December Heart

by Merry Farmer

  “Twenty years without producing an heir, you know,” he said as if she did know. “I can’t blame all of that on my dear, departed Aunt Anne.”

  “I…um…that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “Then let’s talk about you,” William went on. “I heard a rumor in London when I asked around about you that you’re quite the cold fish. That your dear, late fiancé looked for entertainment elsewhere because your doors were closed, so to speak. I assumed it was because you were a tired old prude.”

  “Sir, I am appalled that you would speak to me like this.” Mariah pushed back her chair and stood. She started to leave the room, but William leapt up and blocked her way.

  “Just tell me if my uncle is capable so I know whether to be worried about my inheritance or not.” He lifted a hand to trace the back of his fingers across her cheek.

  Mariah recoiled in disgust. “Leave me alone,” she hissed, trying to dodge around him and out the door.

  “I see,” William said with a triumphant hum. He took a step back, grinning. “So you are frigid. Well, then, I don’t have as much to worry about as I thought.”

  Mariah rushed past him, but pride kept her from fleeing without having the last word. She turned back to William, her fists balled at her sides. “Your uncle informed me that you were a difficult man, but the least you could do is behave like a gentleman around his wife.”

  “And the least you could do is respect the fact that I was here first.” He narrowed his eyes at her. The look made Mariah’s blood run cold, but at least any hint of lust had vanished. “You can have the castle and the title, and all the pretty clothes and balls you want, but just you make sure you keep your legs crossed, auntie dear.”

  He blew her a kiss, then marched past her and off down the hallway. Mariah pressed a hand to her stomach to keep from being sick. She was shaking as well, and hated every bit of how William had made her feel. She wanted to run to Peter to tell him everything that William had said. But Peter was meeting with his mine foreman, and she couldn’t shake the way he’d dismissed her throughout their short, uncomfortable breakfast.

  The only thing she could do was gather her wits and go off in search of Mrs. Wilson. But as she left the breakfast room, a hollow sense of being dropped alone in the middle of the wilderness went with her.

  Chapter 9

  Peter was halfway across the front hall on his way to his study, where he received visitors on business, when he stopped with a wince. He’d handled the situation at breakfast terribly. Instead of feigning indifference to Mariah, he should have made absolutely clear to William that if he harmed a hair on her head, there would be consequences. But he had been so used to closing off his emotions whenever Anne was in a state that it had come all too naturally in the present situation. William had assumed he didn’t care about Anne and left her alone. And Anne had always been less likely to have one of her fits without him adding fuel to the fire. But Mariah had reacted as though she were hurt.

  He rubbed a hand over his face and turned back to the breakfast room. The least he could do was to explain his motivations for wearing a mask in front of William. Mariah was intelligent enough to understand the tactic. Although, if he explained why he felt it was necessary to manage William like he was planning strategy for a military campaign, he’d have to explain the debts William owed and to whom he owed them. Was it worth burdening Mariah so soon in their marriage, or could he figure out a way to demand William leave so that he didn’t have to tell her?

  He had to tell her, of course. He blew out a breath and started back to the breakfast room.

  “My lord.”

  Peter clenched his jaw in frustration and turned to find Douglas Sinclair and young Owen Llewellyn watching him from the hallway that led to his study. Both men’s faces were drawn with worry, telling him the situation with his mine was worse than he’d imagined. His heart urged him to go back and rescue Mariah from William and to explain, but his head and his sense of duty to the estate tugged him to deal with Sinclair first.

  “Is there something I can help with, my lord?” Snyder—who had followed him and stood patiently to one side while Peter’s thoughts roiled—asked.

  Peter frowned, pursed his lips, then said, “Yes. Go back to the breakfast room and make sure that William doesn’t interfere with Mariah in any way.”

  “Understood, my lord,” Snyder answered with a look that confirmed he understood everything.

  Snyder went back, allowing Peter to move forward. “Apologies for the delay, gentlemen,” he said striding across the hall. He forced his posture straighter and put on the air of complete confidence the men who worked for him needed to see. “Come into my study and tell me what’s going on at the mine.”

  The men followed him into the large room lined with bookcases that served as his study. It’d been one of his favorite rooms in the castle since he was a boy. Back then, it had been the library, but when he’d inherited the castle and its contents, he’d moved his father’s desk and several leather-upholstered armchairs into the room. Half of it retained the feeling of a library, complete with cozy chairs placed next to windows where one could spend a quiet afternoon reading, and the rest was designed for receiving guests and handling business.

  He gestured for Sinclair and Owen to take seats in the leather armchairs while he crossed to sit behind his desk.

  “Well, my lord, it’s like this,” Sinclair began in his thick, Cornish accent. “It’s the Carleen mine. We’ve seen this coming for a while, but the situation is worse than any of us anticipated.”

  “I see.” Peter sat back in his chair, steepling his hands and tapping his index fingers against his lips. The gestured called to mind the sweetness of Mariah’s kisses. She’d been shy and unstudied that first night, but she’d been a fast learner. She had yet to take the lead and seemed more content to remain passive, but he could sense a fire inside of her that told him it wouldn’t be long until she was making demands of him.

  As long as they weren’t like Anne’s demands.

  A shot of ice pierced his gut and he blinked, snapping to attention.

  “—can try other means to follow the exhausted ore, but frankly, my lord, I don’t see us finding more copper.”

  Peter cleared his throat, embarrassed at letting his thoughts pull him away from the business at hand. Mariah was his current obsession, but the mines, the estate, were his duty.

  “What about the Trescowe mine?” he asked, frowning in an attempt to stay focused and serious.

  Sinclair glanced to Owen. The young man sat forward on the edge of his seat. “The copper we’ve been able to find at Trescowe never held a candle to what Carleen was able to produce, my lord,” Owen said. Youthful enthusiasm and the need to show that he was worth the faith Peter had put in him was evident in his every word. “That mine is still producing, but the quality and quantity aren’t enough to fetch the price at market that the estate requires to fulfill its needs.

  “I see.” Peter nodded. “What do you suggest we do?” He was as eager to see what his former footman could do as Owen was to show him.

  “It’s clear that we need to find a new deposit of ore,” Owen said. “I’ve been surveying the extent of the estate for the past several weeks, and although it hasn’t been enough time to discover anything comprehensive, I have a few suggestions for potential locations to dig.”

  “And I think it would be a wise investment to hire a professional surveyor to come in and study the estate, my lord,” Sinclair said, glancing to Owen with a hint of disapproval.

  Perhaps Owen had overstepped a little, but Peter couldn’t blame him. He was young, eager, and he too had a young wife to impress. He and Millie, the American girl Peter had hired to be a maid as a favor to an old friend more than a year ago, were getting along quite well, and they had a new baby, if he wasn’t mistaken. Perhaps someday that child would be a playmate for his own offspring.

  If he had offspring. The last look he’d had from Mariah
wasn’t exactly tenderness and passion. And yet, the thought of not sleeping with her in his arms that night caused an ache in his gut that he wasn’t willing to live with. He needed to find her and explain everything as soon as possible.

  “My lord?”

  Peter blinked, coming back to the present. “Hmm?”

  Sinclair’s expression changed from worry to a sly grin. “Ah, my lord. Felicitations on your recent wedding.”

  Owen drew in a breath and nodded, as though just remembering. “Yes, congratulations, my lord.”

  “Thank you.” Peter sent the men a sheepish smile. “Apologies if my mind is elsewhere. I can assure you, though, that the situation with the mines will have my full attention.”

  “I remember how it was when Phyllis and I were first married,” Sinclair went on. “It’s hard to stay focused on anything but your bride.”

  “I won’t let it put the mine or any of your livelihoods in danger,” Peter promised the men, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his desk. Even if Mariah had more to contend with than most brides. Perhaps there was a way to kill two birds with one stone. “I like your idea of sending for a surveyor to assist Owen in his search for new ore deposits. I’ll send my nephew back to London to interview likely candidates at once.” Sending the young man on an errand wasn’t the same thing as banishing him from the house.

  Sinclair and Owen exchanged less than enthusiastic glances. In fact, they looked downright disturbed at the prospect.

  “I have a few fellows in mind already, my lord,” Sinclair ventured. When Peter frowned, he rushed on with, “But if you think it would be good for Lord William to be involved, I’m sure there are other possibilities in London I haven’t considered.”

  Peter let out a breath and lowered his head to stare at decades’ worth of ink stains on the blotter covering his desk. He had to get rid of William somehow. He was inclined to hire whomever Sinclair recommended as surveyor, but William didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know he was being sent on a fool’s errand. He just needed to leave.

  “Send me the details of the men you’d like to hire,” he told Sinclair. “I may send William to London regardless, though.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Sinclair nodded.

  There was little else to discuss, though Peter did ask for a quick report of the situation and morale of the men in his employ. When he was satisfied that all was as well as it could be for the time being, he stood and walked the men to the door.

  “Let me know if there is anything else I can do in the meantime,” he said as Snyder came forward from his daytime position near the front door to show the men out.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Snyder took over the task of seeing the men on their way as Peter turned to head back to his study. He was relieved beyond measure when Mariah marched into the hall before he could seclude himself to think about things. She wore a deep frown and seemed out of sorts, but at last, he’d get a chance to talk to her and fix what he’d stupidly broken.

  Life as a countess in charge of a castle did not begin well for Mariah. In her attempt to get away from William and seek out Mrs. Wilson, she’d gotten lost in the maze of rooms that was Starcross Castle. It wouldn’t have bothered her, except that instead of marveling over each new room she found herself in, she constantly looked over her shoulder, worried that William had followed her.

  By the time she stumbled into the front hall and spotted Peter heading across the large room as though he knew where he was going, she was almost relieved. Almost. The twist of ambiguity his treatment of her in the breakfast room had given her kept her from running to him.

  Instead, he spotted her and abruptly changed directions, striding across the hall to meet her.

  “There you are,” he said, taking her into his arms for what ended up being a stiff hug. Stiff because she was so taken by surprise. He glanced around the hall as if searching for someone, then rested a hand against her cheek and kissed her.

  Mariah’s heart leapt for joy at the kiss, but confusion wouldn’t let her enjoy it fully. “What’s going on?” she asked, taking a step backward and out of his arms. “What was that all about at breakfast?”

  Peter let out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face, and proving that she hadn’t been imagining his odd behavior in the process. “It’s William,” he said, glancing around the hall once again.

  Instead of launching into an explanation, he took Mariah’s hand and led her across the hall to a room just off one of the corridors. It was half library, half office, and all Peter. Aside from his bedroom, of all the rooms at Starcross Castle that she’d seen so far, this one was most filled with his signature.

  He brought her to an old, comfortable-looking sofa near a massive fireplace, whose mantle was decorated with army memorabilia and items that looked Turkish, and sat with her, their knees touching.

  “I don’t trust William,” he began.

  “Neither do I,” Mariah quickly agreed.

  Peter looked startled for a moment, then wary. “Did he behave himself after I left?”

  “No,” she answered with far more energy than she’d intended.

  Peter blew out a breath and pressed his hand to his temples. “I was afraid of that. I had hoped that Davy’s presence in the room would stop him from being…William.”

  Mariah frowned. She’d hardly noticed the young footman standing in the corner during her conversation with William, but that only doubled her alarm. Any man who wasn’t afraid of how the servants would talk was a proverbial loose cannon.

  “He’s threatened by me,” she said. “Well, was threatened by me.”

  Peter narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  Mariah sighed. She would much rather have forgotten the whole incident, but Peter was her husband now, and though she had no experience with husbands, she knew one was supposed to tell them everything. “He believes there are—” She cleared her throat, suddenly self-conscious. “Difficulties in the bedroom between us.”

  He arched a brow, a sly, provocative grin pulling his mouth sideways. “We both know that’s not true.”

  She met his grin with one of her own, warming as though her blood were moving again after being frozen with puzzlement. “Yes. Well.” She lowered her eyes to study the way their hands were twined together, growing more and more aware of how close they sat to each other.

  The reality of their situation swung back and hit her, and she took a breath, looking up and going on. “He warned me that he was here before me, and told me that I was welcome to the title and trappings of nobility, but to stay out of your bed.”

  “Damn his hide,” Peter growled.

  “Why?” Mariah asked. “What’s going on?”

  “William owes a great deal of money. It seems his creditors cut him off when they learned that I remarried—”

  “Because if we have a son, William won’t inherit and won’t have any money to repay them,” Mariah finished.

  “Exactly.”

  “He’s a grown man. Doesn’t he have any other sources of income?”

  Peter shook his head. “He had an estate and an income from his mother, but he’s already lost them to pay creditors. I’m sure he sees his position as my heir as his last hope.”

  She let out an irritated breath. “Well, that’s too bad for him. I’m finally married, I enjoy our time together, and I look forward to having as many children as we decide we want.”

  Peter burst into a smile of warmth and longing, but it faded all too soon.

  “Beware. William is like a bloodhound,” Peter said with a bit too much condescension. “He sniffs out the things that matter to people and uses them as weapons.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Mariah said.

  “In this situation, I’m not sure if you can,” Peter replied.

  Mariah huffed, her back going straight. “I did not risk my happiness on a surprise marriage just to be treated like a child by my husband.”

  “I’m no
t treating you like a child, Mariah.” Peter rubbed his temples, tension rippling off him. “But you don’t know what you’re up against with William.”

  “If your nephew is such a problem, then why not send him away, banish him from your life?”

  He met her eyes with a surprising flash of guilt. “I can’t.”

  Mariah blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I can’t,” Peter went on, shaking his head. “I am legally bound to provide a place for William to live.”

  “No one can be legally bound to keep someone in their house.”

  “It was an agreement I made with my brother as he lay dying. It was codified in his will and mine. If I banish William from Starcross Castle or disown him in any way, he inherits half the estate, whether I have a son or not.”

  “I see.” Mariah bit the inside of her lip. “And why would you agree to something so outrageous?”

  Peter closed his eyes with a wince. “Because I was young and foolish when Will lay dying. I believed I could make a difference in William’s life and character. Will knew his son much better than I did, but cared about him nonetheless. We argued. He was certain I would reach the end of my tether and attempt to wash my hands of William, and so the damnable agreement was made.”

  A strange mix of compassion for Peter’s attempt to please his brother and frustration that the brother in question had so obviously importuned him before dying knotted Mariah’s gut. “So no matter how difficult he is, we can’t ever send him packing.”

  Peter answered with, “William has been my responsibility for all these years, and for all these years, I’ve failed him. I would like to believe that it’s not too late for him to reform.”

  “And you think having him near will reform him?” It didn’t seem likely or even possible. But then again, the sum total of her experience with the young man was twenty minutes over breakfast.

  “I should have been a good enough influence to begin with. If I hadn’t failed—”

  “Uncle, we have to talk.” William burst into the room before Peter could finish. He turned the corner, then stopped cold, his mouth hanging open when he spotted Peter and Mariah sitting together.