Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Christine Merrill

  * * *

  Michael helped Lady Olivia up into her seat on the mail coach, then hopped in after her, looking across the body of the coach to where she was seated and wondering if she had ever taken such humble transport before. He thought not, for she was staring, fascinated, at the two other people sharing the seats, a sleepy vicar on her left and a farmer’s wife on his right. Her eyes slid to him, then back to the ground in embarrassment.

  If she was thinking of her response to him on the previous night, then she had reason to blush. He had never been with a woman so responsive that she could be brought to climax by an inquisitive look. If he had known what she was like, he would not have spent the night on top of the covers like a nervous bride. He’d have pushed Clement out through the door and escorted her the rest of the way to Gretna.

  It was a foolish thought, for he was likely to end up bleeding into the Thames should he carry it out. The innocent activities of last night would be hard enough to explain to the Duke when they returned this afternoon. But, barring anything that might have happened in the carriage on the way to the inn, he was returning his charge undamaged.

  The thought occurred to him that her amenable nature in bed might have been the end result of love play with Clement. It might have had nothing to do with any interest in his own person. Considering the audience in the carriage today, they would not be exploring the question while travelling. After hearing the argument in the coffee room, the other two passengers would push him out onto the road before letting him lay a hand on her.

  She looked at him now, her expression jaded. ‘I hope you are not going to gloat,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I do not think I could bear it.’

  ‘I see no reason to rub salt in the wounds,’ he said with a sympathetic smile. ‘It has been a difficult enough morning for you, without me adding to your unhappiness.’

  ‘Do you think he is sincere in crying off?’ she asked.

  ‘It would make my job easier,’ he admitted. ‘But I suspect it was an idle threat. Last night, he was ready to brain me with a candlestick. That seems the action of a man committed to a course of action.’

  ‘You knew,’ she said, obviously surprised.

  ‘It is what I would have done had someone played the despicable trick on me that I played on him,’ he replied. ‘In another life, he would have more of my sympathy.’

  ‘If you ask me, you should consider it a blessing that he said he wanted no more of you. Bar the door to him the next time he comes round.’ This comment came from the farmer’s wife, who had been following the conversation with interest.

  Michael tried not to smile as he watched the emotions flicker across Lady Olivia’s face. First came the desire for the cut direct. Then for an announcement that she had not, in fact, asked for this woman’s opinion. But, surprisingly, she just gave a nod of surrender.

  Her acquiescence gave the vicar permission to contribute. ‘I agree. If he is the sort to raise a candlestick in anger against another man, he will likely raise his hand to you, once you are married.’

  The farmer’s wife nodded enthusiastically.

  In response, Lady Olivia looked baffled. ‘He has never shown anything but kindness to me, and I have known him for years.’

  ‘Of course not,’ the farmer’s wife said. ‘Men are often different before they marry you. The ones that are the most difficult are the best at concealing it, or why would any woman have them?’

  Olivia’s eyes widened in response, and she leaned forward to listen to more of the older woman’s advice. Soon, she was peppering the other two with questions about her problem, and then with questions about their own lives, conversing with them as if they were old friends and not rude strangers.

  Michael held his breath and his tongue, quietly amazed. If it had been any other lady of rank as august as hers, she’d have snubbed these people and lectured him for forcing her to endure their company. Instead, she was as polite and open to them as she would have been to her equals. Was she so starved for company? Or was she really as sweet-natured as she seemed to be?

  He remembered the afternoon spent over the chess table, and the hour spent at Gunter’s, and the playful way she’d spoken with his mother, who had been appallingly rude to her. He was wrong to have doubted her. Any other girl would have been haughty and difficult. But not his Olivia.

  It was enough to give a man hope. He did not need it or want it, of course. She was the sort who deserved a husband, and he was never planning to be one of those. He would not risk bringing children into the world and forcing them to struggle as hard as he had to make a comfortable life. His income might stretch to cover a wife and her dogs, but there would never be enough to launch daughters and leave an inheritance to sons.

  But, on a day like this, a little fantasy would do no harm. Michael leaned back with a smile and tipped his hat over his eyes in preparation for a well-deserved nap and dreams of the fair Olivia.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Michael went back to his house in Gracechurch Street, content with the way the day had gone. A pensive Olivia had been returned to her brother, who seemed surprisingly unconcerned with the damage to her honour that an overnight journey might have caused.

  He had announced, ‘When and if the time comes for her to marry, that will be the least of our worries.’

  It had been a bizarre statement. But then, much of the behaviour of the peerage made no sense, and Scofield was the rule rather than the exception.

  When it came to Olivia, it seemed that the words of the people in the carriage with them had done more to change her opinion of Clement than anything Michael and her brother had managed. Of course, foolish Alister had done much to dig his own grave by making a scene at the inn. Any sane man knew that you did not waste breath shouting at a woman, especially one that you had no legal hold over.

  Once Lady Olivia was free of Clement, his job was finished. If she was content to stay in her brother’s house, a guard was not needed. It should not be surprising for he had known from the first this was a temporary position. It would end, as all his other assignments had. Then he would move onto the next one.

  But what if he did not want to go? One simply did not tell one’s employer—especially when that man was a duke—that one was not ready to leave. Nor could he announce that he had unfinished business with the lady, after an interesting interlude sharing a bed in an inn. She was a virgin, or at least pretended to be so. A twinkle in her eye and a quickening of body and breath did not give him the right to take anything more than his leave.

  It was a relief to be back in his own home, where he knew his place and could try to free himself of foolish ideas about running back to Scofield House and declaring himself to Olivia. But, as he hung his hat on the hook by the door, he was surprised to see another man’s hat on the side table, beside a pair of fine leather gloves.

  He walked towards the sitting room and the sound of voices and laughter.

  ‘Mother?’ When he entered the room he was surprised yet again to see her hurriedly resuming her seat at the end of the couch, smoothing her gown and blushing as if he had interrupted something that she did not want him to see. ‘What the devil?’ It was the same fellow who had accosted him on the street yesterday.

  ‘Language,’ his mother said in response, smiling and shaking her finger at him.

  ‘I think it is warranted,’ he said, narrowing his eyes and glaring at the man sitting beside her.

  ‘You will never guess what has happened,’ his mother said, slapping her knees. ‘Never in a million years.’

  ‘Then why not tell me?’ he replied, as exasperated with her as he always was.

  ‘I am surprised that you have not guessed it already,’ said the man, not bothering to introduce himself. ‘But if you wish a clue, you might look in the mirror.’

  He stared at the man, who had seemed familiar even though he was a stranger. />
  And then his mother laughed. ‘It is your father, you silly boy. Mr Solomon.’

  ‘There is no John Solomon,’ Michael said, refusing to believe the truth that seemed to be before him.

  ‘That is news to me,’ the man said, patting the front of his coat as if assuring himself of substance. ‘For I have known him now these fifty-six years.’

  His mother laughed again. ‘He means that he thinks you dead.’

  That was not what he’d meant at all. The man was a figment of his mother’s imagination, a falsehood that retained her reputation and kept him from being a bastard.

  ‘Obviously, I am not dead,’ the man assured him. ‘And I have already assured your dear mother that I never meant to leave her. No thanks to His Majesty’s Navy for press ganging me into service.’

  ‘You have been in the navy all this time?’ Michael said, sceptical.

  ‘Not all,’ the man admitted with a shrug. ‘I was able to get away after seven years of service.’

  ‘And once you did, you made no effort to contact this woman that you supposedly loved,’ he countered.

  ‘By the time he was able to post a letter, I had moved and left no forwarding direction,’ she admitted. ‘My family was not sympathetic to my condition, nor did they acknowledge our marriage. They would not allow me to come home, nor would they tell John where I had gone.’

  ‘And how do you even know this man is the same one who left you?’ Michael said, stabbing a finger in his direction. ‘The whole idea is ludicrous. Appearing after thirty years. What does he want from you?’

  ‘I do not want a thing from her,’ the man said. Then he fished in his pocket. ‘And perhaps this will go some way to assuring you of my identity. It is a miniature that your mother sat for, the year we met.’ He pulled a tiny ivory oval from his pocket and passed it to Michael.

  His mother leaned in from the other side. ‘And do not dare say that it cannot be me, dear boy. I was young and beautiful once, not that you are likely to remember such a time. I sat for that painting the year of my come out and gave it to your father when he made his offer.’

  ‘But what of the money that you have been receiving?’ Michael asked. ‘Where did that come from?’ He had always imagined them to be discreet payments from the solicitor of a man who did not want to be named.

  ‘I received a legacy from my family, as long as I promised to have no contact with them,’ she admitted sadly. ‘It was not a point of pride that my own parents were so scandalised by my elopement that they wanted no part in my life, or yours. But they sent me enough to live on and saw that you were educated, and that was something.’

  ‘And you—’ he turned back to the man who claimed to be his father ‘—where were you when not in the navy?’

  ‘India,’ he said with a smile, pulling out his watch fob and displaying the enormous ruby set in the end. ‘There were many opportunities for a man of vision in that country, and I availed myself of all I could.’

  ‘And you just decided to return now?’ he said, still suspicious.

  ‘Because the agents I had working for me in London had finally located your mother,’ the man replied, turning to his wife with a fond smile. ‘And, to my amazement, she has waited for me, just as I waited for her.’

  ‘So you did not need me to give you this address,’ he said, eyes narrowing.

  ‘Not really,’ the other man admitted. ‘But it would have been nice had you offered it.’

  ‘She thought you were dead,’ Michael said, still not sure what he was expected to feel at the presence of this interloper.

  ‘Well, I am not. And the first thing I mean to do is get her out of these widow’s weeds,’ he said, grinning in triumph. ‘We shall go to Bond Street, if that is still fashionable. We shall find you the best modiste that money can buy, and fit you out as you should be dressed, in all the colours of the season.’ Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief, unknotting it to reveal a pair of ruby ear drops as big as any Michael had seen on the wives of the men he had worked for. ‘A trip to the jeweller will be necessary later, but only to set the other stones I have brought back for you.’

  His mother clasped her hands in front of her, enraptured, then leaned forward and threw her arms around the man who Michael still thought of as a stranger, not that it seemed to matter what he felt.

  It was clear that she knew him well enough. She looked past the ear drops to the man who held them. ‘They are beautiful, John. But all I needed was your return. I swear I feel ten years younger.’

  And, hard as it was for Michael to admit, she was right. She was blushing like a schoolgirl, with a light in her eyes that had not been there for as long as he could remember.

  ‘And soon we must sit down together, you and I, and work out the details of your inheritance,’ John Solomon said, looking at Michael.

  ‘I need nothing from you,’ he blurted, confused. It had been years since he had given up wishing for a father. And now here was a man trying to fill an empty slot that no longer existed.

  ‘It is not a matter of need, dear boy. I am pleased that you have managed for yourself in my absence,’ Solomon said, looking at him with unexpected paternal pride. ‘But you should never have been forced to care for your mother. That was my job. And, while I thank you for doing it, I cannot let the matter go without making reparation.’

  ‘You mean to pay me for doing my duty?’ Michael said, indignant.

  ‘I mean to give you a portion of your inheritance, more like,’ he replied, smiling again. ‘I am a very wealthy man, Michael. And so will you be, once I am gone, in truth.’

  Michael could not manage any comment to this. Apparently, he was now rich. It was not that he did not want to be. But he did not want it to be the result of meeting this sham, who he’d been so sure did not exist. He backed slowly towards the door.

  Solomon smiled at him. ‘It is a lot to take in, is it not? Do not worry. We have all the time in the world to sort things out, now that I have found you and your mother again.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Michael said. ‘It has nothing to do with me at all. I am pleased that you have found each other, since it was clearly what you wanted. But do not involve me in your schemes for a happy family. I want no part of it.’

  ‘Michael!’ his mother said, clearly shocked.

  The single word cut to his heart, just as it always did when he had done something to hurt or disappoint her. How could he? They were all to each other. She had been his protection and support when he was a child, and now, as an adult, he returned the duty. Except now she did not need him.

  And he did not need the man at her side.

  Without another word, Michael turned and left.

  * * *

  He walked the streets for a time, his mind reeling. Why had he left, when it was they who should be moving? He had bought the house with his own money, earned by honest labour. Said house could have but one master, and it would not be John Solomon.

  Of course, with the house empty, he could easily fill it. The presence of his mother had not exactly prevented the idea, but it had given him an excuse to indulge his natural inclination, which was not to marry. In his opinion, such a union was not necessary for one who had no title to pass or estate to leave. It certainly was not something to be done in the name of love. One had only to look at his mother...

  At least until today. Today, she had proved herself right and his own opinions—not quite wrong, exactly. What was the word he searched for?

  Moot. His opinion on the subject of love was still valid. It was still the last defence of the misguided and it was not something that could be ascribed to him. But the argument did not hold in the case of Maria Solomon.

  He could marry, if only to find a way to dispose of his property on death. And if John Solomon insisted on foisting an inheritance on him, he could even marry Lady Oli
via Bethune if he wanted to.

  He froze.

  Without thinking, he had walked all the way to the gate of the Scofield garden. It was night and not daytime, and there was no reason for him to be there. The household was settling down for the night, the doors were barred. He had even sent home the nightwatchmen he’d posted to take his place when he was not in the garden, as he’d deemed it unlikely that the girl would scarper back towards Scotland after the exhausting trip she’d just had.

  He was alone, in a place he should not be, staring up at a house he did not belong in.

  Then she appeared in an upstairs window. It must be her bedroom, for she had stripped to her shift, obviously getting ready for bed. The air was heavy with the fragrance of the wisteria climbing the back of the house, and her breasts rose and fell as she took in the scent.

  His mouth went dry. It was lust. Nothing more than that. The night spent at her side had left him hungry for a woman. And the idea that he might use his newfound wealth, an inheritance he meant to refuse, to gain entrée to the upper classes so he might offer for her? His mind had sought an example of the most unattainable woman he could think of. It was nothing more than that.

  And yet here he stood, wishing that the glowing fire that lit her room would render the thin cloth of her shift transparent. Or, perhaps, thinking she was alone, she might pull it off to let the moonlight touch her skin. She would glow like a pearl, he was sure, the warm palest pink, her breasts rose-tipped opal.

  His palms cupped, he forced his hands into fists to avoid reaching for her, arms raised like a supplicant. Then a voice whispered softly from behind him. ‘Stay away from her.’

  He turned, shocked, to find a woman, heavily cloaked, standing a few feet off, staring at the house as he had done.