The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (13 page)

He narrowed his eyes on her, trying to see if she had called up tears specifically to get the upper hand. He had known too many women who were wont to do that. Miss Fairbourne’s struggle with emotion appeared true, however. He cursed himself for speaking so severely.

She sniffed. “My father never had my brother declared dead, and it is not for me to do so now, and show such little faith. Robert is alive, I am very sure. I feel it in my heart. I always have. I know it sounds irrational. Even Cassandra thinks so, but there it is. I will not be claiming Robert’s share of Fairbourne’s.”

Darius did not relish what he was about to say, but Miss Fairbourne clearly did not comprehend how vulnerable her
situation was. He tried to make his expression kinder than his words would be.

“I can force a sale. If I do, it will leave you destitute if the proceeds from your father’s share are set aside for an heir other than you.”

She turned those moist blue eyes on him, shocked. “Would you be so cruel as to remove a lone woman’s means of support?”

He gazed in those sad eyes. Abruptly, and annoyingly, the wind went out of his sails.

He found himself battling the urge to take her head in his hands and kiss the tears away. “With your father gone, the business cannot provide support. Mr. Riggles cannot take his place. No one can, and I will not allow another auction that might result in unintended fraud. Furthermore, if we do not sell, Fairbourne’s will become worthless within the year and there will be nothing for either you or your brother, should he indeed return.”

She sniffed a few more times, and each one seemed to punctuate how heartless she found him. “I have heard every word you have said, Lord Southwaite. I appreciate and understand your concerns. Therefore I have hit on a compromise. I am going to tell Obediah to continue with the next auction. I will urge him to make it as grand as possible, so that we prove to you that you are wrong.”

Had he not just told her that he would not allow another auction? Had she not heard that, or had she simply ignored it?

A man and woman approached on the path. Miss Fairbourne’s dewy eyes would be visible to anyone who drew near. He quickly handed her his handkerchief, lest the scandal sheets be full of references to Lord S driving an unknown woman to tears in Hyde Park in midday.

She dabbed at her eyes, but did not do a very good job at it. Her liquid gaze remained on him as she waited for his response to her new plan.

Hell.

“When do you think Riggles will have this auction ready?”

“Three weeks, I believe.” Her face lit with joy and relief. “Oh, thank you, Lord Southwaite, for being so kind and agreeable. You will see how well Fairbourne’s will acquit itself. I have every faith in Obediah, and you can too.”

He did not recall being agreeable. He had only asked—

“I should find Cassandra now.” She began walking again. Almost jauntily. Nary a tear in sight. “Ah, there she is,” she noted as the carriages came in sight. “She will be very disappointed that she was so wrong about you.”

“How so?”

“She is not aware of your investment in Fairbourne’s. I assumed you would not want it known, of course. So she—you will find this amusing—she thinks that you are pursuing me.”

“What an amazing notion.”

“Isn’t it?” Miss Fairbourne giggled as they walked to the carriages. “She does not even know about the Outrageous Misconception that first day, so her imagination created this absurd idea out of whole cloth.”

“I trust that you explained her error.”

“Of course, but she thinks that I am too ignorant to see what is in front of my nose.”

“She is a woman famous for enjoying romantic intrigues herself, and possibly believes the whole world joins in her pastime. As I have already warned, if you are known as her friend, there are those who will think that you do.”

He received a sharp look for that. “I am sure that you think you are helping me with advice, Lord Southwaite, but I do not appreciate being warned off my friend. Please do not presume such authority. I am not your sister.”

So Lady Cassandra had shared that story about Lydia, had she? Well, he would not scold again.

Miss Fairbourne was correct. She was not his sister, or even his responsibility. He had no duty to save her from anything, even scandal.

Darius handed Miss Fairbourne over to Lady Cassandra, whose eager eyes foretold the quizzing waiting for Miss Fairbourne once they were alone. After a happy wave out
the window, and a smile that was only slightly self-satisfied, Miss Fairbourne rode away.

Darius climbed into his own carriage. The conversation had not gone well. Even harsh forthrightness had not succeeded with her. In fact, he suspected that she had herded him to exactly where she wanted him and had not even missed a step as she did so.

If he were to make any progress regarding the settlement of Fairbourne’s, he obviously would have to change tactics. He had learned a thing or two about this woman during the last week. He was confident that there were better ways besides reason and talk to make Emma Fairbourne surrender to his way of thinking.

D
arius relit his cigar and gave it three sound puffs while listening to Ambury describe a recent adventure. Across the table, Kendale blew smoke back and downed a good gulp of brandy.

“Nothing more than fiddling while Rome burns,” Kendale muttered, interrupting Ambury’s tale. His green eyes shot the angry sparks that so often marked his expression. His free hand raked his dark hair in the habit he had when annoyed, which he seemed to be more often than not these days.

“I think that you should get on your horse and spend the next year riding up and down the coast, making sure we are all safe, Kendale. I know that I would sleep better if you did,” Ambury said.

Kendale was not so absorbed that he missed the sarcasm. His glare said that he did not approve of Ambury’s devil-may-care attitude when all indications said the devil did care, and was too busy these days. Kendale was among the overwhelming majority of citizens who believed the French would mount an invasion soon. Ambury was less convinced.
Along with Darius, however, both were of like mind that precautions were in order. They all had spent the last four months arranging a system of watches and surveillance on the southeast coast that focused not on spotting a French fleet, but on singular, insidious invasions.

Darius inserted himself so these old friends did not start an argument right here in Brooks’s. “Kendale, we have done what can be done. It is too much for one man, or even three.”

Or four or five. That their group was diminished from its size of several months ago hung there unspoken for a moment, and all of their glances met in silent acknowledgment of the fact.

“We have forged a chain full of weak links. I don’t like being in bed with criminals either,” Kendale said. “Unlike some people.” He made it a point not to look at the
some people
he referred to.

“I only get into bed with female criminals, and even then most rarely, and for the best of reasons,” Ambury said. “I think that your humor would be much improved if you got into bed with
anyone
, Kendale. If we work on your manners, you might see some success on that before Michaelmas.”

Kendale uttered a crude sexual curse. Two gentlemen sitting close to them had been arguing about the rebellion in Ireland but ceased all talk on overhearing. They raised their eyebrows.

“See here, Kendale, this isn’t an officers’ mess,” one of them admonished.

Kendale sucked in his cheeks. “More’s the pity.”

Ambury ignored him. “As I was saying before Kendale began being rude, my little investigation on the lady’s behalf concluded successfully, and she now has proof that her husband was conniving with her trustee to sell off that land she inherited.”

“I hope that she knows a good solicitor who has friends in Chancery,” Darius said.

“I made a few recommendations there.”

“I also trust that you were well paid, but discreetly so your father does not hear you are selling your services like some tradesman.”

“Very well paid and very discreetly. The earl will be none the wiser.”

“In coin, or in gratitude?”

Ambury did not respond.

Kendale laughed darkly. “What you were paid with won’t keep the bailiffs away.”

“I fear not. It seemed a very good bargain at the time, though.”

Darius left Ambury to his memories of that bargain and Kendale to his eternal contemplation of whatever made him brood.

His own thoughts wandered to Fairbourne’s, as they tended to do a lot these days. It was not long before those thoughts did not dwell on auctions or ill-considered investments or even vague accounts, but once again on a woman in a rose dress sitting in the dusty light, surrounded by glinting silver objects.

“You are distracted,” Ambury said while he called for more brandy.

“I suppose I am,” Darius said. “I am pondering a point of etiquette, if you must know.”

Kendale laughed sardonically. “If I ever have the chance to speak my mind to my brother about breaking his neck in that fall and sticking me with this title, points of etiquette will figure prominently in my grievances.”

“Stop complaining, as if the man sought to make you miserable by leaving a fortune and a title to you. The army has even more etiquette than we do, so you are ridiculous,” Ambury chided.

“It is not relentless in the army.”

“You mean that gentlemen can behave like scoundrels sometimes, on the field? Spare me the details.” Ambury pointedly turned his attention to Darius. “I have never met another man who can show the world such perfect behavior while privately living as he wants, the way you do, Southwaite.
I would think that your talent means never needing to ponder anything regarding when to bow to propriety, and when to ignore it.”

“It has to do with a woman.”

“Kendale is no use to you, then. Your only hope of advice is me.”

Kendale did not disagree. He sat back in his chair and smoked, removing himself from the conversation.

Darius put the question to Ambury, but felt foolish doing so. “Is it appropriate to pursue a woman who is in mourning? I almost kissed one recently.”

“Full mourning or half mourning?”

“Full. But…” Darius felt obliged to give a bigger picture in his own defense. “I have good reason to think she is not prostrate with grief any longer. I daresay she is not the sort of woman to lose her wits at any time, even this.”

“I expect one should be careful, as you concluded. Although I would let the lady have some say in it. She might find a kiss very comforting.”

Kendale decided his advice was needed, after all. “If you stood down, Southwaite, it was because you knew you should. You are only trying to rationalize taking her when you know it would be dishonorable, seems to me.”

Ambury sighed heavily at their friend’s lack of tact. “He spoke of a mere kiss, Kendale. I knew the army would coarsen you a little, but really—”

“If speaking what is what, instead of meaningless witty nonsense, makes me coarse, so be it. As for the
mere kiss
—when was the last time any of us kissed a woman without a conquest being the goal? Hell, we aren’t schoolboys anymore.”

Darius would have demurred with some of that meaningless witty nonsense, except that Kendale was correct. Kendale’s bluntness derived, ironically, from a mind that saw the world most sharply.

“Hell,” Kendale muttered again, sitting upright, his attention suddenly diverted from their table. “I thought the bastard had gone up north.”

Darius turned his head, but he already knew what had set Kendale cursing again. A man had just entered the room, and was joining a party down near the door. Tall, elegant, and deliberately old-fashioned in silk brocade waistcoat and dark queue, the man glanced once in their direction, caught Darius’s eye, and reacted enough to acknowledge the party down the way noting his arrival.

“Penthurst?” Ambury asked without looking. He received no response, which was answer enough.

Kendale’s eyes might have been throwing daggers, his glare was that sharp. “I’ve half a mind to—”

“You will not,” Ambury said. “Call up the other half of your mind, like Southwaite and I have learned to do.”

“It was a duel, Kendale,” Darius said briskly, hearing his voice sound masculine and tolerant even if he still harbored other reactions. “I was his second, so I know all was correct.”

“It was murder.”

“Lakewood issued the challenge.” Ambury almost sounded bored, as if reminding Kendale, and himself, of this had grown tiresome. “Hell of a thing, though. Who ever thought Lakewood would die in a duel over a woman.”

Who ever, indeed. The Baron Lakewood had not been a man quick to lose his head or heart over a woman, let alone his life. Yet that was what had happened. As a result, they all had lost a good friend, and their circle had never been quite the same since.

Actually, they had lost two good friends.

Darius felt the presence of Penthurst at the other end of the chamber, casting a pall over their own little group.
You should have stopped him.
The words flowed inaudibly, echoing the only ones spoken between Darius and Penthurst since that tragic morning.

Yes, they should have.

“Damnation,” Ambury said, peeved that his good mood had been spoiled. “Hell, but I miss him.”

It was not clear which lost old friend he meant.

*     *     *

E
mma’s coachman made it obvious that he thought this call ill-advised. While he handed her out of the carriage, he kept most of his attention over his shoulder, surveying the crowd that thronged by on this narrow street near London’s wall, eyeing their rough garments and cringing from their loud calls and shouts.

“I best come with you, Miss Fairbourne.” He glanced at the horse with regret. He patted its rump, as if saying good-bye.

“I am going to that building right there, Mr. Dillon. The one with the dark blue door. The windows are open, I see, and there are a good number of them. Perhaps you should remain with the carriage, and listen. I will call you if there is any trouble, or if I need your protection.”