The Fortune Hunter

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “That is the wisest thing I’ve heard you say, lamb.” Mrs. Carroll’s voice was stern, but she offered Nerissa a smile before she scurried out of the room.

  Cole called after her, “Brandy for me. I need it.” He knelt by Nerissa’s chair and took her right hand in his pudgy ones. “Dear Nerissa, what happened? I thought you were going for a ride with Annis Ehrlich.”

  Nerissa looked into his blue eyes that were so much like her own. That there was even this much of a resemblance between her and her stepbrother Cole Pilcher was astounding, because only the marriage of her mother to his widower father had made them brother and sister. While Nerissa was told often that she was the pattern card of her mother, Cole had inherited his father’s looks. Stocky and with thinning hair of a sandy color, he stood only a few inches taller than her own spare height. Seldom was he seen without a book in his hands or one propped in front of his nose.

  In the months since she had moved to Bath, she had accustomed herself to eating each meal facing his latest manual. She had learned, during those curious meals, more about surveying and geology and transportation than any other woman of two-and-twenty. Her brother was possessed by a dream she could not share, despite her efforts. He longed to build a toll canal from Bristol to London. He had spoken of it during their short time together as children. In the years when they had been kept apart by their parents’ acrimonious separation, she had assumed Cole would set aside his childish aspirations. Coming out of short pants had not changed Cole Pilcher. He remained dedicated to achieving his goal.

  But he was not an air-dreamer. He was devising his plans with utmost care and attention to the newest scientific developments. Every week, he scanned the Bath Chronicle for news about any canal work throughout England. He ordered books from London and memorized each detail.

  It was a grand scheme and was certain to leave them swimming in lard, if he made it a reality. There was the singular problem that his father’s estate allowed them to live comfortably in the house on Laura Place only if Cole supplemented his inheritance with tutoring the children of their wealthier neighbors. That allowed him scant time for the pursuit of his dream. Nerissa wished she could assist him, but she found sewing an onerous chore for which she had no talent, and she had discovered no other work for a woman of her class in Bath.

  Nothing was as it should be: Hill’s End on the block; Cole’s dreams delayed; now this absurd accident. Nerissa winced as she touched a bruise along her temple.

  “Oh, dear Sister, you are hurt!” Cole clasped her hand tighter, the motion aggravating the pain in her head. “What a rag-mannered cove I am to be asking you questions when you’re struggling to cling to your high health.”

  “I’m a bit battered, but I assure you that I shall be fine. I don’t need you quacking me.” All the color drained from Nerissa’s cheeks as she recalled making nearly the same retort to Lord Windham less than an hour before.

  “Nerissa!”

  “I am fine,” she repeated, but with a scrap more strength. If she wound herself up with thoughts of the viscount, Cole would be even more determined to unearth every detail. She preferred to forget the embarrassing episode. “I know I look a dashed shabby, but …”

  Her words faded as Mrs. Carroll bustled into the room. The housekeeper held her scissors like a weapon in her thin hands. Biting her lip, Nerissa balanced her left arm on the chair and watched as the housekeeper cautiously slid the tips of the scissors beneath the leather. The gentle caress of the metal on her swollen wrist detonated within her, turning the room into an endless tunnel, unlit with anything but pain.

  Nerissa grabbed on to her senses. She couldn’t lose them completely. Then they would smother her with more concern. She felt too bad to suffer that. Hearing Cole begging her to answer him, she tried. It was impossible to form a single word in her pain-ridden mind. Feeling tender hands loosening her broken bonnet, she kept her eyes closed. It was easier not to fight the pain.

  “There. All done,” the housekeeper murmured. “Ginny?”

  Curiosity urged Nerissa to open her eyes as she heard Mrs. Carroll call to the maid. Ginny held out a metal basin, her eyes wide with dismay as she stared at Nerissa’s bruised wrist. The housekeeper wrapped warm, moist clothes about Nerissa’s wrist, hiding the swelling and discoloring. The heat lessened the pounding, and Nerissa whispered her thanks.

  “’Tis nothing, lamb. Have Frye order a bath when you’re ready. I’ll see you have plenty of hot water to soothe those bruises. Now just sit and be quiet.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Carroll,” she said so dutifully the housekeeper smiled before she herded Ginny out of the room.

  Cole leaned forward. “Nerissa, please set my mind to rest. What happened to you?”

  “Annis was unable to go for a ride with me, so I went for a walk by myself.”

  “By yourself? Are you mad?”

  “Don’t chide me, Cole. I’ve no interest in your scolds. I swear my head is going to explode. Where is Hadfield with that tea? Ah, here he comes, and with Frye.” Sitting straighter, she was able to smile as her abigail bustled toward her. “Now, Frye, don’t take on so. I’m alive as you can see. If I had popped-off, I wouldn’t be reprimanding you now.”

  The square woman bore a stronger resemblance to Nerissa’s brother than Nerissa did. Of the same full build, the middle-aged woman’s hair was a nondescript color, that Cole always called (with a muffled laugh) dandy grey-russet. The brown strands refused to stay in a proper chignon. Instead it fuzzed about her round face which was lined with dismay. Frye’s expression warned Nerissa she must look even worse than she felt.

  “Pluck yourself up,” Nerissa added when her abigail burst into tears. Deep sobs punctured the room’s hush and battered Nerissa’s aching head. “Cole, speak to her. She heeds you when she refuses to listen to me.”

  “That is because you make demands that even a shuttlehead would know are impossible to obey.”

  “Dear Frye,” Nerissa tried again, “if I had wanted a watering pot, I would have sent you to the garden. Stop the weeping and bring us some tea.”

  She sighed. Her words were not easing her abigail’s despair. Reaching gingerly for the teapot, Nerissa noticed, for the first time that she still wore her spenser. The idea of removing it sent another aching wave over her. Propriety was unnecessary in the midst of this small crisis. She loaded a cup with sugar and poured in the weak tea her abigail preferred. She shoved the cup into Frye’s hands and implored her to sit before she collapsed and complicated the whole situation.

  “Advice you should take for yourself, Sister,” said Cole past the storm of her abigail’s tears.

  “I am sitting, as you can see. Also I am—as you can see—remaining quiet as Mrs. Carroll commanded.” She strained to keep her voice even, but managed that tremendous task. “Help yourself to a cake, Cole, and tell me how you have spent your afternoon. Did you find the geological reports you were looking for this morning?”

  He plucked a cake from the tray and wagged it in her direction. “You’re trying to fire a gun. I’ll tell you about my day after you explain what happened to you.”

  “Annis did not, as I told you, wish to go for a ride, so I decided to take a walk.”

  “Where?”

  “You know me, Cole. I can be a regular butterfly on a summer’s day.”

  Instead of being mollified, her brother put the cake back on the tray. He frowned. “But where did you go?”

  Nerissa considered demurring, but she suspected Hadfield would be delighted to inform “the young master”—as he insisted on calling Cole, causing her to wonder how the butler referred to her outside her hearing—that she had come home in a curricle with Lord Windham and his brother. That, coupled with her dishevelment, was sure to create more of a to-do in the household. If she wanted some quiet later to soothe her aching head, an explanation was necessary now.

  Blast that man and his horse, she thought, then sighed. Lord Windham had tried to make amends. She had pushed them a
side. She didn’t want to be obligated to him, too.

  “I went for a trot in the country. I haven’t left Bath in weeks. When Annis was unable to go, because her sister demanded that Annis join her at the couturière, I decided to go as I had planned. Bath is so small it doesn’t take long to reach daisyville.”

  Cole leapt to his feet. “Have you lost every bit of sense you possessed? You could have met a collector, or worse, out there alone.”

  “No highwayman would be interested in me when I have nothing of value.”

  “You should have taken Frye with you.”

  The abigail looked up in horror. Even when they had lived at Hill’s End, Frye had kept close to the main house, budging out-of-doors only when Mrs. Pilcher had insisted Frye serve as a watchdog for Nerissa.

  “That’s a bag of moonshine! I’m quite capable of walking about in the country.” Nerissa smiled when Cole scowled with disagreement. “All right, I concede it might have been a want-witted thing to do.”

  “It was jobbernowl! Look at you! Nerissa, what happened to you?”

  “Lord Windham happened to take a hedge exactly where I was walking.”

  “Nerissa!” His face became as hueless as hers felt.

  “Calm yourself, Cole. I am alive. Lord Windham tells me he pushed me out of the way. I can’t attest to that, for I recall nothing of it.”

  Frye cried, “Fear has wiped the whole from your head!”

  “It is over, and … except for a few bumps … nothing is amiss,” Nerissa said quickly to comfort both of them. She would as lief not to explain that the diabolically handsome viscount had knocked her from her feet and from her senses. She did not want Cole demanding that Lord Windham name his friends. From such an affair of honor, her brother was certain to emerge the loser. “Please don’t think anymore about it.”

  “Lord Windham, did you say?” Cole asked as if he had not listened to her last words. He walked from his chair to the hearth, then back, tapping his finger against his receding chin.

  “Yes.” She started to frown, but halted when the expression added to her misery. “Do you know him?”

  “I know of him.” He clasped his hands behind his back in the pose he always assumed when he was deep in thought. Without looking at her, he said, “He has been in Bath only a short while longer than you. I’m surprised. You’d think he would have returned to Town. Bath’s entertainments must be a bore to him.”

  “The Season is past.”

  Again Cole acted as if he had not heard her. “His brother was with him? I recall nothing in the Chronicle about the viscount’s brother’s arrival in Bath.”

  Nerissa exchanged a weak smile with Frye. Unless a tidbit of news had something to do with Cole’s canal project, he rarely recalled what he had read in the newspapers even a second afterward.

  Reaching up to take his hand, she urged him to sit. “Don’t burden yourself with thoughts of the viscount and Mr. Windham. I doubt they will think much about us. I would as lief hear of your work today. Did you find the answer to the problem of the solid rock?”

  Cole needed no other prodding to launch into a long, intricate monologue. Letting the confusing terms for canal building surround her, the soothing sound of her brother’s voice became a warm blanket to pull around Nerissa. She tried to shut out the anguish. It was nearly impossible, but far easier, she discovered, than forgetting the memory of the intriguing silver sparkle in Lord Windham’s eyes.

  Chapter Three

  The clatter of wagon wheels and the shouts of the milk lasses in the street woke Nerissa. Lying in her bed while she stared through the filmy curtains which filtered the grey light, she listened to the frantic pace of Laura Place at dawn.

  Her head and her body hurt, even the steady pulse of her heart hurt. Running her fingers along the quilted smoothness of her yellow covers, she closed her eyes and tried to think the pain away. That was futile. The ache surrounded her like a dim aura.

  When she heard muted sounds from her dressing room, Nerissa knew Frye was skulking about, getting ready for the day. That her abigail was within call soothed her, but staying abed would do nothing but lead to ennui. She would be wiser to keep herself busy so she could forget her misery.

  Rolling onto her side, she gazed at her room. Brightening sunshine inched across the dull carpet topped by the furniture she had had brought from Hill’s End on that bone-setter cart. Nerissa smiled at the mahogany writing desk and the two chairs by the foot of her high poster bed. Everything was decorated in the warm shades of yellow that her mother had laughingly judged too bright for a young lady.

  Nerissa slipped out of bed, inching her toes toward the steps to the floor. Taking a single step, she grabbed for the bedpost. She was as weak as if she was suffering from a fever. She did not move until her heartbeat had slowed from its frantic pace. Only when it was even again did she try a second step. It proved easier than the first, and she soon was able to walk, albeit slowly, about the room.

  “Miss Dufresne!” came Frye’s surprised reprimand. “Why are you up?”

  “It is day,” she answered reasonably, but added no more when she saw her maid’s lips straighten in a frown.

  “If you’re hungry, I shall have toast and tea brought.”

  “There is no need to go to such lengths. I am quite capable of going down the stairs. Find my wrapper, will you?”

  “Miss Dufresne, I think—”

  “For once, Frye,” she said sharply, “I don’t care a rap what you think. Now are you going to help me, or must I lurch about alone?”

  Frye acquiesced, but hovered around Nerissa, continually urging her to return to bed. Nerissa disregarded her abigail’s anxiety. Although Frye might be correct—for Nerissa’s eyes still had a strange habit of unfocusing when she blinked—she would not stay in bed all day. She was stiff from her bruises, and that would worsen if she did as Frye beseeched. What she needed was a cup of hot coffee and a hotter bath to ease the creak of abused limbs.

  When Frye relented enough to bring her her favorite blue wrapper, Nerissa was glad of her abigail’s help in putting on the simple garment. She had planned to call on Annis Ehrlich this afternoon, but she would have to send her regrets. How distraught Annis would be when she discovered what had happened! Not that Annis was in any way to blame. Not even Lord Windham was.…

  Blast him! Why must he invade her thoughts when he was out of her life?

  “That should do perfectly,” Nerissa said as she pointed to a white silk shawl Frye was folding to put in the cupboard.

  The plump woman held up the fringed square of shimmering fabric and regarded it with confusion. “Do for what?”

  “Do you know how to tie a sling, Frye?”

  “I think you should rest before—”

  “I am going down to the breakfast parlor. I want to read the newspaper and enjoy my brother’s company. Cole will be upset if I remain cloistered here.”

  “Miss Dufresne—”

  “Frye, I’m going down to the breakfast parlor.”

  The abigail sighed. “As you wish. Can I help you with the sling?”

  She started to demur, then nodded.

  “I shall try to help you without injuring you more.”

  Nerissa bit her lower lip as she bent her arm so Frye could drape the material about her. Every motion—even the brush of air against her arm as Frye edged around her to tie the material behind her nape—added to the anguish. She said nothing. To own to it would make her abigail even more insistent that she go back to bed.

  Agreeing to return for a bath and a rest after breakfast, Nerissa left her room. The upper hall of the town house was preternaturally quiet in the early morning. Mrs. Carroll must have ordered the maids to stay away from Nerissa’s bedroom until she woke. Trust the housekeeper to worry about her! As she walked down the gently curving staircase, she saw a crow-black form in the shadows.

  “Good morning, Hadfield,” she said quietly.

  He looked in her direction, his gaze fo
cusing on her makeshift sling. Without speaking, he walked toward the back of the house. His coarse chuckles drifted to Nerissa.

  Outraged, she was tempted to shout after him. Frye had been kind enough to disregard the blackening bruises Nerissa had seen in her glass. Hadfield wanted to put her into a pelter. She refused to give him that satisfaction. However, she would remain silent about his behavior no longer. Cole must listen to her.

  Fury strengthened her uneven steps as she entered the light green breakfast parlor. The scent of freshly brewed coffee soothed her. Cook peeked in and offered Nerissa a sympathetic smile. Wiping her hand against her frosty-faced cheeks, the tall woman wore a worried expression when Nerissa ordered only a muffin and jam. Nerissa appreciated her concern, but was too fatigued by the walk down the stairs to want to do anything but sit.

  A round table was set in the middle of the cozy room, which was situated to get the most of the morning sun. Cole looked up at the sound of Nerissa’s voice. With his cravat untied and his shirt hanging out from his breeches, he held a book close to his nose.

  “I see the dogs haven’t dined yet,” Nerissa said with a smile.

  Looking over his shoulder at his drooping shirt ends, he grinned sheepishly and tucked them into his dark brown breeches. His smile vanished when he saw the sling about her arm. Jumping to his feet, he let the book he had been reading fall to the table with a crash. She winced, but her shock was stronger than her pain. Cole was obsessively solicitous of his work materials and never mishandled them.

  “Nerissa,” he said with a hint of censure in his voice, “you should have sent for breakfast.”

  “Then I would have missed the chance to speak with you. Isn’t today the day the Mortimer boys come for their math lesson?”

  He scowled as he pulled out her chair and watched as she cautiously sat. “They come tomorrow. Felix Tucker has his math lesson this morning, and his older brother this afternoon. By the elevens, I wish I didn’t have to spend time trying to inspire some thought in those cabbage-heads. No doubt, Felix will be the cherubim he is each week. Not only does he whine, but, last week, he stepped on one of my manuals. I should put my materials out of the reach of his dirty hands.”