At least when such a man didn’t constantly interrupt when he wanted to kiss his wife, with cleared throats and loud
ahem
s.
He pulled away with a scowl for Worthing, who stood a few feet away, his feet in the grass rather than the sand. “Have you made it your life’s work to harass us, Worthing?”
His friend grinned. “You would think so, but no. It only seems that way because there’s never a moment when you’re
not
sneaking off with your wife for a kiss.”
“I didn’t know you were here—or coming.” Brook left Justin’s side long enough to greet Worthing with a kiss on his cheek. “On your way to Scotland?”
“Aye, that we are,” he said in a fine imitation of the Highland burr. He nodded back toward Whitby Park as Brook returned to Justin’s side. “Ella and my parents are having tea with Whit, who has already convinced them to tarry here until tomorrow. He said you were greeted with a visit from Catherine upon your return yesterday.”
Justin settled a hand on Brook’s back in time to feel her shudder. “A lovely homecoming from our honeymoon.” They had envisioned a quiet evening telling Whitby all about their trip through the Mediterranean, their visit with Prince Albert. A quiet evening at home before their planned trip this evening to Azerley Hall, to get to know the new Lady Cayton. But then Lady Pratt had glided in, all sugary smiles over the venom they knew hovered beneath. “Put a pall on the whole evening.”
Worthing pressed his lips together. “Did she try to make friends again?”
“She tried. As if I’m stupid enough to fall for her tricks a second time.” Brook’s fingers went to her necklace, to the pearl-hidden diamonds she still wore. They needed to decide
what to do with them—but had all agreed to focus first on the wedding, on getting settled in at Ralin Castle. The long, cold winter would give them time enough to discuss red diamonds and Indian curses with her father. “As if I couldn’t see the hate in her eyes. She loved Pratt, unfathomable as it seems. In her eyes, we killed him. Yet another person dead because of the Fire Eyes—yet another reason for her to think they should be hers.”
She was playing it smart, though, Justin had to grant her that. Gathering a horde of supporters, making herself into a celebrity. Hand-in-hand with every article about Brook had been one about Catherine—the poor, deceived fiancée and then pregnant wife, who had been used by her husband because of her connection with the jewels.
The telegraph clerk hadn’t been able—or willing—to identify Catherine as the one to send that false note. But Justin knew it. He
knew
it.
Brook wrapped her arms around her middle. “This isn’t over. She’ll bide her time, she’ll let us get comfortable and perhaps focus for now on her coming child. But she’ll strike again.”
Justin drew in a slow breath. “Pratt waited nineteen years to avenge his father’s death—I daresay Catherine won’t be quite so patient to avenge his. We can’t afford to relax, to let our guards down.”
Worthing shoved his hands in his pockets and stared past them, to the glimmering sea. “You should just get rid of the things. Donate them to a museum.”
“Even if we did, she would still seek revenge for him.” Brook’s fingers fell away from the pearls. “And she would still seek the diamonds. I know she would, and probably others besides her. If we donate them, then we pass along the curse to some unwitting museum staff. Guards would end up dead in attempted thefts. Other property destroyed. Other lives ruined because
of these stupid things. I can’t do that. I can’t make someone else pay for them.”
With a sigh, Worthing looked at Brook, then at Justin. “I see your point. The poor chaps at a museum wouldn’t know how to defend against this. Wouldn’t know that the best way to hold the evil at bay is through prayer.”
A chill possessed Justin, despite the hot summer sun. He nodded. “We know, though. We know how to fight it.”
“And yet . . . you’ve lost so much already. Both of you. You’ve had so much sorrow this past year.” Worthing’s brow had a furrow as deep as the sea. “You deserve peace as you start your life together.”
“Brice—no.” Brook shook her head wildly, sending curls into the clutches of the wind. “This isn’t your fight. We appreciate all the prayers you’ve prayed for us, all the support you have given. But your involvement ends there. Don’t try to take any of this upon yourself. I won’t let you.”
Worthing’s grin reemerged, bright if a touch sad. “But I’ve gotten a taste for adventure. Let me help here or I’ll have to go find a mountain to scale. A horde of pirates to fight off. Maybe a sheik to challenge.”
“No.”
The mirth fell away. “I have to, though. The Lord has made that very clear—and
I’ll
have no peace if I don’t obey Him.”
Justin’s fingers curled over his wife’s shoulder. “Worthing—”
“She wouldn’t have forgotten that I was there, too, when Pratt was killed. If she blames you, she blames me. If she’s made a target of you, she’s made one of me.” He shrugged. “Might as well make it count and tell her I have the diamonds too. Get her to focus more on me than you for a while.”
Brook shook her head. “She’d never believe it. She wants them too badly to think we’d ever give them up.”
Justin shook his head, too, looked off into the distance. Nar
rowed his eyes at the glint of sun on blond hair. “Don’t look now, but I believe she’s watching us as we speak. No doubt thinks we’re plotting how to keep the things from her.”
“Then let’s make it count.” Worthing swallowed and pasted on a smile. “She’ll believe it if she sees it. If you give them to me now.”
“Brice.” No laughter laced Brook’s voice.
Worthing’s grin faded again. “This is what we’re supposed to do.”
Justin felt the breath she drew in and sucked in one to match. “You can’t be sure of that.”
His breath of laughter sounded more cynical than amused. “You think not? If you have an argument with it, take it up with the Almighty. Perhaps you’ll convince Him where I’ve failed.”
Only Worthing could talk so calmly about arguing with God. “You can’t actually want them. If you try to sell them, if word gets out, you’ll be hunted down just like Rushworth was.”
“What I want is for my friends to be safe!” He shoved a hand through his hair—his tell, Justin had learned, of the deepest unrest. “She could already be carrying your child, Stafford, or if not now, then soon. What then? Why would you not take whatever safety for them I can offer, meager as it is?”
While Justin tried not to let the hope and fear of a possible coming child overwhelm him, Brook gripped the dangling pearls, the diamonds within. “It won’t help. She’ll still come after us.”
“Yes.” Worthing held out a hand. “She’ll come after all of us. But if I can get her to come after me first, then you two can focus on your marriage for now. On your baby—whenever one joins you.”
Brook’s eyes went narrow. “Why do you keep speaking of—?”
“Call it a hunch.” A wink of a grin, quickly gone. Worthing wiggled his fingers. “Let me help you. I promise I’ll tread with
the utmost care. With constant prayer. I’ll find a way to expose her for what she is, to see she meets justice. And then I’ll return the diamonds. You have my word.”
Brook took her bottom lip between her teeth and then looked up into Justin’s eyes. Hers were damp. “He could be right. We could . . . I could be . . .” She splayed a hand over her stomach. “I don’t want to bring a child into the middle of this.”
Was she saying . . . ? She couldn’t be sure, it was too soon. But if she thought it possible . . . Justin exhaled shakily. “All right. All right. But we’ll help you plan. We’ll help you catch her.”
Brook was already working at the pearls. A diamond dropped into her palm, and then, a moment later, its twin.
Justin swallowed. All the times they’d spoken of them, but this was the first he’d seen them. She held out her palm, and the sun angled down and set the jewels aflame. Could Catherine see it, from where she stood on her bluff on Delmore land? Probably not—but she would guess. She would assume.
Despite his words, Worthing stood there a long moment staring at them. He lifted his hand slowly and scooped them from hers. Held them up to catch the light . . . and perhaps the attention of their distant observer. “Hello, trouble.” Lowering his hand again, he slid it and the gems into his pocket. “I had better at least be named the child’s godfather for this.”
Brook breathed a strained laugh and leaned into Justin’s side. “Be careful, Brice.”
He nodded, waved a hand at them, and turned back toward the house. “I’m going to go and tell my parents you’ve invited us to spend Christmas with you at Ralin Castle. It’s the least you can do, after all.”
“We’ve rooms enough, I suppose.” Justin chuckled as their friend stomped back down the hill.
Brook rested her head on his shoulder. “Sometimes it still feels so unreal. One of your stories.”
He thought so nearly every morning, when he awoke with her in his arms. “This one must be called ‘The Life of the Duchess.’ And there are many adventures yet to be spun in it—all of which have the happiest of endings.”
She smiled up at him, then glanced back toward the house for which Worthing strode. “And no doubt quite a lot of excitement we would all rather do without.”
“You wouldn’t know what to do with a boring life. If no danger found you, you’d create some.”
At that she laughed, tossing back her head so it could blend with the music of wind and surf. Then she sighed. “I suppose it’s time we leave for Azerley Hall.”
“Mm.” He smoothed back the curl that had blown into his face, tucked it behind her ear. “Cayton’s note said Adelaide is excited to get to know you better.”
“And I her. Though I don’t know if I have it in me to be anything but polite to Cayton. Not seeing how Melissa still mourns the loss of him.”
“He at least recognizes that he made a thorough mull of everything. Perhaps there’s hope for him.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Shall we, then?”
He expected another sigh, another grumble about Cayton. Instead, she grinned in that way only Brook could, the way that nearly stopped his heart. And she held up the key to the Rolls-Royce that had been, a minute ago, in his pocket. “I’ll drive.”
There was nothing for it but to laugh and chase her down the hill.
A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE
I
often say a book has been with me for a long time . . . but no book has been with me as long as this one. When I was twelve, Brook’s story began in what I was determined would be my first completed novel, entitled
Golden
Sunset,
Silver
Tear
. I finished it a year and a half later. After nine other published books, nineteen years, four titles, and countless rewrites, I’m beyond ecstatic to see Brook and Justin’s story in print. And with Bethany House, the first publisher I queried about it at the age of fourteen!
One of the first revisions I made to the story as a teen was to change the opening setting from a fictional kingdom to Monaco, after learning of the Grimaldis’ longest monarchy in history. Though there was obviously never a Brook in that rich family, she fits well with the actual history. Prince Louis, who I billed as her father, was always at odds with
his
father, Prince Albert—largely because he refused to marry and instead kept an actress as his mistress. Their one daughter, Charlotte, was adopted into the Grimaldi family legally so she could be named the crown
princess, and the principality could be kept from the hands of the next nearest relative—one Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.
The biggest change Brook and Justin underwent, though, was when I decided to change the setting of the story from the 1860s to the 1910s. The credit there belongs to my fabulous agent, Karen Ball—and the change was one of those that, once I’d thought of how to do it, earned an “Of course! How could I have missed this all these years?
This
is when Brook was supposed to have lived!” The changing times and ideas perfectly fit the spirit Brook had always had, and though it required a complete overhaul of the story, it was one I took joy in.
For those wondering about the red diamonds, let me assure you that, though the Fire Eyes are fictional, the information shared about such jewels in general is true. They really are the rarest jewel in the world, and the largest red diamond is only five carats.
On a similar note, while I set my heroine’s home in a real area and descriptions of Whitby and Yorkshire are taken from research, Whitby Park and Eden Dale are fictional locations, as are the other homes mentioned.
Like any story,
The Lost Heiress
couldn’t have been written without help and input. Thanks to Patrick Collins of the National Motor Museum in Brockenhurst, UK, for taking the time to answer my questions about the Rolls-Royce that later became known as the Silver Ghost—and going above and beyond by scanning pages of its manual for me! And I’m also so grateful to my English reader, Elisabeth Allen, for volunteering to read over the manuscript and make sure no Americanisms worked their way into the story. You were a real godsend, Elisabeth! I also had to tap the immense knowledge of the British Raj of my Irish-born friend, Christine Lindsay—thanks so much for patiently answering my questions about what rank Henry should have, and what Deirdre would call her parents. And of
course, Wendy Chorot for reviewing all my French for me—thanks, flower!
I’m so blessed to be surrounded by encouraging family and friends, from my parents (who told me my thirteen-year-old version of this book was great) to my husband, David (who has read so many versions of it, it’s amazing he hasn’t gone cross-eyed). I’ve had priceless input on these characters over the years from critique partners (Stephanie!) and agents and editors, all of whom contributed to the story I ended up telling. And I can’t begin to say how grateful I am to Charlene and the team at Bethany House for believing it was Brook’s time to be published. Karen S., I still can’t get over coming full circle on this after so many years since that pitch at my first conference!