by Carrie Lomax
Miriam trailed off as Richard cupped her chin. He gazed down into her eyes for a long minute. She found there a sadness that chilled her heart.
“It is true.”
“Why?” Miriam whispered. A whisper of fear sang through her nerves. She did not know this man and had little experience with men outside of her father and his rough set of business partners or the over-mannered wealthy denizens of New York. Lizzie’s people.
“Because I killed my own father,” Richard replied.
Miriam swallowed. He saw it and smiled, not kindly. Like a wolf hunting prey.
“I am a very bad man, Miriam. If I were you, I would run very, very far away from me, starting right now. Because if you don’t leave now, I am not going to be able to resist kissing you. Consider yourself warned.”
Miriam didn’t move a muscle. Instead, she licked her lips in anticipation.
When he bent his head to hers, he smelled of shaving soap and spice. His touch was feather-light, the mere brush of his lips against hers. He was waiting for her to bolt. Miriam did not wait for him to take charge. Her hands reached up to entwine in his thick, dark hair. Richard’s skin was smooth against hers as she pressed her lips artlessly to his.
It was her first kiss, and he made it perfect. Richard’s arm encircled her waist, drawing her close against his hard body. He pulled her closer than Miriam had ever been held by any man, and for a moment the unfamiliar contact made her stiffen.
“Should I stop?” he murmured against her cheek.
“No. Continue, please.” After all, Miriam might never have another opportunity to feel breathless and eager as her breasts brushed his shirt. Lord Northcote’s trousers whispered against the fine fabric of her skirts. The world retreated into a magical cocoon with only room for the two of them and the night air.
Her first adventure with love felt heady and wonderful. When he shifted his hips and led her into a hazy, shifting dance beneath the stars, kissing languorously all the while, Miriam relaxed against his broad, strong body. Ocean waves thundered in the distance. Music floated on air from the balcony above. By the time the last note had faded into silence, they were as entwined as two people could be with their clothing still more or less in place.
Despite his warning that he was a bad man, Richard’s touch was utterly gentle, leaving Miriam desperate for more. She parted her lips and experienced a shock of wanton desire as Richard’s tongue invaded her mouth. Miriam reveled in the kiss, exploring the sensual play of his tongue, inhaling his breath and the warmth of his skin as they swayed gently in the moonlight. Miriam had never felt this delirious. She had hardly touched the wine. She was not drunk on anything but the presence of one impoverished English aristocrat who claimed to be very bad, but who felt wonderful indeed.
“I wish this could go on until morning,” he finally said hoarsely. “But the party is ending. You will be missed. I must return you to your people.”
“Mrs. Kent will be terrified,” Miriam acknowledged with breathless embarrassment.
He smiled, holding her shoulders with large warm hands. Miriam kissed his knuckle. He smiled and touched her cheek.
“Tell her I will be calling on you.”
Miriam felt giddy. “So much for bad boy Itchy,” she laughed. “You are a perfect gentleman.”
Richard scowled.
“Oh. I apologize. I forgot that you didn’t like the nickname. Well, Richard. I care enough to give you a nickname. Give me a bit of time, and I’ll find a better one than Itchy.”
He laughed. “Go now. Young women shouldn’t be out naming creatures they find in the forest at midnight. You might find yourself saddled with a pet you hadn’t anticipated.”
Miriam laughed again. “I’m not superstitious.” She gathered her skirts close around her as she picked her way through the brush. Richard had said he would call, and Miriam believed him. This had to be it. The start of her real life, her great, grand adventure. Her more.
Chapter 7
He had warned her, and she still hadn’t run. Either Miss Walsh hadn’t believed him, or she fancied herself more intelligent than the average girl. Richard cursed Miriam Walsh for a fool.
It did absolutely nothing to diminish the memory of Miriam’s artless embrace.
Her slim body had fit neatly against his. She was tall enough to rest her pale cheek against his shoulder in a way that brought to mind those rare postcoital moments when he had tolerated a lover’s closeness. He must be smarting more from Lizzie’s manipulations than he realized if Miriam’s soft hair against his chin had given him that much comfort.
As though he had conjured her by thought alone, Lizzie’s slight form appeared out of the darkness. Again, she wore white. Richard wanted to throttle her for being so incautious.
“Richard?”
“Go away, Lizzie.” He had an obligation to support his child. He did not intend to let her impulsiveness ruin their plans, however distasteful he found them.
“Richard, you are doing brilliantly! Miriam is halfway to being in love with you already!” Lizzie hopped and clapped her hands like a little girl. Richard held some doubts as to that. Miriam appeared to be taken with him for reasons of her own.
She bounced closer to him, and Richard caught a whiff of alcohol. Suddenly furious, Richard stomped down the porch steps and grabbed her roughly by the arm.
“Get soused again, and I will have you confined for the duration of your pregnancy.” Although he had never paid much attention to the problem, even Richard had heard of women in London’s St. Giles slum who drank to excess and produced small, sickly babies that failed to thrive. Those that survived grew into slow adults.
“You have no right,” she growled. “Only Arthur can confine me against my will, and that only as long as he remains my husband.”
Lizzie stared up at him with a mulish expression. Her vixen face sported a goose egg on the forehead and the beginnings of a shiner beneath her left eye.
“What the hell happened, Lizzie?”
“I-” She tried to shake him off. Richard gripped her arm tighter.
“You’re hurting me, Richard,” she complained,
“You’re injured. Tell me what happened. Now.”
“I tumbled off the porch rail tonight at the dance,” Lizzie pouted, jerking her head away.
Richard swore. “This is the same boy you were frottaging with in the water today?”
“Are you jealous?” she asked coyly over her shoulder.
“Of course not. Lizzie, we are no longer together. I will do what I must to ensure that our child has an income and a future, but I cannot and will not marry you.”
Lizzie looked shocked. “But you love me. You adore me. You said it…”
Richard shook his head. “I have never said I loved you. That was always your interpretation. We were finished the minute you blackmailed me into seducing Miriam Walsh.”
“Blackmail?” Lizzie’s mouth hung agape. “I did no such thing! You ought to be grateful I’m giving you a family.” Lizzie poked his chest with one diminutive but painfully pointy finger. “It’s not as if your own family wants you.”
Her words stabbed through him.
“Legally, you are Arthur’s family, as is your child.” Richard winced as one blow landed on his solar plexus. He caught Lizzie’s fist in his as an icy calm descended over him. The past few days had been clarifying. He could see now the depths of Lizzie’s ambition and lack of remorse for the damage she left in her wake. Yet, Lizzie was the woman he deserved. Every single step he’d taken in his life had led Richard to this moment—blackmailed into seducing an unsuspecting woman so he could help himself to her fortune.
Lizzie wrenched free of his hold, bringing him back to the present. Richard let her go. She reared back and decked him so hard and so abruptly that Richard bit his tongue. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Richard touched the spot and found red glistening on his fingertips.
He spat.
She stood there fuming an
d shaking her hand. “Ow.”
Richard grinned as red streaked down his chin and dripped onto his shirt.
“I like Miriam. I do believe I might woo her in earnest,” he declared. Miriam Walsh was a million times more appealing than the past paramour he couldn’t rid himself of. “She seems like a woman worth falling in love with.”
Richard stared hard at Lizzie until she backed up a step, one eye wide, the other swelling shut. “You’re cracked,” Lizzie declared, still rubbing her knuckles. “Miriam would never be stupid enough to fall in love with a penniless fraud like yourself. Not for real. She’s brilliant. She invests in the stock market under an assumed name. She has thousands of dollars of her own, as if being her father’s sole heir weren’t good fortune enough. I doubt she’d care if you passed me a sizable amount to pay for the baby we share.”
She blinked like a basilisk, a sure sign she was lying about something. But which part of her statement, Richard wondered?
“I pray you’re right, Elizabeth Van Buren. Because if Miriam is foolish enough to let me into her heart, I intend to marry her. Should a wedding come to pass, I’ll support you and our bastard. I know exactly what you’re capable of, Lizzie. Don’t force me to take the child from you.”
As though Richard knew what to do with an infant, beyond hiring a nursemaid.
“You wouldn’t take the baby from his mother,” she whispered.
“Yes, I would. If your husband succeeds in winning his annulment, of course I would. You cannot support the child alone.”
Richard felt no compunction about putting Lizzie on notice. It had necessitated his reaching the bottom of the sea of despair, but now that Richard had kicked off the bottom, he had nowhere to go but upward. Toward light. Seeking air. For the little creature he’d sired, he was determined to do the right thing starting now.
Lizzie wheeled and slammed out the door of his shabby little cabin.
“Goodbye, Lizzie,” Richard called after her, mocking.
He was free at last. Blessedly free of bad coffee, whining manipulations, and the miasma of scandal that followed Lizzie wherever she went. Richard slept more soundly that night than he had in years.
His peace was not to last. Shortly after dawn Richard awoke to pounding on his cabin door.
“Open up, Lord Abuser of Women!” Bang, bang, bang. “Open this door and fight a man your own size!”
Groggily, Richard stuck his legs into his trousers. Had he been drinking, he might not have responded but because he was not hungover for once, Richard felt perfectly awake within moments. He rubbed his face and found a flake of dried blood from Lizzie’s direct hit the evening before.
“Come out here you coward!” a young man yelled.
Richard unlatched the flimsy door and stepped into the wan morning light barefoot and shirtless. A lad with slightly oversized ears and the prominent Adam’s apple of youth staggered back several paces.
Below the stairs stood five or six onlookers. One of these was Lizzie. She appeared hungover and miserable. The faint bruise at her eye had turned a shocking combination of violet and green. A lump at her hairline was an ugly, mottled mass. Lizzie’s undamaged eye was bloodshot, whether from tears or from wine or both.
The tall boy jabbed a finger at Richard. “You did this to her.”
He turned and jabbed his finger jabbed in Lizzie’s direction. She did not meet her would-be protector’s gaze but stood defiantly a few feet away, daring him to contradict the accusation. Richard absorbed this for a moment. Was it possible that Lizzie felt any shred of shame for her outright lie?
Richard began to laugh. He chuckled, warming up. Then he guffawed. As the laughter overpowered him, the boy swung a large fist at Richard’s face.
Richard was ready for him. He lifted one leg, shot his foot square into the boy’s chest and sent him sprawling down the steps into the duff.
“Spence!” Lizzie shouted. Another girl held her back.
“You gave Lizzie that goose egg and the shiner to match when you tumbled her off the porch at yesterday evening.” Richard stepped warily down from the porch as Spencer regained his feet.
Spencer swung again and missed. Richard had never been a brawler, but he was trained in boxing. He was also a veteran of more than his share of pub fights. He’d learned from painful experience that Americans did not fight fair. They fought to win. That hard-won knowledge had brought him to Howard, after all.
“Lizzie claims that you decked her after a quarrel last night.” The girl holding Lizzie’s arm spoke, though Richard heard hesitation in her voice.
“The quarrel is truth. Nothing else,” he replied, low and sure.
“How dare you call my lady a liar!” Spencer lunged and this time caught Richard with a glancing blow to the shoulder. Instantly, two other boys were upon them, with Richard trying to defend and attack simultaneously from all fronts. Richard grabbed a shorter lad by the collar and used him as a shield.
“Coward!” The third boy, stout and pimple-faced, shouted.
By now they had attracted an audience. Lizzie whimpered helplessly and cowered into her companion’s body. Richard felt a flash of rage at the way she used people. Everything had to be her way, and she must be the center of attention at all costs. How had he sunk so low as to get involved with such a narcissistic, spoiled brat?
Never again. It stops here. Now.
With a grunt Richard flung the captive boy at Pimples. Both fell to the ground in a squirming heap. Richard brought his hands up to guard his face. Spencer bobbed on the balls of his feet, wary now that he realized his opponent had both skill and strength on his side.
Richard feinted and shot out his fist. The boy’s head snapped back. Blood spurted. Richard didn’t let up. He buried a fist into the lad’s middle. Doubled over, his rear end was an easy target. Richard placed one foot on the boy’s rump and sent him sprawling into the heap of underdeveloped manhood.
Richard advanced on Lizzie. She cringed pitifully. It made Richard feel like a monster. Yet he was not the one who’d used a prospective child as leverage in a scheme to cheat his friend. That was all Lizzie’s calculation.
“Don’t ever lie about me again,” Richard warned softly. “I am not your plaything. I am not your lover. Not your friend. Not your foe. Leave me alone. We are finished.”
He turned his back. Miriam Walsh stood at the edge of the onlookers, observing the scene with gray eyes wide with shock. Richard shook his bruised hand as he walked to her. He gripped her chin gently, firmly. Miriam’s gaze never wavered. She did not flinch as he bent to kiss her. The thrill of kissing Miriam’s fine, sweet lips, mixed with the adrenaline of the fistfight, went clear to his cock. She was beautiful, and Richard wanted her. As a spoil, as a woman, it didn’t matter. At any cost.
“I am returning to the city immediately. I will call upon you when you return,” he said, pulling away.
“Yes. I would like that,” Miriam responded without hesitation.
So much for her supposed brilliance, Richard scoffed mentally. Miriam was too foolish to understand that even if he was through with Lizzie, they were of a kind. He would have her because he could, and because her lips were silk against his, and he liked the way she tasted. Richard trotted up the steps into his cottage. The murmur of whispers rippled like waves after him—every bit a walking scandal as the woman he scorned.
Chapter 8
The day after her return from the beach, Miriam made her way downtown to the modest New York Stock and Exchange Board. The clerk across the counter frowned. His eyebrows resembled two caterpillars wiggling across his face to meet over the bridge of his nose. “You again.”
“So it is,” Miriam replied cheerfully. “I am after all listed on the account.”
She refrained from saying it was her account, even though it was. All the thousands of dollars she had accumulated from her father’s small initial investment several years ago were her own to dispose of as she liked. What Miriam liked to do most was to make her
money multiply. The compounding of numbers soothed and thrilled her at the same time. This was independence. It meant she could exercise a degree of choice over her own fate. She couldn’t change the fact of her asthma. Not that she had any intention of leaving her father or Mrs. Kent. But the memory of two brown eyes made her abdomen go warm and soft.
“What you want to trade this time?” snapped the clerk. There was a name plate on the desk which read Mr. Featherstone. “I don’t suppose you’ve decided to take my advice and put everything into railroads.”
Not exactly. Miriam had quite enough railroad stock, mostly in England but a portion of it invested in a new project across the river in New Jersey. Much to Mr. Featherstone’s disappointment she continued to sell whenever it rose and purchase declining stocks. The past several years had left many investors reeling as booms and busts rocked the investing world, but Miriam had devised a strategy to manage the shocks. It did not involve accepting advice from arrogant, strange men who thought they knew better than she.
“Mr. Feathers,” she began with all the silliness she could summon. “I hoped you could advise me on whether beef has risen or fallen over the past several weeks?”
“Falling like a rock.” Then, under his breath, “Not that a woman ought to pay attention to such things. And it’s Featherstone.”
“Oh, of course,” Miriam giggled, playing the idiot she quite definitely was not. “I don’t pay any attention to complicated things like buying low and selling high. As a woman I cannot be expected to know the difference between up-and-down. I’m just the messenger.” Miriam shrugged. The clerk’s eyebrows appeared to crawl across his forehead as he wrote out the orders. He passed the papers across the desk for her for final signatures.
“Why on earth are you buying beef? I told you it’s falling like a rock,” he complained with exasperation.
“I was hungry,” Miriam responded with another shrug.
Mr. Featherstone rolled his eyes. This was the most irksome part of her errand. Other clerks lined the rough-built stock exchange, but somehow, she always ended up with this one. Mr. Featherstone. Last time she had been in line to meet with another clerk entirely. Immediately before her turn, the clerk had closed his window and waved her over to her nemesis. Miriam took this as a sign from the fates that she was heaven-sent to torture him with feigned stupidity in addition to the pleasure of watching her account increase.
