Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London
Read Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London Online
Authors: Laura Lee Guhrke
To the Avon Addicts, for being such loyal,
dedicated fans of romance fiction.
This one’s for you, with my heartfelt thanks.
Contents
London, 1889
Only something extraordinary would bring a gentleman to London in late summer. The heat was often unbearable, the air was always foul, and with the season over, the company was usually nonexistent. For the Earl of Featherstone, however, the news that his oldest friend, the Duke of Margrave, was home from Africa was extraordinary enough to make even London in August worthwhile.
Jack was happy to travel from his flat in Paris to his club in London for a reunion with Margrave and their three closest friends. He didn’t know that jaunt across the Channel would lead him on a quest for justice that would destroy a villain, turn his life upside down, and hurl a beautiful woman into his arms. If he’d known all that, he wouldn’t have been late.
As it was, by the time he entered the private dining room at White’s, his friends had already arrived. “Sorry I’m late, gentlemen,” he said as he closed the door behind him and glanced at the other four men seated around the table.
Lord Somerton was the first to speak. “Forgive us if we’re not surprised,” Denys said as he turned in his chair to look at Jack over one shoulder. “You’re always late.”
Jack waved that aside, for he had an ironclad excuse. “Cut my line a bit of slack, would you?” he said, giving Denys a none-too-gentle slap on the back and nodding to James, the Earl of Hayward, as he circled the table toward the guest of honor. “I had to come all the way from Paris, after all. I just got off the train from Dover twenty minutes ago.”
The Duke of Margrave rose to greet him, and Jack sized up the appearance of his oldest friend in a quick glance. Stuart didn’t look too bad, all things considered. “Mauled by a lion were you?” he asked, and stuck out his hand. “You’ll do anything for a lark.”
“Damn straight.” The duke grinned as they shook hands. “Want a drink?”
“Of course. You don’t think I came here for you, do you?” Accepting the whisky Stuart poured for him, Jack pulled out the empty chair beside his friend.
“So, gentlemen,” he said, nodding to the other men at the table as he took his chair, “now that we’ve all welcomed the lion slayer home, what shall we do tonight? Dinner first, I assume? Then cards? Possibly a bit of slumming in the East End pubs? Or shall we find the prettiest dancing girls of London’s music halls and cart them off the stage?”
The Marquess of Trubridge was the first to answer. “None of those for me,” Nicholas said with a shake of his head. I’m a happily married man now.”
No one expressed surprise that slumming in the East End and carting off dancing girls weren’t Nick’s cup of tea these days. His next statement, however, was a surprise and made the perfect excuse for a toast. “With,” Nick added as he reached for his glass and raised it, “a baby on the way.”
Congratulations were offered at once, and a toast was drunk to the marquess’s first progeny. “Nick may be out of it,” Jack said, as the bottle was passed and glasses refilled, “but what about the rest of you?”
He looked first at the man beside him. Stuart, after all, was just back from the wilds. He was sure to be up for a bit of carousing.
But like Nick, Stuart also shook his head in refusal. “My wife and I have reconciled.”
Surprised silence greeted this bit of news, for Stuart and Edie had been estranged for years, almost since their wedding day. In the end, it was left to Jack to ask the obvious question. “And are you happy about it?”
“I am, actually, yes. And I’m happy to be home.”
“Well, all right, then.” It was Jack’s turn to raise his glass. “Here’s to the hunter, home from the hill.”
That toast once again emptied the glasses, and as the bottle went round to refill them, Jack tried again. “Still, what are the rest of us supposed to do? Happily married fellows are such tedious company.” He glanced at James and Denys. “Don’t tell me either of you have become ensnared?”
“Not I,” Denys replied at once. “Still quite the carefree bachelor.”
“As am I,” James added.
Jack was glad that at least some of his friends could still be counted upon. “Well, that relieves my mind. Later, we shall leave these two—” He paused, gesturing to Stuart and Nicholas. “And go off for a bit of fun, shall we?”
“You three can invade the brothels, taverns, and gaming clubs of London all you please some other time, but not tonight,” Stuart said, putting an end to any notions of revelry. “I didn’t bring all of you here so you could carouse about town. Besides, London in August is deadly dull, so you shan’t be missing much.”
“So why are we here?” Jack turned to the man beside him. “Other than to see your scars, hear all about the mauling, and be suitably impressed by how you fought off the lions?”
Stuart shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Stuff,” Jack said in disbelief. “It’s the perfect chance to brag, and you don’t want to talk about it? Why not?” Leaning sideways, he took a peek under the table. “Lions didn’t eat anything important, did they?”
“Jones is dead.”
Stuart’s words banished any further teasing, and Jack straightened in his chair, aghast. “Your valet is dead? What happened? Was that the lions, too?”
“Yes.”
“Hell.” Jack gave a sigh and raked a hand through his hair. “And here I am being flippant about it. Sorry, Stuart.”
Murmurs of sympathy were expressed all around, but the duke cut them off. “Let’s talk of something else, shall we? Gentlemen, as wonderful as it is to see all of you, a reunion isn’t why I’ve asked you here. I have something to discuss with you, and I want to do it before the bottle goes around again, for it’s quite a serious business.”
Stuart reached into a leather case beside his chair and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which he dropped in the center of the table. With his next words, any frivolous notions Jack might have had to enliven London in August went to the wall.
“I want to ruin a man,” Stuart said, his gaze going around the table, lighting last upon Jack. “I want to humiliate him and destroy him. Thoroughly, completely, and without mercy.”
Stunned silence followed this uncompromising pronouncement, for Stuart was in no way a vengeful sort of man. But Jack knew he would never ask them to engineer a man’s destruction unless it was both necessary and just, and he gave his answer without hesitation. “Lawd,” he drawled, tilting his chair back on two legs to give the man standing beside him an impudent grin, “this sounds just my sort of lark.”
Denys gave a cough. “It goes without saying that the man in question deserves it, but can you tell us why?”
“The gist, yes,” Stuart replied, “but not the details. And I assure you, it is a matter of honor. And justice.”
“The courts can’t touch him, I assume?” James asked.
“No. He’s American,” Stuart added, as his gaze again went around the table, again stopping with Jack. “A Knickerbocker, with a very rich, very powerful father.”
Under Stuart’s thoughtful gaze, Jack received the distinct impression that more would be asked of him in this quest than of the other men present, but either way, it didn’t really matter. Stuart was his best friend in the world. And though it was clear whatever the other man had in mind would be a challenge, Stuart knew quite well that nothing spurred Jack on more than a challenge. “Pfft,” he said, making short shrift of wealthy American fathers and their power.
With that sound, Stuart’s shoulders relaxed, and he leaned forward to rest his palms on the table. “Gentlemen, I would do this alone, but I can’t. I need your help.” He paused and cast another glance around the table. “We are all Eton men.”
They all knew what that meant, but it was Nicholas who put words to the steel-strong bonds of honor, duty, and friendship they’d forged as boys at school. “There’s no more to be said. What do you want us to do?”
Stuart’s plan was vague, for as he explained, he was waiting for more information from New York, but it seemed to involve stock shares, venture capital, and allowing the villain’s own greed and avarice to be the cause of his destruction.
“Hoisting a bastard by his own petard,” Jack murmured. “I was right. A lark of epic proportions. And who is this man?”
“His name . . .” Stuart paused and swallowed, as if answering even such a simple question was difficult for him. “His name is Frederick Van Hausen.”
The loathing in those words was plain, but though the name seemed familiar to Jack, he couldn’t place it. Nick did it for him.
“Van Hausen? Isn’t that the American who ruined your wife’s reputation before you met her?”
“Yes.” Stuart’s answer was a clipped, guttural sound.
“But . . .” Nick paused, looking bewildered, but whatever he saw in Stuart’s face stifled any questions he might want to ask. He shook his head. “Never mind.”
James wasn’t so tactful. “You want to ruin him for making Edie damaged goods before you married her? But why should you care now?”
“That’s not why I want his head,” Stuart said at once. “I know him to be guilty of at least one horrific crime that cannot ever be brought home to him. I cannot reveal the details of that crime, for I am honor-bound to secrecy, but it may not be the only one he’s committed. And there will probably be more in the future if he is not stopped.”
“We may discover the details of these crimes for ourselves,” Denys pointed out.
Stuart conceded that possibility with a nod. “You may, and if you do, you will fully comprehend the reasons for my reticence on the matter, and will appreciate the need for discretion as much as I do.” He must have perceived the bewildered glances that went around the table, for he asked, “Does my refusal to give details influence your decision to help me, gentlemen?”
“Of course not,” Jack said, giving James a pointed glance. “We trust you implicitly. Whatever your reason, there’s no doubt it’s a good one.”
“Forgive my curiosity,” James said at once. “If we do learn the truth for ourselves, you may be assured of our discretion.”
“Thank you.” Stuart took another swallow of whisky. “Van Hausen is a New York investment banker. He’s also heavily in debt, and there are rumors that he’s not above dipping into the venture capital of his investors to pay private debts though he’s always managed to repay the funds in time to avoid prosecution. If the four of you form a joint venture with his firm, he just might find the temptation to spend your capital elsewhere irresistible. If that happens, he’ll have committed embezzlement, and if we can catch him at it, he could be indicted for the crime.”
“Do you have a particular investment in mind to lure him?” Denys asked.
“I’m thinking gold mines in Africa, gentlemen. If you gained the location of these mines from me, then we were to have a very public falling-out, you could form the company with Van Hausen in New York as a way to get revenge on me. Van Hausen would swallow that sort of line.” Stuart paused, tapping his fingers thoughtfully against the side of the glass in his hand. “Given his history with my wife, I suspect getting one up on me would be something he’d enjoy immensely.”
“Such a thing would take time to arrange,” Nick said.
“Yes. One of you will have to spend a great deal of time in New York, building a relationship with this man, becoming his friend, earning his trust. I’d do it myself, but, of course, Van Hausen would never trust me in a thousand years.”
He looked again at Jack, and in their exchange of glances, understanding passed between them, understanding based on a lifetime of friendship, understanding that confirmed Jack’s earlier guess about what would be asked specifically of him.
He took his cue without being asked. “This sounds like the perfect task for a Featherstone,” he said jokingly, making light of his family’s checkered history as deceivers and fortune-hunting scoundrels.
Despite the fact that Stuart seemed to have had him in mind for the primary role all along, his friend also seemed inclined to warn him of what he’d be getting into. “It’ll be a long business, Jack. It could take a year, perhaps longer.”
“All the more reason for me to be the one to take it on, then.” Jack brought the legs of his chair to the floor with a decisive thud. “I’m the only one here with no family ties and no responsibilities.”
“It won’t be easy. You’ll be spearheading a man’s destruction when I can’t give you the reason why.”
Jack looked into the face of his best friend, a face he’d known since they were both four years old. “I don’t need the reason. Your word is always good enough for me.”
“Feigning friendship, gaining his trust, all the while knowing you’re helping to destroy him . . . it’ll be hell.”
“Hell doesn’t worry me, Stuart. Why should it?” He raised his glass and grinned. “Hell never worries the devil.”