by Merry Farmer
The only hope of finding her room came when she heard two women talking at the end of a corridor as she passed. Figuring they must be servants, she headed toward a half-open door.
Only as she reached the door, it hit her that the two women in the room beyond were speaking in German.
“…don’t care what I have to do, I will not let this slip through my fingers because of some sniveling American whore.”
Ellie gasped, then slapped a hand to her mouth to hide the sound. Olympia was the woman who had spoken. How had she discovered Ellie’s true identity?
“It’s her father’s money,” the second German woman said. It could only have been Olympia’s maid, Greta. “They wouldn’t look twice at her if it weren’t for that filthy, American money.”
Olympia snorted. “Americans are so arrogant. They think money is everything. Hell, if money was all I was after, I would have taken my act across the ocean and bled every tycoon and cowboy dry.”
Ellie blinked and frowned, utterly confused by the conversation.
“You made the right decision, setting your sights on this lot,” Greta agreed. “Once you’re the marchioness, even if the truth comes out, it’ll be too late for them to do anything about it.”
“Precisely.” Olympia laughed. “I wish Gunter could see me now. ‘You can’t even play Lady Macbeth believably. You’ll never fool that lot into thinking you’re a princess,’ he said. ‘The British are too class-conscious. They’ll see right through you’.”
A cold shiver passed down Ellie’s spine, causing her to break out in a sweat. Ruse? Fool? It couldn’t possibly be. Olympia was lying about who she was too?
“I’ll show him,” she went on, stomping around the room. “I’ll marry that buggering fool, Lord Reese. I’ll snatch that title and the money that comes with it with both hands. I’ll even dress up as a boy and let Reese rut with me from behind, if that’s what it takes for that pouf to get me with child. And once that happens, every last one of the old theater troupe from Hamburg could show up on the front doorstep with accusations, and it wouldn’t matter one wit. I will own this family and their title.”
Horror struck Ellie at Olympia’s words. The princess was an actress hell bent on being an aristocrat. And she thought that the scheme Henry had drawn her into was questionable.
“If you could just figure out some way to get rid of the American brat,” Greta went on. “She’s the real threat.”
“I can’t believe they like her,” Olympia snorted. Ellie backed away from the door. “If only I could—”
Olympia stopped as Ellie backed into a table she hadn’t seen in the dark hallway, knocking over and breaking a vase as she did. In an instant, two sets of footsteps stormed across the room, and the door flung open. The light from inside was bright enough that Ellie squinted and raised an arm to shield her eyes.
She thought fast, feeling as though her life depended on it. “Oh. I’m sorry. I was hoping the voices I heard might be someone who could help me find my way back to my room,” she said, in English. There was no way Olympia or her maid could know that Ellie was fluent in German.
The same thought seemed to occur to Olympia. Her angry look of alarm quickly shifted to a snake-like smile. “Got lost on your way back from the ball, did you?” she said, resuming her superior air.
“Yes, I did,” Ellie admitted, hoping she was as good of an actress as Olympia and that she looked sheepish instead of furious. “Which wing is this?”
“It’s the east wing,” Olympia said flatly. “Your room is in the south wing.”
“Right. Yes. It is.” She paused. “Well, I guess I’ll just try another hallway to get there, then.”
“Stupid American bitch,” Greta grumbled in German.
Ellie put everything she had into looking as though she hadn’t understood the insult. She smiled gratefully at Olympia. “Well, thanks.”
She turned and hurried down the side hall to the main corridor. As soon as she’d turned the corner, her benign smile dropped to a horrified grimace. Olympia was lying about who she was in order to wheedle her way into the family. Who knew what scandal and chaos she would cause once she’d wed Lord Reese?
Ellie had to say something. She had to find Henry and expose the princess for who she really was. She picked up her skirts and ran.
But as soon as she reached a moonlit stairway, she stopped. The truth hit her like an avalanche. She couldn’t tell Henry. If she did, he would turn the house upside down to expose Olympia right away. And while that would get rid of the imposter princess, Henry would also have to reveal who Ellie really was. Immediately.
She sighed and sagged into one of the window seats that looked out over the white stones of the front path. If Olympia was exposed, she would be too. That was all there was to it. If they waited, kept playing their game, how long could things last? How long until the Mortimers back in New York asked enough questions to figure out that Helena was not the woman on Henry’s arm, enjoying the hospitality of Albany Court? How long until Helena contacted them to tell them herself? One deception was bad enough, but two would devastate the entire Howsden family. Henry would argue in her favor, Ellie was sure, but the best outcome would be that she was packed up and shipped out right along with Olympia, before she or Henry had a chance to explain. If her time at Albany Court ended, her time with Henry would as well. She’d never see him again.
Never see Henry again. The thought roiled her stomach, tearing at her heart. She’d never see that impish smile again or feel those strong arms around her, supporting her. She would gladly give up the luxuries of the nobility—which she didn’t feel entitled to anyhow—at the drop of a hat. But giving up Henry? When things between them were so…so wonderful? Their deception was doomed to come to an end one way or another, but she refused to let it end in an explosion, augmented by Olympia’s inevitable rage at being foiled. She had to figure out a way to end things softly, quietly, without Lady Howsden or Reese, or especially Henry, being hurt.
She pushed herself to her feet with a sigh, stealing through the house to find her room. Time was the only answer. She needed time to think things through, to formulate a plan. Until she was certain she could control the devastation of the truth, she couldn’t breathe a word to anyone. Not even Henry.
CHAPTER 6
A s exhausting as his mother’s party had been, the thing that sapped all energy out of Henry in its wake had nothing to do with dancing and drinking and chatting with his parents’ guests. He couldn’t shake Ellie’s simple question—do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you’d been born as someone else?
That question kept him up most of the night after the party, wondering how well he’d be sleeping if his head were resting on rough cotton sheets spread across a lumpy mattress in a farmer’s cottage, or if he had spent his evening hauling crates and barrels between ships and warehouses on London’s docks. It distracted him from focusing on the game of snooker he played with Reese in the afternoon the next day as he wondered what sort of games Ellie and her friends had played in Wyoming. It caught him staring out the window and ignoring conversation at luncheon as he pondered what kind of work he was suited to do. The way he was raised had prepared him for nothing besides idleness.
“You’ve been quiet.” Ellie shook him out of his thoughts two days after the party when she found him in the stables, currying his horse, Hector, just to have something to do.
“I could say the same about you,” he replied with a tired smile, avoiding her implied question.
Ellie leaned against the edge of the stall, crossed her arms, and shrugged.
Henry frowned. “Has someone been harassing you?” he asked with a surge of protective energy.
“No,” she answered unconvincingly. “It’s just….” Her eyes remained downcast.
A wry grin tugged at his mouth. “I think I know what you mean.”
She glanced up at him. “Do you?”
It was his turn to shrug as he drew the
brush down Hector’s neck. “Our little prank has been an outstanding success so far, but….” He let out a breath, arms dropping, and sent her a guilty look. “It’s not as amusing as I thought it’d be.”
Panic filled her eyes. “Are you saying you want to end it? Do you want me to leave?”
“No!” he answered so fast that Hector snorted and took a step back. He dropped the currying brush and stepped over to Ellie, resting his hands on her arms. “I most certainly do not want you to leave.”
He caught her sudden intake of breath, watched the way her gaze dropped to his lips. A surge of need coursed through him, heating his blood and making his heart pound. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her, to never let her go.
“Do you want to go for a ride?” he asked instead.
“What?” She blinked, her cheeks going pink. His groin tightened at the thought that “going for a ride” might have meant something entirely different in her former life.
“I haven’t taken you out to show you the extent of Albany Court,” he said, unable to resist a knowing grin.
“Oh.” Her face flushed an even deeper shade of rose, and an impish grin to match his own played across her lips.
He stepped away from her and back to Hector, stroking his nose. “Do you ride?”
“Yes, I do.” She relaxed.
“Let me just have Arthur saddle one of the mares for you, and we can ride out through the woods and around to the meadow.”
“That sounds lovely.”
It took the stableman, Arthur, only a few minutes to saddle Lilac, a tame, old mare, for Ellie while Henry saddled Hector himself. He could tell that Arthur didn’t approve of his master doing such a menial chore, but as long as Henry was able, he would do whatever chore was necessary.
“I should have worn something more suitable for riding,” Ellie laughed from atop her horse as they made their way out of the stable and down the lane. “Not that any of the dresses your mother had made for me are suitable for riding. And this side-saddle is different from any saddle I’ve used before.”
“I suppose you’ve always ridden astride, like a cowboy?” he teased.
“Yes.”
“Really?” Henry blinked.
Ellie laughed. “Well, what do you suppose we use horses for in Wyoming? Not leisurely rides through gorgeous, green parks.”
“I guess you’re right. I hadn’t considered.” He turned Hector off the main lane and down a side path that wound through the woods. “But do you ride astride in skirts?”
“Of course we do,” Ellie laughed. “Although sometimes I think it would be more convenient to wear trousers.”
“I can imagine you wearing trousers.” Henry smiled, his heart feeling light for the first time in days.
“I bet you can.” The look she sent him was pure temptation.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his seat in an attempt to cause the least amount of friction with parts of him that he was now highly aware of, and nodded to a gnarled, old oak. “That tree is over six hundred years old, you know.”
“Really?” Ellie’s flirtatious sparkle shifted to wide-eyed surprise as she turned to study the tree.
Henry would have loved to take their banter further, but he could feel himself slipping into dangerous territory where Ellie was concerned. She wasn’t truly his fiancée, after all, no matter how easy it was to pretend. He had no claim on her, and all too soon she would be gone.
Unless he could work out a way to keep her close. Perhaps, if his mother fell in love with her as madly as he—
He stopped his thought short with an awkward swallow. No, he couldn’t allow his heart to run away with him. He was the son of a marquis, a man on whom there were a great deal of expectations. His life and his hand were not his to give away as he pleased.
Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you’d been born as someone else?
They rode slowly through the forest. Its ancient canopy of branches lent a certain dimness and feeling of mystery to that part of the property. Henry had always felt as though the woods were a thousand miles away from the house and the manicured gardens. There was something wild and untamed about the them, even though they had been deliberately planted by the first Marquis of Albany.
“Ooh! What’s that through there?” Ellie asked as they approached the far end of the woods. She pointed through the trees to an ivy-covered stone wall.
“That’s the gamekeeper’s lodge,” Henry explained. “Although we haven’t had a gamekeeper for a generation, at least.”
“But you still have the lodge?”
“We still do.” He nodded toward the wall with a teasing grin. “Do you want to see it?”
“Of course I do.”
They left the main path and headed on down a narrow, winding trail, across a thin, babbling brook, and up to the stone wall. The lodge was surrounded by the low wall, but since the gate had long since rusted open, they were able to peer through to the cozy cottage beyond.
“It’s like something out of a fairy tale,” Ellie gasped, then laughed at herself. “Everything about this place and this life is like a fairy tale.”
“In some ways,” Henry said. A fairy tale in which he was trapped in an enchantment that now felt like a prison. “The cottage is hundreds of years old, but Mother has a standing order with the servants to keep it tidy and made up.”
Ellie blinked and turned to him. “Why?”
Henry shrugged. “I used to play here as a boy. But in more recent years, I suspect she uses it as a retreat when she can’t stand my father for another minute.”
“Oh.” Ellie’s joy dampened a little.
Henry nudged Hector to move on, and Lilac followed. The lodge stood between the woods and the meadow, so within moments, they had ridden out into the bright, autumn sunlight again.
“Every time,” Ellie said breathlessly as Henry led her down the meadow’s gentle slope toward the slow-flowing river that separated the estate’s grounds from its farms. “Every time I see something new in this area, it takes my breath away. Like it’s too good for me.”
Henry sent her a strange look. “Nothing is too good for you.”
She blushed at his comment, but didn’t answer. Like she didn’t believe him. Like something was eating at her that she couldn’t share.
“Those are our home farms.” Henry nodded to the patchwork of freshly-harvested fields surrounded and enclosed by hedgerows.
“Your farms?”
“Yes.” Henry nodded. “All of this land, as far as you can see, is technically part of Albany Court.”
Ellie’s jaw dropped. “You own all of this?”
Henry nodded.
Ellie glanced back out over the rolling hills and farmland. “Even Howard Haskell’s ranch isn’t this big.”
“Howard Haskell?”
A funny, almost wistful grin touched Ellie’s lips. “He’s the man who founded Haskell, Wyoming. He’s quite a character too. He went out West way back in the early days, before just about anyone else had settled there. They say he bought his land from the Indians, although from everything I know, the Indians don’t believe in owning land, so they couldn’t have sold it to him.”
“Then who did?”
Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know, but someone did. Probably the government, since he promised to make improvements on it. And he did. He built a whole town.” She sighed.
Henry pulled Hector to a stop by the side of the river. “Do you miss it?” he asked, not sure how he would feel about the answer.
“Haskell?”
He nodded.
Ellie let out an even heavier sigh. “Yeah. I do. And I didn’t think I would.”
“Tell me about it,” Henry said. He dismounted, then walked around to help Ellie down from her horse.
“I don’t really know what to say,” she started. “Haskell is small compared to London. Or most of the towns we passed through on our way here. But it’s a tight-knit community. There’s
a bank and a hotel and a saloon. There’s Rev. Pickering’s church and two other churches were just getting started when I left, one of them Catholic. All sorts of businesses have been coming to town in the last couple of years, including a newspaper office and a boot-maker. That one had all the girls in a tizzy.”
“The girls?” Henry took Ellie’s hand and led her a few feet away from the horses to a spot of clean, soft grass by the riverbank where they sat.
“The girls at Bonnie’s Place,” she answered, a touch bashful. “We’re a pretty tight-knit community too.”
“I can imagine.” He continued to twine his fingers through hers, unwilling to let go. “I suppose you all need to look out for each other.”
“We do.” Ellie nodded, growing suddenly serious. She peeked around, as if there were spies in the reeds, then said in a confiding tone, “Bonnie’s Place isn’t just a whorehouse, you know. It’s sort of a…kind of like a….” She pursed her lips, unable to find the right words. “Bonnie goes out and finds girls who are in bad situations and brings them to her Place so they can get out,” she said at last.
“Get out?”
Ellie chewed her lip, frowning. “Rehabilitate? I’ve heard that word used before. A lot of girls are forced into whoring. I don’t want to think about how many die from disease or violence. Some take to the job like a cat to cream. But most others just want a way out.”
“Of course they do.” He squeezed her hand, certain Ellie had been one of those.
“Bonnie finds those girls. Ones who are serious about turning their lives around. Ones who are willing to work hard and learn. Because a lot of girls say they want out, but they slip back because it’s easier to make money on your back than it is with a broom or a needle in your hand, or in a factory.”
Henry frowned and nodded, more fascinated by everything she was saying than he could have imagined.
“Bonnie gives the girls an education, gets them reading if they don’t know how and teaches them sums and figures.” Ellie glanced secretively around again. “Then she gives them whole new identities—new names, new backgrounds, and even new papers to prove they are who they say they are.”
