Norah
pressed a hand to her cheek, her skin hot despite the chill of the wind. There
had been a time she might have taken some pleasure in Montgomery's apparent
unhappiness over her betrothal, daring to attribute it to some secret flight of
passion. But she had long before abandoned any foolish girlish dreams about the
handsome aristocrat. Great beauty might overawe a suitor into excusing a meager
dowry, or a generous dowry might prove an irresistible ornament to plainness.
Norah had never deluded herself that she had either to attract such a
matrimonial prize.
"Richard,
it will take some time for me to become— become accustomed to my new
surroundings. My bridegroom, his daughter. I would rather not have to do so
before an audience."
"I
hardly think Montgomery is planning to move into a room beneath the castle
stairs." Richard clasped her hands with an affectionate chuckle. "You
cannot spend your entire marriage hiding from former acquaintances. What better
way to have news of your happiness carried to the witchy chits who snubbed
you?"
"A
lovely plan, assuming there is happiness for Mr. Montgomery to carry tales
about."
It was the closest she could come to confessing her fears.
"There
will be, sweeting. I'm certain of it." Richard turned as the doorway opened,
passengers beginning to file out, bending their bonnets and the brims of their
hats to shield their faces from the dampness.
Norah
watched the parade of travelers make their way toward the ship, and a sudden
fear of the unknown shivered in her breast. She reached out, grasping Richard's
hand and holding on tight, her gaze sweeping the storm-darkened sky. "The
weather—it seems so—so wild."
"Yes,
but they say that a voyage begun in storm will end in bliss."
"I'll
be certain to repeat those words of wisdom to the other shipwreck victims when
we sink to the bottom of the sea." Norah gave a strained laugh, but
despite her resolve to plunge into her future bravely, she couldn't help waving
one hand toward the sullen sky. "Do you think this is an omen,
Richard?"
"No,
I think this is a storm. We've had them before, you know."
"Those
were someone else's omens. This one is mine." Norah worried her lower lip
with her teeth. "I don't know, Richard. I just wish that I—I had some idea
what he is like. This Sir Aidan Kane."
Richard
heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I only know what I found out before I gave
you Kane's letter—and, I might add, I've recounted my discoveries to you a
dozen times. Aidan Kane is a war hero who saved his entire regiment in some
deliciously noble fashion during the Peninsular War. His wife died in a tragic
accident. Since then, by all accounts, he's been a reclusive widower, living at
his Irish estate of Rathcannon with his daughter—quite brokenhearted, I
daresay. He needs you, Norah."
He
needs you....
Norah
had clung to those words, knowing all the while that it was probably the most
dangerous of all feminine delusions—the irresistible desire to heal a man whose
spirit had been wounded.
Richard's
soft laugh jarred her from her thoughts. "Of course, unless you hustle
aboard that ship, you may never be wed at all."
Norah
cast a helpless glance toward the ship, the last of the passengers trailing up
the plank that led to it. Richard called out to two sailors nearby.
"You
there, take Miss Linton's trunk to her quarters."
There
was something terrifyingly final in watching the two burly men heave Richard's
gift up from the platform and carry it away. Raw panic swept through every
fiber of Norah's being.
"I
can't—I don't think I can... Oh, Richard, you
do
think I'm doing the
right thing?"
"I
am certain of it."
Norah
flung herself into her stepbrother's arms, embracing him fiercely one last
time. "I'll never forget your kindness, Richard. Never. I pray God will
reward you for it."
He
smiled. A glittering smile, vaguely disturbing, like a solitary ripple
disturbing a glass-smooth stretch of lake.
"I
hope I won't have to wait long enough to receive a heavenly reward, my dear.
You see, I've just struck three wagers that should make me a very wealthy man,
little sister. And the first... the first is well on its way to being
won."
* * * * *
A
log blazing on the marble hearth fell apart, crackling, snapping, yanking Norah
back from memories of the storm-swept wharf to the quiet bedchamber that mocked
the dreams she had held for such a brief time.
It
was as if an eternity had passed since she'd mounted the gangplank, and watched
Richard wave goodbye to her as she left behind everything she'd ever known,
sailing into an uncertain future.
A
future that now seemed almost as bleak and far more dubious than the one she'd
left behind.
Norah
was exhausted. Disappointment more bitter than any she'd ever known made her
eyes burn and her spirit ache for the foolish young woman who had stood outside
in the English rain such a brief time before, her head stuffed with dreams, her
heart daring to hope for the first time since she could remember. Hope—not for
happily ever afters and miracles. Not for the grand passions that were legend
spun. But, rather, for contentment, peace.
Someone
to need her.
But
there was no one here who could fill that place for her. There was no sweet
miracle awaiting her within Rathcannon's stone walls. Only a deeper echo of the
loneliness that had tormented her from the time her father had died. Only an
underscoring of a hundred shortcomings that had made her stepfather despise
her. Only another empty, aching place with nothing to fill it but Norah's own
most secret tears.
Richard
Farnsworth stared down at his father's wife, her face pale, her eyes dark with
the shadows that rarely left them. He could even pity her at times. God knew
he'd been every bit as beaten down and awkward years before, bludgeoned into
submission by Winston Farnsworth's relentless will. Yet staring into Corabeth
Linton Farnsworth's face always made him damned uncomfortable too. Maybe
because it forced him to remember....
"I
don't mean to disturb you, Richard, dear," she breathed in a tremulous
voice, one thin hand clinging to his coat sleeve. "I know that you are
very busy entertaining Viscount Cirlot and Lord Millhaven." She cast an
apologetic glance toward the drawing room in which his friends awaited him.
"But I had hoped that perhaps you might have received a letter—"
"Are
you worried about Norah?" he inquired, his face a mask of concern.
The
woman's sallow cheeks flushed, as if he'd caught her with a lover. "Your
father would be most displeased with me for asking. He insists Norah should be
dead to me. Yet a mother cannot help but worry. Ireland is such a wild place.
And to go there, intending to wed a man she's never seen before—" A
shudder racked Corabeth's slight frame. "It is so dangerous, Richard, to
surrender complete power over her life to a total stranger. What if this man is
cruel to her? A monster?"
Richard
was more than aware why his stepmother viewed the state of marriage with such
dread. It was a kingdom Winston Farnsworth had always ruled with the same petty
tyranny he'd ruled his son and heir, ruled everyone that touched his life. Only
Norah had never buckled under to his tyranny. Proud, honorable Norah, with her
unbreachable Linton dignity.
"Norah
is fine," Richard insisted. "I'm certain of it. You must not allow
yourself to get so overwrought. You know how impatient Father gets when you
do." He pressed her hand so hard she winced a bit. "Didn't I tell you
I had looked into this Irish knight's background to make certain he was
suitable? Didn't I promise to take care of her? Surely you don't think I would
have sent her off to be chained to some monster?"
Corabeth
pleated a fold of her skirt, her eyes downcast. "Of course not! I cannot
thank you enough for your kindness to my poor girl. I'm a fool to worry, and
you must think me the most abominable nuisance."
"You
know exactly how much I adore you and my little sister." He patted the
woman's shoulder with studied gentleness. "In fact I have already arranged
for a friend of mine to visit Norah, to make certain all is well. But if it
would ease your mind, I would go to this Irish castle myself, to see that this
Aidan Kane is treating my sister as she deserves."
"You
would do such a thing? For my Norah?" Tears welled up behind thin lashes.
"Of
course I shall, the instant I can afford to." Richard looked away,
pensiveness stealing across his face. He gave Corabeth a boyish smile, full of
embarrassment and regret. "I'm afraid I have had a rather bad run at the
faro table of late. You won't tell Father?" He gave his cravat an anxious
tug.
His
stepmother regarded him with abject worship. "Poor boy, was it so very
bad? Perhaps I can help you. I have a most generous sum set by for a lovely
necklace I saw in the shop window, but it would please me so much more to help
you."
"How
could I allow you to make such a sacrifice? No. It was my own recklessness that
brought me to this point, and I should have to pay the price for my mistakes.
Even if I should be scooped into a sponging house, I could not take your
coin."
"You
shall indeed!" Corabeth insisted with more forcefulness than Richard had
ever seen her expend on her daughter's behalf. "I insist. And if you do
not allow me to do this for you, I shall... shall..." She was searching
for a suitable threat, Richard knew. "I shall tell your father about your
financial difficulties so he can aid you."
"No!
No, you cannot!" Richard stalked away.
"I
can and I shall," she insisted with a resolute nod. "Now you must go
off to entertain those dear boys in the drawing room, or they will think you
quite rude. After all, with Lord Millhaven just back from the Continent, I'm
certain you have much to talk about."
Richard
chuckled and pinched Corabeth on the cheek, watching her face brighten until he
could see the faintest impression of the beauty she had once been. "You
are so very good to me," he said. "I cannot imagine that my own
mother could have been sweeter, may God rest her soul." His mother...
haunted eyes, nervous hands, and dread pressing down on her until it suffocated
her. As a boy, he'd been certain she'd died of it. He shoved the thought away
as tears sprang once again to Corabeth's eyes.
"We
shall take care of each other, dearest boy," she said, patting his hand.
"I love you, you know."
Love
him? Richard thought with a swift flash of bitterness. She didn't even know
him.
He
turned and entered the drawing room, drinking in the subtle scent of tobacco
and leather that clung to the cream-colored plasterwork walls of his private
domain. The two men lounging about the green baize gaming table glanced up at
him with drink-bleary eyes, sated by Winston Farnsworth's finest brandy and by
the attentions, this past afternoon, of London's most elegant courtesans.
"Cirlot
wagered a hundred pounds you fell into the privy," Millhaven observed with
a smirk.
Richard
chuckled. "You'd best collect on your wagers now. By Christmas Cirlot
won't have two coins to rub together. After I win my wager with him, he'll be
forced to wed some dough-faced heiress just to keep himself out of debtor's
prison."
"A
new wager?" Millhaven perked up, rattling his dice box with interest.
"One penned down in White's betting book, or one exclusively for our own
entertainment?"
"Gawd,
but Farnsworth wouldn't want this bit dragged out all over London!" Cirlot
scoffed. "It's a masterpiece. And damn me if I can imagine either of us
will ever be able to top it."
Millhaven
licked his lips, his eyes glowing with greed. "Show me, Farnsworth,"
he demanded. "By damn, I cannot wait to see it."
Limping
to the bookshelf in the corner, Richard reached for the small leatherbound
volume on the topmost shelf and opened the pages.
"I
cannot think you've been in town long enough to hear my family's momentous
news, Millhaven," Richard said. "My stepsister should be making her
way up to the altar even as we speak."
"The
devil you say!" Millhaven snorted with a ribald laugh. "What poor sot
is getting leg-shackled to her? Surely Montgomery didn't come up to scratch!
His family would never stand for it."
"Montgomery?
Marry a woman without a dowry or a title? Not for a king's ransom, though I
have sometimes detected a certain wistfulness about him when he sees Norah
across a room. I'm afraid the most Norah could hope for from that quarter is a
brief liaison—and only then if someone else had the cunning to arrange it for
her. No, my esteemed Millhaven, I have provided my dowdy little stepsister with
a far more intriguing bridegroom. Sir Aidan Kane."
Never
in their long, notorious association had Richard seen Millhaven so stunned.
"You
are
a heartless bastard," the nobleman breathed.
"Sacrificing your own sister to a man whose lust for women is outstripped
only by his lust for the gaming tables? By God, they even claim he
murdered—"