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Authors: Shirl Henke

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“There, there, I know you did not mean to hurt me, dearheart,” she crooned, taking Lori in her arms. “Nor have you. I've had a full and worthwhile life. Please don't cry.”

      
But as she sat consoling her only child, Miranda Stafford Auburn fought the overwhelming urge to cry herself. Her life had indeed been one of wealth and privilege as well as duty and work.

      
But never had she known love.

 

* * * *

 

      
“What do you mean, there is no money! I'm heir to a huge manor house and thousands of acres and have not a cent—a pence with which to maintain it?” Brand leaned over the solicitor's desk, fists planted on the gleaming walnut surface as he glared at the austere man seated behind it.

      
With calm deliberation, Herbert Austin Biltmore stared down his pinched nose at the documents spread out before him. “Please be seated, Lord Rushcroft. I understand you Yankees can be excitable, but—”

      
“I am
not
a damned Yankee,” Brand gritted out in a menacing tone that had made grizzled sergeant majors run for cover.

      
Solicitor Biltmore did not so as much as flinch. “Very good, Anglo-American, then,” he replied without missing a beat. ‘There is no need to raise your voice. Please take a seat so we may proceed.”

      
Brand backed off, but did not take the seat he'd just vacated. Instead he paced the confines of the book-lined office, combing his fingers through his hair. He'd been living at Rushcroft Hall, which was in only marginally better condition than River Trails had been after the war. But the Hall was several centuries older, and its poor condition was due to neglect, not fire. It could be restored, as could the fertile lands surrounding it…with enough money.

      
He had immediately made an appointment with the executor of his distant cousin's will. Biltmore was the attorney—blast it, “solicitor”—from whom he'd first received the summons to England. Brand had dozens of plans for refurbishing the Caruthers ancestral estate when he walked into Biltmore’s office. Until the terms of dear old Cousin Mortimer's will were read to him.

      
“Now, as I was saying”—the solicitor returned his eyes to the page—“the taxes are due by midyear, as are the rents—”

      
“But the rents are ten thousand pounds less than the taxes and other debts owed.”

      
The solicitor enumerated the precise amounts, adding dryly, “You are quite astute with figures, m'lord.”

      
Brand fought the urge to laugh insanely. “This is a jest of cosmic proportions—you do realize that, don't you? Of course not. I lost my family's home in Kentucky because I couldn't pay back taxes.”

      
“Well, you need have no fear of that. As a peer of Her Majesty's realm, you are heir to an estate which cannot be sold or broken up in any way. The laws of primogeniture hold Rushcroft Hall and its lands in perpetuity for the direct line of male descendants of the Caruthers family.”

      
“So I can sit and rot on the land but I can't sell it. Just watch it fall down around my ears. And what of the taxes and debts?”

      
The solicitor shrugged. “Most of the peerage is in arrears on taxes. Since you have no other properties to secure, there's nothing the county warden can seize in lieu of payment.”

      
Thinking of his horses, Brand started to sweat. This could turn out even worse than he had just imagined. He'd had to sell a splendid colt for less than its worth just to pay for his and Sin's passage to England; but he'd never dreamed that, once he claimed the title, there would be no money. What if the government or his creditors took Reiver and his broodmares? He would have no way of earning a cent...pence. Stranded in bloody old England, panhandling with the beggars in Whitechapel!

      
With visions of himself and Sin sneaking the horses aboard some lug bound for France in the dark of night, he barely registered the solicitor's droning voice at first. But the word “marriage” finally penetrated the miasma surrounding him. “What did you say?”

      
“I said,” Biltmore reiterated disdainfully, “if you were to wed a woman of means from amongst the carriage folk, her dowry might solve your pecuniary difficulties.”

      
“You mean marry for money?” The words left a sour taste in his mouth as visions of Reba Cunningham flashed through his mind. “If so exalted a person as a peer of Her Majesty's realm were to do so,” Brand replied, parroting the solicitor's pompous diction, “why not wed a peeress?” Was there such a word as peeress? Damned if he knew. These people didn't even speak English!

      
Biltmore looked down his nose again. “Everyone is aware that the late baron was without means and deeply in debt. So, for that matter, are many of the peerage. But there are ever so many men in trade who have plump pockets and want nothing so much as to marry their daughters into the aristocracy. You would be well advised to take advantage of that fact.”

      
The solicitor's manner indicated quite clearly that he believed the crass American's blood was far enough removed from blue that sullying it by wedding a commoner should be no great sacrifice. Brand wanted to choke the life out of him.

      
In this case, he resisted the urge. Sin was not present to rescue him from the hangman's noose. “Save your advice. This American usurper is not for sale.”

      
“As you wish, m'lord.” Biltmore' s expression oozed an irritating combination of disdain and pity.

      
Brand turned on his heel and quit the office, wondering if they did indeed hang peers of Her Majesty's realm. The punishment would almost be worth the satisfaction of shaking Biltmore's arrogant certainty.

 

* * * *

 

      
Miranda sat at her desk, staring at the papers in her hand, trying to digest the implications...and possibilities. As the major shareholder of the largest bank in London, she reviewed all loan applications for amounts in excess of ten thousand pounds. “My, the baron is truly as destitute as Elvira Horton indicated,” she murmured to herself as she scanned the inventory of Caruthers' holdings.

      
The preceding baron had been a gamester, as were all of his ancestors. Unfortunately for Brandon Caruthers, his cousin Mortimer's luck was the poorest of the lot. He had sold off every scrap of the family possessions he could before his untimely death. In addition, he had taken not the slightest interest in the running of the family seat in Surrey, which was now in utter chaos. Virtually all the tenants were in arrears in paying rents, due in no small part, Miranda surmised, to the absence of the lord of the manor, who cared nothing about making repairs or seeing to their welfare.

      
Would the new baron be any different? His application for a sizable loan outlined ambitious plans for making improvements, not to the manor house itself, which she would have expected, but rather to the land. Much of it was lying fallow now, but apparently he'd inspected it and felt it would suit quite perfectly for raising and training horses. If the report appended to the loan application was to be believed, he had experienced some notable success in breeding thoroughbred stock and racing his prize stud, Midnight Reiver. He even had aspirations to run horses at Ascot next year.

      
Once when Lori was a baby, Miranda had attended the races with her husband and some business associates. She thought the exorbitant bets placed between members of the nobility were quite appalling. And now this man wanted her to lend him money—her and Will's very hard-earned money—so he could cavort at racetracks!

      
She felt a sudden flood of righteous indignation that smacked of the Queen's puritanical philosophy, and grimaced. This was business. The morality of gambling had nothing whatever to do with it. If the stud farm Major Brandon Caruthers proposed could produce the income he projected, she should approve the loan.

      
But Miranda had another idea in mind—if the Rebel Baron came up to her exacting standards. She walked briskly to the heavy walnut door and summoned her secretary, Herbert Timmons. “I have an investigation that requires the utmost discretion, Mr. Timmons. Here is what I wish you to do...”

 

* * * *

 

      
“Who the hell does this woman think she is? Queen Victoria herself?” Brand fulminated as he glared at the letter in his hand, then passed it to Sin as if it were a live snake.

      
Quickly perusing it, Sin chuckled. “It would appear to be a royal summons indeed—in this case, the royalty being not of the peerage but rather the industrial elite. The Widow Auburn not only owns controlling interest in the bank from which you have requested a loan, but a shipyard, an iron foundry and so many other ventures, I fail to recall them all.”

      
“Unnatural female. As bad as those crazy Yankee women demanding they be allowed to vote.”

      
“I hate to inform you, old chap,” Sin said with a chuckle, “but they're making the same demands here in England.”

      
Brand shuddered. “Women should stay home and tend to their families. Leave the running of government—and industry—to men.”

      
“You and Her Majesty are in complete accord on that issue.” Sin's voice had taken on a decided hint of irony. “You were turned down by every other bank in London. At least the Widow Auburn deigns to grant you an interview Tuesday next.”

      
Brand muttered a vile oath and paced across the narrow carpet runner, now quite threadbare, that was one of the few remaining adornments of the Caruthers city house. Every painting, sculpture and piece of furniture that could be sold had been, leaving the library in which they sat devoid of all but a pair of scuffed, creaking leather chairs in front of the fireplace and moth-eaten velvet drapes in a hideous shade of puce. Even the built-in mahogany bookcases lining the walls had been denuded of their contents, save for a few cheap editions of popular fiction Mortimer had been unable to sell.

      
“You'd best go, hat in hand, and charm the lady, son,” St. John said, ignoring the baron's restless pacing. Although disappointed that Brand's windfall had proven chimerical, Sin was not surprised. He had spent enough time in Britain to know the vices of the aristocracy. His own father, second son of a squire from Kent, had escaped by fleeing to Jamaica one step ahead of his creditors.

      
Brand poured himself a generous portion of brandy, which he detested. “Damnable island. A man can't even buy bourbon here.” He tossed down the alcoholic libation like medicine, then said with resignation, “Here's to charming an old woman. I bet she's a veritable hag.”

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

      
Miranda took a swallow from the glass of water and replaced it on the massive, ugly Gothic Revival table across from her high mahogany desk. Although she detested the ornate heavy furnishings with which her late husband had filled his office, she had kept them. They imparted an aura of masculine power, and she had learned to make herself comfortable within it. Right now she needed all the courage she could muster if she was going to lay her bold proposal before Lord Rushcroft...Major Caruthers.

      
Dared she do it? It smacked so closely of the arrangement her father and husband had made eighteen years ago.
No, it is nothing like that. I only want Lori's happiness.
Was her logic faulty, motivated by her fear of Geoffrey Winters? While her daughter had been out riding with Abbie, Pelham's boy had arranged “accidental” encounters twice in Hyde Park, all within the space of a week. He had managed to sit next to her at the Southingtons' musicale on Friday afternoon and danced twice with her at the Hortons' ball Sunday night. The last event had really started tongues wagging. One more waltz and they would be all but engaged. Or Lori would be ruined.

      
She could send her daughter to Liverpool to visit Will's distant cousins, but that seemed cruel in the midst of Lori's first London season. And who was to say Geoffrey Winters would not sneak across country after her, with dire consequences? The boy seemed bent on making trouble in spite of her clear warnings to him regarding his suit.

      
No, this was a better solution—if she and the baron could agree on terms. Summoning her courage, she rang for Timmons to show him into her office.

      
In the waiting room, Brand took note of the opulent furnishings. Thick Brussels carpeting in a deep maroon and green floral design covered the floor, accented by the dark green wall covering. The heavy rosewood Gothic Revival desk and chairs dwarfed the anemic, mousy-looking man who rose at the sound of a tinkling bell.
Like a lap dog
, Brand thought scornfully as the great lady's secretary scurried into her lair, closing the massive walnut door behind him.

BOOK: Rebel Baron
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