The Fortune Hunter

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “Did you chance upon a windfall, Oakley?” Hamilton asked. “I had heard you were nearly cleaned out on those foolish investments you made in the West Indies.”

  Oakley scowled and stamped away.

  Seely crowed with laughter. “You set his back up for him. He wants no one to know how he managed to impress his future mother-in-law with his worthiness.”

  Hamilton stared after Oakley. Had his quarry been so close all along? He must have Mallory check to discover if Oakley was buying himself Mrs. Ehrlich’s approval with Windham money.

  “So tell me,” Seely continued, “is it true that Miss Dufresne is leaving her brother’s house for yours?”

  Hamilton arched a single brow before walking away. He did not wait to hear Seely’s fuzzy answer. A smile edged along his lips. These rumors might prove to be most beneficial. If the attention of the ton was focused on an affaire de coeur, fallacy though it might be, between him and Miss Dufresne, his search could go unnoted, allowing him to discover the truth of Oakley’s surprising wherewithal. The right word whispered in the right ear would propel the tale throughout Bath, even though …

  His gaze returned readily to Miss Dufresne. Her lemon-yellow dress was the perfect foil for her sable hair. Watching her hands move gracefully as she emphasized a point to Philip, he thought of those slight fingers against his arm and his lips. She was alluring, and he could easily surrender to the fantasy of holding her even closer.

  With regret, he knew he must halt the hearsay by ignoring it. No matter how much he wished to find the thief, he could not damage Miss Dufresne’s reputation.

  Blast it!

  His smile returned as he realized he might be able to salvage something from this increasingly intricate set of circumstances. With a lighter step, he continued across the ballroom.

  “Hamilton, where have you been hiding?” his brother asked as he neared.

  “I have been looking for my partner at the board of green cloth,” he answered with a laugh. “You must allow me to steal Miss Dufresne from you, Philip.” Holding out his arm, he asked, “Shall we?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Nerissa said with a smile. “Will you excuse us, Mr. Windham?”

  He grinned broadly. “Never let me be the one to stand between Dame Fortune and her handmaiden. Good luck to both of you this evening.”

  “You aren’t joining us?” she asked, startled.

  “I have other business.” He bid them a good evening and walked away.

  The fury that had burned in Lord Windham’s eyes that afternoon burst forth again as he stared at his brother’s back. Knowing she should say nothing, Nerissa asked, “Why isn’t Mr. Windham joining us for whist?”

  “I will tell you, but not here.” Each word was clipped as it pushed past his taut lips.

  The music faded into a hush as they climbed the stairs to the room which had been set aside for cards. When they entered, Nerissa was amazed to see it was empty. She turned as she heard the door close.

  “My lord, the others—”

  “Will be arriving shortly.” He leaned against the column edging the door and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pantaloons. “I wished a moment to speak with you without other ears listening as they were in your entry foyer this evening.”

  Nerissa gasped, “You heard …?”

  “Only the curiosity of your reclusive brother, which obviously demanded to be satisfied. You should reassure him, Miss Dufresne, that the tales of our intimacy, which are much in the air, are untrue.”

  Color burned on her cheeks as he spoke so candidly of the whispers she had been unable to disregard this evening. “My lord, mayhap it would be for the best that I am not seen in your company again.”

  He slowly closed the distance between them. When she would have taken a step back, she found a table blocking her way. Meeting his amused gaze, she lowered herself to a chair at the table. He put his foot on the chair next to hers and leaned forward so his eyes were level with hers.

  “I fear that is impossible, for Philip is so taken with Miss Ehrlich that he will wish to call on you often in the hope that she might be giving you a look-in as well.”

  “Your brother is not the problem.”

  “I fear you are mistaken.” His finger touched the tip of her chin, and he smiled when her breath caught. “He is indeed one of the problems.” As he traced the curve of her jaw, he murmured, “I know you share your brother’s curiosity, Miss Dufresne, and are most interested in where my brother flits to while we enjoy the good-fellowship of the card table.”

  Nerissa wanted to shoot back a fierce retort, but his touch silenced her. She wanted to close her eyes and think only of his coarse skin brushing against her. When she looked up into his eyes, she could not look away. In them, she read frustration and pain. She was astounded that he was willing to bare even this much of himself to her.

  “Has he entangled himself in something horrible?”

  His laugh had a bitter edge. “You can’t guess how right you are. He is arranging to buy the captaincy of a distant cousin who tires of the glory of battle on the Continent.”

  “Captaincy?” A chill cut through her as she thought of Mr. Windham’s bright effervescence against the blight of a battlefield. “Can’t you halt him?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “It appears not.” Taking her hand, he turned it upside down. His finger followed one of the lines in her palm. “There are those who believe a man or a woman can see their future in their hand. Philip, as recklessly, believes this is a way for him to do something of value. While he tells me that my place is among the peers in the House of Lords, he sees his in glorious battle. It does little good to mention that war is seldom glorious.”

  “Yes if this is what he wants—”

  “Are you mad?”

  She recoiled from his naked pain. Setting herself on her feet, she said, “If you take that tone with him, I’m not surprised he refuses to listen to you.”

  He reached to grasp her shoulders, but drew his hand back before he jostled her left arm. Cupping her chin in his hand, he brought her closer. His fingers splayed across her face, awakening sensations she never had guessed could possess such splendor. When her hand rose to the navy velvet of his sleeve, the glow in his eyes deepened to silver.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, “for you may be right. If what he wants is this chance for what he calls ‘a most magnificent honor’, can I tell him no?” The corners of his mouth tilted. “I have told him no on many occasions, but I fear he will listen to his older brother no longer, for he takes great relish in reminding me that I have my own ridiculous goal that obsesses me.”

  Nerissa asked before she could halt herself, “What is that, my lord?”

  “You might find that the whole shall put you in whoops,” he said without a smile as he stepped away. Going to the next table, he picked up a deck of cards and shuffled them. “I seek something nowhere near as wondrous as a hero’s laurels.”

  “Are you trying to trip me the double, my lord, with your mystical talk?”

  He chuckled. “How your eyes snap when you are in a pelter! I should have exasperated you before this.”

  “You have!” When Nerissa put her hand to her lips as Lord Windham laughed, she found herself smiling as well.

  “Do you mean to suggest, Miss Dufresne, that you find my company distasteful?”

  “You are changing the subject, my lord,” she said, her smile fading.

  “Am I?”

  “If you prefer not to speak of this.…”

  He dropped the cards to the table and took her hand between his broader ones. “How you challenge a man to do what you wish him to! I can understand why your brother stays hidden, for he wishes no one to see the scars where your barbed words have struck him.” Sitting again, he drew her down to the chair beside him. “As to your question, Miss Dufresne, I am on a quest. Like the grand knights of yore, I am seeking a nemesis who has betrayed my family’s trust.”

  She flinc
hed as his words brought to mind Janelle’s taunt that Nerissa was waiting for a dashing knight to sweep her into a fairy-tale life. “Your family’s trust? What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. Can it be that you find my story unbelievable?”

  “It is unbelievable! This is 1811, not some ancient times when primitive emotions ruled.”

  He laughed again, but his voice remained taut. “Emotions never change. I would guess a knight riding off on a Crusade felt the same determination I have to find the one who cheated my father out of thirty thousand pounds.”

  “Cheated?” She glanced about the room.

  “Not at a wager, but at a business deal that you would find boring. I am determined to find this man who stole my father’s spirit and his life.”

  In horror, she whispered, “A murderer?”

  “You need not be so diabolic in your thoughts, for the fiend did not slay him. Only his deeds did, for my father was a man of uncommon pride.”

  “Like his sons?”

  A smile raced across his face, but his voice remained somber. “To be cheated by a cur, who was beneath his touch, was more than my father could endure. The shame killed him, and I vowed to make the man pay for his crimes.”

  “That quest has brought you to Bath?”

  “Yes, and …” His jaw tightened as the sound of footfalls and laughter came from beyond the closed door. “That is why I wished to speak with you alone. I must ask you a favor.” Not giving her a chance to reply, he went on, “You have heard the interest, I am sure, in our friendship.” A mischievous twinkle betrayed his next words. “Which is deemed to be far warmer than a friendship.”

  “Yes.” She could not halt the faint sound of her voice as he stroked her fingers while he spoke.

  “I would, if you will agree, let them continue to think it is more than a friendship.” When she started to reply, he put his finger to her lips. “I will call upon you along with Philip and his Annis. Let the ton see us in each other’s company. Their curiosity will consume them, permitting me to do what I must to find the man who betrayed my father.”

  “Nothing we say will deter them from their assumptions,” she said, but tensed when the door latch rose.

  “Then you are agreeable to this?”

  She nodded.

  Standing, he drew her to her feet. In a low voice that would not reach beyond her ears, he said, “I vow that I shall unearth him with all speed. Then the blackguard will find himself in the midst of his most horrible nightmare as he learns the taste of a Windham’s revenge.”

  Chapter Seven

  Nerissa gripped the banister as she heard a door crash closed on the ground floor. She saw Cole walk away from the front door to where Hadfield was standing in the center of the entrance foyer. Both of them were glowering at the door.

  Rushing down the stairs, she gasped, “Cole, what is wrong?” She had never heard him slam the door before.

  He snarled, “Everything!”

  Taken aback by his vehemence, she put her fingers on his arm. He shook them off and spun to glare at her. Fear pinched at her as she saw for the first time the same terrible choler that she had suffered from his father during the years Mr. Pilcher had shared her mother’s house.

  “Cole, if there is something I can do …”

  She realized he was not listening to her. Instead he had turned to the butler. Sharply he said, “I will not suffer that indignity again, Hadfield. If you see any sign of such problems, I wish you to handle them. I know you are familiar with doing so.”

  “What problem?” Nerissa asked as she glanced from one rigidly set face to the other. Something was dreadfully wrong, and she could not understand why Cole was keeping the truth from her.

  “It isn’t your concern, Nerissa,” her brother returned without looking at her. “Do you understand, Hadfield?”

  “I understand you, Mr. Pilcher.” Smug satisfaction saturated his voice as he shot a glare in Nerissa’s direction. Turning on his heel, he walked toward the back of the house.

  “Cole—”

  “I do not wish to be disturbed!” he snapped and vanished into his book room.

  Nerissa choked back another gasp when that door smashed resoundingly closed. Going to the window by the front door, she peered out. The walkway was empty save for a short, round man who was standing on the opposite side of the street and looking toward the bridge leading into the heart of Bath. A pair of carriages passed, and, when she could see the other side of the street again, he was gone.

  Bafflement threaded her forehead. Something had wound up both Cole and Hadfield, but she had no idea what it might be.

  Climbing the stairs with the same unseemly speed as she had descended, she went into her room to discover Frye folding chemises and putting them in the cupboard. Frye stopped humming a tuneless song to smile. The abigail’s smile drifted away, warning Nerissa that her disquiet was visible on her face.

  “Of course, I heard the door close,” the older woman said. “Hadfield is always—”

  “Cole slammed it.”

  “Mr. Pilcher? Why?”

  Nerissa sat in the chair and drew her feet up beneath her. “I have no idea. I thought you might know. Are there any whispers belowstairs of a problem that Cole has?”

  “I know of no problem,” Frye said. She shuddered as she folded the last chemise and set it in the drawer. Closing the door quietly, she added, “Not that I wish to have anything to do with that frightful man’s concerns.”

  Nerissa could not argue with that. She wished she could convince Cole to rid the house of Hadfield. Until then, she must endure the butler’s insolent smiles and vicious comments while she tried to puzzle out what was wrong.

  Nerissa tilted her parasol, so the white lace dripping off its edge did not obscure her view of the trees, which lined the road leading through the rolling hills out of Bath. Her elbow rested lightly on the scalloped edge of the seat of the phaeton. Annis could not have selected a finer day to celebrate her mother’s approval of Mr. Windham with an outing in daisyville. The sun shone with a bright, soft light that added color to the grass and flowers, but did not burn through her bonnet.

  “And Mr. Windham can call whenever we are at home,” Annis said for at least the tenth time since they had left Town.

  “I am so pleased.” Nerissa had tried to vary her reply, and she was not sure what she would say the next time Annis voiced her happiness.

  “Mama has said I must invite Mr. Windham and his brother to sup some evening soon. Will you come?”

  “I will try.”

  Annis leaned forward. “Do leave Cole at home. I have no wish for Mr. Windham to be bored with his skimble-skamble talk of that canal.”

  “Miss Ehrlich!” Frye’s pursed lips spoke her displeasure as sharply as her words.

  With a giggle, Annis said, “Oh, Frye, I knew I could put you in a stew with that comment.”

  The abigail harrumphed while Nerissa struggled not to laugh. If Frye took a moment to think, she would know that Cole had no wish to leave his book room for an evening of conversation and dinner.

  Her smile wobbled. As Annis continued to prattle about the upcoming party, Nerissa looked ahead to the curve in the road. It was painfully familiar. She was glad the two men rode ahead of them. As insightful as Lord Windham had proven to be, she doubted if she could have hidden her mixed pleasure and dismay as she saw the gate leading to Hill’s End. Her home, but it was hers only until a buyer could be found. Then everything she had known all her life would be gone.

  When Frye patted her hand, Nerissa looked at her abigail. Trust dear Frye to comprehend the depth of her despair. Seeing the sorrow in the older woman’s eyes, Nerissa bit her lip to restrain her tears. Hill’s End had been home to Frye nearly as long as it had been for Nerissa. Albert Pilcher had stolen almost every one of her father’s farthings. Now they must watch strangers take over their home. It was the final insult Albert Pilcher could have heaped on them.

  She stared
at the stone gate, with its iron arch connecting the pillars, until the road curved to follow the low wall that marked the edge of the property that had been in her family for centuries. Blinking back the tears that she must not allow to fall, she sat straighter when the carriage bounced as the driver turned it onto a rougher road.

  Frye muttered something under her breath, but Nerissa did not ask her to repeat her words so they could be understood. She understood all too well, for it had been along this road that she had walked often with her mother and Frye. They had come here to seek May flowers and to look for mistletoe. Nerissa’s mother had sat with her on these mossy hummocks and regaled her with tales of the house, which had been built nearly four centuries before.

  She said nothing as the carriage was halted, and the coachman jumped down to get the rug from the boot. Lord Windham unlashed the food basket he had attached to his saddle while his brother came to hand them out of the carriage.

  Nerissa watched as Annis, delighted as a child, hurried to where the rug was being unrolled, so she could supervise the arrangement of the dishes for their al fresco meal. Frye went after her, clucking like an old hen, as she gave orders to the coachman.

  Instead of following, Nerissa walked to the top of a knoll. Anguish knotted her middle as she saw the chimneys of Hill’s End past the treetops. Trying to imagine others in her home, which was so oddly empty now, was impossible.

  “Miss Dufresne, if I have done anything to give you offense, I beg you to forgive me.”

  At the soft plea, Nerissa looked over her shoulder to see Mr. Windham’s sorrowful expression. Although he held a field daisy in his hands, he was rubbing his palms together as if he was trying to rid himself of something distasteful. Attempting a smile, she said, “You have done nothing to cause me to be angry, sir,”

  “Oh.” He said nothing for a moment, then asked, “What has Hamilton done to you?”

  Nerissa flinched before realizing he did not mean his question as it had sounded. No one but Frye could comprehend her silence. “Lord Windham’s actions have been without complaint,” she answered. “Forgive me for being so unsociable. I wanted a moment to admire the view.”