Buch lesen: «The Earl's American Heiress»

Chapter One
Santa Monica Beach, an afternoon in May 1889

One did not need to open one’s eyes to appreciate the majesty of the Pacific Ocean.

It was better, in fact, to keep them closed. Doing so made it easier to ignore the hustle and bustle of high society as it went through its prancing and posing at the Arcadia Hotel, grandly squatted three hundred yards down the shore from where Clementine Macooish stood.

With closed eyes one could better feel the rush of a cold wave across one’s bare feet and the tickle of shifting sand between one’s toes as the salt water retreated into the sea.

“Once the ocean laps at your toes, it will summon you home forever,” she muttered softly, even though no one was within shouting distance. “Or with one’s dying breath—no, not that—with one’s first gasp of eternity!”

That last was a vastly more positive thought. Beautiful thoughts often came to her when her eyes were closed. She would write this one down and share it with her students at Mayflower Academy.

Moist air, the cry of gulls circling overhead... Sensation became sharpened without the distraction of the outrageously incredible vista glittering all the way to the western horizon.

Without sight, what a simple thing it was to draw in a lungful of salty, fish-scented air and imagine being as free and weightless as a pelican gliding over the surface of the water. Free to dip—free to swirl in feathered—

“Clementine Jane Macooish! What in blazing glory do you have on?”

She opened her eyes and turned when she heard the voice she loved above all others approaching from behind.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Grandfather.” She fluffed the gaily dotted ruffle of her bodice. “This is a perfectly respectable bathing gown, and you know it.”

“Respectable for underwear. Cover those bloomers with a proper skirt, girl.”

“Don’t look so shocked. If you walked the shoreline from the hotel you’ve seen this costume a dozen times on other ladies.”

“I came down the cliff steps, every blasted ninety-nine of them.” Her grandfather was trim, fit and in excellent health, so she doubted the stairs had been a burden on him. “Besides, those women are wearing stockings and booties. Your feet are bare as hatchling birds. And your hair! Surely you’ve not come without a hat.”

“It’s around here someplace.” She glanced about and didn’t see it. Perhaps it had tumbled away with the onshore breeze or been carried away by a gull. “Stand beside me and close your eyes.”

She snatched his sleeve to draw him closer.

“Folderol,” he grumbled, but did as she suggested.

She plucked the bowler hat from his head and tucked it under her arm. “Now there, doesn’t the ocean breeze feel lovely gliding over your scalp? The sunshine so nice and warm?”

With a sidelong glance, she noticed a smile tugging one corner of his mouth. Truly, he was far more handsome than most seventy-year-old men. With his gray beard and mustache, neatly trimmed, and dark brows arching dapperly over intelligent brown eyes, it was no wonder he drew the attention of ladies of all ages when he passed by.

“Fine for me,” he said, opening his eyes and pinning her with one arched brow. “I’m bald on top while you’ve the hotel ball to prepare for. I can’t think how Maria is going to do a thing with that thicket of hair, not with salt and sand stuck in it.”

“In that case I might have to stay in my hotel room tonight.”

Of course Grandfather would never permit it, but it was what she wanted to do, and she was duty bound to say so.

“Do not test me, child. You are a well-bred Macooish woman and will represent the family as such. And besides, you are quite lovely, even given the dishabille you are now in.”

Grandfather would think so, of course, since he had been the one to raise her. The truth was, her hair was far too red to be considered fashionable, her eyes green rather than the desired blue. But it was her nose that was her biggest beauty fault, being a bit too sharp. Unless she was smiling, her countenance had a slightly severe appearance, bordering even on arrogance, or so Grandfather had warned.

Her younger and prettier cousin, Madeline, had a nose that looked sweet no matter her mood.

And Clementine’s temperament? She was far too direct and opinionated to be considered socially graceful. Truly, she smiled only when she felt like it, not when it was required. Her smiles were quite genuine, to be sure, but never given away simply to put someone at ease during an awkward conversation. Sadly, on those occasions she tried, the gesture came out more as a grimace.

Madeline was far better at playing the hostess. Indeed, she excelled at charming people. Her cousin was petite, with fairy-blond hair. Her blue eyes were lit from within by a gracious spirit. Madeline had a gift for making a stranger into a friend.

It was why Grandfather had elected Madeline to be the one to cross the ocean and marry a peer of the realm—a lofty earl, no less.

Every morning and night Clementine thanked the good lord that she was not the charming granddaughter.

Which allowed her to be the one who was free to stand on the beach in her bathing costume, wiggle her bare toes in the sand and dream of being a pelican.

Since she was not doomed to become a countess, Grandfather had given his blessing on her desire to become the schoolteacher she had always yearned to be. Truly, she wanted nothing more in life than to direct young minds toward a sound future.

And of equal importance to her, marriage could wait until she was good and ready for it.

“If I do stay in my room, no one will miss me.” She returned her grandfather’s arched brow with one of her own. It must be a family trait, that—putting someone in their place with a lifted brow. Her cousin didn’t share it, though. Only she and Grandfather used the expression. Perhaps her parents and Madeline’s had it, but they had all died so long ago that she knew them mostly as portraits in the formal parlor. “Madeline will make up for my absence.”

“Madeline has run off.”

All of a sudden she could not hear the surf crashing on the sand, and the gulls went silent.

Run off?

“To the dressmaker, no doubt.”

“She’s run away with some charlatan. Left a note admitting it.”

Clementine ought to have suspected that might happen.

While she and Madeline both tended to be freethinking, as Grandfather had raised them to be, her cousin’s temperament sent her flying headlong into adventure.

Clementine was of a settled nature, happy to be at home, cozy and content in the smallest room of the sprawling mansion she had grown up in. Her best nights were the ones when she managed to hide away from Grandfather’s many social gatherings. The back garden had private nooks and lush alcoves where she’d spent many a warm summer evening undetected.

Now Madeline—the intended countess—the one to fulfill Grandfather’s plan for the safekeeping of the family, beyond that which could be found by mere fortune alone, had freely taken wing and fluttered happily away from her duty.

And Grandfather was looking at Clementine in a most peculiar way. She feared the battle of the arched brows was going to end up with her becoming the Countess of Fencroft.

No! No! And no!

But the merciless, twisting knot in her stomach made her suspect that Grandfather would win the battle, because she was, above all things, distressingly loyal.

Drat it.

Near Folkestone, England, at the same moment,
May 1889

The sixth Earl of Fencroft stood on a rock, staring out at the sea. The light of a full moon suddenly emerging from behind a cloud illuminated the crests of unsettled, ink-like water for as far as he could see. It was a violent yet beautiful thing to behold.

And to hear. The forceful crash of waves hitting the rock ten feet below where he stood suited his mood, which, like the approaching storm, was darkly brooding.

Cold wind snapped his cloak about like a pair of wild, flapping wings. Mist from the crashing waves dampened his clothing, soaked his hair and dripped down his face. He felt the sting of salt water in his eyes but didn’t dare to close them.

If he did he would see the fifth Earl of Fencroft’s face, still and pale in death.

In life, his brother’s face had never been still. In spite of a lifetime of ill health that face had always been smiling.

Laughter—not always appropriate laughter, to be sure, but laughter just the same—was what he was known for.

Even though no one had expected Oliver to make old bones, his death had seemed sudden.

The lung condition that had plagued him all his life had grown worse so slowly that it hadn’t been noticeable day to day, not until Oliver slumped over his cards while playing whist with the estate accountant, Mr. Robinson, and died.

No, Heath could not say that he had not known the mantle his brother carried so jovially would fall upon him one day. He had understood it since he was old enough to recognize that his brother lived in a damaged body. Nonetheless, it was shocking and bitterly sad.

Even if sorrow were not perched upon his shoulder, he would not be happy. Believing in a vague way that one day he would replace his brother as earl was a far different thing from actually doing it.

The last thing he wanted was his new title, especially given how grievously he had come by it.

Death certainly had a way of altering life.

His life had been rather ideal when the main requirement on his time was to oversee the estate in Derbyshire. Those rolling green acres of pastureland were paradise.

While his presence in London was often necessary, he had been excused from much of the city’s social rigor.

Now he would be required to attend Parliament in Oliver’s stead.

He’d be required to sit among the nobility, arguing unsolvable issues.

Glancing back over his shoulder and up the stark cliffside, he watched smoke curl out of the chimney of his coastal retreat.

The seaside cottage was as much home to him as the estate in Derbyshire was. Certainly more than the town house in London was.

All the upstairs lamps had been put out. Only the kitchen window remained aglow.

He looked back at the sea, watching the blackish surface peak and foam.

Somehow, knowing that the children slept sweet and safe inside made him feel more peaceful.

He’d get through this, learn to be all he needed to be for everyone who depended upon the Earl of Fencroft for their survival. How many were employed by the estate and the town house?

He didn’t know. Oliver and Mr. Robinson had taken care of everything having to do with the business of running the earldom.

A hail of small pebbles hitting rock rattled from behind.

“Yer Lordship, sir!”

Turning, he saw a boy scrabbling down the steep hillside.

“What is it, Georgie?” The eight-year-old was thin but not as thin as he’d been the first time Heath had encountered him. “You should not be out in the dark. It isn’t safe.”

“Not so dangerous as before in London, sir. And here—”

The boy extended a sheet of paper, already damp and limp with sea spray.

“It’s from the telegraph office, and coming so late as it is, Mrs. Pierce reckoned it must be important.”

Indeed. A message sent at this hour could indicate an emergency. He opened it slowly, half fearing to know what it said.

Brother, come back to London at once. The accountant has fled and left chaos in his wake.

What kind of chaos? It would have been helpful had his sister explained further.

He hoped she was just being overdramatic. Olivia was Oliver’s twin. She had been understandably distraught since his death. Still, getting news that Robinson had fled could not be a good thing.

Heath hadn’t let the fellow go after Oliver’s passing three weeks ago. With the knowledge he had of the estate, he was invaluable and Heath had had every intention of keeping him on.

“Hold on to my hand, Georgie. The rocks are slippery.”

At the cliff top, with the child’s footing secure, he let go of the small fist. “Go tell my coachman we’re off for London at first light.”

There was no point in dragging anyone out into the dark of night. Whatever problems the fellow had left behind would wait until a decent hour.

As it turned out, a full eighteen hours passed before Heath finally entered the study of the London townhome. The servants were abed but a small fire glowed in the hearth, apparently kept in expectation of his arrival.

The weak flames gave off scant warmth and even less light. Shadows hovered in the corners of the room; they swirled about his heart like mist.

It was too easy to imagine Oliver still sitting at the desk, a blanket draped across his shoulders and a cloth close at hand for him to cough into. The scent of cigar smoke lingering in the room made Heath feel that if he but blinked, his brother would be there.

“At last! I feared you would not come.”

His sister’s voice crackled with worry. It hadn’t always sounded so vulnerable, but Oliver’s death so close on the heels of her husband’s had changed her.

Death changed everything. To this day grief for Wilhelmina came upon him at unexpected times. Of course, it was not only his fiancée’s death that haunted him, but the secrets she kept in life.

“We made decent time given the storm.” In fact he would give the coachman extra pay for having to bear the cold and the wet in order for him to get here and deal with Olivia’s perceived “chaos.”

“No doubt you were loath to leave your mistress.”

“I don’t have a mistress.”

“No?” Her bow-like mouth pressed tight. It was hard for his sister to accept that not all men were like her late husband. “So you say, but I think you spend too much time at Rock Rose Cottage not to have one stashed away.”

Everyone faced betrayal at some point in life. His sister had trusted and adored her husband, until the day he passed away in the bed of his mistress. Given all Olivia had been through, Heath tried to smile past her suspicions.

He strode over to where she stood in the doorway, dipped his head and kissed her cheek. “I’d have been here sooner but the roads were complete muck. I’m just lucky my driver was skilled enough to keep us from getting stuck like so many others were.”

“Just remember, brother, a mistress and the devil are one and the same.”

“Let’s sit while you tell me what chaos Mr. Robinson has left behind.”

Since he could not tell her the truth about his business at the seashore, he did not argue further about there being no mistress, even though he was quite weary of her continued accusations.

He sat down on the divan. Olivia eased down beside him with a deflated sigh.

What he must remind himself was that she was a widow, that she and four-year-old Victor were dependent upon him for everything. Truly, a woman without a man to protect her was helpless in society.

Willa’s face flashed in his mind. The helplessness in her sad brown eyes had always made him feel protective of her, even when they were children. In the end that expression had been his undoing.

“Solicitors have been pounding on the door and demanding payment for debts that they claimed Oliver incurred. Three of them two days ago, and one this morning. I sent them away as best I could.”

“With their ears red and ringing, I imagine.”

She shrugged. “It’s no more than they deserved, but I fear the obligations are valid. I loved Oliver—you know I did—but he could be irresponsible.”

“I think he wanted to squeeze as much living as he could out of his failing body.”

“Perhaps, and who could blame him? But really, our brother ought to have hired someone more capable as our accountant. What did Mr. Robinson really have to recommend himself other than being Oliver’s chum from Cambridge? I didn’t think so much of it at the time but looking at it now I ought to have. The pair of them laughed and indulged in spirits when they worked on the ledgers.”

He did not know that, but it hardly surprised him. Oliver sought gaiety above most everything else. No doubt that pursuit had hastened his death. Doctor after doctor had warned him to leave the caustic air of London for the sake of his lungs. He would not consider it because he found country life dull. He used to claim all the charming, lively ladies lived in town and that was where he would reside.

“Our brother did enjoy a good time.”

“I thought,” Olivia murmured with a sigh, “that was the reason he wanted to marry that rich, flighty American, for the thrill of doing something risqué. But I see better now. We’ll need an auditor to know for sure, but I fear we might be bankrupt.”

“I’ll wire James Macooish, let him know that our brother is gone and he need not bring his granddaughter. I suppose I ought to have done it straightaway, but with—”

“You will not. The girl is coming to marry the Earl of Fencroft. Fifth or sixth, it hardly matters.”

“It matters a great deal when you are the sixth.”

“Don’t be selfish, Heath. You have a duty to the Fencroft estate. Without Miss Macooish’s fortune we will be utterly lost. How many people will be left in ruin if you do not marry her?”

“The woman would have suited our brother. He always did like brightly feathered birds. From what Oliver had to say about her I believe she is quite freehearted and pretty, and no doubt frivolous. You know me better than to think we would make a good match.”

“That hardly matters. I made a love match and look where that got me. Believe me, little brother, better to set your sights low and not be disappointed. If you won’t think of all the souls Fencroft Manor supports, consider the well-being of your nephew. He might be the one to take over the title one day.”

“If I marry the heiress, her son will inherit.”

“Don’t be silly. American women are notoriously infertile. They will be the ruin of the aristocracy. It’s what everyone says.”

Life had certainly spun Heath about and dropped him on his noble head. Unless he wedded Madeline—wasn’t that her name? Truthfully, until this moment he’d given his future sister-in-law little thought, but unless he wedded her, there would be nothing for Victor to inherit. His hardworking tenants and all of Fencroft Manor’s trusted servants would be cast out onto the street.

For all that he longed to leap off the couch and dash off a telegram to Macooish, he sat there long after his sister kissed his cheek and went to bed. He watched the dying flames until the room finally went dark.