"I'm
going to find the bastard behind this. And then I'm going to kill him."
"You're
confident of your ability to do so? That 'bastard' already practically waltzed
into your very home, took your daughter. By God, he seems like a cunning
devil."
"What
he is, is an arrogant fool. He'll make a mistake, and when he does, I'll be
waiting."
Farnsworth
raked his fingers through his blond hair. "Well, I'll be damned if I'm
going to sit in the infernal gardens sipping tea when my sister is in danger!
You may not want my help. You may not approve of my involvement in Norah's
coming here. You may not even like me very much. But you
will
accept my
aid in bringing this cowardly cur to heel."
"Damn
it, I have enough of a disaster on my hands without—"
"Without
what? Another man to help guard your womenfolk? Another pistol raised in their
defense? Another set of hands to help flush this bastard out of hiding?
Thunderation, man, think!"
"Aidan,
please." Norah placed a supplicating hand on his arm. "Richard can
help. I know he can. And you... look at you already. You need to sleep and eat.
And you're injured besides."
"Injured?
You mean you already had an altercation with this animal and he got away?"
"No,
dammit. If I'd gotten my hands on him the devil himself couldn't have wrenched
him from my grasp. I—" Aidan thought about the confrontation with
Gilpatrick and his teeth ground closed. No, there was no way to explain such a
thing to Farnsworth without revealing more vulnerable places. And the idea of
exposing vulnerabilities to anyone save Norah was beyond comprehension.
"Kane,
be reasonable. My sister needs me. You need me. Your daughter needs me. You can
hardly expect any decent man with a shred of honor to walk away from such a
duty."
"Cassandra
and Norah are mine to protect."
"And
you've obviously been doing a damn fine job of it!" Sarcasm dripped from
Farnsworth's voice, but he stopped with a muttered oath. "I don't mean
that, Kane. I know I've begun badly here, and that you have every right to
dismiss me as a heedless fool after I allowed Norah to come stumbling over here
alone. But give a man credit for attempting to right his past mistakes. For
owning up to them. Surely you can understand my need to make things
right."
Aidan
wanted to fling a bitter rejoinder back at him and stalk away. He wanted to
shove the idiot bastard out Rathcannon's doors and bar them behind him. But
Richard Farnsworth's words burrowed past anger and wariness, past exhaustion,
frustration, and stark foreboding, touching a raw chord in Aidan's own chest.
Surely
you can understand my need to make things right.
God,
could any man understand that need to right past wrongs better than Aidan
himself? The need to strip away a thousand regrets and feel clean again, whole
again?
His
gaze flicked from Richard Farnsworth's earnest features to Norah's face, the
depths of her dark eyes revealing all too clearly the bruises his harsh words
to her brother had caused her, the hurt, the uncertainty, the torn loyalties
rending this woman Aidan would have done anything to protect from pain.
"Papa?"
The
sound of Cassandra's voice in the corridor made Aidan start, the words
punctuated with the staccato rhythm of her slippers tripping toward him.
"Mrs.
Brindle said you'd gotten back."
He
turned to see his daughter rushing through the door, fully intending, Aidan was
certain, to fling herself into his arms. But at the sight of the handsome
stranger, the girl slammed to a halt, one hand sweeping to smooth her skirts, the
other to pat a curl back from her cheek as she hastened to cloak herself in
adolescent dignity.
Her
eyes brightened, her cheeks stained delicate rose as if the horrors of the
night before had already been swept from her mind, relegated to the status of
childhood nightmares about dragons lurking under her bed.
To
Aidan it seemed as if his daughter had aged five years in that single
heartbeat. She was beautiful—beautiful and breathless with anticipation and yet
more poised than he'd ever seen her.
"Father,
why didn't you tell me we were expecting company?" she asked, favoring
Richard Farnsworth with her loveliest smile. "We haven't been introduced.
I'm Cassandra Kane."
Farnsworth
looked as if the girl had neatly divested him of the power of speech. Aidan had
always known that Cassandra was beautiful, and he should have been prepared for
the effect a first glimpse of her would have on a stranger. Yet Farnsworth's
gaze clung to the sweet curves of the girl a trifle too long, and Aidan
suspected that as a young soldier he himself had worn the same glazed
expression the first time he'd set eyes on Delia March. In a heartbeat,
Farnsworth seemed to shake himself, a coolness wisping over his eyes as he
adopted a more appropriate expression.
"So
you are my new niece." He reached out to clasp one of Cassandra's dimpled
hands in both his own. "I am... enchanted."
"We've
had about all the 'enchantment' we can survive here of late," Aidan
snapped, irritation coiling through every fiber of his tall frame. "I
doubt I could survive another bout. Cassandra, this is Norah's
stepbrother," he said, as if those words alone would be enough to drive
the glittering interest from his daughter's eyes. If anything, her interest
seemed even more marked.
"Well,
I can hardly go about calling him 'Norah's brother,' can I?" Cassandra
said with a breathless laugh.
"Call
me 'Richard.' I would be honored, unless you think such familiarity too
bold." The embodiment of impeccable manners, Farnsworth hazarded a glance
at Aidan. "I just thought that since we are family, after a
fashion..."
Cassandra
beamed. "Considering that, it would be absurd to stand on ceremony,
wouldn't it, Papa?"
Aidan
started to grumble something about ceremony and propriety being in place for a
reason, but Cassandra was breezing on.
"I
think 'Richard' is a lovely name. I shall be delighted to use it, but only if
you will call me 'Cassandra.'"
"'Cassandra,'
then. Did you know that you were named for a princess of Troy? They say that
Helen's face launched a thousand ships, but I vow, if my charming new niece had
been ensconced within the city's walls, every ship on those ancient seas would
have come to pay homage not to Paris' stolen beauty, but to you."
The
girl fairly shivered with delight. "What a pretty thing to say!"
Aidan
grimaced. He'd wager his fortune the glib-tongued fool fairly spat rose petals
every time he opened his mouth. The risk was always being cut by hidden thorns.
"Cass, if you're to enter society next year, the first rule is that only a
simpleton puts any store by such nonsense. It is a game. One you mustn't take
too seriously."
Farnsworth's
teeth flashed beneath his smile. "I would think a gambler the likes of you
would know that life itself is one huge game, and the man who wins is the one
willing to take the biggest risks. With the cards, or the dice, or... with the
ladies."
"Richard,
you mustn't tease so," Norah intervened, her gaze flicking to the muscle
ticking in Aidan's jaw. "I'm afraid after all that has happened, we're
decidedly lacking in a sense of humor."
"Forgive
me." Richard spread his hands out in apology. "It's just... a
treasure such as Cassandra must be guarded at all costs. I would deem it an
honor to be allowed to serve her."
He
sketched the girl an elegant bow. Aidan saw his daughter's cheeks dimple, her
chin tip up in that age-old discovery of feminine power.
He
gritted his teeth, trying his damnedest not to heave the bloody fop out the
door by his breeches. Norah must have noted his thunderous glare, for she
grasped his sleeve. "Aidan, please," she breathed low, for his ears
alone. "It will be lovely to have Richard about. He can distract
Cassandra, watch over her, leaving you free to make your search for whoever
tried to harm her."
"The
man is an incorrigible flirt."
"He's
harmless. He will guard her every bit as carefully as he has guarded me."
Aidan
looked down into that soft ivory face, remembering it the first night she'd
stayed at Rathcannon, her eyes wide and frightened, her hands knotted in her
nightgown as he stormed about the bedchamber, bent on terrifying her so badly
she'd flee the castle with the first whisperings of dawn. She'd been so damned
brave, so much at his mercy.
He
will guard her every bit as carefully as he has guarded me.
Norah's words
echoed in Aidan's mind.
That
was what he was afraid of.
No,
blast it, Norah was right: He needed all the help he could get at the moment.
Every pair of eyes to keep guard, every set of hands to defend. He needed the
aid of every mind sharp enough to help him discover a foe so cunning it
terrified him, so elusive it seemed as if the phantom figure were no more solid
than a moonbeam slipping between his fingers to disappear.
Much
as Aidan disliked the elegant fop who was Norah's brother, the truth was that
Norah had affection for him and, what's more, believed in him with the same
blind trust she had offered to Aidan himself.
Aidan
had spent the years since his marriage to Delia dragging on mantles of doubt
and distrust and cynicism until they were as common to don in the morning as a
fresh cravat. He'd become so jaded, he could look into the Madonna's own eyes
and see there one of Satan's angels. Distrust. The wariness of a hunted animal.
It had lived inside him so long, he'd nearly missed the treasure that was
Norah. Wasn't it time to believe in someone? Wasn't it time to believe in
her?
"Kane?"
Farnsworth paced toward him, his gaze starkly earnest. "When your daughter
is with me, I vow she'll be as safe as if she were clasped to her mother's own
breast."
Claws
buried deep in Aidan's gut unsheathed, dug deep into his most secret fears.
Farnsworth couldn't know... couldn't possibly guess that such a comparison
would fire Aidan's unease and rake across his nerves like the blade of an
assassin's knife.
Aidan
brought himself up sharply. No, the only way to assure Cassandra's safety was
to begin his hunt, not stand here, bandying words with some idiot English fool.
"I
have
business to attend to now," Aidan said roughly.
"Of
course," Farnsworth said, straightening his cravat. "You must carry
on with your search. But before you leave, let me reassure you of this: You may
hold me personally responsible for anything that happens to your daughter from
this moment on."
Aidan
barely suppressed the sarcastic twisting of his lips. The day he was rash
enough to entrust Cassandra to a bumbling idiot like Richard Farnsworth was the
day the earth would crumble into the sea. The bastard was there as
entertainment, a mindless distraction for both Norah and Cassandra. That was
all.
"I'll
not lay a burden of responsibility quite that heavy upon you, Farnsworth."
Those
strange eyes clung to Aidan's for a heartbeat, something unguarded in them for
just a breath of time. Then it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving
nothing behind but bored arrogance, affable foolery. "I promise you, Sir
Aidan: By the time I leave Rathcannon, you will know exactly how far you can
trust me."
Oddly
unsettled, Aidan turned and walked out of the room, away from Norah's pleading
gaze and Cassandra's excited one. Away from the memories Farnsworth's words had
spawned, the rattle of coach wheels, the lash of thunder, the sound of
Cassandra screaming from her mother's arms.
* * * * *
Laughter
rippled through the open window as sunshine streamed down to set the stable
yard a-glitter. Norah leaned out the open window to peer out at a scene as
pastoral as a Gainsborough painting: serene skies, banks of flowers, and a
golden-tressed little beauty in rose-hued skirts, delighting in an exquisite
cream pony. And delighting in the day and in her guardian knight who lay
against a backdrop of lush green grass, weaving her a crown of meadow flowers.
From
the moment of his arrival, Richard Farnsworth had scarcely left Cassandra's
side, watching over her with a fierce protectiveness that had touched Norah
deeply. Tending her with a seriousness of purpose that had made Norah hope,
believe that her scapegrace stepbrother might at last be finding his way,
shedding the futile posturings and useless affectations of the ton for
something better and more wholesome.
Richard
had been so solicitous and tender when he'd come to her alone, saying that he
wanted to help, to make certain Norah could support her new husband and care
for him during this trial. That unselfish emotion was the reason he'd been so
attentive to Aidan Kane's daughter. It was the least he could do, Richard had
insisted, after being such an incompetent bumbler when Norah had needed him
before.
Norah
would have liked nothing more than to be able to ease her husband's burdens, to
help him defeat this ghostly foe who darted from the shadows, then melted away
to haunt only the reaches of Aidan's imagination.