An American for Agnes (The Friendship Series Book 10)

by Julia Donner

  She curtsied when he stopped in front of her. He bowed, unsmiling, taciturn. No wonder the guests were set on edge.

  Mrs. Marston accepted her introduction to the baron with an arrogance wholly unnoticed by Loverton, who all but ignored her to affix his attention on Agnes. A wave of unsettling nervousness urged her to escape, while a mesmerizing pull compelled her to remain. She couldn’t stop from imagining herself caught in the stare of a predator pausing to consider his options to mercifully relent or give chase. She sent a questioning gaze to her brother. Cameron displayed no hint of signs of apprehension. The saber slash scar along his cheek pulled up a corner of his mouth in a constant, partial smile. Tonight, the other side was curved up, beaming at her. The disfigurement never failed to give her heart a little twist she quickly ignored. It was better not to think about the years her beloved brother had been missing. Best to be grateful that he’d come home.

  Cameron and her mother glowed with happy pride as the words of introduction were exchanged. She’d never understood why they thought her so extraordinary but that never stopped her from relishing their unconditional love.

  Loverton had a startlingly deep yet dulcet voice that rolled over and through her. “I am honored to meet yet another relative. Your brother sang your praises the entire drive here this evening.”

  His vibrant bass sent a curious sensation down her spine that lingered, like the echo of a haunting note. Cheeks burning, she gave Cameron—who wore a silly, proud grin—an admonishing look. “Lord Loverton, please accept my apology for an overindulgent brother. Affectionate bias overrules his good sense. Disregard him, please. I assure you that no matter what he told you, I am entirely ordinary.”

  She was sorry the instant the words left her mouth. It sounded as if she sought a compliment by way of polite contradiction. Heat spread across her chest and up her neck. Oh, if only it were possible to sink through the floor or into the woodwork.

  Loverton’s well-defined lips curved in a half smile. He tipped his head in another bow, but this time, he reached for her hand. “Miss Bradford, I could disagree, but why waste one’s breath disagreeing with an obvious truth and the living verification of his adoration? If it is not already taken, would you do me the honor of accepting my hand for the first set?”

  Powerless to speak or withdraw her hand, she could only nod. He wore no gloves. Contact with him seared through the cloth of hers. His pause and a fleeting pressure on her fingers relayed his reluctance to release her. Unable to look away, she curtsied and watched him being led away by Cameron for more introductions.

  Her mother paused to press her cheek to Agnes’s and whisper, “You have impressed him, my dear girl. I knew you would.”

  Agnes blinked to reorient as her mother hurried away. Surely they didn’t think that Maxime Blayne, the new Lord Loverton, would become a suitor. That could never happen, but perhaps they refused to comprehend or didn’t care about her age.

  They might suspect but didn’t know about her reckless behavior. Reckless behavior she’d repeated when she’d gone to Sussex and Vincent had followed her there. She knew exactly what she shouldn’t let Vincent do and had allowed its repetition until it resulted in a brief pregnancy and the discovery that he was married. They couldn’t know about that which she could no longer designate as merely a mistake in judgment. She’d been so easy to fool and weak spirited. Neither could be used as an excuse.

  No one in Kent suspected the notoriety she’d barely escaped while in London. It helped that no one in the city knew her with the exception of Lord and Lady Asterly. The disastrous involvement with Vincent would eventually come to light. Such things never remained undisclosed, and even though Loverton was recently arrived and unaware of her secrets, he’d made it clear that he was a man who sensed these things. He had only to look at her to divine that she wasn’t pure, not the gem so blindly adored by her family.

  She discovered herself standing transfixed in thought. Mrs. Marston had sat down and continued to mutter more negative remarks about Americans inserting themselves where they weren’t wanted. Agnes sat and allowed the woman to complain while she struggled to sort through what had happened during the introduction. Loverton had a look in his dark-eyed gaze, one that made her feel directly in line with the trajectory of an amorous assault.

  Her poor brother and mother were so devoted that they didn’t notice what she saw so clearly. Loverton had sniffed out her weakness, made her an object of his attention and intentions. A future proposal was not in her future. Her seduction was. The problem this posed was beyond distressing, because she didn’t think she would be able to resist.

  Chapter 3

  Max Blayne had no expectation of attending this gathering at Oakland Hall for enjoyment. Initially, he’d had little interest in meeting those who lived in the district surrounding Loverton Grange and no curiosity whatsoever in the socially distinguished guests from London. He came here this evening with a specific task in mind, to uncover a crime against his family, to appease a decade of injustice, and achieve the satisfaction of avenging a heinous wrong. Here, in the deceptively pleasant countryside of Kent, he would uncover the truth.

  On the ride from the Grange, he’d studied his host for this evening. Lieutenant Sir Cameron Bradford, late of His Majesty’s Navy, hero of the county, was temporary chamberlain of Loverton Grange and all the financials for the estate. According to gossip, the former naval officer had been missing for a decade, the prisoner of Barbary pirates. Prior to that, Bradford might have been home on leave and able to arrange for the murder of the last known heir to the barony. A chat with the amiable Sir Cameron revealed the man as an unlikely but not entirely ruled out suspect. The fact that the fellow was immensely likeable didn’t erase his name from Max’s list of probable murderers. He proved clever at circumventing answers to questions. Since Bradford had a sister, information could be wheedled from her. Unwed and far from the first bloom, the sister would be pliable, an easy target now that Max had title and wealth. That had been his original intention until he saw her.

  The drawing room had gone silent when he and Bradford entered. Not unusual. Max was accustomed to people reacting to him. Part of it came from his utter lack of caring what others thought of him. His mentor had taught him to resist gleaning the affections of others. His olive complexion, darkened moreso by the sun during the crossing, gave most people pause. He looked like the Indian he preferred to be. Even in Philadelphia people had stared, some dealing him the cut direct, which made him inwardly smile. Sometimes, he did actually smile, which terrified some, he was always amused to note. He used it to amplify an impression of coldness to keep the foolish or tedious at a distance.

  Oddly, Mrs. Bradford took no notice of his preference for severity. Whereas many took a retreating step when he approached, she smiled, but not in an encroaching way. Her easy and pleasant manner melted the knot of hardness he carried inside, making him want to behave more as she would wish.

  So he reined in years of outrage and pretended to be the English gentleman he wasn’t. He knew the manners, the ways of polite society, and would use them in his search. He would weed out the suspects one at a time.

  Bradford must be the first to cross off the list. As temporary steward, Sir Cameron had unlimited access to vital information in the way of past correspondence and financial records. Therefore, it seemed a simple enough task to set about enticing the sister, the adored Agnes, who would unknowingly reveal what he needed to discover.

  While wading through initial introductions at the door, he’d scanned the assembled gentry, searching. His gaze settled for a moment on a tall female. Long black curls cascaded down her back. Flashing blue eyes swept over him, not rudely, merely uninterested. She acted nothing like the sweet-natured female Bradford had talked about. His covert search moved on and stopped.

  Two women sat on a couch, a matron plump, proud and disdaining. The other female was no longer young but not spinsterish. She stared, wide-eyed as a startled doe. Som
ething inside just under his heart switched over, like a clock that clicked through its last gear before striking. In an instant, he discerned her fragility and generosity of spirit. His mentor would have called her an ancient soul.

  Before jerking her gaze away, Max saw the resemblance to Bradford, the same sand-brown hair and unusual eyes. The siblings shared an extraordinary eye color, or colors to be more precise, hazel shot with gold, green and brown, encircled in black, startling, to say the least. An odd sensation stirred when she’d abruptly looked away. He again imagined the dazed stare of a frightened fawn before it leapt away in flight. He ignored the greeters at the entry and walked away from them, drawn to her aura of reticence and vulnerability.

  It wasn’t until she lifted her gaze to his that he fully understood. In her eyes he glimpsed a misery she hid from others with a shyly bowed head, a quietness to conceal what she buried inside. He couldn’t say why he knew that Miss Agnes Bradford wasn’t shy, but she wasn’t. She was private. And terribly broken. Someone had taken and abused her innocence. Whatever or whoever had done this brutal act had wantonly shattered a delicate heart. They shared similar wounds of injustice, but that wasn’t why she awoke and stirred dormant desires. There was also no denying an immediate pull to comfort and heal whatever hurt she carried.

  He’d felt that way for others before, but never for a woman he’d just met. It often amused him that he found it impossible not to help an underdog. He liked the idea of avenging the perpetrator of Miss Bradford’s abuse. Something to do until he discovered who had murdered his parents. So he asked her to dance, something he did well and without thought. He’d been tutored by one of the best. With that in mind, Max asked his host to change the opening set to a reel, something lively to bring his sister back to life. He didn’t say it that way, of course.

  While waiting for the dancing to start, he studied his curious reaction to the withdrawn and placid Miss Bradford. Easy to locate in virginal white, he kept her in his peripheral vision while he met the county’s notables, all a bit tiresome, but they had to be tolerated. If he acted too high in the instep, he’d never get the information he needed. He preferred the conversation of the local farmers, who lost their reticence after they saw that he had a sincere interest in their opinions. He had to forcefully suppress the temptation to squash a blustering squire by the name of Marston. He’d heard the name before but couldn’t remember where. He got a bit of enjoyment out of vexing the squire by ignoring him and paying close attention to the tenant farmers and their wives.

  He’d been deep into a discussion of crop rotation when he heard the squeak of violins being tuned. A combination of irritation and disappointment ruined his anticipation of holding Miss Bradford’s hands in the reel when he noticed that she’d left the room. That wouldn’t do.

  Max excused himself from the farmers and crossed the room to tap Sir Cameron’s arm. “Bradford, your sister has stepped out. I was looking forward to dancing with her. Has she taken ill?”

  “I doubt that, but one never knows. If you’ll excuse me, I should check if something has gone awry.”

  “A moment, if you will. The reel is about to commence. Does Mrs. Bradford like to dance?”

  Sir Cameron’s sandy brows quirked, drawing together. “Mother? Why, yes, but I must warn you that you might have trouble keeping up with her.”

  “Oh, I doubt that, but she can try.”

  By the end of the reel, Sir Cameron returned with apologies. Miss Bradford excused herself from the rest of the evening with the flimsy excuse of not feeling well. Max wasn’t fooled. His quarry had fled the field, which turned out not entirely annoying. Mrs. Bradford was light on her feet and full of cheerfully given information, ammunition for the next time he met the daughter. He set about inveigling her to coerce her daughter back to the festivities.

  Chapter 4

  Agnes stared at the outline on the canvas that she’d sketched a week before. Cameron had requested a painting of his two deerhounds to hang in his library. Preparations for the Loverton reception had taken up the time she’d set aside for starting on color selection and to begin the background, which she preferred to work on first.

  Turpentine scented the air in her attic studio along with decades of dust that no amount of cleaning could ever quite remove. Sunbeams streamed through the long windows her brother had ordered cut into the roof for more light. Sunshine should have energized her in mind and body, but she couldn’t pull herself out of the lassitude to mix paints and start on the backdrop of the coveys that grew in wild disarray beyond Oakland’s modest park.

  A curious lethargy had come over her since last evening. After waking late, she breakfasted, and immediately went up to the studio. She feared her moodiness was due to remorse for leaving the reception to avoid dancing the first set with Loverton. After she calmed her nerves and gathered the courage to return, she soon regretted it. Vincent’s pretense of gaining an introduction to commission a portrait was the first thing she encountered. She should have stayed in her rooms, but there was no possibility of that. The party was hosted by her family, making it impossible for her to cry off. She also felt obligated to accept Loverton’s request for her company at supper. He extended it through her mother, who begged her to return downstairs. To refuse Loverton would be worse than impolite. There was no refusing her mother’s sweet appeal.

  A writhing stomach had made eating impossible. She sat at the table that Loverton had selected, which seated only two. She pretended to eat as he slowly tucked away a well-filled plate, excused himself to get a fresh cup of punch for her, and came back with another filled plate. He didn’t mention her lack of appetite, although she knew he noticed, and asked polite questions about the district, her mother and brother.

  Guests intermittently stopped at their table. Whenever he stood to greet them, people stepped back from the invisible wall that surrounded him. He wasn’t rude, but neither was he forthcoming. They went away to other tables in short order. He retook his seat without comment, but the moment he sat, alone with her again, the wall disappeared. She wished she could point out this fascinating aspect, ask him why he erected such a barrier. The breach of manners that would entail was far worse that her earlier fiction of an illness to avoid his unsettling company.

  Glad that his attention stayed focused most of the time on his meal, she appreciated his figure with the artist’s eye, lean, tensile musculature, striking facial features all angles and planes, as unsettling as fascinating. She was able to form a smile when he glanced up and caught her staring. His knowing gaze again created a shaft of disturbing awareness, a combination of alarm and anticipation.

  A tap on the door panel—an interruption that usually annoyed—provided a reprieve from fruitless mental dithering.

  “Come in.”

  Her mother’s head, covered in a frilly morning cap of lace and pale blue ribbons, peered around the partially opened door. “I don’t wish to disturb, darling. Should I go away?”

  Agnes rose from the stool in front of the easel and went to draw her mother inside. “I’m not productive at the moment and would appreciate the company to avoid asking myself why. I don’t seem able to forge my way through it.”

  After patting Agnes’s hand, Mrs. Bradford pulled her toward a chaise tucked in the corner of the tiny studio. “No doubt your mind and heart are in a spin after last night. Two gentlemen pursuing you at once! And Loverton is so fine a dancer! He told me that he’d been given the finer points by the great man himself, Washington.”

  That caught her attention. “The president?”

  “He said the late president was quite keen on dancing. Loverton’s guardian maintained friendships with all of the American notables. He confided that when a lad, the most illustrious names were in and out of the house. Wouldn’t it be marvelous to meet them? Only think of the conversations and discussions! I know it isn’t a popular attitude, but one must have a thought or two about the beginnings of a new nation, no matter how temporary. Only thi
nk on it, my dear, if you married Loverton, he might take you there to meet them, to see a nation in its infancy. I do believe he was putting his best foot forward in every way to gain my approval for your sake.”

  “Mother, I’ve been too long on the shelf to think that his attentions were anything other than a wish to please and impress his hostess.”

  “Nonsense, child. Loverton inquired quite persistently about you. His interest was not merely flattery for a doting parent.”

  Agnes’s heart sank. Her mother must never learn about Vincent. She hated the thought of dimming the delight twinkling in her mother’s eyes. Constance Bradford believed that world began and ended with her children, the most attractive, intelligent, and talented ever born. She brimmed and bubbled with good humor and kindness, made friends immediately and was universally adored wherever she went. Only a slight to her offspring could alter Constance’s bonhomie. Then the fluffy grouse became a rampant eagle, talons out and ready to impale. Cameron reacted the same, but that family trait eluded Agnes. She might speak up, but she had no backbone for retaliation.

  “Mother, I—”

  Constance clutched Agnes’s hand. “What is it, my dear? What has you so out of countenance? Last evening was a triumph all ‘round. Lord Vernam told your brother he was excessively disappointed that Loverton had filled the remaining sets on your card and usurped the set before supper. Vernam is quite taken, I vow it.”

  Agnes glanced away, searching for words, a way out. It wouldn’t be wise to reveal to her mother that she knew Vernam well enough to know that he was married. If she let that be known, it would lead to more questions of how they’d met and why she’d pretended not to know him.

  “Mother, believe me, Vernam’s enjoyment of dancing is no indication of anything. Other than Lady Caroline, I was the only unattached female of his standing. I’m too old, Mother.”