A Heart for the Taking (6 page)

Fancy wasn’t quite certain how it came about, but a few minutes later, as they all walked toward the gangplank, she found herself firmly anchored to Jonathan’s arm, his mother on his other side as they followed behind an amiably chatting Sam and Ellen. Fancy was paying only half a mind to Constance’s chatter, and while she didn’t want to be too judgmental, she sincerely hoped that Letty Walker was more
like Sam and less like Constance. If she wasn’t, it was going to be a
very
long visit.

They had almost reached the gangplank and were just starting down, when there was a sudden gasp from Constance and she stopped dead in her tracks. Her face almost ugly with displeasure, she grasped Jonathan’s arm even tighter and hissed, “What is
he
doing here?”

Fancy’s gaze followed the direction of Constance’s look, and her heart gave another of those funny little leaps. The frontiersman who had stared so boldly at her just a short while ago was standing at the base of the gangplank, a cool smile tugging at the corners of his long mouth. Unable to help herself, she whispered to Jonathan, “Who
is
that man?”

An unpleasant expression on his handsome face, Jonathan said grimly, “Why, only the bastard of the family. Chance. Chance Walker.”

S
am Walker heard Jonathan’s comment, and sending his half-brother a stern look over his shoulder, he said quietly, “Have you been away so long in England that you have forgotten that this is a New World and a man should be allowed to put his beginnings behind him? Because of an unfortunate set of circumstances—none, I might add, of his own making—is Chance to be forever branded?”

Jonathan stiffened at the note of reprimand in Sam’s voice and muttered, “Have
you
forgotten that he cheated us out of thousands of acres?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he said softly, “I have not forgotten precisely how it was that Chance came to own that particular tract of our land. And now, I think we have said enough in front of our charming guests.” He smiled down at Ellen’s wide-eyed expression. “Forgive us! You have stumbled across a long-standing family disagreement and we have been rude enough to air it in front of you. Believe me, we are not always so impolite.”

The moment was smoothed over, but the exchange between the brothers left Fancy with the decided impression that Chance Walker was not someone she would care to know any better. It also left all sorts of questions floating
around in her head. What were the circumstances of his birth, and how
had
Chance Walker obtained that land? And why, if he was the blackguard that Jonathan indicated, did his brother seem to defend him? Remembering the contemptuous way Chance Walker had stared up at her earlier, Fancy decided that in this case, Jonathan probably had the correct understanding of the man. Chance Walker was obviously
not
a gentleman.

As they continued down the gangplank, the closer they came to the tall, buckskin-clad figure standing so arrogantly on the wharf, Fancy found herself tensing, and unconsciously she clung more tightly to Jonathan’s arm. She was suddenly glad that she wasn’t alone and that they were in a public place with several people nearby.

Why she felt that way, she couldn’t have said, but there was something in the way Chance Walker was looking at her, some expression in those hooded eyes, that warned her he was no more impressed by her than she had been by him. Which, of course, naturally put her on her mettle and put an unusually haughty expression on her pretty face and had her little tip-tilted nose firmly in the air.

Avoiding even looking in the direction of the waiting figure at the base of the gangplank, she began to speak with great animation to Jonathan, talking airily about some ball they had attended together in London. She didn’t even know what she was babbling on about, and despite her apparent lively conversation with Jonathan, she was unbearably aware of the other man. She could feel his gaze like a searing blade, boring into her.

They finally reached the wharf, where Sam Walker greeted Chance with a warm smile. “Good morning, Chance, I didn’t expect to see you here in Richmond. The last I heard of you from Morely, you were somewhere out in the wilderness trading with the Indians. Was it a profitable trip, my boy?”

At thirty-four years of age, Chance hardly resembled a boy, standing nearly six feet three in his stockinged feet. Beneath the fringed buckskins that he wore with such careless
elegance, his shoulders were broad, his body whipcord lean, and his dark face was hard and shuttered. An unforgettable face, Fancy thought in spite of herself, her gaze noting the swooping black brows, the startling cobalt blue eyes, and the long, mobile mouth.

Their eyes suddenly met, and Fancy felt her heart drop right down somewhere around her curling little toes. Mercy! No one had ever looked at her that way before! The cool contempt was plain to see, as was the inexplicable dislike, but it was the flash of something else deep in his eyes that made her pulse leap.

Ignoring a craven impulse to pick up her skirts and run back up the gangplank to the relative safety of the ship, Fancy lifted her chin even higher, and her lovely eyes held an angry sparkle. Who did he think he was, this backwoods buffoon, looking at her in
such
a manner?

Sam cleared his throat gently, breaking the odd spell between them, and Fancy’s mouth nearly fell open in shock at the change of expression that swept over Chance’s features as he glanced at the older man. A warm, stunningly attractive smile tugged at the corners of that long mouth and lit those blue, blue eyes as he said in a deep voice, “It is good to see you, sir. And as for my trip . . . well, it was not very successful—you know that Logan has joined with Cornstalk and that the Shawnees and other Indian tribes have banded together. They have been raiding and killing all along the Ohio since Logan’s family was slaughtered in April. I went more at the governor’s request to see if I could convince them to meet to talk peace, but . . .” Chance shrugged. “I was, I am unhappy to admit, no better a peace emissary than I was a trader.”

It was too good an opportunity for Jonathan to pass up, and he drawled, “I must say that I am surprised that Lord Dunmore sent someone of your ilk to deal with these warring savages. After all, your, er, skills are more in fleecing the unwary, aren’t they?”

Chance smiled coolly in Jonathan’s direction. “I have often wondered how you explained your losses that night.”

Jonathan’s face congealed with fury, and he took a threatening step forward. It was his mother who recalled him to his senses by saying sharply to Chance, “How dare you speak to my son in that manner!” She looked angrily over at Sam. “Are you going to just stand there and let him get away with insulting your only brother in that manner?”

Sam shook his head wearily. “I have told you a hundred times, Constance, that I am not going to be drawn into the middle of this senseless feud between the pair of them. And as for Chance insulting Jonathan, I believe,” he said dryly, “that it was Jonathan who cast the first stone. Now then, before we subject our guests to any more of our inexcusable rudeness, I suggest that we bid Chance good-bye and continue on our way.” Sam looked at Chance. “In view of the circumstances, I think it would be best if we postponed introductions to our guests to a later date, do you agree?”

Chance nodded curtly and, after one long, insolent glance at Fancy, turned on his heel and strode swiftly down the wharf. Feeling as if she had just survived a fall from a high cliff, Fancy let her breath out in a rush and only then became aware of how tightly she had been clinging to Jonathan’s arm. Embarrassed and feeling a little silly, she loosened her hold instantly and said with an attempt at lightness, “Well! You did promise us some exciting moments in the Colonies, Jonathan—I just did not think that they would start the moment we stepped off the ship! I was fearful for one awful moment that you were going to come to the blows with that impertinent creature.”

Jonathan laughed, his good humor restored now that Chance’s tall figure was lost among the shifting crowd on the wharf. Taking Fancy’s hand with a gleam in his eyes, he brushed his lips across her soft skin. “That was not exactly the kind of adventure I had in mind for you and your sister, but I am happy that you have been so kind as to make light of my deplorably bad manners. Chance is no friend of mine—there is a great deal of bad blood between us, and I am sorry that you and Ellen had to see such an ugly scene.
Will you forgive me?” He glanced meltingly over at Ellen. “And you, too, my dear?”

Ellen sent him an uncertain smile, her eyes very big and round in her face. “It was rather shocking, wasn’t it?”

Straightening the folds of her skirts, Fancy said quietly, “Yes, it was, but we will not repine on it. And as for forgiving you . . . there is nothing to forgive, Jonathan, it was just an unfortunate occurrence.” Looking at Sam, she flashed him a dimpled smile. “We shall talk no more of it. Instead, Mr. Walker shall escort us to the carriage and we shall all forget about Chance Walker! I doubt that after today he will be brazen enough to even show us his face again.”

“Oh, he is brazen enough!” Jonathan said. “I doubt that there is anything that he would find
too
brazen to do.”

Sam looked troubled, and ignoring Jonathan’s comment, he muttered, “I am sorry that Chance has made such a bad impression on you. He is, perhaps, blunt and inclined to speak his mind, but there is no evil in him.”

Jonathan’s brow sketched upward. “So you say, but you will not find
me
in agreement with you, brother.”

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Constance rushed in with, “Oh, fiddle! I am sick to death of hearing that man’s name. He has been nothing but a trial to this family since he was born. It grieves me to say it, Samuel, but he is just like that no-good drunken father of his. And it matters not to hear you say that Morely hasn’t touched a drop in over thirty years. To me, Chance and Morely, too, will always be a blot on the Walker family name.” Having done her part to further blacken Chance’s character, Constance suddenly smiled charmingly and said, “Oh my, how I do run on! But, now, please, let us follow the baroness’s lead and just forget about Chance Walker and his coarse ways.”

Sam bowed to her wishes and, smiling ruefully, began to usher the ladies and his brother toward the waiting carriage. Regaling them with tales of how Richmond had begun in 1637 as a trading post because of its location at the head of navigation on the James River, Sam effortlessly put the unpleasant scene with Chance behind them. Fancy, her topaz
eyes gleaming with interest, listened carefully as Sam explained that some years later Richmond had been the site of Byrd’s Warehouse, but that the actual town hadn’t been laid out until 1737 by Colonel William Byrd. Staring at the village, which was scattered over several hills on the north side of the James River, as the carriage moved smartly down the street, Fancy was thoroughly fascinated to think that this bustling port town had humbly started out merely as a place to trade furs and trinkets with the Indians.

Thinking of the Indians, she could not help but recall Chance Walker’s earlier statements. A little uneasy, she asked suddenly, “ ’Tis likely that those Indians which Mr. Walker spoke of would attack us?”

Jonathan snorted derisively, but it was Sam who answered slowly, “Living in the wilderness as we do, far away from any town, anything is possible, my dear Lady Merrivale. But I do not believe we have anything to fear. The raids are well over a hundred miles away from us, in the Ohio River Valley. I doubt that any of the Shawnees or Mingos would push very deep in our direction.” He smiled reassuringly. “While we have suffered attacks in the past and have even lost members of our family to the Indians, the Walkers have long been known as friends to the Indian. You have little to fear at Walker Ridge. The plantation is large and well armed, and there are numerous slaves and indentured servants about, as well as several other men who work for me. We are too strong for any Indians to think seriously of attacking us.”

“Not unless Chance Walker were to incite them against us,” Jonathan said grimly.

Sam sighed. “I thought,” he said quietly, “that we had decided to drop the subject of Chance Walker?”

*     *     *

Chance wouldn’t have been surprised at the way Jonathan continued to defame his name. After all, bitter experience had taught him that vilifying and destroying another’s character was simply Jonathan’s way. Chance expected little else from the other man—lies, hints, and innuendo were the young Mr. Walker’s stock-in-trade.

Chance tried not to dwell very often on his rancorous feud with the heir to the Walker fortune, but Jonathan, and his hatred of him, were never far from Chance’s mind. Even the sight of the seductive little creature who had clung so confidingly to Jonathan’s arm couldn’t keep away the dark, ugly thoughts that deviled him as he left the wharf a few minutes after the Walker party had departed in their carriage.

He, like most of even the slightest acquaintances of the Walkers, had been aware that Jonathan was returning home from England and that he was bringing a baroness with him. Constance had trumpeted the news to all and sundry for days after she had received Jonathan’s letter imparting the thrilling news. Her conversation had been full of “when the baroness arrives” or “the baroness and her younger sister will be staying with us . . . an extended visit, of course,” or “The baroness is a widow, you know,” which was followed with such an arch look that the listener was left with the impression that a betrothal would soon be in the offing.