, you’re an even greater coward than I thought.”
Richard could hardly disagree.
She stalked away, surveying his modest apartments with contempt. Only two weeks earlier, Lizzie had claimed to find his residence relaxed and inviting. Now, Richard wondered with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach whether he’d ever understood her motives.
Had she truly believed herself in love with him, or had she been entranced with his title and plotting to obtain it from the start?
Richard had never cared enough to find out. He, too, had been ensorcelled by his conferred, unearned importance in the world. Losing his place as heir to the Briarcliff earldom had been the greatest single blow to his self-regard he’d ever experienced. Richard recalled the precise moment he had been transformed from the tolerated but never adored spare into the heir apparent. His brother’s disappearance into the wilds of Brazil had changed the course of Richard’s life for the better. He had become the sainted, the respected, and the most important of all family members. Overnight, his sisters and younger brother had demonstrated an increased degree of respect—or had, once he’d returned to England with his father.
His mother had grown more lenient with him the longer Edward was missing. As the years passed, she had poured her efforts into searching for Edward, and had hardly paid any attention to him at all. Richard mulled this in silence for days as his muscles stretched and strained to raise barrels of fo
od, bolts of cotton, or fine china packed in sawdust and sealed in heavy wood crates.
His brother’s return three years ago had unmoored Richard. Overnight, he lost the title, his allowance, and his new mistress. Friends had abandoned him like rats from a sinking ship once Richard had been reduced to a hard-living almost-heir spending his abruptly curtailed inheritance as fast as he could. The sudden restrictions on his income had angered him, as had his father’s insistence that Edward could be restored to sanity well enough to claim his rightful place. Richard had offered nothing but needling jokes and viciously targeted humor as he’d plotted to have his brother locked away in an asylum.
Edward’s return had left Richard unneeded. Unwanted.
Unloved.
Miriam had stared at him like he was a gift from the gods from the very first moment they’d met. Richard hadn’t had to do anything at all to earn it. He did not deserve Miriam’s soft gaze or innocent kisses any more than she deserved to be the unwitting victim of her friend’s plotting. For a time, Lizzie had given him that sense of being adored. It had been a lie, but it had been an effective one, a balm to his badly bruised sense of worth.
“Break,” Howard yelled. The men released the rope as one. Wood scraped and men’s voices rose in a cacophony that chased away Richard’s miserable thoughts.
By the end of the week, Richard’s resolution had fractured. He needed to see Miriam again, to bask in the glow of her affection whether he deserved it or not. After all, he was the son who’d murdered his own father. Forgiveness, redemption, and love were not for him.
Chapter 10
JULY
Richard had darkened countless doorsteps of imposing townhouses and elegant country manors. The facade of the Walsh’s home, with its squat proportions and brooding black-framed windows, shouldn’t make his hand tremble as he moved to knock. But it did.
Incongruous boxes of bright summer blooms spilled out from beneath the windows. A bee buzzed lazily amongst them. Richard ran his fingers through his hair and inhaled the sweet scent of the flowers. When was the last time he’d felt faint with nerves? Had he ever?
The door creaked as it swung open. Richard startled. A man barely taller than Miriam, with thick black waves of hair sprinkled with gray at the temples assessed him with obsidian eyes.
“Lor—” He stopped. Miriam’s father did not appear to be the type who was easily impressed by titles granted by a far-off sovereign. One his country had waged war to part ways with, at that. “Richard Northcote to see Miss Walsh.”
“Are you now?” he asked softly. A bright spark lit the older man’s eyes like an ember from Hades’ forge. Richard swallowed, pinned in place by the intelligence and curiosity he found there. It was too late to turn tail and run. Pity, that.
“Yes, sir. Is the lady available?” Richard asked, clearing his throat.
“Mebe,” Walsh responded with an exaggerated American accent. Maybe. His skeptical gaze roamed Richard’s body from tip to toe. Richard had found the funds to have his best suit tailored and freshened, but it no longer looked new. His work at the warehouse had turned his biceps into mounds and broadened his shoulders necessitating new clothing entirely, not simple alterations. Richard had done what he could, but he was acutely conscious of the fact that he did not present as a nobleman from a distant land.
“If there’s a more convenient time for me to return…” Richard trailed off. He did not appreciate being left dangling on the doorstep like a servant at the wrong door.
“She’s in the rear yard,” Livingston replied. “Miriam has been waiting for you ever since you sent your first note. What pressing business of yours kept my daughter on tenterhooks for ten whole days, might I ask?”
Real fear prickled up Richard’s collar and concentrated at the base of his skull. Livingston Walsh looked like the sort of man who would bite the head off any man who dared to disappoint his daughter. He was carved of black marble and rough-hewn freedom.
“I had work at the warehouse,” Richard blurted, as though that could help his case.
“Howard’s, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Richard replied, swallowing hard around the lie. “I’m his partner.”
Abruptly, Mr. Walsh turned his back. Boot heels clopped on wide, scuffed planks. Richard peered into the house and, after a moment’s hesitation, followed.
Like the floors, the walls were crafted of dark wood. The house’s furnishings, also wood, were carved out of heavy walnut. A console table gleamed softly in the low light. A silver bowl sat atop it, beneath a large heavy-framed mirror. Beside that stood a spindly coat rack upon which hung a battered top hat.
A large double door with heavy iron handles laid to his left. To the right, a similarly dark receiving room. It looked like the parlors and sitting rooms Richard was accustomed to seeing in the homes of wealthy families. With its oversized, heavy furniture, the space looked like a belligerent commercial space designed to make supplicants feel small. The entry certainly had the effect of making Richard feel even less confident of his purpose in coming here. Only the prospect of thwarting Lizzie’s meanspirited plans kept Richard moving forward. Footsteps disappeared down a narrow hallway. A glow of light illuminated the end but nothing beyond that point.
“She’s back here,” Walsh called over his shoulder. Richard hurried after his host like a lost duckling scurrying after its mother.
The back half of the house was as different from the front as chalk to cheese. Once through the dim, imposing front rooms, the rear apartments were warm and inviting. It was as if two distinctly different people had battled over the architectural priorities and had divided the spoils. Clearly, whomever had won the front had the more visible but smaller share of real estate.
After the gloom of the entrance, Richard’s eyes needed a moment to adjust to the brighter light. When they cleared, he saw a wall of casement windows that let in the afternoon sun. French doors opened onto an extended yard teeming with flowers. A slight figure in a gauzy white gown fairly glowed in their midst. Thick, glossy black curls escaped their pins on the top of her head to dance about her shoulders.
Mine, his heart whispered. My woman, my wife, my soul.
Richard coughed. Where had that thought sprung from? Miriam was none of those things. Least of all his soul. Assuming he had one.
“Are you coming?” demanded Walsh. The man’s pugnacious form had settled into a shadow near the dining room where he observed Richard.
“Yes. I was momentarily blinded.” Richard forced his body into motion. Dampness condensed in the hollows of his arms and at the small of his back. “It’s very bright back here.”
“Miriam likes her garden. I ripped out the wall, as much as I could of it without the house falling down, and installed casement windows.”
“It reminds me of my father’s…” Richard stopped. Only wealthy families could claim to have a conservatory, and he had no status here, only a tenuous connection with his family in England. He could return at his brother’s word and not a moment before. That had been the agreement when Edward had sent him away.
“You were saying something about your father.”
Richard swallowed past a tight throat. “He’s dead. Almost three years ago.”
“I see,” replied Livingston Walsh, and Richard had the uncomfortable feeling he saw entirely too much. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Shall I proceed?” Richard inclined his head toward the garden where Miriam worked unaware that she was being observed.
“Keep it short.”
Dismissed, Richard measured his approach in restrained steps. At his first footfall on the flagstone path, Miriam glanced up. The joy that overtook her features made him feel every bit the scoundrel he was. After all, he was here for her money, not for her.
“Richard,” she half exclaimed, half-breathed. “I wish you’d warned me before coming. I’m covered in dirt and—”
“You look beautiful.” Richard’s heart hammered in his chest. The v
ise in his throat squeezed tighter, choking off his ability to speak. He couldn’t do this. Lying was not exactly an unfamiliar habit. Witness his refusal to use the proper, demoted title ever since his arrival in America. Yet there was an honesty and softness that pulled at Richard’s protective instincts.
“You’re a dear,” Miriam blushed. She removed her gardening gloves and set them aside. “Would you care for tea?”
“Please.”
If he could swallow it past the tight knot in his throat. “You waited so long to come, I believed you’d lost all interest.” There was no accusation in her words. Richard’s stomach flipped and sank.
“I had work to do. Impoverished noblemen on foreign shores have little choice but to earn their keep.” He remembered to take a breath, and speaking was easier after that. But he had to remind himself to keep doing it. Richard had spent years seducing practiced courtesans and flirting with innocent girls when he couldn’t escape dancing with them. But never had he tried to court a woman under false pretenses. It was harder than he thought it would be, in part because Miriam had inherited her father’s directness.
Before this afternoon, Harper Forsythe, his now sister-in-law and current countess of Briarcliff, had dared to address him as an equal. Richard had disdainfully dismissed her from the moment they had met. A familiar emotion tightened Richard’s shoulders. Regret.
He was sick of it. Yet here he was, committing one more sin to cement his everlasting damnation.
A question arose in Miriam’s eyes as he settled into the iron chair beside a planter overflowing with blossoms.
You are here to seduce Miriam out of her fortune. Not to fall in love, Richard reminded himself sternly. “Your father is an intimidating man.”
It was the right thing to say. Miriam smiled conspiratorially.
“Only at first. He’s very protective of me.”