Page 20 of The Lost Lord
Richard smiled approvingly. “Where did you meet Lizzie?” Richard asked, then wished he could bite back the words. Or, better, bite off his tongue to prevent himself from letting such stupidity fly out of his mouth in the future.
Miriam’s features remained placid. Unsuspecting. “At boarding school. I know she behaves abominably at times,” — here she cast Richard a knowing glance — “but Lizzie means well. She’s been coddled and indulged all her life, and I fear it hasn’t brought out the best in her. Yet I believe she will find her footing eventually. She’s such great fun everyone ignores her excesses.”
Richard kept his thoughts on Lizzie’s motivations to himself. “Do you think she’ll find her way before or after Arthur obtains his annulment?”
“So, you’ve heard of that?” Miriam sighed. “I don’t believe she particularly wanted to be married to Arthur. I think she saw him as her knight in shining armor. Lizzie always did love the Arthurian legends, and she was keen to escape her parents’ house.” Miriam’s spine never met the iron backrest.
“She ought to have refused him, if she meant to…be unfaithful.” Richard caught himself from using a coarser word. It was a measure of how quickly Miriam had made him feel at home in the short time he’d had to bask in her presence.
Miriam shrugged. “Perhaps. We all do things to please others, though. Lizzie more than anyone.”
Richard lifted one brow. “I cannot imagine Lizzie doing anything to please anyone but herself.”
Miriam’s brows knit together in a frown. “Hasn’t she been kind to you? Introducing you to her friends and family, giving you a place to feel welcome in the strange country?”
Richard opens mouth to speak and then slammed it shut so hard his teeth clicked together. He could hardly explain to Miriam that her best friend was plotting to steal her fortune, using him as the instrument. Weary despair settled over him.
“I suppose that’s true,” he conceded, though not because he agreed with Miriam’s rosy assessment. Richard’s half-formed plan to inform her of Lizzie’s plot disintegrated. He hadn’t counted on female loyalty.
“I know Lizzie is rash and impulsive. I’ve visited with her since our trip to the Pines, and we’ve decided to put that ugliness behind us. She says she’s unbothered by the fact that you’re courting me. If you are, in fact, courting me.” Miriam’s cheeks were tinged with a faint pink hue.
Richard chuckled. Relief that the danger had passed flooded over him. “Would you like me to? Court you, that is?”
She reached across the table and wove her bare, dirt-smudged fingers through his.
“Very much,” she replied shyly. “My feelings have not changed since the beach.”
“Neither have mine,” Richard said. He clasped her fingers in his and raised them to his lips, brushing a kiss over her knuckles. Miriam’s gray eyes widened, two dark-fringed orbs of wonder. Richard’s belly tightened low in his abdomen. She could not know the intensity of her effect on him. If he dared to show it, Miriam would surely turn tail and flee his presence. He would woo her like a small woodland animal. One step at a time, gaining trust.
The scrape of iron on flagstones caused icy fingers of fear to streak down his back.
“Looks like an amicable visit,” Livingston Walsh commented as he folded himself into the chair. “You’re lucky to have caught Miriam at home. Ordinarily she’s at Cliffside in the summer, our country house in the Palisades.”
The man placed a small tray with two tea cups on mismatched saucers, a small teapot, and a tumbler of amber liquid which Richard instantly recognized as whiskey. Longing coursed through him. His ten days without drinking alcohol had gone untested until now. Richard pulled his gaze away to focus on Miriam. The only thing he wanted more than the siren call of a stiff drink was for her to look at him the way she’d done a moment ago. With hope and yearning shining in her bright eyes. Not that he deserved a fraction of it.
Miriam poured the tea. It was good and stiff, much better than the poor stuff his landlady provided each morning. He drank it with gratitude while contemplating how much to reveal to Miriam. He quickly resolved to tell her nothing. Miriam wanted to believe the best of Lizzie. Perhaps he could convince her to think well of him long enough to agree to be his wife. Once Richard had his ring on her finger and access to all of Miriam’s lovely money, he could be as truthful as he wished. Someday there would be a reckoning. Richard resolved to stop that day from coming for as long as humanly possible.
“I have business in the city,” Miriam said with modest pride after she had taken a sip of tea. Her father cut her a sharp glance.
“Mr. Northcote doesn’t need to know about that.”
“It’s my concern, Father,” Miriam reprimanded lightly. “His title is Lord Northcote, notmister.”
Livingston toss back half his whiskey with a scowl. “We didn’t fight off the redcoats fifty years back for me to simper at English nobility. Besides. A man doesn’t need money to want you. You’re good enough in your own right, understand?”
Miriam’s eyes went wide and glassy.
“Of course, she is. Besides, I don’t need money. I have my own income. It may be the expectation to marry for pecuniary reasons among my class in England, but this is a new world. Miriam is nothing less than my equal.” Richard said smoothly. The lies tasted like ash. Nonetheless he cast his wife-to-be a doting smile.
Livingston drank the rest of his whiskey in a single swallow. “You have my permission to court my daughter, Mr. Northcote. See that you do it right. Proper visits and carriage rides. You’ve a reputation as a ladies’ man. The only reason I let you pass my door is my daughter seems quite taken with you. But I’ll not have a loutish wastrel for a son-in-law no matter how many fancy titles or how much my daughter loves him.”
“Father,” Miriam reprimanded with gentle warning. “You said you would entertain him.”
“And I have, Miri. That’s my tea he’s drinking, is it not?” Livingston cast him a sharp glare.
Understanding bloomed. Livingston Walsh had discerned his reasons for courting Miriam. Richard scrambled up from his seat. “Thank you for your time, Miriam. I shall leave you to return to your gardening.”
Miriam scowled, then schooled her features into resignation.
