Chasing the Heiress

by Rachael Miles

  Seeing her now, the light on her hair, the curve of her smile, Colin took it in, knowing things were already shifting between them.

  He realized with a start that, though her face and form were as familiar to him as his own, he’d never noticed how her eyes mirrored the rich green of the evergreens or how her hair—straight and thick—was the same lustrous black as the crows. Somehow he’d simply expected her to be there whenever he returned, and she always had been. He should have seen her better before now.

  She did not turn as he approached, and he leaned onto the ledge next to her, their elbows touching. They looked out together, silently.

  As always, the silence was companionable between them, and as always, she spoke first. “I remember the first time we met here. We were seven or eight.” She did not look at him, only stared at a distant spot in the garden.

  “Seven.” He watched the garden with her.

  “Seven then. Stella had hatched some plan for mischief, and she had tricked me into the garden so that I would take the blame for it. She hadn’t been here long, and I hadn’t yet learned not to trust her. But you always knew when she was up to no good.” Her shoulder leaned against the side of his arm, comfortably.

  “I lured you away from the garden with new pencils and paper.”

  “And we drew until sunset, imagining worlds and dragons and crusading knights.”

  “You were never satisfied with being the damsel in distress.”

  “She won’t be either, you know, but I think she’ll be good for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her and the way she looks at you. You aren’t certain of her yet, but you will be.”

  Em reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded paper. She put it on the ledge in front of them, holding it down with her hand. It sat between them, but he didn’t reach for it. He knew what it was. A child’s drawing, in two hands. Their betrothal promise from all those years ago.

  “I tried to give this back to you last time.” Her voice was soft. “But you refused.”

  “I wasn’t ready. You are always my dream of sanity in a world gone mad.”

  “Oh, fiddle. More like just another nightmare. But I was right: it’s time. Past time. I suppose we should do this right.” She picked the drawing up and turned toward him. She stood only chest high, so she had to look up into his face. She paused. Looking down at her, he realized her hand was shaking. He took her hand in his.

  She looked up and breathed deeply once before speaking. “Colin Somerville, I release you from our childhood promises.”

  He brushed the hair back from her face. “Not all of them, Em.”

  She tucked the strand behind her ear, and laughed, a soft, self-deprecating agreement. “No, not all. You still must be my dear friend. And you must always save a waltz for me. Promise.”

  He suddenly felt the loss of her in the center of his chest. “I never meant to hurt you, Em. Will this break your heart?”

  “Arrogant, aren’t you?” She shook her head in mock dismay. “No, you’re too late; my heart’s already been broken.” And she laughed again. It sounded just like Em’s laugh, but he heard it differently. He wondered how he’d never seen it before—the fleeting sadness, the hasty smile.

  “What? Who?” Colin pressed her for an answer.

  “Not now. But sometime—when you have this all sorted out. I’ll tell you then. And you can advise me what to do next.” She brushed her cheek with the back of her hand. “But you must keep it all a secret.”

  “Anything.” Colin listened more closely now, regretting that he had not listened well in all his visits for the past few years. If he had, things might now have been different between them.

  “Always so hasty,” she chided lovingly. “You should hear what my story is first.”

  He stiffened in hurt. “Have I ever done anything to make you question my loyalty?”

  “No, never. You’ve been my dearest friend, my one constant. But I’m thinking I might like to travel, me and Bess. You know how difficult that might be for me. I would need an escort to the Continent.”

  “Wouldn’t Jeffreys or Sam have some objection?”

  She turned away from the garden and toward him. She lifted her hand to his shoulder, then gently cupped one side of his face with her hand. “I’ve been too long on the shelf, Colin. I’ve only had my way this long because everyone believed that you and I would eventually marry. I have my own funds; I’m of age. And in the last several months I find that this place has grown uncomfortably small.”

  She let her arm fall to her side; then she picked up the paper from the ledge. She handed the paper to him.

  He held back from taking it. Marriage to Em had always been a possibility, but somehow it had seemed wrong to marry her when he was so damaged. But she was damaged too, and he hadn’t known. Perhaps if he had realized . . . but now there was Lucy. From the moment he’d met her, she’d figured in his plans.

  He unfolded the sheet and saw what he expected: a sketch of two horses and two riders, a turreted tower in the distance, and a dragon lying dead on its side. “I don’t want to take this.”

  “But that was the promise. When one of us decided to marry another, we would tear this into pieces and scatter it to the wind. I saw the way you look at her. You’ve decided.”

  He couldn’t object. “Keep it. Send it to me if you ever need my help.”

  “Still trying to be the knight in shining armor,” Em chided.

  “No, he’s long since dead. His armor is bloodied and can’t be cleaned.”

  Abruptly, she tore the paper in half, one knight and a turret on one side, another and the body of the dragon on the other. But instead of scattering the pieces, she held out half to him. “If either needs the other, this will be our promise . . . of friendship and of succor.”

  He nodded, taking the paper from her hand—a slender white hand, so different from Lucy’s tanned, calloused one. He folded the sheet and placed it in his breast pocket.

  “Don’t let her get away, Colin.” She kissed him softly on the cheek. Turning back to the garden, she leaned her stomach against the stone wall, making it impossible for him to see her face.

  He placed his arm around her shoulders and drew her against his body. He leaned over and kissed her hair. She leaned her body into his side, rested there for a moment, then pulled away.

  She stepped out of the circle of his arm, looked up into his face once more as if for the last time, then walked away. He let her go and took her place looking out over the garden.

  * * *

  Lucy caught a sob in her hand, then turned swiftly away. She had to escape before she was seen. Lucy had thought to walk on the terrace before dinner and, if she saw Em, to thank her for the loan of the lovely dinner dress. But she hadn’t expected to chance upon Em and Colin in the middle of a tryst. When Lady Emmeline brushed Colin’s cheek with her hand, then kissed his cheek, she had felt her heart drop into her belly. Sorrow, anger, regret, and—she had to admit—jealousy filled her stomach, all in one complicated dish.

  She fled down the nearest garden path, a long avenue with thick evergreen hedges on either side. But there was no exit, no quick retreat into another part of the garden. Nothing, but a long unbroken row of green.

  He wasn’t hers, she repeated to herself. He had never been hers. She had even insisted that she didn’t want him. All she’d wanted was a safe passage and some pleasure before she disappeared into a new life. Why, then, had it hurt so much to see him with another woman? No, seeing him with Em shouldn’t matter. But the ache in the center of her chest and at the pit of her belly told her it did.

  Suddenly, Dot’s words became clear. The maid’s idle chatter had been about Colin. The realization took her breath. He was the expected beau, the one with whom Lady Emmeline had a longtime understanding. Why, then, had he told her he had no fiancée? That he would marry her? And worse yet, why—on so little evidence—had she believed him
?

  It had been empty chivalry all along. A sickbed romance turned into a passionate affair, but not one that had touched his heart.

  Knowing the playing field, she had to decide what campaign she would begin.

  She knew how to fight other sorts of campaigns, campaigns where a man’s life depended on how attentive and knowledgeable she was: how to stitch up a bayonet wound, how to slow the bleeding from a severed limb. But this sort of game—where one had to hold one’s heart safe, to win with smiles and strategies—she would not play.

  As Lady Arabella Lucia Fairbourne, she had the means and the position to compete for his affections. But, as Lucy the officer’s daughter, she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. In her heart, she wasn’t an aristocrat, just an officer’s daughter, one whose character and strength had been forged in battles, not in the ton.

  She would give him up, heart and soul together. She would not falter in her resolve. But she would not again seek his bed with such abandon. No, if she did, she would be betraying both herself and Lady Emmeline.

  * * *

  At the entrance into the hedged walk, Em saw Lucy, already dressed for dinner, walking away briskly. From the set of her shoulders and her position on the path, Lucy must have seen Em and Colin together.

  Em started to follow Lucy, then stopped.

  If Lucy rejected Colin, then Em could avoid the embarrassment of a broken engagement. She could avoid Stella’s ridicule and keep Colin for herself. All she had to do was . . . nothing. Return to the house. Let Lucy interpret the scene on the terrace as she would. And if the budding romance between Lucy and Colin withered . . .

  She didn’t even have to be brave: all she had to do was walk away. She looked back over her shoulder toward the terrace, where Colin stood obscured from view. Much as she might later regret it, she’d already released Colin even before he’d arrived with Lucy.

  No, she might engage in activities that would destroy her reputation if she were caught, but she could never destroy Colin’s as well. From the moment that she’d taken Adam’s hand and let him show her the world beyond her estate, she had known that new knowledge would come with sacrifice. She simply hadn’t known the sacrifice would be her heart.

  She called out to Lucy, who paused, glancing back at the house. “Wait for me. There’s something I must discuss with you.”

  * * *

  Lucy wished she hadn’t turned; she wished she’d slipped back into the house rather than run toward the garden. It was a tactical error, and, because of it, she would have to face Em, the woman she had so deeply, if unknowingly, wronged.

  For Em’s sake, she wouldn’t reveal that Colin, the man Em so obviously loved, was unfaithful. Perhaps, Lucy shrugged mentally, Em even knew and didn’t care. Some women cared little if a man sought other women, so long as he returned at the end of each affair.

  But to bring his new lover to the house of his betrothed, even if to keep William safe, suggested a cruelty she would not have believed in Colin’s character. It was something her cousin would do . . . or rather had done, keeping a mistress in London even when his wife was in residence, and seducing the maids in his own household. Everyone knew that more than one of the children in the village had been born of such liaisons.

  But Lucy had believed Colin a man of honor, perhaps the one man with whom she could share her secrets. At least, she comforted herself, she hadn’t told him her own, not fully.

  Now, she realized just how little she knew of him. How could she have thought she knew the man simply because he reminded her of other men she had loved?

  Em, walking slowly, had almost caught up to her, an inscrutable look on her face. What did Em know? Was she coming to warn her off or, worse, explain the rules of their relationship? Lucy’s heart was heavy with regret and sorrow. And the memory of his kiss on her lips tasted of gall.

  She had only just realized she’d fallen in love with him, and now to find . . . She stopped the thought, just as she stopped her tears with the back of her hand.

  By the time Em reached her, Lucy was—at least—no longer crying. Growing up in hospitals, she’d learned quickly to conceal her emotions; no wounded soldier waiting for a doctor to amputate his leg needed a weeping nurse.

  She was surprised when Em took her arm, clearly expecting them to walk arm in arm like bosom friends. They were close in height and build, the only difference being that Em’s hair was straight. Lucy had to wonder if she fit a type that Colin liked. Had she not hidden her figure with pads, he would have found them similar all along.

  “It seems Colin hasn’t explained to you about our betrothal. I’ve chastised him already.”

  “Please, Lady Emmeline, no explanation is necessary. I’m simply Somerville’s nurse, ensuring that he does not fall ill. But he is well on his way to recovery and very soon will have no need of a nurse.”

  “Lucy. Stop. I’ve known Colin almost my whole life. I know his nature, his character, even the kinds of women he prefers in his bed.”

  Lucy’s heart caught. Em spoke with a gentle generosity, a woman who had been wronged but had learned to accept it.

  “He’s told you about his lovers?” Lucy prayed silently that Colin hadn’t confessed his affair with her.

  “Well, he didn’t wish to, but I insisted. Women are so disadvantaged in being kept unaware of such things. For a man his age, there haven’t been many, not as you might expect. He kept a mistress for several years, a girl from his father’s estate who had been sent away for a liaison with one of the guests. She had been forced to submit, and Colin didn’t like her suffering for it. But that was some time ago; she’s a milliner now. Lovely hats. Besides, how was I to learn anything without someone to tell me? He even taught me to kiss when we were, oh, sixteen, I think.”

  “He what?” Lucy felt disoriented.

  “Oh, I threatened him into it.” Em laughed gently at the memory.

  “Threatened?” Something had gone awry in the conversation, and Lucy couldn’t quite identify what.

  “Of course we had to be careful about it, or we would have been married straightaway.”

  Mistresses. Hats. Kissing. Em related it all as if it had no real significance. Nothing Em was saying made any sort of reasonable sense.

  “Which leads to the betrothal.” Em said with finality.

  “Lady Emmeline, please. This is none of my concern.”

  Em stopped in the middle of the path and faced Lucy, studying her face steadily for several seconds. “No,” Em said softly, “it is exactly your concern.” She spoke deliberately, her eyes never leaving Lucy’s. “Listen to me: Colin and I, we are not betrothed, nor have we ever been. It’s been a game between us. Because it matters to you, I will tell you the truth of it. But you must promise to keep our secret. Stella would make my life quite miserable, if she knew.”

  “Stella?”

  “My cousin. Mrs. Cane. We grew up here together, but she and I . . .” Em’s voice slowed as she chose her words. “. . . are not close. She’s married now, quite well, with a family of her own. But, for a long time now, it’s only been the expected announcement of a betrothal with Colin that has kept her at bay.”

  “At bay?”

  “Oh, dear, that’s a complicated story.” Em led Lucy down the garden path toward the wilderness, again arm in arm. “In short, though, this estate is a freehold from my maternal grandfather’s estate, held in trust for me by my father, the earl. But because Stella lived here with us after my uncle, the previous earl, died, she cannot be convinced that this estate is not part of the entail.”

  “Won’t her confusion cause trouble for you in Chancery when your father dies?”

  “No. The lands were not part of my mother’s settlement, and she died long before my grandfather.” At the end of the hedgerow stood a long low bench, and Em gestured for Lucy to sit. “Even so, my grandfather consulted with the best legal advisors to ensure that the lands will be mine. But Stella resents not being lady of the manor—or rather she resents me be
ing such a bad one.”

  Lucy marveled at Em’s easy banter. Clearly she’d misjudged everything she’d seen. Bess jumped up on the bench and curled up against Em’s back.

  “But as to the betrothal. Colin remained here a great deal before and after the wars. He and my stepbrother had been friends at Eton, and after Colin’s mother died, he came here for holidays. He was always my defender against Stella’s cruelties. So, when she announced that I was so ugly no one would ever marry me, Colin, honorable then as now, declared that he intended to marry me when I turned twenty-five.”

  “Why would she say that?” Lucy looked closely at Em’s face, green eyes in a faultless complexion, an engaging smile. There was no hint of malice in her story, merely a reporting of truth.

  “I have a scar along my jawline.” Em traced a nearly invisible white line from her ear to the tip of her chin. “Carriage accident. It’s faded now, but when I was young, it was impossible to ignore. Pink and angry. Of course, at nine, I was very sensitive to it.”

  The two women sat silently, Em regarding her hands. Em spoke first. “Before Colin went to Brussels, I almost let my thoughts turn to marrying him. But he came back so changed, and by then I found myself changed as well.”

  Em stood, snapping her fingers for Bess to join her.

  “He’s a good man, an honorable man. And I believe he already loves you. Don’t let him go unless you are quite certain he isn’t the man for you.”

  * * *

  As Em walked away, Bess positioned herself between her mistress and any objects that she might trip or fall on. Em’s limp was more pronounced than it had been earlier in the day, and Lucy wondered how much pain her childhood injuries still caused her.

  Lucy knew she should follow, knew she should make her way to the drawing room where the guests would assemble for dinner, but she needed a moment to sort through all she had learned.