“No? I’m supposed to believe that you, the brother of a notorious fortune hunter, compromised me with no dishonorable intentions?”
God, he was tired of having his brother’s reputation hung around his neck. “I am not a fortune hunter.”
“No?” Her eyes met his, a dare in their cool blue depths. “Then refuse my dowry. Right here, right now.”
By God, he’d have liked to. At this moment, there was nothing he’d have enjoyed more than throwing her oodles of American money in her perfect American teeth. But as tempting as it was, he couldn’t do it. Marriage brought responsibilities he couldn’t fulfill without money, and he had just enough of an income to support himself. Without a marriage settlement, how would he support her? How could he provide her with a decent home, take care of their children?
He stared at her, a girl accustomed to every luxury money could buy, and he hated that he could not take up her challenge. Even more, he hated his father and his brother, not just for deceiving women and taking their money, but also for spending that money into oblivion, bankrupting the estates, and leaving him with no way to prove he was any different from them. And as the silence lengthened, he could see Linnet Holland’s opinion of him hardening, settling into certainty in those lovely eyes.
He opened his mouth, but before he could make the nauseating admission that he couldn’t afford to support her without her dowry, her mother intervened.
“For heaven’s sake, Linnet, there are more important issues at stake here than the marriage settlement. Don’t argue,” she added, as her daughter started to disagree. “You know it’s true.”
With that, Helen turned to her husband. “Ephraim, by now, everyone in that ballroom knows what Abigail Dewey saw. Lord Featherstone is right. They must marry.”
“Of course that’s what you’d say, Mother,” the girl put in. “Marry your daughter off to a lord, any lord.”
“Enough.” Holland stepped between the two women to halt any further squabbling between them, then he returned his attention to Jack. “For the sake of argument, let’s say you didn’t compromise my daughter for money. You’ve still got some explaining to do before I could consider giving my consent.”
“Consent?” the girl echoed, staring at her father. “You intend to reward this man’s conduct by giving him what he wants? You expect me to marry him?”
She looked so appalled that Jack’s temper flared. All in all, he wasn’t such a bad chap. Broke or not, he was a damned sight better than Van Hausen. But before he could reiterate that point, she spoke again.
“Offer your consent if you like, Daddy,” she said. “But you’re as delusional as he is if you think I’d ever agree to marry him.”
“Well, you have to marry someone,” Holland shot back. “And it isn’t going to be Davis Mackay.”
Despite the precarious state of her reputation, Miss Holland didn’t seem upset by the news that another possible suitor was out of the running. Her anger faded, and her lips tilted into a faint smile. “What a shame.”
“Don’t sass me, young lady. The reason the MacKays won’t accept you is the stain on your good name, a stain that’s spreading wider with every moment we stand here. If you don’t marry Featherstone, by the time the week is out, I doubt I’ll be able to find a decent man from here to Pittsburgh to take you.”
The girl’s tiny smile vanished, and color washed into her cheeks. But she lifted her chin a notch, staring her father down. “That is not my fault.”
“Part of it is.” Once again, her father turned to Jack. “Let’s get this cleared up right now. Linnet has made some valid points. If you didn’t do this for money, why did you interfere? Why didn’t you just come to us afterward? Linnet could have broken her engagement with no loss of her reputation.”
“I cannot tell you the reason for my interference in the pagoda, I’m sorry to say. It pertains to a secret I am honor-bound to keep.”
“Oh, a secret,” Miss Holland murmured with such deceptive sweetness Jack felt his temper fraying yet again. “Of course.”
He set his jaw and decided to deal with her father, since there was no reasoning with her on the subject at this point. “My friends, Lord Somerton, Lord Hayward, and Lord Trubridge, can vouch for the truth of what I say. They are aware of what it is that keeps me silent, and they are bound by the same secret that holds my tongue.”
“That’s hardly an answer,” Holland complained.
“It is the only answer I can give you, other than to say it is a matter of honor.”
“Honor?” Mr. Holland gave a harsh laugh—of disbelief, Jack suspected, not amusement. “You Brits have funny notions of honor. My daughter is ruined, damn you. Do you feel no shame?”
Shame? Jack thought of the other women who had been ruined, ruined in ways more sordid than Miss Holland had been. He thought of the women who would have been ruined in the future had Van Hausen been allowed to continue. He thought of Stuart, and how wrecked he must have been to know the pain inflicted on his wife. He thought of what he would feel if one of those women had been his wife, or his sister, or his daughter.
Shame? No, he felt no shame. Not a jot.
He squared his shoulders. “I regret that your daughter was caught up in this, and as I explained to her mother earlier, I am prepared to do all I can to make it right. That is why I proposed to her, and why I did it in front of Mrs. Dewey in such flamboyant fashion. I knew it was too late for any other course of action, and it needed to be made clear that an illicit tryst was not your daughter’s reason for being there. It was, perhaps, not the most-thought-out action a man could have taken in the circumstances, but the deed is done, and I intend to do all I can to restore your daughter’s reputation and ensure her happiness. That I swear to you on my life.”
Holland’s face was grim. “I had far better plans for my daughter than the likes of you.”
“I realize that, sir.”
“For heaven’s sake, is no one listening to me?” The girl stepped forward. “I won’t marry him. The idea is unthinkable. I don’t even know him, and I already can’t stand him.”
If she thought he’d back down because of that particular problem, she was right to say she didn’t know him. “Then I shall have to use the period of our engagement to change your opinion of me,” he said.
“There is no engagement. I didn’t spend five months in England dodging fortune hunters just to have one thrust on me at my own doorstep. I will not marry you, Lord Featherstone. I absolutely refuse. In fact—” She paused, glancing up and down his person with unmistakable scorn. “I’d rather marry a toad.”
With that, she walked around Jack and opened the door of the library to depart. But her mother’s wail of dismay stopped her at the threshold.
“But Linnet, what about your reputation?”
“Hang my reputation!” she shouted just before the door slammed behind her.
He turned at once to her father. “Best go after her,” he advised. “Van Hausen is in very dire straits now, and it would not be beyond him to attempt a kidnapping. Until he’s in prison, don’t allow your daughter to be alone anywhere. Guard her every single moment.”
“My daughter had better come out of this all right, Featherstone,” the American said, and his face displayed all the ruthless determination that had made him rich. “If she doesn’t, I’ll destroy you.”
Jack didn’t doubt that for a moment, and he was quite relieved when the other man departed, leaving him alone with the only member of the Holland family who was on his side.
But even his one ally seemed ready to desert him. “Now what?” she asked, her voice anguished. “You swore to me in the garden that what you did to stop Van Hausen wouldn’t be allowed to ruin my girl.”
“And it won’t.”
“You swore you’d do the honorable thing and marry her.”
“And I will.”
“But she won’t have you.” Mrs. Holland seemed on the verge of tears. “Not even to restore her reputatio
n. You saved her from Frederick’s schemes, but at what cost?”
The die had been cast the moment he’d kissed the girl. From that point on, there had been no choice but marriage for either of them. “I’ll change her mind.”
Her mother did not seem to share his optimism. “You don’t know Linnet.” She pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “She’s stubborn as a mule.”
Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t help smiling a little at those words. “I’m more stubborn, I assure you.”
“I doubt it.” Even through her tears, the look she gave him was wry. “I love my daughter, Lord Featherstone, but I’m not blind to her faults. When she says she’d rather face scandal and ruin than marry you, she means it. She won’t listen to me, and her father would never force her.” Mrs. Holland’s plump white shoulders sagged with all her maternal disappointment. “Everything I wanted for her is impossible. All my hopes for her are destroyed. It’s over.”
Jack set his jaw. Only a cad ruined a girl and didn’t marry her, and though he might be wild, cavalier, and a bit of a devil in many respects, he was not a cad. “It is not over,” he vowed. “Not by a long chalk.”
HER MOTHER CRIED the whole way home while her father sat in stony silence—a fitting finale, Linnet supposed, to the worst evening of her life. The anger and disappointment of her parents was palpable in the close confines of the carriage, and the only way she could bear it was by keeping her face near the open window and taking deep breaths of sea air.
Thankfully, the ride was a short one. Desperate to be alone so that she could decide how to salvage her future, she started at once up the stairs, but her father’s voice stopped her before she’d reached the landing, making it clear that if he had his way, nothing about her future would be in her own hands.
“I won’t see you ruined and shamed, Linnet. If you won’t have Featherstone, I’ll find someone else for you to marry, even if I have to use my entire fortune to buy him.”
His voice was the benevolent one so dear and familiar, but she could not help hearing the hardness beneath. Had it always been there, and she’d just never allowed herself to notice?
Linnet didn’t reply, for she knew she’d defied her parents enough for one evening. She continued up the elegant marble staircase without a word, and once she was in her room, once Foster had helped her undress and she was alone, her earlier anger and defiance gave way to deeper emotions and darker contemplations.
Frederick was an embezzler. She’d scoffed at the notion, and yet, with Featherstone’s accusations hanging in the air, she’d looked into Frederick’s eyes, and the scales had fallen from her own. His sudden outpouring of affection, his loyalty in the face of her disgrace, his indifference to her fortune—all lies. She’d known it at once, in that one look, and she wondered how she’d been so blind to his true character.
Suddenly, nothing about her life seemed real. It was as if she was lost in a nightmare. Linnet sank down before her dressing table and stared at the pale, unhappy face in the mirror before her. Even her own face seemed like that of a stranger.
Was this the girl who’d donned her prettiest ball gown a few hours ago with such anticipation? Who’d felt so glad to be home and so ready to decide her own future? That girl hadn’t known that soon her world would be torn apart and her reputation besmirched because of one indecent kiss.
The memory of it flamed up again with sudden force: his arm a strong, imprisoning band around her waist, and his mouth, bold and hot, taking possession of hers. Her heart pounding in her chest like a mad thing, her body burning with a strange, tingling fire—borne of shame, she had no doubt, and fury, and utter mortification.
She leaned close to the mirror, touched her lips, and grimaced. They were puffy and swollen, and they still seemed to burn.
Having been kissed only once before, she had little experience on which to draw, but Conrath’s kiss had been nothing like what Featherstone had done tonight.
Conrath’s kiss had been sweet, tender, a proper press of lips upon her acceptance of his proposal. In his eyes, there had been the promise of more, but more had never come. Within days, discussions of the marriage settlement had begun, and Daddy had discovered just how many of Conrath’s debts he’d have to pay and the enormous income he’d have to provide. He had stalled while detectives investigated, and when it was discovered she wasn’t the first heiress to whom Conrath had paid his addresses, Daddy had balked, and Conrath had found himself another heiress, making it clear his heart had never been hers.
In London, she’d had a slew of suitors, but none of them had kissed her, for it was most improper for a man to kiss a woman to whom he was not affianced. It was clear that Featherstone, however, cared nothing for propriety. With one kiss, insulting in its domination, outrageous in its presumption, he had taken all choices for her future away from her.
Her image blurred before her eyes, and Linnet stood up with a sound of impatience, blinking hard, refusing to cry. She would not give in to either anger or self-pity. She was made of sterner stuff than that. She was a Holland.
With that reminder, she began to pace, nibbling on one thumbnail in a manner much like her father, working, as she’d seen him work so many times, to find a solution that did not involve marrying Featherstone. He might have been right about Frederick, but that didn’t excuse his conduct, and it didn’t reconcile her to the idea of spending her life with him.
But what other choice was there? Marry no one and watch her reputation be destroyed? Linnet pressed a palm to her forehead with a sound of despair. She didn’t know if she could bear that, not here, not among all her friends and family.
All very well to adopt a defiant stand tonight, but what about a week from now, when tongues were wagging and mud was being slung at her? Could she hold her head up when she heard titters behind her back at church, or when she walked into a luncheon and the table fell silent? Or when invitations were no longer issued and doors were slammed in her face all over New England?
No, she had to marry someone, but who? Men of a social status equal to hers would never consider her now. And shamed as she was, she’d have no social influence, so a New Money man wouldn’t have her either. Her father could buy her a husband—some middle-class lawyer or clerk, but she knew how that would pan out. Laying aside the fact that she would still be an object of scorn and pity to all who knew her, with no social sway, her husband would be beholden to her father. Daddy would choose someone who suited his ambitions, someone he’d groom to take over the Holland empire and be the son he’d never had, while she’d be petted, indulged, and set aside.
You would become me.
Linnet stopped pacing as her mother’s words from the ball came back to her. Suddenly, she saw those words in a whole new light.
You would have the life I have, where you run the house, and that is all. Where your husband shuts you out of anything important or meaningful and society approves it.
She might have escaped that fate if she’d found a man here who loved her. But the possibility of that, of the life she’d yearned for and dreamed about during her many months away was lost to her now. But maybe she could make a different life.
There could be such an exciting world out there for you if you married a peer. An English estate is a far more challenging thing to run than a New York brownstone. An English peeress has so much more freedom and more power than I will ever have.
Linnet stared at the landscape of Easton Bay that hung on her bedroom wall, seeing past it to something else, to a glittering, cosmopolitan world.
How strange that a single event could wreck a girl’s life, and yet at the same time, it could open up a whole new one for consideration. For the first time, she saw and understood what her mother had been trying to tell her, and with that vision and understanding came a faint but unmistakable stirring of hope.
She’d have to leave behind many things she loved. No more clambakes in Newport and picnics in Central Park and living in a cozy b
rownstone with a man she’d known all her life. But at least she wouldn’t have to marry a man who’d forced himself into her path. And she didn’t have to sit back while her father married her off to someone who’d be forever under his thumb.
She’d have to act quickly. A few weeks might be all the time she had to find someone. Because of that, she’d need help, a very particular kind of help. It was all very risky, too, for if it didn’t happen and happen fast, she’d be ruined. On the other hand, she’d be in control of her own future, and after being bandied about by the machinations of others, that was worth any amount of risk.
Linnet squared her shoulders and looked at her reflection again, and this time, she was relieved to discover that she recognized the girl in the mirror.
Chapter 7
When Jack had followed Miss Holland to the pagoda, there hadn’t been time to tell Denys and James his plans. Not that he’d ever had a plan, really, other than to stop Van Hausen. His friends learned what he’d done the same way everyone else had, by the gossip Mrs. Dewey spread through the ballroom.
Their reaction proved a combination of emotions: shock, though they admitted that by now they shouldn’t be shocked by anything Jack did, amazement she’d turned him down, a response Jack found quite gratifying under the circumstances, and amusement at his admission that she would have preferred to wed a toad.
Jack, determined to change her mind, let his friends have their laugh as his expense. When he learned she had left Newport with her parents and gone to New York, he decided to do the same. He appreciated giving her a bit of time and distance was a wise idea, and he had no intention of calling on her, or otherwise trying to force the issue, but he wanted to be on the spot in case Van Hausen tried anything.
Leaving James and Denys in Newport to discuss the situation with the Knickerbocker investors there and to keep watch over Van Hausen, Jack went to New York to meet with Nicholas and prepare for Tuesday’s meeting.
All of them were sure Van Hausen would make a strong, last-ditch effort to avoid scandal and stay out of prison, but his method of escape, when it came, was one that none of them had anticipated.
Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London Page 9
