by Carrie Lomax
Miriam did not appear to care. Richard’s brother burst into his memory. Come home, Edward had asked. What would happen if she did finally meet his brother? Would she feel she had settled for the lesser man?
The lady in question’s eyes widened.
“Your lordship, we did not expect to find you here. Naked.” Miriam whispered the last word in a sultry, greedy hiss. Richard’s cock, dormant since the night Lizzie had tried and failed to awaken him, twitched with interest.
“Fair enough,” Richard responded after a long moment. “I did not expect to receive guests. Had I known you were coming I would have attired myself appropriately. State your business and then be gone. As Howard says, this is no place for ladies.”
“You haven’t come to see me,” Miriam said in a rush.
A slow smile crept over Richard’s lips. Miriam’s blush deepened.
“Have you a death wish?” he asked in astonishment. Around him, the dock workers howled encouragement and taunts. They strained to hear his words. Richard knew they interpreted everything he said in the most salacious way possible. He was a novelty, a curiosity who hadn’t yet earned his place within their pecking order. Richard occupied a strange place between Howard and the lowest of their rank.
“Get back to work, you louts,” Howard demanded, waving them away.
“I…” Marian swallowed. “I have missed you greatly. If you would favor me with a visit, I should be most obliged.”
“The last time I favored you with a visit I nearly killed you,” Richard pointed out, his teasing levity gone. “I won’t take the risk again.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Miriam blurted stubbornly. “It was an accident.”
“A preventable accident,” Mrs. Kent interjected.
Richard hesitated. In his world, young ladies did not venture out to find men. They tempted. They hoped. But most of all, they waited. Richard thought briefly of the young women he’d given false hope to over his years in London. A casual flirtation to him had monumental consequences for their futures. He fervently hoped no young ladies had pinned their hopes on him. He would have made a terrible choice of husband. Although perhaps no worse than other lords.
The self-congratulatory thought burst the instant it formed. He would be a terrible husband. There was no past-tense about him. Richard remained selfish and vain enough to experience a swell of masculine satisfaction every time Miriam’s gaze landed on his chest and drove her blush deeper, from rose petal pink to crimson. Satisfaction curled low in his belly.
There was only one reason to continue courting her. He wanted Miriam. If he had to marry her to keep her safe, surely that consideration outweighed any of Lizzie’s scheming. He wanted this innocent woman who kissed like a goddess and stirred feelings Richard didn’t know how to manage.
“I want you to…” Miriam licked her lips. Richard’s arousal hardened. Mrs. Kent’s embarrassment flared.
“I’ll come,” he conceded, too quickly, as guilt tempered his joy at Miriam’s boldness. No matter how it had come about, Richard liked Miriam. Had they met under other circumstances he would have courted her anyway, though he was humbled enough to know that she would not have liked his previous incarnation nearly as much. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes. Please. It might be the last opportunity.” Miriam glanced sidelong at Mrs. Kent. “Before we return to Cliffside. Ordinarily I don’t spend much time in the city, and after the…incident a few days ago, my father insists we leave town.”
“I see.”
If he wanted her, Richard had to act. Not because Lizzie had blackmailed him. Because Miriam wanted him badly enough to risk her father’s rebuke and her sterling reputation enough to come here to a warehouse to find him.
The thought thrilled him as nothing ever had before.
Chapter 13
What had she done, going in search of a man who’d withdrawn his courtship to issue an invitation to court her?
Miriam licked her lips and glanced at the wharf where men ambled about in varying states of dishabille. Embarrassment hotter than the sun beating down on her neck flooded through her. Her muscles tensed. Her shoulders her neck her abdomen. Richard and his naked glory brought to mind the god Helios. She didn’t know where to look. Desire was a living thing inside her making her damp beneath her layers of petticoats. She breathed. The breeze off the Hudson made it easy. Sea air had always agreed with her. Despite this, Mrs. Kent waved the fan directly at her face. Miriam glared over her shoulder. The lady glared right back.
Mrs. Kent had not approved of this mission. Yet she was here, stalwart, at Miriam’s side as always. Inviting a man to visit was simply not done. Her father had been suspiciously quiet after her asthma attack. It was too much to hope that her force of nature of a father had been chastened by her sadness. Hurt had welled up inside her like an endless fountain of pain, and Miriam had made sure her keepers were aware of her unending sadness. Especially her father. She moped at mealtimes. When Livingston invited her for their afternoon promenade, Miriam had refused. When asked why, she sighed and said, “I wouldn’t want the dusty road to set off an attack.”
Livingston had cast her a narrow glare and gone off on his own, muttering beneath his breath.
“Perhaps the man cares enough about you to stay away. I doubt he wants to harm you further,” Mrs. Kent had ventured gingerly.
“I wasn’t harmed,” Miriam insisted. “I made a full recovery.”
“This time,” Mrs. Kent replied darkly. “One day, you mightn’t be so lucky.”
Fair enough, yet Miriam had decided that living a bit longer was not worth the sacrifice of things she wanted. Love. Children, though they came at great risk. An opportunity to see the world. The portion of it available to her might be a smaller slice than for most people, yet Miriam had made up her mind that she was not going to let it stop her.
The one thing her father couldn’t tolerate was an excess of feminine emotion. Miriam may have been of age, but she was not above giving him a dose of the female feelings he’d sought to avoid by sending her to girls’ school. Livingston used pistols to get what he wanted. They had proven remarkably ineffective against her onslaught of exaggerated moodiness ever since the scene outside her bedroom window. Miriam was not above using any weapon at her disposal to seize the thread of her opportunity. She had decided that if she wanted an adventure, she was going to have to fight for it.
Miriam experienced a searing flash of satisfaction as she gazed upon the magnificent form of her beloved. Heat pickled over her skin, and not only from the warmth of the day. Richard’s assured, mocking smile made her fingers shake. Miriam tried to swallow and found her throat dry.
Richard clasped her hand to draw her close. His earthy, salty scent filled her. Marion gasped with the need to inhale deeper, longer, more.
“When do you depart?” he asked warily.
“Thursday,” Miriam managed to say as her head spun. Livingston’s decision to pack up and head to Cliffside had been the impetus for her visit. Miriam had sensed her window of opportunity to experience more closing.
“Then, I shall call tomorrow, Miri.” He stalked closer. Miriam ought to be offended by the sweat of his body, but instead, his pungently masculine scent made her thighs weak and her belly spasm. All those glistening muscles could be hers to touch if…
Richard advanced upon her. He raised her face and bent over her, his dark eyes alight with a dark flame of hunger. He kissed her, hard and possessive. Miriam tasted salt and man as his stubble roughened her skin. Miriam leaned up to meet him, opening. Around them, men jeered boorishly.
“Miriam Walsh, that is enough,” seethed Mrs. Kent. Miriam grinned against Richard’s mouth. His lips curved to match hers. Reluctantly they separated. First a breath of space between them, then a wobbly step backward. Mrs. Kent caught her elbow.
“Yes, yes. I’m coming.” Her gaze never left Richard’s face. His hair curled above his ears, glowing in the harsh light.
“I s
hall speak with Howard about taking the afternoon off,” he promised in a low rumble.
Miriam blew him a kiss, her heart pounding. Richard still wanted her in a way that made her knees weak and her heart race. She was worthy of a man’s affections, and this time, Miriam was determined not to lose him.
“You saw nothing,” declared Howard. He surveyed the workers below from his office perch above the storehouse floor with a pensive expression. From here he could spot light fingers or sloppy work. Papers and ink pots stacked in messy piles covered every available surface. In the back was a makeshift bed, where Howard slept most nights.
“I won’t be here tomorrow afternoon,” Richard stated. He never asked Howard to leave. Only when he could work. “I need the freedom to visit Miriam.”
Howard fisted his hands in his hair, standing it on end. “I need you here,” his friend responded slowly. “You saw nothing in the crate I asked you to move. There is another shipment of equally invisible, delicate goods arriving tomorrow. We are packed to the rafters. I need your help moving this nonexistent box uptown.”
In the excitement of Miriam’s visit, Richard had forgotten about the crate with the loose top and the trick board. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know. I don’t need to, and neither do you,” Howard replied curtly.
Richard contemplated his friend for a moment. “They’re slaves, aren’t they?”
“Not anymore,” Howard replied with bitter satisfaction. “Now, they are free, as all humans should be.”
“I always thought it strange how a country that prides itself on freedom subjects an entire race to bondage,” Richard mused.
“And I’ve always considered it equally peculiar that a nation that holds itself above slavery never blinks at the source of its cotton and sugar, its tea and tobacco.” Howard pounded the desk with a closed fist. He sliced Richard with a glare. “You Englishmen benefit from the same stolen labor. Where do you think your wealth comes from? But you won’t deign to acknowledge the fact.”
Richard stood in uncomfortable silence like a boy before the headmaster at school. He had been that boy, many times. Resentment eddied and swirled through him. He couldn’t be held responsible for the leaders of a foreign country’s shortcomings. He couldn’t be accountable for his own…yet he could, in a sense. Who but peers and the king had had the power to change it? Sweat trickled down his naked torso as he considered the meaning of Howard’s words.
After a moment, his discomfort ebbed. In its wake was a bedrock layer of resolve. Richard had lived thirty-one years without feeling this inner steel of conviction. Injustice and unfairness bothered him immensely—when they affected him. How unfair it had been that he was a second son, unable to inherit. Never mind how he’d never once been bothered by the fact that his youngest brother was similarly cut off from inherited privileged. Until the fire that had killed his father, Richard had wasted his life on self-pity and indulgence.
No.
Until Miriam.
His sister-in-law, Harper Forsythe, now the countess of Briarcliff, had irked him greatly. He had hated her from the start because that mousy woman had dared to pursue a mission, one that directly contradicted Richard’s interests. Her purpose had made Richard feel as if he was the victim of unfortunate circumstances, when in fact he’d been anything but.
This was why his brother had sent him away from England. To earn this self-knowledge. To experience true hardship and stop wallowing in self-pity—to grow. Not because Edward hated him. The realization sank into his gut.
“You have a point,” Richard replied haltingly after a long silence. “I promise I will help you. Them. The children.”
“Tomorrow, it may not be children,” Howard responded, pacing the scant empty distance of his office. “I don’t know who will appear on my ship or when. It’s how we keep ourselves safe from discovery. Each link in the chain is anonymous. I only know the woman who sends a coded message about when to expect the next refugees. I take them upriver and ensure they get to the encampment north of Manhattan. The slave village. From there, I don’t know where they go.”
“What is the risk if we’re caught?” Richard asked. Even in the stale air of the cramped office a cold air of fear chilled his naked skin.
“Nothing near so bad as what happens to those who have escaped,” Howard chuckled humorlessly. “Under the Fugitive Slave Act, slave hunters may claim any black-skinned person is an escaped slave and drag them south on the slightest pretext. If I had won my freedom by running, I wouldn’t remain in this country if I had any choice.”
Edward’s skin prickled with fear. “That is an outrage,” he spat angrily. “How is this legal?”
Howard shrugged in weary resignation. “Laws may be simple, but they are not easy to change.”
“I ask again, what are the risks to us?” Edward almost didn’t want to know. “As I am going to aid and abet your ostensible crime.”
“That depends upon where I am caught, if I am caught. Here in the north, I might face a fine. Further south, I could lose the ships, the shipyards, and be thrown in prison. Depending on how great an example the judge wishes to make of me.” Howard explained the stakes calmly, as if he’d given them do consideration and decided they were of no import instead of utterly ruinous. “As my partner, you could also lose everything.”
“Partner,” Richard scoffed. “I’m no partner, Howard. I’ve made you a few social contracts. You pay me for the time I spent hauling goods when you’re in funds. If this is important to you, I will help. It’s a small thing I can do to repay the friendship you’ve shown me. It…” Truthfulness billowed up from the part of him that could no longer lie to himself. “It is the right thing to do. The risk to me is small, no?”
Howard’s rangy, muscular body relaxed fractionally. His mop of blond hair flopped about his face. “There’s no need to repay friendship. I don’t trust many men, Lord Northcote.”
He spoke the title mockingly. Richard bristled. When had his appellation begun to grate on his ears? When Lizzie, curse her soul, had purred it into his ear, when all the while she’d been twisting him around her fingers until he was like a marionette dancing to her warped tune?
Howard riffled through the stacks of papers until he located a battered ledger covered in his distinctive cramped scrawl. “Here. This is your portion of the profits earned since you started working with my concern a year and a half ago. For every investment you’ve brought me, I have faithfully set aside your commission. When you’ve worked on the docks for me without requesting your pay, I have deposited your wages into the same account. The sum is more than a thousand dollars.”
Richard scanned the ledger in disbelief. A dozen large figures supplemented with more frequent, smaller amounts led to just shy of eleven hundred dollars.
“If this is my portion for helping out a friend, you must be wealthy indeed,” Richard observed as he tried to process the implications. He looked at his friend, at the pathetic lodgings hardly fit for a dog’s bed. “Why do you wear rags and live here when you can afford better?”
Howard lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “I’ve no need for fancy clothes or lodgings. I was born a wharf rat. I never got used to better. Which means that if I should lose it all for helping runaway slaves, my life won’t change much. Prison would be a bother, but I will survive it and rebuild when I’m released. The African people, however, may well not survive slavery. They won’t have a chance to build any kind of life at all.” His expression softened, turning pensive again. “Truly, it is not much of a sacrifice for me. I hope you’ll feel the same.”
Richard swallowed. In two days, Miriam would depart for the countryside. Longing clenched his chest. Staying away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. For the first time in his life Richard had denied himself something he wanted. The unfamiliar sense of noble sacrifice had offset his misery. It was for her own good that he’d left her alone. Lizzie’s terrifying plan was too real, too achievable.
>
But from the way they had kissed a scant half hour ago, the attraction between them was the one light of truth of Richard’s whole existence. He had one chance to keep her. One opportunity to save his unsuspecting love from the woman she believed was a friend but who plotted to benefit from her death.
He would take Miriam away. First, he had to win her hand. Livingston Walsh was a formidable block, but Richard could win the man over. Livingston prized persistence and hard work. The outlines of a plan rapidly formed in his brain.
“I need an hour tomorrow afternoon. I may need more time later,” he said.
“What are you thinking?” Howard asked skeptically.
“Expansion,” Richard raised his arms toward the ceiling, palms upturned. “A transatlantic shipping concern, with secret passage to Europe for escaped slaves who want it.”
“No.” Howard shook his great mane. “I’ve no captains with sea experience. I’ve no contacts on distant shores. The risk is too great for the reward.”
“You said you wanted to expand overseas. What happened to good trade with London and Paris?” Richard needed Howard’s participation to make his plan work. If one could call it a plan, and not a foolish impulse. He had the same feeling now as he’d had at the gambling tables in London. The sense of limitless opportunity. As if he were a marble on a roulette table bouncing between numbers—and this was his time to win.
“What if we mitigated the risk with outside investors?” he pressed. Howard rubbed his face. The man stank. He needed a bath. They both did.
“Are you a partner in this new venture?” Howard asked skeptically.
“Yes. I’ll stake everything in that secret account you’ve been saving for me.”
