Margo Maguire (2 page)

Gavin learned that the stipend had grown substantially, and had become Christina’s dowry on her marriage to Edward, Viscount Fairhaven, some sixteen months earlier. Gavin also knew that Fairhaven had died suddenly—an ailment of the heart—in the arms of his mistress.

Gavin could not fathom why the man would look elsewhere for his satisfaction—unless his wife was a far colder woman than she appeared.

He doubted that was true. Fairhaven had been more than twenty years older than his wife. Perhaps she had not been able to abide the carnal attentions of a middle-aged peer. Perhaps the man had been as cold and insensitive as Viscount Hargrove, Gavin’s own sire.

Or maybe he’d simply been a fool.

It was none of his concern. All Gavin needed to do was take Lady Fairhaven back to Windermere Park and present her to her grandfather in order to reap the very generous reward he’d been promised for finding the duke’s twin granddaughters.

The footman finally made his presence known. “My lady—”

“Alfred, ride into Runthwait and fetch a physician.”

“Stay here, Alfred,” Gavin countered. “I need no physician.”

With her eyes darting toward her servant, Christina lifted her chin and directed Alfred to do her bidding by her very manner. She’d learned her role well.

“But my lady, I should not leave you—”

“Do as I say, Alfred.” Her voice was firm. Tough. With the slightest hint of a burr from her Scottish upbringing. Gavin was surprised she would send the man off, leaving her alone with him. He looked out the window to see if there was anyone else near the house.

He saw no one, heard no one moving about on the upper floor. But with clear orders from his employer, Alfred left to do as he’d been instructed. Fine. Let him ride the distance to Runthwait, only to return and find his mistress gone.

Once Alfred had left, Gavin focused on his goal: to get Christina to her grandfather at Windermere Park and collect his money.

“I have no grandfather, Captain Briggs,” Christina said stiffly as she took a length of white linen from a shelf.

“On the contrary, you do.”

“Take off your coat.” She said it as though she had not heard him.

He complied, removing his greatcoat as well as his jacket. Both bore holes from the lead ball that had grazed through the flesh of his upper arm. It stung, and was bleeding profusely, but he’d suffered far worse during his years of service to the crown.

“Your wound needs to be stitched.”

“This is hardly a wound, Lady Fairhaven. You barely grazed me.”

She appeared dubious, but he had far more important business here. The lead ball had passed across his skin—was not lodged in his flesh—so there was nothing more to do than bandage it and control the bleeding. He’d have a nice scar for his trouble, though. To go along with a few others he’d collected over the years.

Maybe he ought to charge old Windermere a few hundred pounds more for his trouble. Get something more useful than a medal this time.

“Your grandfather is the Duke of Windermere,” he said.

She stopped cold, speechless for the moment. Gavin took the thick roll of linen from her hand and pressed a wad of it to the bloody site. He had to admit it
was
bleeding fairly freely, but experience told him it would soon stop. “The old duke disowned your mother, Sarah, when she married a London barrister—a man called Daniel Hayes.”

A small crease appeared between her delicate, dark brows. “Nonsense. I-I was an orphan when my parents took me in.”

“True. You
were
an orphan.” He might have taken a kinder tone if only she had not been so stiff and unyielding. “Your real parents drowned in a boating accident on the Thames in 1796. You were three years old at the time. But even after the demise of your parents, your grandfather was unrelenting in his denial of you and your sister. He sent you both away to be fostered out of his sight and awareness.”

Her astonished eyes flew up to meet his. “My sister!
My sister?
”

Gavin felt rather brutal, in spite of himself. “Aye. You have a sister. Her name is Lily.”

Chapter 2

F
ortunately, there was a chair behind Christina when she sat down hard.
A sister.

She had never imagined . . . and yet it felt quite right. The name Lily struck a chord deep within her and she knew Captain Briggs was speaking the truth. But a grandfather who’d disowned her?

She felt a sharp pang unlike anything she’d ever known. All these years she’d had no family but the Jamesons—they were her parents and younger brothers. They’d taken her in when she’d had no one, loved and nurtured her as though she were their own. They were all she’d ever needed. And when she’d grown, her father had seen to it that she made a favorable match in marrying Edward. She’d known who she was.

“Your mother had a brother,” Captain Briggs said. “He was the duke’s heir, but he perished last year during a typhus outbreak.”

Christina had a fleeting memory of a little girl with black hair like her own. They’d hugged and played under the watchful eye of . . . someone. She could not remember who’d been watching, but she could feel the warmth of a loving gaze, and hear a woman’s soft laughter.

Her mother.
Not Lady Sunderland, but . . . Sarah. The daughter of a duke.

Christina felt her chin begin to quiver and she turned away from Captain Briggs to gaze out the small window in the servants’ pantry. The backs of her eyes burned.

“Why does this grandfather want me now?” She tried to collect herself and think. “I . . . I cannot inherit, so what is the point?” Why should her life be any more disrupted than it was?

“There is more to be said about that, Lady Fairhaven. But let it suffice for the moment to say that your grandfather is in ill health. He does not expect to live much longer, and his conscience troubles him.”

As well it should, Christina thought, if what Captain Briggs said was true. She could barely sort out the captain’s revelations.

A deep wave of grief came over her, sorrow for the parents she could not really remember, for the woman who’d borne her and died so soon after.

“My sister. Where is she?”

“Lily married quite recently,” Briggs replied. “She and her husband, the Earl of Ashby, are probably at Windermere Park now.”

Christina looked back at Captain Briggs, watching as he dabbed at the blood from the wound she’d inflicted. It really did need to be stitched, whether he believed it or not. “My sister . . . Lily wanted to see him?”

“Not really. But she had her reasons for going to Windermere.”

Christina composed herself and stood. She took the cloth from Briggs and cringed at the sight of what she’d done to him. She took charge and blotted his wound through the shirt, thinking it was probably the one way she might be able to regain some control. She had three brothers whom she loved. But a sister!

“This isn’t going to stop bleeding,” she said. “Remove your shirt so I can bandage it properly while we wait.”

“I’m not quite sure I trust you to bandage anything.” His tone was gruff, and Christina sensed he was unaccustomed to taking orders. Likely as unaccustomed as Christina was to
giving
them. But she was getting better.

“Point taken. But I assure you I am usually a very civilized person. Lately, though, circumstances . . .”

A muscle in his jaw flexed—involuntarily, Christina was sure—as he unfastened the few buttons at his neck. He slipped the shirt out from his trews and pulled it over his head, mussing his thick, dark hair. The disorder did not decrease his physical appeal in the least. “Under what possible circumstances would a viscountess need to wield a firearm?”

She hardly heard his question when he bared the broad expanse of his lightly furred chest. He was solidly built, his muscles thick and well-defined, and his abdomen . . .

A disturbing, foreign sensation stirred within her at the sight of his masculine physique. Her husband had been relatively hairless. And nearly as smooth as she.

Captain Briggs seemed to be a different species altogether. He was hard and rugged, his muscles seemingly chiseled from stone. He was impervious to any discomfort from the bullet wound. And there were scars—at least three, from what must have been significant injuries. She could only wonder what had happened to him.

“This will only take a moment.” Gathering her wits, she took the linen and quickly tore it into strips, then folded one section into a large square and pressed it to the wound. Then she wrapped his arm with the remaining strips.

“How did you learn to do this?” he asked.

“I have three younger brothers. One or the other was always in some kind of scrape. Blood was often involved.” Especially when it was Lang. He had a penchant for fighting and other mischief. She could not imagine what he’d got up to now.

Whatever it was, Christina had no intention of letting some anonymous scoundrel expose his actions, which were likely to have been scandalous. Her father could deal with Lang once she found him.

At least for now, she could not bring herself to inform her family of the blackmail letters. They’d gone away to Italy to escape some of the pain of Lang’s loss, and Christina would not raise their hopes when it was entirely possible that the letters were a cruel ruse.

A deep shudder shook her from within. Lang might actually have been killed as reported, and the blackmailer was just an opportunist taking advantage of the situation. She had to find the scoundrel, had to find out what he knew.

A sudden thought struck her. “Captain Briggs, how did you find me?”

“It was a long and complicated process. I will not bore you with the details.”

“It must have been difficult . . .” A plan began to form in her mind. “Did my grandfather engage you to find my sister as well?”

He gave a nod, lifting his densely muscled arm as she wrapped the linen around it. Christina kept her focus on her questions and not on the thick musculature of his arm and the odd prickle of awareness that skittered down her back.

“Did you know where my sister had been taken when our parents died? Who had raised her?”

“No. I went to London—where Sarah and Daniel Hayes lived—and started asking questions.”

Christina could not imagine what the questions had been or whom he would have asked. How did one begin to find a needle—or two—in a haystack?

“Can you locate anyone? Anyone at all?”

She found him looking at her, not at what she was doing, but at her face. He was very close, close enough that she could see flecks of silver in his light blue eyes. And his lashes—impossibly long and black as coal. A small crescent of a scar at the corner of his eye only added to the stunning appeal of his features.

He did not respond immediately to her question, holding her gaze until he blinked and turned to look at his arm. “Yes,” he finally said. “Anyone.”

Christina could think of no other person who showed such complete confidence. She finished the bandaging and tied the knot. “So . . . Windermere has paid you to find me?” she asked.

The brow over his right eye lowered ever so slightly. “He is not obliged to pay me until I take you to him.”

“Are you one of those Bow Street men?”

“No. Apparently, your grandfather heard of my expertise at . . . finding people . . . on the continent.”

“In the army?”

“Aye.” A muscle in his jaw tensed.

Christina stepped away and crossed her arms, considering what to do. He seemed in no hurry to pull on his shirt, but took a quick glance at the hole in its sleeve. Leaving it on the table, he quit the room.

Christina knew he wasn’t leaving Sweethope Cottage. After all, he must have come some distance for her. And he wouldn’t be paid until he produced her for her grandfather. He had to stay.

She
did
want to meet her sister. It was just that the situation with Lang was so immediate.

Christina quickly made up her mind. She was going to have to delay that meeting until she found Lang. And Captain Briggs was the key to doing so. He’d found Lily with few clues, and it couldn’t have been easy to find the recently widowed Lady Fairhaven, née Christina Jameson . . . or rather, Hayes.

She followed Briggs to the drawing room at the front of the house and waited when he stepped outside and went to his horse. Half naked, he reached up and took down a leather satchel while Christina gaped at his bare back. His shoulders. His lean waist. The ripple of muscle when he moved his arms. The way his longish, dark hair brushed his neck.

She watched with interest as he came back to the house, pulling on the fresh shirt that he’d taken from his satchel. He was far more rugged than Edward, and seemed to fit into the rustic setting of Sweethope Cottage far better than her late husband ever had.

It had surprised her to learn Edward had bequeathed her the country house, for she’d visited there only a few times. But of course, he had not planned on dying so precipitously. Or in such outrageous circumstances.

“If we leave now, we can make it to Windermere the day after tomorrow,” Captain Briggs said when he turned and saw her standing at the window in the drawing room.

“I’m not going to Windermere,” Christina replied.

“Yes, you are.”

“I need to go to London first.”

He tucked the long tails of his shirt into his trews. Then he caught her gaze and spoke quietly. “I’d rather not tie you to the back of my horse, Lady Fairhaven, but I will if I—”

“Do you order your wife about this way, Captain Briggs?”

“I have no wife, Lady Fairhaven. And I assure you that if I
did
have one, she would be far more tractable—”

“I am being blackmailed, Captain. I need to go to London right away.”

I
t wasn’t what Gavin expected to hear. He thought she would simply say she had no interest in meeting the old bastard who’d abandoned her.
That
, he could understand.
This
, he was unprepared for.

Blackmail.

He’d learned nothing about Lady Fairhaven to indicate any reason for blackmail. But of course that was the point. Blackmail could only be about a secret that needed to be kept.

“I want you to help me find and stop the man who’s blackmailing me.”

They were wasting good time. “How do you expect me to do that?”

“You said yourself you can find anyone.” She crossed the room to a heavy, mahogany writing desk and opened a drawer. Taking out a folded sheet of vellum, she handed it to him. “I received this two weeks ago at my parents’ home in London.”

He read the note, blanching, Christina presumed, at the outrageous sum that was demanded. “Lieutenant Jameson . . . One of Lord Sunderland’s sons?”

She nodded. “My middle brother. We were told he was killed soon after he left his ship—
The Defender
.”

He avoided rolling his eyes or sighing in frustration. He had not heard this about Lady Fairhaven’s family. “Where?”

“Plymouth.”

“When?”

“In mid-February,” Christina replied, taking a seat in a large chair by the fireplace. She seemed awfully small in the heavy leather chair. She was a pampered anomaly in this rustic country house so far from any sizable town.

She was naturally fair-skinned like her sister. And now that her color had returned, her cheeks took on the same fetching pink as her lips. She looked at him with an urgency that he was only beginning to understand. “I cannot go to Windermere until I’ve silenced this . . . this . . . extortionist.”

“Silenced? How?”

“I intend to find him.” She took the letter from Gavin’s hand and looked at the outrageous contents as she spoke. “I intend to go to All Hallows Church and lie in wait for the villain who sent this.”

Gavin frowned. “Lady Fairhaven . . .”

She stood abruptly, her jet-black curls springing gently as she paced in front of the fireplace. “They told us my brother was dead, but . . . I know it is possible they identified the wrong man.”

Gavin knew it could happen, but only in certain circumstances. A drowning, a fire, a certain sort of gunshot wound . . .

“My brother has been known to get into trouble, though he seemed to have kept his nose clean ever since he went into the navy. It’s entirely possible that—”

“Lady Fairhaven, what you propose is dangerous. And you might not—”

“I will not keep paying this man. Did you see? He wants two thousand pounds this time!”

“
This
time?”

She stopped pacing. “This is the second letter I received. I paid him the first time—one thousand pounds. And I received nothing in return.”

Gavin let out a mirthless laugh. One thousand pounds was a staggering sum. Far more than the average family’s yearly income. “What did you expect?”

“
What did I expect?
That the man would provide me with the information I paid for!”

“Which was . . . ?”

“Where my brother is. What horrible deed he’s supposed to have done. How he escaped the explosion and fire on the Plymouth docks.”

Gavin shook his head at the haughty, naïve young woman before him. He could not even imagine having so vast a sum as one thousand pounds to just
give away
. And now her blackmailer wanted two thousand. For information on a man who was likely as dead as he’d been reported.

“This character has no reason to give you any information, my lady. You’ve paid him and now he’s got you on his hook. Like a fisherman’s worm.”

“But I have no intention of wriggling quite so uselessly.”

The thought of Christina acting hastily in this matter—and alone—gave him pause. He needed to get her to Windermere or he wouldn’t collect his reward. “What will you do when you finally come up against your blackmailer? Please do not tell me that was the reason for your exercise this morning with the pistol.”

“What would you have me do? Let him get away with it?”

“Lady Fairhaven, I would have you notify your father of this letter and allow him to deal with it.”

“I will not give my family any more cause to worry,” she said with some force. “They’ve gone away to our villa in Genoa, and . . . Well, if . . .”

Her throat moved as she swallowed, and Gavin knew she’d considered the possibility that her brother was truly dead, and the blackmailer merely gulling her.