O'Rourke's Heiress

by Bancroft, Blair

  He grasped his wife’s hand, helped her down, half expecting to see her float off before him, the toes of her half boots dangling in the air. That smile she was giving him. Enough to turn a man’s stomach. How could anyone be so naive, so innocent? So oblivious? She should be afraid, dammit.

  The silly chit had no idea.

  Rodney returned her smile, offered his arm. His wife grasped it, and together they walked toward the entry framed in neat white columns.

  New Orleans, Fall 1816

  He should be arranging passage upriver. Instead, he was standing on a narrow street paralleling a river mightier than the Thames and gawking like a schoolboy at the bevy of brightly clad young women hanging over the black wrought iron railing of the gallery above. Here on the main street of the city which considered itself the capital of sophistication and sin in the New World, the cacophony was incredible. Multi-lingual shouts from the boats unloading on the river, the rattle of carts, the clump of hooves on hard-packed earth. The cries of vendors hawking everything from something called pralines to the women waving from the galleries above. Raucous laughter, catcalls, the smell of harsh liquor, sweat, sex, and urine was already bursting onto the street from establishments which he would have expected to be quiet as a tomb at eleven in the morning.

  Another scent wafted past his nose. Fresh. Delicious. As if answering the call of the Pied Piper, Terence followed the scent to a bakery. Ten minutes later, as he attempted to wipe powered sugar off his brocade vest, he’d become a devotee of beignets. Perhaps the frosted look was acceptable in New Orleans. Or perhaps there was a trick to eating the feather-light pastries without looking as if he’d been caught out in a snowstorm. No matter. He was going to have another one.

  Terence sat at a sidewalk table under one of the galleries strewn with hopeful courtesans, and allowed his thoughts to drift back to England. The late fall climate in Louisiana was not very different from the south of England. And not without reason. A stream of warm water from this part of the world flowed north in a great river, crossing the Atlantic to grant an unusually temperate climate to the West Country and parts of Ireland; even, he’d heard, to some places in Scotland. A phenomenon it was, but it made him feel more at home. How long would it take for the Mississippi water flowing past him now to join that mighty river of warmth and wend its way to England, warming the air enough to grow palm trees in Devon, Cornwall and County Kerry?

  He tried not to think of Beth. Yet his long voyage had been filled with her. On the high seas, away from the responsibilities and disciplines of his office, Beth had overwhelmed not only his mind but his heart and soul, haunted his dreams, even laughed at him from the face of a seaman perched on a yardarm. She’d sat beside him as he dined at the captain’s table, every officer aware they were sharing bread with the man who held their lives in his hands, the man who all but owned the deck on which they walked.

  Their deference had been an obstacle not easily overcome. Terence had found it easier to share a few words, a bit of laughter, with the crew than with the officers. He’d held so much power for so long, he shouldn’t have been surprised by their reticence, but he was. In London Tobias, Jack and Tildy never hesitated to cut him down to size, making sure he never got above himself. Even Beth had long since ceased to regard him with awe. His treatment aboard the New Venture was apt to go to his head.

  And yet Terence O’Rourke had not been good enough for Elizabeth Mary Brockman, Merchant Princess.

  Even though she’d made a gallant try to show him it wasn’t so.

  He’d turned his back on her. And she too young to fight through the maze, the self-righteous portcullis of duty, gratitude, and the wrong kind of love which he had slammed in her face.

  He dreamed of falling at her feet, begging forgiveness. He saw visions of Monterne’s hideaway in Devon, of Beth playing in the gardens, a bevy of little Renfrews tugging at her skirts. Sometimes at night he heard his heart crack, saw blood dripping onto the sheets. No matter he waked to the pounding of waves against the hull, to discover the crack had been lightning, the blood a figment of his pain.

  He’d thrown away what he valued above all else. He’d loosed his fingers and allowed Beth to slip away. Nearly ten years her senior, he was responsible for her happiness. In an orgy of self-sacrifice, he had thought to do the right thing. Yet now, seeing from afar, he was no longer so sure. If he had it to do over . . .

  There’d been a violent storm at sea one night, yet imminent death had seemed the least of his fears. Death would bring a respite from guilt, from visions of Beth pinned to the bed by her sweating lover. By gut-wrenching fear she might actually welcome her husband to her bed, might truly love him.

  That she might forget.

  She should forget. Beth was dead to him. He’d rejected her. Destroyed the bond between them . . .

  Beth, a Brockman and as solid as the empire Tobias had built, had turned her back and walked away, head high, because he hadn’t had guts enough to take what he wanted and hang tight, come hell, high water. Or Tobias Brockman.

  Before Terence left England, he’d taken a quick trip to Devon, hired a horse in Exeter and ridden through the village, over the downs, into the next valley. There, he’d paused to take a good look at the house known as the Refuge. Grudgingly, he admitted it lived up to its name. A fine house, worthy of his Beth. There had been no mist that day, so he crossed a shallow river over a bridge, which looked as if it had been there for a thousand years. and followed a path onto the moors. The stark beauty wrenched at his Irish soul. It was wild, wonderful. Again, worthy of his Beth. Though what her city-bred heart would make of it, he had no idea.

  When he’d asked for directions at the smithy in Dunscombe, he’d also received all the warnings about Dartmoor. As if a good Irish lad wouldn’t know a bog when he saw it! But when he spotted the greener-than-green pool glowing in the midst of spongy ground, there was no passing by. Bright green it was. But surely not dangerous. A man could swim to the edge quite handily, could he not? Or were these pools as bottomless as the smithy said, the green muck so heavy it sucked down anything unwary enough to cross its path?

  Terence dismounted, looked about for something he could throw into the bog, settling for a bit of weathered granite about the size of his hand. An unsatisfactory experiment. The green mass swallowed the rock with a soft glug and the merest ripple, settling almost immediately back into an unmarred slimy green surface.

  Frowning, Terence broke off a hunk of heather, enough for tinder for a small fire. It seemed too light. Expecting it to lie quietly on the surface, he tossed it into the pool. At first, nothing. And then, almost like watching a snake begin to writhe at the scent of prey, the bog shimmered, shifted. Terence could swear he heard it hiss. Or was that a soft slurp as the pool of green swallowed the first twig?

  Fascinated, he watched the bare heather branches twist, tilt, slide father down into the green muck. For moments after the heather finally disappeared, Terence stared, awed by what he had seen. The clouds above seemed to grow darker, lower, reaching toward the ground. He shivered, resisted the urge to cross himself. And him not in a church these twenty years or more!

  Dragging himself back from his fascination with the bog, he glanced toward the distant tor he’d thought to climb. The mists had swallowed its top. An answering wisp suddenly curled up from the bog at his feet. Terence led his horse forward to a place less dangerous to turn around, then left the moor at a slow trot. By the time he got to the waterfall at the mill in lower Dunscombe, he knew where he was only by the sound. He was once again on foot, leading his horse, feeling his way along the road, praying there were no bogs close enough to swallow him as effectively as the fog had swallowed the world around him.

  That night, tucked up in the best room the High Tor Inn in Dunscombe could offer, he wondered about his Beth’s good sense. She was so young, had been so sheltered. Would she understand the dangers around her? Pay heed to the warnings?

  She was a Brockman. She wou
ld manage.

  But could she manage Monterne? After all their investigations, his and Jack’s, Terence still felt a vague foreboding. Beth’s dowry was enough to mend the Renfrew fortunes even without the inheritance she would receive from Tobias. If the bastard preferred Lady Victoria after all . . . what better place to rid himself of a wife than Dartmoor?

  A sharp crack shattered his thoughts. This time, not lightning. Terence looked down to discover a muddy trail of coffee meandering around shards of china. He’d cracked the demmed cup! A tiny welling of blood oozed from his thumb as the landlord rushed forward, a white-aproned mulatto serving maid at his back. Between them, they swiftly cleaned up the mess, waved off his apologies. Eyes downcast, the maid wrapped his cut in clean linen. Money exchanged hands, Terence making sure the shy girl received her coin from his own hand.

  Ignoring the boats, the bustling market close to the water’s edge, he walked down Decatur Street at a swift pace, eager to put his embarrassment behind him. Terence O’Rourke did not allow himself to lose control. Never.

  He’d hoped to see how people in New Orleans lived, but other than the women offering enticements from the galleries above, it was apparent most people lived in the Spanish manner, blank walls to the street, with only an occasional half-open door to reveal the courtyards inside, the musical flow of a fountain, a glimpse of brick pathways and fall flowers. A sheltered peace and tranquility within a stone’s throw of the bustle in and around the central green. A cosmopolitan city, New Orleans, if by London standards little more than a walled frontier town on the edge of the wilderness. He liked it.

  But what about the woman on the plantation where he was going? Would she be a shy country girl or a sophisticated beauty who spent a good deal of her time in New Orleans? Would he find her wrapped in grief for her father? Eager to sell up and leave for a life in the city? Perhaps bent on fighting her trustee’s decision to sell? That was a possibility he hadn’t considered before.

  Having wandered through about eight square blocks of the central part of town, Terence found himself back at the green with the spires of St. Louis Cathedral piercing the sky a block away. Once again, he allowed his eyes to stray to the women posed seductively along the railings of the galleries above Decatur Street. It had been a long time. Though women of the street did not interest him, finding an establishment corresponding to Hetty Jamison’s was no farther away than a discreet inquiry at his hotel.

  Perhaps his journey upriver could wait one more day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dartmoor, December 1816

  The Refuge was aptly named. Beth took it to her bosom in place of her husband, the stranger. Rodney’s Uncle Bertie had built it of the finest materials, filled it with the work of the best craftsmen of Europe and the far-away exotic lands of the East. The brocade draperies and upholstery might have faded where ivy leaves and Dartmoor fog had failed to keep out the sun, but the rich and complex designs of the oriental carpets looked as if no feet had ever passed their way. Thick and lush, they enticed Beth to remove her shoes and run barefoot through the house, a temptation she had so far succumbed to only in the privacy of her own suite of rooms. The fireplaces, as well, showed no sign of age. Most were fashioned of marble—pink, white, soft green, cream. And in the library, filled with an eclectic collection of books which actually appeared to have been read and re-read, the two great fireplaces were black marble, streaked with white. The mantels and overmantels in each room of the Refuge had not been carved by an English hand, of that Beth was certain. The geometric patterns, the many odd creatures—dragons, elephants, monkeys, gryphons and multi-armed gods—brought the flavor of the East into the heart of Dartmoor’s cool uncompromising gray granite. An exotic mixture Beth found ever fresh and intriguing.

  Windows and bed canopies were draped in filmy silk, brocaded satin or embroidered velvet, none of which had thrived in Devon’s damp climate, though they showed obvious signs that Mrs. Ferris, the housekeeper, had set her staff to a furious bout of cleaning in preparation for Lord Monterne and his bride. At first Beth assumed the blank spaces on the walls—brighter in color than the paint, silk, or bamboo wallcoverings—were the result of Clifton Renfrew, Rodney’s father, being forced to sell up to settle the old earl’s debts. But on her third day at the Refuge, when Mrs. Ferris had taken her on the traditional tour of the house, Beth made a startling discovery.

  Through twenty or more rooms the housekeeper’s keys jingled at her belt, unused. But at the far end of a second-story wing which extended back toward the granite cliff, Mrs. Ferris paused to search her key ring. The door before them was stout dark oak and looked capable of guarding any number of family skeletons. An armament room, Beth wondered, filled with ancient swords and daggers, perhaps a long bow or even a suit of armor? A haunted bedroom, kept locked to ease the servants’ minds? Her lips twitched at her foolish fancies even as Mrs. Ferris gave a small sigh of satisfaction as she found the correct key at last.

  Now past her middle years, Helen Ferris had been born at the Refuge, trained to serve as her mother had before her. Gray-streaked dark hair framed a narrow face pulled even tighter by the uncompromising sweep of her hair into a bun on the back of her head. She wore her dress of stiff gray bombazine with as much pride as a Hussar wore his uniform.

  “When old Mr. Bertram died, back in my mother’s day, mind,” the housekeeper explained, “Lord Monterne—him that’s earl now—had all his uncle’s things brought to this room. Said they were worthless heathen trash and not fit to clutter up a proper English gentleman’s house. But there were a few good paintings, he said, and he took them to London to help pay the old lord’s debts. So I fear there’s not much left on the walls. Even the family portraits were taken down.” Mrs. Ferris lowered her voice, glanced swiftly down the empty corridor. “Mr. Bertram’s portraits had those foreign women in them, you see. And his passel of almond-eyed children. Quite shocking, it was.” The housekeeper’s eyes suddenly misted with remembrance. Her stern facial features softened. “But they were lovely, so very lovely. And the menservants . . . ah, my lady, if I hadn’t been a proper young woman, knowing I must toe the line to advance in service . . .”

  Mrs. Ferris caught herself, hid her flushed cheeks by turning her back on her mistress and manipulating the heavy key in the lock. Pushing the door open, she stood back to let Beth precede her into the room. “I come in once a month,” the housekeeper said, “do all the dusting myself. And a chore it is too. But I’ve often thought . . . well, things this pretty can’t possibly be evil. Even though they’re made by heathens and all.”

  Beth didn’t even hear the housekeeper’s last words. Awestruck, she gazed at the contents of the rough-built pine shelves which filled three sides of the large room. For nearly all the years of her life, Tobias Brockman’s ships had roamed the world. Part of her education had been learning the value of cargos brought back from every corner of the earth. Just as Marco Polo had discovered so many centuries earlier, the East was a vast storehouse of treasures from a culture far older than England’s own. And an amazingly fine sampling was right here in this room.

  If the Earl of Ravenshaw or Rodney had an inkling of the value of what was in this room, there would have been no need to marry into the family of the Merchant Midas. Though far from expert, Beth recognized the ancient genius of T’ang Dynasty pottery in the soft glow of a greenish lion, and in a sandstone elephant that might also be a thousand years old. Perched haphazardly beside them was a vase perhaps half that age. Ming, she thought. Brilliant chrysanthemums outlined with clay piping against the turquoise glaze. Her eyes darted from shelf to shelf. An incense burner of carved jade. A bronze four-armed Siva dancing in a ring of flames, a gilt bronze Bodhisattva sitting in meditation, guarded by winged monsters spilling pearls from their mouth.

  And those were only the first pieces that caught her eye. One wall seemed to be devoted to books, embossed leather volumes she was almost afraid to touch. Beth lifted a cover, gingerly turned the
pages . . . drew in her breath. The lettering was unreadable, but the illustrations . . . each a colorful painting, a work of art in its own right. A woman airborne on a swing, another lying on her bed, obviously being prepared by her handmaidens for the coming of her lover. A garden scene—or was it a festival?—with young women shooting what appeared to be streams of colored water at each other from long narrow tubes.

  Beth smiled, shook her head. She could spend hours—days, months, years—in this room. “Mrs. Ferris,” she asked, “does Lord Monterne know how valuable this collection is?”

  The older woman frowned. “Valuable, my lady? His father thought them fit only for tinkers or mayhap the work of the devil. I assume the present Lord Monterne believes the same.”

  “I have some experience in these matters, Mrs. Ferris. I intend to advise my husband that he should have an expert down from London to evaluate the collection. Until then, I need to know how many keys there are to this room.”

  “There’s only mine, my lady, and one other. Mr. Bertram always kept it in the vault where he kept his jewels. That would be in Lord Monterne’s dressing room. As far as I know, the key’s still there. Unless his father threw it into the witches’ bog, as I once heard him threaten with my own ears, my lady.”

  Beth found herself staring at a flying dragon gracing the bottom of a celadon-glazed bowl. Sung, she guessed. Museum quality. As was nearly every object in the room. An awful vision seized her mind. The contents of this Aladdin’s cave of treasures being chucked, piece by piece, into a bottomless bog by a man who must have lost his soul somewhere under the mountain of his father’s gaming debts. Of course, Ravenshaw had only threatened to toss the key, but the principle of it, the enormity of his ignorance simply took her breath away.