O'Rourke's Heiress

by Bancroft, Blair

  Rodney swore softly, glanced quickly at his wife to see if she were truly asleep. She was. He sighed, once again settling back against the velvet squabs. His spells came less often now than in his youth. Age had brought some modicum of control. He’d learned to substitute ritual flogging, sharp slaps, and resounding spankings for the excitement of fists against flesh. To search out mistresses who enjoyed, or at least tolerated, that sort of thing.

  As for his wife—soft blonde curls, glowing amber eyes, fragile bones and all—he would manage. She was far too important to be damaged. The little Brockman would never know of his predilection for violence.

  Like addicts of every kind of vice, Lord Monterne was righteously certain of his vow.

  Beth woke to the feel of her husband’s hands roaming over her breasts, the light of laughter in his eyes. Oh, yes, surely this was Rodney. Her Rodney. He’d found his way beneath her cloak, unbuttoned her traveling gown, untied the ribbons on her chemise. His fingers were teasing bare flesh. Her whole body quickened to his touch. This was better, so much better than last night. She raised her lips to his. The long journey to Devon took on a rosy glow. Perhaps, after all, her idyllic vision of marriage had not been false.

  By the time they reached Exeter, Lady Monterne had considerably expanded her education in male-female relations. Much of it within the confines of the coach. If anyone had asked her to describe the scenic rural beauty along the route to the West Country, she would have been able to do little more than blush. But after leaving Exeter, she fastened back the coach’s velvet curtains and pressed her nose to the window. Today she would see the infamous Dartmoor, the high bleak landscape which was to be her home. What she and Tildy had found in books was not encouraging. Would her new home be set like a squat monolith on a stark treeless plain? What were the people like? How did they live without trees or arable land? Granite, bogs, bracken, heather, gorse, and sheep, that’s what the guidebooks said. A barren, menacing land. A place of mists and legends. Enticing in its allure of mystery and adventure. She could scarcely wait to see it.

  Beth’s patience was suddenly rewarded. A twist in the road, a break in the hedgerows, and there it was, the great gray mound of Dartmoor looming in the distance. Roughly circular, twenty miles at its widest point, the guidebooks said. Inhospitable. Dangerous. A land of nearly solid granite with outcroppings pushing up through the thin soil, some—known as tors—towering high above the earth.

  But if Dartmoor were granite, where did the bogs come from? Beth wondered. There was so much to learn!

  “Tell me about your uncle,” she said. “How did he come to build a house on Dartmoor?”

  “He was my grandfather’s brother, actually,” Rodney told her. “Old Bertram Renfrew. A younger son who made his fortune with the John Company. But he brought back more than wealth from India. Two heathen concubines, as a matter of fact, and a quiverful of dark-eyed children. The family turned up their collective noses, so Uncle Bertie stalked off to the wilds of Dartmoor, figuring that was as far from civilization as he could get without leaving England.”

  “But how did you inherit if he had all those children?”

  “They all wanted to go home, back to India. So about ten years after the house was built, he settled most of his fortune on them and sent them back. He was well along in years by then, so he left the house to the Renfrew estate, with the proviso it be the seat of the heir. In other words, the manor goes with the title of Viscount Monterne.”

  “Ah . . .” Beth acknowledged. He was telling her the house would never be hers unless she provided a male heir to the estate. And even if she provided an heir, she would only be allowed to live there until her son came of age or, if he were generous, until he married. Obviously, the ways of the world were unfair. If she died, Rodney would keep every penny of her dowry. If he died, she would have nothing except the monies her father had settled on her personally as part of the marriage contract. A clever man, her father. No moss grew on Tobias Brockman.

  Since neither money nor security had ever caused her a moment’s worry, Beth shrugged it off. “Did the people in the village not mind?” she asked. “That your uncle had set up two mistresses?”

  “It was certainly a scandal,” Rodney returned with a grin, “but then he wasn’t taking them to church of a Sunday morning. Those who live on Dartmoor are resilient, independent. For the most part, tolerant of eccentricities. You will like them, I think. In a way, they remind me of your father.”

  “Papa?” Beth laughed. “Then I shall like it here very much.” She turned back to peer out the window. “Oh!”

  “Ah, yes, we’ve arrived,” Rodney breathed in her ear. “Behold, Dartmoor, my dear.”

  The horses had been laboring up a hill on a narrow lane surrounded by trees and shrubbery. Suddenly, the screen dropped away, revealing a landscape nearly as old as time. Beth glanced out the far window of the coach, found the same view. An undulating down of scrub grass so low it almost looked like moss. Clumps of what was probably heather, irregular protrusions of gray granite and, everywhere, sheep. Sheep, unfenced, munching grass, asleep in hollows, poised like kings of the hill atop a granite ridge. Abruptly, the coach slowed as two of the creatures wandered onto the road.

  Beth grabbed the hang strap, shouted for the coachman to take care. Rodney chuckled. “You don’t fancy mutton for supper, my dear?”

  “There are no fences. Why is that?”

  “The natives are careful to avoid the creatures. Few others come to this God-forsaken country, so there’s no need for fences.”

  Their groom jumped down from the box, shooed the sheep toward the grass on the far side of the road. With the coach halted, Beth got a good look at the Dartmoor grass. It was covered with something besides heather and gorse bushes. Something flatter. Something . . .

  Her eyes widened, her cheeks flushed. She was such an ignorant city girl, she thought with disgust. Animals, of course, did their–ah–business in the open for all the world to see. Her visions of walking freely through the moor would have to be adjusted. It looked as if her explorations would be more like threading a maze. Boots, she thought. She would have to order stout boots.

  The horses moved on, climbing slowly. “Look to your right,” Rodney said. Beth slid across the seat, uttered an exclamation as she saw her first tor, a twin pile of giant rocks which looked as if they’d been stacked like building blocks on top of the stark landscape by some giant’s child.“It’s wonderful!” Beth breathed. “Is that how your house looks, just sitting out in the midst of nothing?”

  “Among the heather and sheep dung?” Rodney’s eyes gleamed. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Beth shot him a look of laughing reproach, before once again pressing her nose against the glass.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Oh, my goodness!” Beth exclaimed some ten minutes later, once again grabbing the hang strap. The coach’s brake squealed as the road plunged downward, leaving the barren plain, granite tors, and grazing sheep behind. “Have we left the moor already? But we couldn’t have,” she corrected quickly. “I know ’tis much larger than the few miles we have journeyed.”

  Rodney shook his head. “So bookish, my dear. I swear Miss Spencer should have been drowned at birth. Governesses are supposed to fashion little widgeons, not turn out young ladies with a thirst for knowledge.”

  Beth returned her gaze to the window, hiding her frown. This morning, Rodney’s humor no longer seemed harmless. She could sense a bite behind his words. In London, she had thought him clever. Here, his words filled her with vague disquiet. She had believed he did not mind her intelligence, her eager quest to add to her store of information. But now, ugliness crept back, reminding her . . .

  She was too sensitive! A silly creature too far from home, escalating light badinage into hurtful barbs. Rodney’s outlook on the world was far too casual for him to ever be guilty of deliberately wounding her.

  A sudden change in the view cut off her musings as
if they’d never been. “O-o-oh.” Her drawn-out gasp of surprise brought a tilt of amusement to her husband’s lips until she turned on him with something close to wrath. “You have been teasing me, you wretch! This is quite the most charming village I’ve seen since we left London.”

  Rodney stepped from the bog of his thoughts, moving swiftly onto solid ground. He had no objection to demonstrating he was more informed than his wife’s foolish guidebooks. “Dartmoor is criss-crossed by rivers,” he instructed, “each carving a valley, some narrow, others nearly a mile across. There’s a bit of farmland. And above the valleys, downs for sheep. And towering over it all, the high tors. There’s little rhyme nor reason to it. There are crags and clitter—treacherous slopes of granite chips, one of the many reasons the moor is dangerous. Though bogs are the worst. Most are high up on spongy ground where the rivers start, but they can be found lower down as well. Do not stray off trodden paths or go wandering about in the mist,” he warned. “A Dartmoor bog cares not whom it swallows.”

  When the guidebooks issued warnings, Beth thought, the moor had seemed fascinating, romantic. From Rodney, the warnings took on an ominous tone. As they passed a stolid granite church, perched above the roadway on a hillside held in check by an equally imposing and unwelcoming wall of granite blocks, Beth felt prickles of fear rising up her spine. Her husband’s words were reasonable. Necessary. Yet they filled her with dread.

  “Dunscombe,” Rodney announced, waving his hand toward the village. “Your only place to shop, my dear. From here on the coach will have to go even more slowly. The road is so narrow it’s nearly impossible for two vehicles to pass each other.”

  In addition to the church, the town of Dunscombe boasted a small green, an inn with ale house, a blacksmith, two or three shops, a scattering of cottages, all constructed of gray granite. Some with finely cut blocks, others of simple field stones. The road forked. They drove south, continuing downward until they passed a mill, the great wooden wheel turning to the force of the river plunging over a waterfall at least twelve feet high. Everywhere Beth looked she saw trees. Oaks, chestnut, cypress, willows along the river. The grass was the green only plentiful rainfall could produce. Lingering fall flowers added dollops of color to the overall background of green and gray.

  It was startlingly beautiful, this narrow valley tucked in the midst of barren moorland. She was a city girl, she should hate it. Instead, it was as if, after a long frightening journey, she’d been brought into an intimate haven. Safe from whatever nameless fears had been haunting her. She was going to love Dartmoor, she knew it. “Is it far?” she asked, eyes shining.

  “Another mile or so. We’ve taken the road south, following the river. We must go back up onto another down, then into a broader valley, where’s enough good land so the Refuge can feed itself.”

  “Refuge?”

  “Did I not tell you? That’s what Uncle Bertie called his manor.”

  A kaleidoscope of visions flitted through Beth’s head. Would the Refuge be tucked into a valley, like the town of Dunscombe, green and welcoming, sheltered from the winds sweeping down from the high tors? Or was her new home to be stark gray granite like the village, perhaps set on one of those high cliffs, looking out over the spectacular view below? She refused to ask. Obviously, Rodney was enjoying being cryptic. She would not give him the satisfaction of discovering how truly curious she was.

  Was this typical of married couples, she wondered? Or were she and Rodney already drawing apart, becoming adversaries when they should have been allies? Slipping into dodging and weaving when they should have been exploring the intimacies of each other’s minds as well as the pleasures of the body?

  Beth vowed she would do better. Her confidence in her husband might have slipped, but whatever was wrong, she would mend it. They planned to winter here in the south of England, in this land of mists and legends. She and Rodney had all the time in the world to discover each other before they returned to London, as planned, for the last few weeks of the Season. She would learn about the country, about the people who were dependent upon her husband for their living, about the village and its inhabitants. Even about sheep. And cattle, Beth added as they passed a small herd, properly fenced. Dairy cows? She added them to the list of questions she wished to ask when she gathered up the courage.

  And why should it take courage to ask a fond and loving husband a question?

  Because her mind had just stumbled over the words fond and loving. She was no longer so sure. No longer the naive child who had rushed into marriage to suit everyone but herself. No longer the foolish virgin. The foolish dutiful virgin.

  The horses struggled back up onto another sheep-strewn down. At one point the coach was forced to back up, causing considerable disturbance as the coach with Ellie Freeman and Rodney’s valet Paxton and all their luggage was also forced to back up to a wider place in the road. A gig loaded with bales of hay lumbered by, the carter with a hat tugged low over his face. The better to hide his cheeky grin, Beth thought grimly.

  “Unwritten rule of the road,” Rodney explained as Beth huffed in disbelief. “The vehicle going uphill has the right of way, so in this case we must back up.”

  “You are a viscount!”

  “My dear, you do care! And here I thought it was only your father who was on the catch for a title.”

  Clamping her teeth over her tongue, Beth turned her head away. Was this what her marriage was to be like? A constant series of pinpricks interspersed with terrifying moments of . . . what? The word violence hovered like a wolf on the edge of the forest. Was that what she sensed? Was that what was keeping her normally facile and independent tongue between her teeth? If so, how long could she keep it up? She had not been raised in the tradition of being seen and not heard. She had been born a princess, one with far more freedom than the Princess Charlotte. She was accustomed to a phalanx of protectors at her back. Her papa had never intended to have his only child, his pride and joy, his heir, confronted by a husband who had turned into a disturbing, even menacing, stranger.

  The brake groaned as the coach descended into another narrow valley, making a sharp left to cross a river on a sturdy stone bridge. Once again, hedgerows rose up around them, blocking out the view. The coach slowed, again turning left to jog through a curtain of trees which formed a canopy over their heads. The drive angled upward, away from the river. Abruptly, the oaks disappeared, replaced by the dark sprawling green of rhododendron bushes, a short stretch of well-scythed grass. And then she saw it.

  The Refuge was set at the base of a granite cliff with barren down above and valley below. Beth had been braced for dour gray granite. The house was, instead, built of pink sandstone and partially covered in green ivy. A lovely sprawling Georgian with mansard roof and two white columns guarding the front entry. A welcoming house, built by a man who had spent his life in warmer climes, a man who loved luxury and could afford it. Beth was infinitely grateful to Bertram Renfrew. The soft pink walls of the manor house were framed by the granite cliff behind, twice the height of the house, the top of the bluff frosted in moor grass, heather and gorse. Far above, Beth caught a glimpse of grazing sheep.

  “It’s perfect,” she breathed as the coach halted in the circular driveway before the front entrance. “A lovely home.” Doubts forgotten, Beth favored her husband with a glowing smile. “I am so glad you brought me here.”

  Surprised, Rodney could only shrug. Most women he knew would be appalled to be this far into the wilderness. Although his grandfather had been forced to sell off the property that had originally gone with title of Lord Monterne, the inheritance from his brother had come as a mixed blessing. The loss of Bertram Renfrew’s fortune had not been outweighed by the acquisition of a mansion set at the end of the world, too far from London to be anything more than a place to hide from one’s creditors or host house parties of a dubious nature. Rodney’s father had seldom used the place, preferring, quite naturally, to spend the family’s painfully improved reso
urces on the Ravenshaw family seat.

  Ferris and his wife would have done their best, of course, Rodney thought, but behind the pretty pink walls his bride was about to find stained ceilings, mended linen, and faded draperies. After his mother’s last visit here, shortly before his father assumed the title of Earl of Ravenshaw, she had sworn never to return. Yet Rodney rather like the moor. Refurbishing the Refuge was one of the reasons he had turned his back on the elegant and suitable Lady Victoria to pursue the little Brockman. With no regrets. Except for the difficulty of finding an outlet for his baser needs.

  Alas, he was quite certain the concept of droit de seigneur had never made it to Dartmoor. At the first sign of a whip or a studded gauntlet, the moormen would have their shotguns out. No, more likely, they’d push him off a cliff. An unfortunate accident, they’d tell the magistrate. The lord’s a London dandy. Made the mistake of trying to make it home through the mist. God rest his soul.

  Rodney contemplated the difficult miles back to Exeter with disgust. For better or for worse, he was stuck here with his wife for the winter. Penned up until he got an heir on her. His father had not minced words. A grandson would be the light of Tobias Brockman’s life and ensure that the Renfrews had enough wealth to become one of the premier families in Britain. They could claim influence in government, the counsel of men of highest degree, even the ear of royalty.

  The coach door opened, a footman let down the steps. As he stepped out, Rodney suppressed a sigh. If he were turning to help Lady Victoria from the coach, he would have one less worry. She, a properly brought up daughter of the ton, understood that a man had needs his wife might not wish to fulfill. She would look the other way so well she would probably never realize that his tastes ran to something other than the customary chère amie. But Beth? The bloody chit thought she was a princess. So proud she acted as if her feet never touched the ground.