by Henke, Shirl
Finding herself studying the new Lord Rushcroft, Miranda was forced to agree. She could make out little of his facial features at this distance as the gaslights were turned low, flickering romantically over the assembly. But his body was lean and erect, and his elegant black cutaway coat and trousers flattered broad shoulders and long legs. He carried himself like a man to the manor born.
But he was as restless as she, Miranda sensed, bored with the gala, standing off to one side, evincing no particular interest in what those around him were saying. His hair appeared to be some shade of dark blond, slightly curly and cut longer than was the fashion. He was clean shaven, and that, too, went against fashion. Perhaps he was vain about his appearance, but for some reason that eluded her, Miranda did not think so.
His profile was striking, she had to admit—long, straight nose, high brow and firm jaw. Then he smiled in response to Georgette Mayer's flirtatious hand on his arm. Forward hussy.
The Widow Horton echoed Miranda's thoughts when she said, “That gauche woman is desperate to enter the peerage...or for some peer to enter her! With all the money old Mayer left her, she'll doubtless succeed.”
Miranda laughed. “Elvira, dear, don't be vulgar. And do give the devil her due. Georgette is accounted a great beauty.”
“If only the same high compliment might apply to her morals,” Elvira snapped.
Miranda was surprised when a sudden wave of disappointment swept her as the new baron bowed with an elegant flourish before Georgette. Then the couple moved gracefully into the strains of a waltz that had just started. As they drew nearer the secluded box where the older women not in the marriage mart were seated, Miranda was drawn to study his face. Although finely chiseled and exceedingly handsome by any standards, it was hard, even dangerous-looking. His expression seemed to hint that he had seen more than a man of his years should have been called upon to witness.
She'd heard stories of the incredible carnage the Americans had wreaked upon each other, brother against brother in that tragic, fratricidal strife. Miranda had volunteered nursing the wounded brought back from the Crimea and had seen that same look in their eyes. Then she saw Rushcroft's scar. It was a thin white line stretching across his right cheekbone down to his jaw. Odd that he would not grow a beard to conceal it. But then perhaps, being one of those Southern "cavaliers" whom the press loved to romanticize, he wore it as a badge of honor.
Who knew? Why should she care? Miranda forced her gaze away from the American and scanned the room for Lori, but before she could locate her daughter and Winters, Elvira once again distracted her.
“Georgette will find him easy pickings or I miss my guess. Rushcroft hasn't a shilling. His family seat is crumbling to ruins. The Caruthers men always ran to excesses. Small wonder the English branch died out, leaving an American to claim the title.”
“Really, I've heard nothing of the family.”
“Oh, pish, I know you're too busy running banks and shipyards to bother with Society. The only members of the peerage who interest you are those who owe you money.” Her scolding tone hid the fact that Elvira was in awe of a woman who dared to enter the male world of business.
But Miranda's attention was now absorbed by her search for her daughter, who had apparently vanished from the room. “If you'll excuse me, Elvira, I must collect Lorilee. The hour is growing late, and I have appointments early in the morning.”
“A pity. You really should hire some man to oversee your affairs so you could spend more time out in Society,” Elvira replied.
“I prefer to handle my late husband's businesses myself. It is quite stimulating...and no one will ever take advantage of me.”
As she bade her companion good evening, she worried about why Lorilee had disappeared—and with whom.
* * * *
“Please, Geoff, I really must go back. We've been alone far too long. Tongues will wag,” Lori said breathlessly as her suitor pressed another ardent kiss on her cheek. She had already allowed him shocking liberties, and only when his mouth opened over hers had she come to her senses and realized she might compromise herself beyond redemption if she were not careful.
“Never say you find my attentions unwelcome,” he pleaded, slowly releasing her, satisfied when he felt her trembling.
“No—that is, yes, I welcome your suit, but we must take care. You are the son of a viscount and I—”
“You are the woman I intend to wed,” he interrupted, watching in satisfaction as her eyes widened and her mouth formed a small “O.”
Before Lori could gather her wits to respond to his declaration, she heard her mother's voice and noted a fleeting look of annoyance mar Geoff's face. But she quickly dismissed it as a trick of the light. After all, he was the soul of gentility and had always been utterly charming to her mother. He was quite the most wonderful young man she'd ever met, so witty and sophisticated. Her very own handsome young prince who had at last declared himself.
“Will you do me the very great honor of marrying me, Miss Auburn?” he blurted out suddenly, as if to get the words said before fate intervened.
“Oh—”
Before she could get out the ”Yes” she wanted to shout to the rooftops, her mother slipped past the hedge and bore down on their hiding place in the shadows beneath the gazebo in the Moreland formal gardens.
Miranda did not like the looks of what was transpiring. However, she pasted a smile on her face and nodded to Pelham's youngest son. “Mr. Winters, good evening,” she said in a perfunctory manner. Then dismissing him, she turned to Lori, who seemed crestfallen at her mother's interruption. They both began to speak at the same time.
“Mother, Geoff—”
“Lorilee, we must—”
Miranda carried the day. “I fear we must be going,” she said firmly. “I have an appointment quite early tomorrow morning.” She gave her daughter a quelling look, which elicited a guilty one in exchange. According to decorum and her mother, Lori knew she was not to be alone in the shadows with any young man—from Miranda's viewpoint, most especially this one.
“But, Mother—”
“Mrs. Auburn, if I might—”
“No, sir, you might not. We shall speak privately at a later date, Mr. Winters,” she replied in frosty dismissal, as dread of what he had just said to Lori seeped deep into her bones. The little jackal! He's asked her to marry him!
Taking Lori's arm, she steered her daughter toward the sounds of music and glitter of gaslights. “You did not tell him yes, did you?” she asked, then could have bitten her tongue as soon as the words escaped her lips.
“How did you know?” Lori asked incredulously. Then, reading the tight set of her mother's mouth, she sighed. “You gave me no opportunity, nor Geoffrey to ask your permission.”
“Oh, Geoffrey, is it? And, it's marvelous that he would deign to bother with my permission since he's already taken liberties with my daughter, for which he should be publicly horsewhipped!” At the stiffening in Lori's body, Miranda once more cursed her lapse of temper. Normally, she was under so much better control. In fact, as a woman in the male-dominated world of business, she had always prided herself on how well she held her emotions in check.
“Mr. Winters,” Lori replied primly, “has taken no liberties which I have not allowed.” Strictly speaking, that was not true, but Lori was hurt and bewildered by her mother's intransigence regarding her charming young suitor. “You were quite rude to him.”
“Yes, I was. But at least he still has skin on his backside.”
Lorilee gasped but knew better than to make a retort when her mother was in this mood.
They entered the press of the crowd once again. Both women were forced to smile and pretend nothing was amiss. Miranda had to pause and bid this friend and that business acquaintance good evening as they made their way toward where Lady Moreland stood in the entry hall, saying farewell to another group of early departing guests. “Lori, please ask the footman to fetch our wraps while I thank our hostess
for the evening,” Miranda instructed.
Obedient if not cheerful, Lorilee hurried toward a servant dressed in gaudy yellow and blue livery. So intent was she on her frustrations, she did not see the tall stranger who materialized from a doorway, cutting directly into her path. Her slight frame bounced off his hard-muscled body, and she might have stumbled backward if he had not caught her, steadying her balance, then quickly releasing her.
“My deepest apologies, miss,” he said, bowing gracefully and bestowing a smile. “I was not watching where I was going.”
“It is I who should apologize for being so clumsy. If not for your kind aid, I would’ve made a spectacle of myself tumbling onto the floor,” Lorilee said, returning his smile curiously. He spoke with a soft, drawling accent unfamiliar to her.
From her vantage point across the entry hall, Miranda observed the brief exchange. He was courtly and charming, young enough and titled ... Of course, he was American, she thought wryly, recalling Elvira Horton's snide remarks. Miranda was appalled to even be thinking of such a wild scheme, but she knew her daughter. For all her gentle ways, Lorilee Anna Auburn could be as stubborn as a balky dray horse, and she had set her mind on that fortune hunter Winters.
Already she'd spurned several far more suitable matches, both wealthy commoners and even the heir of a marquess, in favor of Pelham's boy. Miranda thanked heaven Gretna Green was no longer a haven for runaway lovers, but still, Lori could ruin her reputation if she continued to be led on by Winters. That was his game, to force her to permit the marriage after he'd destroyed Lori's chances for happiness elsewhere.
I shall simply have to spend more time with her, my business obligations be damned, Miranda vowed, dismissing the fanciful idea of matchmaking between the “Rebel Baron” and Lorilee. London was, after all, the center of the civilized world, and within its five million odd inhabitants there would be the right husband for her daughter. All Miranda need do was steer her away from those who would take advantage of her.
As they rode home, Lori sat in martyred silence until her normally bubbly nature overcame her pique. “How did you know Geoff—Mr. Winters had asked me to marry him?”
Miranda's lips curved wryly. “Call it mother's intuition, dearheart.”
“But then, surely you can see his intentions are honorable.”
“Perhaps, but I do not believe you would suit,” she replied gently. “I want you to marry a man who will be kind to you as your father was to me.”
“Kind. What a weak word that is. I know yours was not a love match, Mother, but I do not intend to marry a man only to fulfill family obligations.” The moment the words escaped her, Lori wanted desperately to call them back, but it was too late.
Miranda felt them pierce her heart like daggers of ice. “Yes, I married your father for duty, but my father took great care in assuring that Will Auburn would never do me a hurt. And he did not,” she said stiffly, suddenly overcome with a ridiculous and selfish longing to have the world of choices that lay before her daughter. A world forever closed to her.
What is making me think this way? Visions of a tall, elegant man sweeping across the ballroom floor with a shadowy redheaded woman in his arms flashed into her mind, and she caught her breath. The sheer audacity of it—the utter folly. What madness had taken hold of her! Lori's words of apology did not register until her daughter had crossed the carriage seat and sat sobbing on her mother's shoulder.
“There, there, I know you did not mean to hurt me, dearheart,” she crooned, taking Lori in her arms. “Nor have you. I've had a full and worthwhile life. Please don't cry.”
But as she sat consoling her only child, Miranda Stafford Auburn fought the overwhelming urge to cry herself. Her life had indeed been one of wealth and privilege as well as duty and work.
But never had she known love.
* * * *
“What do you mean, there is no money! I'm heir to a huge manor house and thousands of acres and have not a cent—a pence with which to maintain it?” Brand leaned over the solicitor's desk, fists planted on the gleaming walnut surface as he glared at the austere man seated behind it.
With calm deliberation, Herbert Austin Biltmore stared down his pinched nose at the documents spread out before him. “Please be seated, Lord Rushcroft. I understand you Yankees can be excitable, but—”
“I am not a damned Yankee,” Brand gritted out in a menacing tone that had made grizzled sergeant majors run for cover.
Solicitor Biltmore did not so as much as flinch. “Very good, Anglo-American, then,” he replied without missing a beat. ‘There is no need to raise your voice. Please take a seat so we may proceed.”
Brand backed off, but did not take the seat he'd just vacated. Instead he paced the confines of the book-lined office, combing his fingers through his hair. He'd been living at Rushcroft Hall, which was in only marginally better condition than River Trails had been after the war. But the Hall was several centuries older, and its poor condition was due to neglect, not fire. It could be restored, as could the fertile lands surrounding it…with enough money.
He had immediately made an appointment with the executor of his distant cousin's will. Biltmore was the attorney—blast it, “solicitor”—from whom he'd first received the summons to England. Brand had dozens of plans for refurbishing the Caruthers ancestral estate when he walked into Biltmore’s office. Until the terms of dear old Cousin Mortimer's will were read to him.
“Now, as I was saying”—the solicitor returned his eyes to the page—“the taxes are due by midyear, as are the rents—”
“But the rents are ten thousand pounds less than the taxes and other debts owed.”
The solicitor enumerated the precise amounts, adding dryly, “You are quite astute with figures, m'lord.”
Brand fought the urge to laugh insanely. “This is a jest of cosmic proportions—you do realize that, don't you? Of course not. I lost my family's home in Kentucky because I couldn't pay back taxes.”
“Well, you need have no fear of that. As a peer of Her Majesty's realm, you are heir to an estate which cannot be sold or broken up in any way. The laws of primogeniture hold Rushcroft Hall and its lands in perpetuity for the direct line of male descendants of the Caruthers family.”
“So I can sit and rot on the land but I can't sell it. Just watch it fall down around my ears. And what of the taxes and debts?”
The solicitor shrugged. “Most of the peerage is in arrears on taxes. Since you have no other properties to secure, there's nothing the county warden can seize in lieu of payment.”
Thinking of his horses, Brand started to sweat. This could turn out even worse than he had just imagined. He'd had to sell a splendid colt for less than its worth just to pay for his and Sin's passage to England; but he'd never dreamed that, once he claimed the title, there would be no money. What if the government or his creditors took Reiver and his broodmares? He would have no way of earning a cent...pence. Stranded in bloody old England, panhandling with the beggars in Whitechapel!
With visions of himself and Sin sneaking the horses aboard some lug bound for France in the dark of night, he barely registered the solicitor's droning voice at first. But the word “marriage” finally penetrated the miasma surrounding him. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Biltmore reiterated disdainfully, “if you were to wed a woman of means from amongst the carriage folk, her dowry might solve your pecuniary difficulties.”
“You mean marry for money?” The words left a sour taste in his mouth as visions of Reba Cunningham flashed through his mind. “If so exalted a person as a peer of Her Majesty's realm were to do so,” Brand replied, parroting the solicitor's pompous diction, “why not wed a peeress?” Was there such a word as peeress? Damned if he knew. These people didn't even speak English!
Biltmore looked down his nose again. “Everyone is aware that the late baron was without means and deeply in debt. So, for that matter, are many of the peerage. But there are ever so many men in trade
who have plump pockets and want nothing so much as to marry their daughters into the aristocracy. You would be well advised to take advantage of that fact.”
The solicitor's manner indicated quite clearly that he believed the crass American's blood was far enough removed from blue that sullying it by wedding a commoner should be no great sacrifice. Brand wanted to choke the life out of him.
In this case, he resisted the urge. Sin was not present to rescue him from the hangman's noose. “Save your advice. This American usurper is not for sale.”
“As you wish, m'lord.” Biltmore' s expression oozed an irritating combination of disdain and pity.
Brand turned on his heel and quit the office, wondering if they did indeed hang peers of Her Majesty's realm. The punishment would almost be worth the satisfaction of shaking Biltmore's arrogant certainty.
* * * *
Miranda sat at her desk, staring at the papers in her hand, trying to digest the implications...and possibilities. As the major shareholder of the largest bank in London, she reviewed all loan applications for amounts in excess of ten thousand pounds. “My, the baron is truly as destitute as Elvira Horton indicated,” she murmured to herself as she scanned the inventory of Caruthers' holdings.
The preceding baron had been a gamester, as were all of his ancestors. Unfortunately for Brandon Caruthers, his cousin Mortimer's luck was the poorest of the lot. He had sold off every scrap of the family possessions he could before his untimely death. In addition, he had taken not the slightest interest in the running of the family seat in Surrey, which was now in utter chaos. Virtually all the tenants were in arrears in paying rents, due in no small part, Miranda surmised, to the absence of the lord of the manor, who cared nothing about making repairs or seeing to their welfare.
Would the new baron be any different? His application for a sizable loan outlined ambitious plans for making improvements, not to the manor house itself, which she would have expected, but rather to the land. Much of it was lying fallow now, but apparently he'd inspected it and felt it would suit quite perfectly for raising and training horses. If the report appended to the loan application was to be believed, he had experienced some notable success in breeding thoroughbred stock and racing his prize stud, Midnight Reiver. He even had aspirations to run horses at Ascot next year.
