Suzanne Robinson (2 page)

Little Billy was still firing and reloading from saddlebags slung over his shoulder. Like most cowboys, he was young, reckless, and barely literate. Also like most, he went by his nickname and never mentioned his real one. But unlike the rest of the hands, Little Billy couldn’t leave the whiskey bottle alone. What was worse, Little Billy was over six feet tall and fond of his rifle. Nick would have shot him long ago if it hadn’t been for Jocelin. He used to see the same mad-mean look in his father’s eyes just before the bastard beat him with a coachman’s whip.

Nick rested his rifle against the chimney and sighted down the barrel. Talk. You couldn’t talk to drunks. He waited for Little Billy to turn his way. A wide chest came into view as the drunk fired at Dallas, then pointed his rifle down at Jocelin’s prone figure. Nick felt a stab of panic in his chest as he saw the direction of Little Billy’s aim. Then a familiar chilly
calm descended. He tilted the rifle, aiming it at Little Billy’s heart, and squeezed the trigger.

The explosion of his shot hardly caused him to blink. He kept his gaze fixed on Little Billy’s red long-john-covered bulk. He saw the cowboy jerk, then clutch at the windmill ladder. Little Billy dropped his rifle, then lost his grip and plummeted to the ground. His big body sent up a cloud of dust as it hit. As Nick left the roof, Dallas and the others sprang out of hiding and ran toward Jocelin. Without a twinge of conscience or a thought for the dead man, he climbed in a window and went downstairs to help carry Jocelin into the house.

Liza had sent to San Antonio for a doctor the moment her husband had been wounded, but it was sunset before the physician had finished removing the bullet from Jocelin’s leg. With Dallas Meredith wounded, Nick took charge of the ranch, ordered Little Billy buried, and work resumed. The next morning he was in Dallas’s room down the hall from Jocelin’s when they heard a round of loud curses issuing from the master suite. There was a crash, and they bolted into the hall in time to see the boy who brought the mail in from San Antonio scamper down the stairs.

Nick was the first to enter the bedroom, where he found Jocelin sitting up in bed, emerald eyes sparkling with pent-up emotion, his leg swathed in bandages and propped up on pillows. Even in bed he wore a military bearing, his shoulders squared as though on parade with the Horse Guards. His pale face was flushed with unnatural color beneath thick, smooth waves of black hair. In his hand he held a crumpled letter, which he pounded against the mattress while
Liza stood by, arms folded, foot tapping on the floorboards.

She glanced at Nick and said, “He got a letter from the duchess.”

“Oh,” Nick said. There was little else to say. Jocelin was the heir to a dukedom, but his family caused him as much misery as Nick’s had.

“Hang it,” Jocelin said. “Now I’ll have to go home. Liza, pack for us. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Whoa, there, Marshal,” Dallas said as he came in and sat on the end of the bed. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

“Bleeding right, toff,” said Nick.

He watched Dallas’s expression as he deciphered this comment. Dallas was from one of the Deep South states (he never said which) and had trouble understanding Nick’s disreputable accent and language. But Nick knew an aristocrat when he saw one, and Dallas Meredith was as blue-blooded as Jocelin.

“I have to go,” Jocelin said as he thrust himself upright. The movement made him grimace and curse again.

Liza unfolded her arms and pressed him back against the pillows. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Dallas said, “but neither should you.”

“I know.”

Jocelin waved the letter. “I have to go home.” He began to move restlessly, and he seemed to pale and flush at the same time. Perspiration glistened on his forehead and upper lip.

Crossing to the bed, Nick leaned down and put a hand on Jocelin’s shoulder. “Stow it, love. Let me see the bleeding letter.”

The duchess was a prolific writer. Her letter was ten pages long, but most of it was repetition. Georgiana, Jocelin’s younger sister, had betrothed herself to John Charles Hyde, Earl of Threshfield. Nick gave a low whistle and looked up from the letter. Liza had crossed her arms and was tapping her foot again. Her lips were compressed. She was watching Jocelin with a distracted, anxious expression while her husband moved restlessly in his bed.

“Not old Threshfield,” Nick said.

Liza nodded, and Jocelin glanced at Dallas and snapped, “Yes, old Threshfield.”

“Haven’t I heard of Threshfield somewhere?” asked Dallas lightly.

“John Charles Hyde, the Earl of Threshfield,” Nick said, “is a vicious old blister who’s of an age to be Jos’s grandfather.”

Jocelin had been staring at Dallas, who avoided his eyes. Nick watched the silent play between the two men, growing more and more curious, but he was distracted when Jocelin sat up too quickly and gasped, clutching his leg.

“She’s done it,” the wounded man said. “I never thought she’d go through with it, but she has, and if I don’t stop her, she’ll ruin her life.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Liza said. She lowered herself to a rocking chair as if determined to stay there as long as it took.

“You don’t understand. She told me before she came out that she was going to marry an old man so that she’d become a widow quickly.”

“What kind of notion is that?” Dallas asked.

Liza smiled at him. “Georgiana has firm ideas about not marrying some young man who will tell her
what to do and keep her on an allowance. She calls that slavery.”

Nick’s mouth fell open. He knew Lady Georgiana only slightly, and under formal circumstances. He’d always found her as quiet, nondescript, and uninteresting as most young ladies of the nobility. Sketchily educated, raised in privilege, and occupied with trivialities, she epitomized the worst faults of the English gentlewoman. While his mother had scrubbed hearths on her hands and knees to feed her children, girls like Georgiana remained abed until noon. He respected women of his own class who labored while bearing numerous children; women like Jocelin’s sister were useless. And here Georgiana was embarking on this ridiculous plan to further her own selfishness.

He remembered Jocelin worrying about his sister’s desire to control her own fortune and to direct the course of her life. Nick was of the opinion that she’d been disappointed in her come-out. Georgiana had Jocelin’s black hair and emerald eyes, but she also had his height, which made her tower over many men. She wore gold-rimmed spectacles that gave her the look of a bluestocking. And in spite of her mother’s applications of patent remedies, her nose and cheeks were sprayed with light freckles.

When she had been presented at court, she had tripped over her train as she’d backed out of the royal presence. That incident had been a harbinger of disasters to come. She had proceeded to step on the toes of every dance partner, spill tea on callers, and sneeze in the face of the prince consort, Queen Victoria’s husband. Yes, Lady Georgiana ought to be able to make herself a widow no matter whom she married. The
trouble was, Jocelin would make himself ill worrying about her.

“I’ll wait a week,” Jocelin was saying. “Then I’ll go. If I wait much longer, she’ll marry Threshfield before I’m halfway across the ocean.”

“Your father will stop her,” Nick said.

“You didn’t read the rest of the letter,” Liza said while she rocked. “The duke is in favor of the match.”

“Strike me blind,” Nick murmured.

“Indeed,” Dallas said, clearing his throat and looking a bit uncomfortable. “If you will pardon me, ma’am. Allowing such an unequal alliance seems lacking in honor.”

Liza put her hand on Jocelin’s arm. “You know she’s taken your aunt for her model. She admires Lady Lavinia, and your aunt seems quite happy as a spinster.”

“Georgiana isn’t Lavinia,” Jocelin said as he stared at Dallas. “She’ll get herself into no end of trouble. You don’t know Threshfield. His chief delight in life is tormenting his family. He has a great deal of income independent of entail, and he holds it over them. Tortures them by threatening to leave his money to strangers. He’s odd, too. Collects strange objects from all over the world—Africa, Australia. His house is stuffed with statues, reliefs, and columns from ancient places in Assyria, Persia, Egypt.”

“Right, love,” Nick said. “And he cackles when he laughs, and rolls around in a creaky wheelchair even though he’s a spry old skeleton when he wants to be. Still, he’s got a frittery heart. Lady Georgiana could be a widow almost as soon as she’s a wife.”

Jocelin groaned and sank down into his pillows.
Dallas rose from the bed along with Liza. All three of them hovered around Jocelin as he began to breathe rapidly. He covered his eyes with his forearm. Liza glanced up at Nick, her eyes filled with unshed tears.

Nick sighed and put his hand on Jocelin’s shoulder. “Don’t fash yerself, love. If you’re that bothered, I’ll go stop this mischief.” Liza’s hand slipped into his, and he felt her squeeze his fingers.

Jocelin lowered his arm to study him, then glanced at Dallas as if asking for his consent to the idea. “What do you think, old chap?”

Dallas’s lazy blue gaze settled on Nick. “Well, sir, if anyone can disrupt a lady’s marriage, it would be Nicholas.”

“What does that mean, toff?” Nick straightened and glared at Dallas.

The Southerner bowed. “I was complimenting your perseverance and your intelligence, sir. And, of course, I’ve witnessed for myself how you charm the ladies without even trying.”

“Blow that,” Nick said. “You was implying I’d interfere with me best friend’s sister. Well, I’ll have you know Georgiana is a spoiled little miss who needs whipping, not worshiping.”

“Don’t go aripping and atearing at me, sir.”

Nick was still scowling at Dallas. “Just you remember. I don’t go fishing in blue-blooded ponds. Wouldn’t have to do with any of them simpering, afraid-of-the-sun delicates. I’m only going because of me friends here.”

“I never doubted it, sir.”

Nick’s scowl faded only to return when he found both Liza and Jocelin grinning at him. Liza stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.

“You’re a dear, Nick.”

“Thanks, old chap,” Jocelin said.

Nick shrugged. “This heat was about to blister me insides anyway, and I was missing me studies. I got a lot of schooling to make up.”

“You will stop her, won’t you?” Jocelin asked, his voice strained. “I love her dearly, and I can’t bear to think of her ruining her life.”

“Never fear, love. Threshfield and I are friends. I put him onto a few sweet business arrangements. I’ll get meself invited to his house and put him off the marriage if I have to lag him.”

“Lag him?” Dallas asked.

“Send him to jail, toff.”

“You’ll have to be firm,” Liza said. “Georgiana’s as stubborn as Jocelin.”

“Can’t abide a stubborn woman. If she comes over me with her nonsense, I’ll dodge her good.”

“I hope that means you won’t let her bully you,” Jocelin said.

Nick stuck his thumbs into his gun belt and sauntered to the door. “Never met a woman who could.”

“My, my, my,” Dallas said. “I wish I was going to be there to see it—the lady against the barbarian.”

“Who you calling a barbarian, toff?” Nick deliberately changed his accent to the clipped, precise one of a Cambridge graduate, straightened to an imitation of Jocelin’s military bearing, and said, “Really, old chap, one adapts one’s manner and speech to one’s company. My compliments to you, sir. Now, if you will excuse me, I must see to my packing. A pleasant and restful day to you, my dear Jocelin, my lady.”

With a last smile at Dallas, who was staring at him openmouthed, Nick strolled out of the room.

England, September 1860

Deep in the countryside of Sussex, nestled in the midst of vast acres of private forest and park, lay the great country seat of the earls of Threshfield. Threshfield House contained the earl, the earl’s sister, his nephew, his nephew’s wife, and their son, all of whom the earl could do without. The only occupant of his vast eighteenth-century home that his lordship smiled upon was, at the moment, standing in a dark hall stacked high with packing crates.

She was a tall young woman who sometimes forgot her training and attempted to hide her stature by walking bent forward at the waist. She wore gold wire-rimmed spectacles that brightened her already astonishing green eyes. Yet the studious air the glasses gave her prevented people from discerning the vulnerability that often appeared in those jewel-bright eyes. Perhaps her air of stately dignity protected her from exposure.

Dim light filtered into the corridor through gaps in the heavy velvet curtains drawn over the tall windows at either end of the hall. Trying to see by a beam of light filled with dust motes, Lady Georgiana Marshal sank her arms up to the elbows in a wooden crate, arranged the objects within, and replaced the lid. Wiping her hands on her full-length apron, she picked up the box and started down the hall.

She passed a stack of crates. Beside it, against the wall, loomed a frozen figure of a striding man with the head of a jackal. Past another collection of boxes, beside an open doorway, rested the upright mummy case of a Theban priestess. Even in the near darkness Georgiana could see the outline of the gilded human-shaped container, its black wig and lifelike painted eyes.