O'Rourke's Heiress

by Bancroft, Blair

  Unwilling to order out the coach for the short trip into Dunscombe, Beth found a cushion to pad the seat of her pony cart, though she allowed a groom to hold the reins. As they jogged over the down to Dunscombe, she vowed she would drive herself again. She would regain at least some of her independence. But at the moment, the spirit seemed to have gone out of her. Until now, the only severe blow she had suffered was losing Terence. To a pampered princess, physical violence was beyond comprehension. The shock would wear off, and then she’d know what to do. But for the moment she would indulge in the familiar comfort of the Anglican service, the simple good sense of one of Mr. Renfrew’s sermons.

  As she walked down the aisle, she looked in vain for Mrs. Helen Archer. The lady was not here yet or was not coming today. Disappointed, Beth slid into her seat. At a slight stir in the congregation a few moments later, she turned her head in time to see a stylishly dressed lady being seated on the other side of the aisle. The woman’s face was completely hidden within the confines of a high-poke bonnet trimmed in red fox. Delicately, Beth transferred her gaze to the young acolyte solemnly pacing down the aisle on his way to light the candles. Time enough to meet Mrs. Archer after the service.

  But when Beth looked around after shaking the vicar’s hand and complimenting him on his sermon, Helen Archer had vanished. The church was on a rise, and Beth could see nearly all of the center of Dunscombe from the front steps. There was no sign of the newcomer. Had she slipped out early? But why?

  A boy, waiting at the bottom of the steps, spoke to her. “Lady Monterne, I have a message for you.” He handed her a folded note, sealed with wax.

  Intrigued enough to forget her own woes for the moment, Beth tore open the paper and read the words penned in a lady’s elegant script.

  Lady Monterne, I did not wish you to be startled when you discovered we are acquainted. I hope we may meet in private after church. If you would be so kind, the boy will show you where I live. Helen Archer.

  Acquainted? Beth searched her mind. The name Helen Archer was unknown, but nothing short of her husband striding toward her could have stopped her from going. Beth pointed toward her pony cart which was pulled up along the green beside the church. “If you will be so good,” she said to the boy, “please tell my groom that I will be paying a call before returning home. Then I will go with you to Mrs. Archer’s.”

  The Smythe cottage was lovely, even without the riot of flowers, which she could see would soon be bordering its walk and spilling out of giant boxes in front of the cross-hatched windows. Built of field stone and thickly thatched, it was a cottage only when compared with the Refuge. Beth guessed it contained at least six bedrooms plus servants’ quarters. Mrs. Archer did not live in penury.

  A stately butler met her at the door, leading her into the drawing room, then firmly closing the door behind her. A woman rose to her feet from a chair close to the fire. Hands clasped, she gazed at Beth with open anxiety. The woman’s features faded, swept away by leaping shadows which suddenly obscured the quiet beauty of the sunlit room. Beth’s lively mind seemed suspended, even as her knees threatened to crumple.

  Darting forward, Helen Archer seized her guest by the arm and helped her to a chair. “My dear, I am so sorry,” she declared, “but you can see why I couldn’t risk a meeting in church. The last time we met, it was my turn to faint. Now, I fear,” said Madame Rosamund Rolande, “it is yours.”

  Bellerive, Early March 1817

  While lying, replete, after long golden minutes with a woman whose appetites he could only describe as sensual to the point of rapacious, Terence—who had a great appreciation of the quirks of fate—attempted to sort through a tangle of emotions. With sweat still glistening and his heart struggling to return to its normal steady beat, he was—incredibly—most conscious of anger. If he’d had the strength to move, he would jumped up and paced the room. Anger. What in the name of God and the Devil had caused him to roll out of the arms of a lover like Rochelle Dessaint straight into monumental fury?

  Guilt. A nasty word.

  Hell and the devil, he was free to love where he would!

  Wrong word. Love had nothing to do with the time he spent with Rochelle Dessaint. Not for him. Not for her. The French had a word for it, of course. On s’amuse. Literally, one amuses oneself. And they were equally guilty. Though he suspected she wanted something more from him as well, something other than his body. He would deal with it when the time came.

  She was exotic, Rochelle Dessaint, as exotic as this vast new world he’d entered. Terence now knew more about sugar cane than he’d ever wanted to know. He was a product of the city. What did he know about ditching, harrowing, furrowing? Growing bountiful crops from something called by the outlandish name of ratoons? Increasing the yield by burning? Absurd. And the disgusting smell of the roller mill, the odor lingering even when not in use.

  He would miss the roulaison, they told him, the festivities that went with cane-grinding season. But perhaps not the overpowering odor from the great boiling kettles of cane juice. The moment of the “strike” when the mill’s expert could tell the sugar crystals had formed and the syrup could be poured into shallow wooden tanks and left to cool. The raw crystals, stored in hogsheads, would be shipped downriver to be sold at auction on the docks in New Orleans. The molasses, drained away from the crystals, would be sold separately. And hot punch of boiled cane juice and brandy would be drunk with gusto before the planters settled down to repeating the entire process for yet another year.

  He was no farmer, of that Terence was convinced. What was fascinating the first time would pall with repetition. He might consider owning a plantation, but he’d never settle to the working of one, as much a slave to the seasons, weather, and traditions as the men and women of dark skin who, oh-so-silently, kept Bellerive running.

  He loved the land, the power of it, but hated the system that made it work. And yet he’d bought it, the final papers transferring Bellerive to Tobias Brockman & Company had been signed three weeks before. The plantation was thriving, the account books meticulously balanced, a competent man hired to keep them that way.

  Terence had thought—more truthfully, hoped—that Rochelle would instantly demand money from her trustees, running so fast toward Atlanta, Savannah, or Charleston that there would be nothing to see but a trail of dust skittering on the wind. But here she was, still in his bed. Each and every time she came to him, he was as dazzled as a school boy, his body erect and ready before she’d so much as shed her gown. He’d never known a woman who so truly enjoyed sex. In all its many forms. Well . . . perhaps they had a few yet to try. But he drew the line at threesomes, even when she’d pouted prettily when he’d rejected her suggestion of adding her maid to their revelry. The girl was a slave, he’d barked at her, she had no choice. And then, in cowardly fashion, he’d attempted to mend matters by murmuring that he preferred to have her all to himself.

  Angry? Hell and damnation, of course he was angry. He’d been angry for years. Since the day the great Tobias Brockman told him he wasn’t good enough to marry his precious Beth. After that, he’d slept with half the whores in London. Well, half the clean whores, which wasn’t all that many. And then he’d tried a stringent life of hard work and celibacy. Which hadn’t worked any better than the orgy of whores. He’d finally settled for an occasional visit to Hetty Jamison’s, choosing the best of the lot for an evening of perfumed pleasure, a few moments of physical release. But he’d never kept a mistress. The idea had somehow been repugnant, too much like betrayal.

  Betrayal. No wonder he was angry. Beth had betrayed him. He’d loved the girl all his life, and she’d married someone else!

  Guilt. He’d pushed his darling girl into the arms of another man. And now he had a mistress. And had learned how good it was to have a woman in his bed each night. A woman who was more than eager . . . and whose price was perhaps higher than he was willing to pay.

  Terence reached for the bedcovers, intending to pull them up ove
r the voluptuous creature sleeping beside him. His hand stilled. The triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs was as dark as the long strands of ebony which spilled over the pillow. Her legs were long, exquisitely shaped, as were the twin globes of her breasts, the nipples jutting firmly, even in repose. Her full lips seemed ever ready for kisses. She was intoxicating, delicious, very likely treacherous. And using him for all her minuscule soul was worth.

  Well, hell, that’s what made it interesting. He wasn’t angry with her. Rochelle Dessaint was what she was. A creature of sensuality and few, if any, scruples. He did not blame her any more than he blamed a rattlesnake for striking or the wind for blowing up into a hurricane. She was a fact of nature he would have to face up to in the near future. For now . . .

  Terence placed a finger under her chin, softly drew a line straight down her neck, between her breasts, over her belly button, through the curtain of curly hair. Into the crevice he was seeking. His eyes never left her face. Fascinated, he watched her eyelids flutter, stay closed, even though he could feel instant tension course through the soft skin beneath his hand. He inserted a second finger, felt wetness spring up inside her. Felt an answering response as his cock stiffened into life. Again.

  Addictions were the surest way to destruction, he knew that. Alcohol, opium, the more genteel reliance on laudanum. Cards, horses, overindulgence in food. All could ruin a man or kill him. But an addiction to sex? He hadn’t counted on that.

  Anger. Fury. Rage. He buried it all inside her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dartmoor, March-April 1817

  “Voi che sapete, che cosa è amor.” Only a few measures into Cherubino’s plaintive questions about love, Beth snapped her jaws shut and crossed her arms over her well-shaped blue wool bodice. “Madame, I cannot!” she protested. “I have sung this for Signor Capelli until I truly cannot stand another note of it. And, besides, I do not wish to play a boy!”

  “If you are going to sing bel canto—”

  “I am already thoroughly trained in bel canto, madame—”

  “Nell, my dear,” the former Rosamund Rolande corrected. “You must remember I am Nell.”

  “Mrs. Archer,” Beth intoned with so much wounded dignity her mother had to struggle to suppress a smile. Beth’s temperament was frequently so like her own that it both amazed and amused. “I revere your genius,” Beth pronounced, enunciating each word with care. “I am overwhelmed by your so-kind offer to teach me, but I cannot sing one more note of this song.”

  “Zerlina, perhaps?” Nell Archer offered, adding firmly, “but not ‘Queen of the Night.’ I will not see you ruin your gift before you are old enough to know better.”

  “I like ‘Queen of the Night,’” Beth retorted stubbornly.

  The former Rosamund Rolande was all too familiar with the driving quest toward performing the best and most difficult. And her child, who would never be allowed to set foot on a stage, seemed to have inherited her ambition as well as her talent. If it weren’t such a joy to listen to Beth, to assist her vocal development, she would consider her daughter’s gift unfortunate. Beth was exceptional in a world where unexceptional was the highest compliment.

  Time to take a new tack. Time to compromise, to do what was possible within the confines acceptable to society. “Do you go to Squire Blunden’s on Thursday next?” Nell inquired. “Good. Then let us practice some country songs on which we might harmonize. I think it is time we livened up the local musical evenings.”

  “Y–you and I, madame?” Beth stammered in hushed tones. “Sing together. Oh, no, I could not.”

  “The simplest of songs, child. After all, I am here incognita. I have no wish to be recognized. But, really, I do not think I can sit through another evening of indifferent, even appalling, performances without making an effort to demonstrate some modicum of proficiency.” Nell shrugged quite prettily, even more charming at thirty-nine than she had been when she handed over her daughter to Tobias Brockman eighteen years earlier. “I suppose we shall not win any friends for it, but I shall enjoy myself hugely.”

  Beth, promptly forgetting the hated Mozart song, stared at her idol with wonder. She, Elizabeth Brockman, to sing with Rosamund Rolande—the honor took her breath away. “Oh, yes, madame, I should like that,” she declared, hands clasped over her heart.

  Beth and Nell Archer had quickly fallen into the habit of exchanging visits at least three times a week. They talked, sang, drank endless cups of tea. The magic of music was a lifeline into Beth’s former world, a solace in itself. A means of being closer to the one person in Devonshire she could call friend. When Beth recovered from the initial shock of their meeting that Sunday in Dunscombe, her first question had been what Madame Rosamund Rolande was doing in Devonshire after telling everyone she was retiring to a villa near Florence. The woman who had been born Helen Archer merely shrugged and declared she had been intrigued by tales of Dartmoor. She was in need of a few months of solitude and obscurity. After that, she could return to the social world quite rejuvenated, able to look upon the jaded appetites of those around her without being pulled down by their ennui. Beth accepted the explanation, even though she frowned over it, sensing only a portion of the story had been told.

  Nell had not planned to be so circumspect. At the time her head had been filled with visions of winning her daughter’s friendship and trust, of becoming a friend, and then finally admitting to the truth, begging her forgiveness. Establishing, at last, a permanent relationship. But it quickly became apparent Beth had problems which precluded any more emotions being added to the mix. So far, Nell’s subtle hints for information had elicited only silence or outright lies from the child she had watched from afar all these years, whose fine marriage had thrilled her, raising the startling thought of grandchildren. Rosamund Rolande with grandchildren. Quelle horreur! But also . . . merveilleuese. A secret joy she had never expected to covet. But the subject had turned out to be sensitive, far more than should have been the case with so new a bride.

  Occasionally, in the dark, lonely hours of the night, Nell wondered if she should have stuck to her agreement to stay out of her daughter’s life. In Italy she could be enjoying the warm sunshine, the peace, the bustle of a dozen efficient servants. The adulation. Ah, yes—even retired, she would have adulation. Eager young men. Suave older men. Offers of jewels, carriages, endless nights of love.

  Yet here she was in the backwater of Dunscombe, Devon, only steps from the dreary bleakness of the moor which held a beauty she could not fathom. Love was, indeed, a very strange thing.

  “Let us try this one,” she declared, settling a book of songs onto the pianoforte’s music rack. “You sing the tune, my dear, and I shall try a descant.”

  Two heads, covered with nearly identical waves of gold, leaned toward the music, each pair of eyes—blue and amber—reading the notes as easily as the words. “Early one morning, just as the sun was rising . . .”

  The Reverend Gerald Renfrew, walking up the path to Mrs. Helen Archer’s front door, paused in amazement. Even the faint notes drifting through the cross-hatched windows were enough to make him fancy he heard a heavenly choir. He listened in delight, without shame of eavesdropping, knocking on the door only when the last bell-like notes faded into silence.

  Beth touched the tip of her finger to the long narrow strip of wood covering a stack of equally narrow palm leaves. The ancient manuscript was so old, so fragile, she had not yet dared peek inside. A book written on palm leaves. It seemed impossible. The Brockman company had imported one once, she recalled, and sold it to a collector for a price which had been high enough to be used as a lesson in the schoolroom. Let the ton laugh over Elgin’s broken marbles, Terence had said, merchants knew better. As a new monied class rose, vying for investments and works of art with the few nobles who truly appreciated them, the value of antiquities increased. Beth, as a Brockman, had been taught to recognize not only the quality of art but the value of it. Books written on palm leaves, Terence exp
lained, were the work of Buddhist monks before writing on paper or silk had existed.

  Gingerly, holding her breath, Beth pulled on a corner of the thin wood. Inside the cover, a squat miniature of Buddha peered up at her, its once brilliant colors faded but identifiable. The writing on the leaves was tiny, indecipherable of course. Very likely the story of the life of Buddha. It was wonderful. Somehow she had to make Rodney understand he was owner of a fortune.

  But she’d learned not to mention the Treasure Room. Ever. And yet she couldn’t stay away. Mrs. Ferris had found a small desk in the attics and placed it in the center of the room. There, whenever Rodney was away, Beth spent hours on her meticulous inventory. Box—red lacquer with jade and other stones. Ch’ing? 6 tea bowls. Sung? Painting–women and musicians in pavilion. 17th century? The pavilion, Beth thought as she added the painting to her list, was so like the one at the rear of the garden she couldn’t help but wonder if Uncle Bertie had used it for a model. Soon, she hoped, the weather would be mild enough so she could sit outside, tucked up with a book, feeling as gloriously decadent as the pampered women in the paintings.

  She returned her quill to the inkwell, pausing to wonder yet again if Rodney had any idea his uncle had been a scholar as well as a connoisseur. One day, piqued by curiosity, she had asked Mrs. Ferris to bring her a step-stool, and she’d climbed up to the highest shelf where she spotted what might be a diary. Suspecting this particular book had been deliberately put out of reach, Beth dragged it down and started to read. Uncle Bertie’s crabbed handwriting was not easily deciphered, but the phrase “Rules of Love” stood out quite clearly. Intrigued, she bent over the book, frowning in concentration. As she turned the pages, she caught enough of the words to realize she had discovered the written equivalent of the erotic paintings in the library. Evidently, Bertram Renfrew had set out to translate an ancient Indian treatise on love. Someone, most likely Rodney’s father Lord Ravenshaw, had known about this work. The locked room, Beth speculated, was possibly more for Uncle Bertie’s translations than for the so-called heathen art works filling the shelves.