Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London (11 page)

“I won’t see you ruined and shamed, Linnet. If you won’t have Featherstone, I’ll find someone else for you to marry, even if I have to use my entire fortune to buy him.”

His voice was the benevolent one so dear and familiar, but she could not help hearing the hardness beneath. Had it always been there, and she’d just never allowed herself to notice?

Linnet didn’t reply, for she knew she’d defied her parents enough for one evening. She continued up the elegant marble staircase without a word, and once she was in her room, once Foster had helped her undress and she was alone, her earlier anger and defiance gave way to deeper emotions and darker contemplations.

Frederick was an embezzler. She’d scoffed at the notion, and yet, with Featherstone’s accusations hanging in the air, she’d looked into Frederick’s eyes, and the scales had fallen from her own. His sudden outpouring of affection, his loyalty in the face of her disgrace, his indifference to her fortune—all lies. She’d known it at once, in that one look, and she wondered how she’d been so blind to his true character.

Suddenly, nothing about her life seemed real. It was as if she was lost in a nightmare. Linnet sank down before her dressing table and stared at the pale, unhappy face in the mirror before her. Even her own face seemed like that of a stranger.

Was this the girl who’d donned her prettiest ball gown a few hours ago with such anticipation? Who’d felt so glad to be home and so ready to decide her own future? That girl hadn’t known that soon her world would be torn apart and her reputation besmirched because of one indecent kiss.

The memory of it flamed up again with sudden force: his arm a strong, imprisoning band around her waist, and his mouth, bold and hot, taking possession of hers. Her heart pounding in her chest like a mad thing, her body burning with a strange, tingling fire—borne of shame, she had no doubt, and fury, and utter mortification.

She leaned close to the mirror, touched her lips, and grimaced. They were puffy and swollen, and they still seemed to burn.

Having been kissed only once before, she had little experience on which to draw, but Conrath’s kiss had been nothing like what Featherstone had done tonight.

Conrath’s kiss had been sweet, tender, a proper press of lips upon her acceptance of his proposal. In his eyes, there had been the promise of more, but more had never come. Within days, discussions of the marriage settlement had begun, and Daddy had discovered just how many of Conrath’s debts he’d have to pay and the enormous income he’d have to provide. He had stalled while detectives investigated, and when it was discovered she wasn’t the first heiress to whom Conrath had paid his addresses, Daddy had balked, and Conrath had found himself another heiress, making it clear his heart had never been hers.

In London, she’d had a slew of suitors, but none of them had kissed her, for it was most improper for a man to kiss a woman to whom he was not affianced. It was clear that Featherstone, however, cared nothing for propriety. With one kiss, insulting in its domination, outrageous in its presumption, he had taken all choices for her future away from her.

Her image blurred before her eyes, and Linnet stood up with a sound of impatience, blinking hard, refusing to cry. She would not give in to either anger or self-pity. She was made of sterner stuff than that. She was a Holland.

With that reminder, she began to pace, nibbling on one thumbnail in a manner much like her father, working, as she’d seen him work so many times, to find a solution that did not involve marrying Featherstone. He might have been right about Frederick, but that didn’t excuse his conduct, and it didn’t reconcile her to the idea of spending her life with him.

But what other choice was there? Marry no one and watch her reputation be destroyed? Linnet pressed a palm to her forehead with a sound of despair. She didn’t know if she could bear that, not here, not among all her friends and family.

All very well to adopt a defiant stand tonight, but what about a week from now, when tongues were wagging and mud was being slung at her? Could she hold her head up when she heard titters behind her back at church, or when she walked into a luncheon and the table fell silent? Or when invitations were no longer issued and doors were slammed in her face all over New England?

No, she had to marry someone, but who? Men of a social status equal to hers would never consider her now. And shamed as she was, she’d have no social influence, so a New Money man wouldn’t have her either. Her father could buy her a husband—some middle-class lawyer or clerk, but she knew how that would pan out. Laying aside the fact that she would still be an object of scorn and pity to all who knew her, with no social sway, her husband would be beholden to her father. Daddy would choose someone who suited his ambitions, someone he’d groom to take over the Holland empire and be the son he’d never had, while she’d be petted, indulged, and set aside.

You would become me.

Linnet stopped pacing as her mother’s words from the ball came back to her. Suddenly, she saw those words in a whole new light.

You would have the life I have, where you run the house, and that is all. Where your husband shuts you out of anything important or meaningful and society approves it.

She might have escaped that fate if she’d found a man here who loved her. But the possibility of that, of the life she’d yearned for and dreamed about during her many months away was lost to her now. But maybe she could make a different life.

There could be such an exciting world out there for you if you married a peer. An English estate is a far more challenging thing to run than a New York brownstone. An English peeress has so much more freedom and more power than I will ever have.

Linnet stared at the landscape of Easton Bay that hung on her bedroom wall, seeing past it to something else, to a glittering, cosmopolitan world.

How strange that a single event could wreck a girl’s life, and yet at the same time, it could open up a whole new one for consideration. For the first time, she saw and understood what her mother had been trying to tell her, and with that vision and understanding came a faint but unmistakable stirring of hope.

She’d have to leave behind many things she loved. No more clambakes in Newport and picnics in Central Park and living in a cozy brownstone with a man she’d known all her life. But at least she wouldn’t have to marry a man who’d forced himself into her path. And she didn’t have to sit back while her father married her off to someone who’d be forever under his thumb.

She’d have to act quickly. A few weeks might be all the time she had to find someone. Because of that, she’d need help, a very particular kind of help. It was all very risky, too, for if it didn’t happen and happen fast, she’d be ruined. On the other hand, she’d be in control of her own future, and after being bandied about by the machinations of others, that was worth any amount of risk.

Linnet squared her shoulders and looked at her reflection again, and this time, she was relieved to discover that she recognized the girl in the mirror.

Chapter 7

When Jack had followed Miss Holland to the pagoda, there hadn’t been time to tell Denys and James his plans. Not that he’d ever had a plan, really, other than to stop Van Hausen. His friends learned what he’d done the same way everyone else had, by the gossip Mrs. Dewey spread through the ballroom.

Their reaction proved a combination of emotions: shock, though they admitted that by now they shouldn’t be shocked by anything Jack did, amazement she’d turned him down, a response Jack found quite gratifying under the circumstances, and amusement at his admission that she would have preferred to wed a toad.

Jack, determined to change her mind, let his friends have their laugh as his expense. When he learned she had left Newport with her parents and gone to New York, he decided to do the same. He appreciated giving her a bit of time and distance was a wise idea, and he had no intention of calling on her, or otherwise trying to force the issue, but he wanted to be on the spot in case Van Hausen tried anything.

Leaving James and Denys in Newport to discuss the situation with the Knickerbocker investors there and to keep watch over Van Hausen, Jack went to New York to meet with Nicholas and prepare for Tuesday’s meeting.

All of them were sure Van Hausen would make a strong, last-ditch effort to avoid scandal and stay out of prison, but his method of escape, when it came, was one that none of them had anticipated.

“Dead?” Jack stared at Denys through the doorway of his suite at the Park Avenue Hotel, numb and disbelieving. “Van Hausen’s dead?”

He glanced past Denys’s shoulder to James, who stood behind the other man in the corridor, but even at James’s confirming nod, Jack still wasn’t quite able to take it in. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.” Denys gestured to the half-opened door. “Shall you let us in? Or shall we discuss it in the corridor?”

“Sorry.” Jack shook his head to clear his dazed senses and opened the door wide. “But this sort of news rather gives one a shock.”

“I daresay,” James said as he followed Denys into the suite. “Imagine how we feel after being questioned for two hours by the Newport police.”

“Police?” Nicholas, in Jack’s suite to assist with last-minute preparations for the shareholders meeting on the morrow, rose from his chair. “Was foul play involved?”

“No.” Denys tossed his hat onto one end of the sofa opposite Nick and sat down at the other end. “It was suicide right enough.”

James brushed Denys’s hat aside, tossed his own on top of it, and sank down beside the other man on the sofa, then looked at Jack. “He put a gun in his mouth late this afternoon.”

Jack’s mind formed the picture, and though he savored that justice had been done, he couldn’t help feeling there was something wrong about it, and he didn’t understand that at all. That despicable violator of women was dead. What more did he want?

Arrest, trial, prison—those things would have caused Van Hausen to experience humiliation, disgrace, and vast personal pain—a bit, at least, of what he’d visited on his victims. Now, with a simple shot to the head, he had escaped all justice of mortal men, and though Jack believed in God, he found the idea of handing justice over to God profoundly unsatisfying. “Damn you, Van Hausen, for taking the easy way out,” he muttered to himself, feeling a wave of resentment. “You coward.”

“Jack?” Nicholas’s voice intruded. “Did you say something?”

“No.” Jack took deep breath and forced himself out of this strange reverie. Van Hausen’s death, quick as it had been, was satisfaction enough. “Does anyone want a drink?”

“Yes,” the other three said in unison.

Having given his valet, Maguire, the evening off, Jack poured four glasses of bourbon and brought them to the men gathered at the other end of the sitting room. His own drink in hand, he took the chair beside Nick and faced the two men on the sofa. “Why did the police question you two?”

It was Denys who answered. “They were curious to know how East Africa Mines was involved with his money troubles.”

“The inquest is Thursday,” James added, “but it’s just a formality. One of us will have to attend and offer testimony regarding East Africa Mines.”

“I’ll do it,” Nicholas offered. “The three of you have done yeoman’s duty on this already, especially Jack. I’ll stay, and the rest of you can go home.”

Home? Jack looked up, nonplussed. Home for him was a cheap flat on Paris’s left bank, living hard and fast among the bohemians. And he’d had a smashing good time doing that in the old days, when Nick had shared the flat with him, and Denys and James had often come to visit. Even Stuart had managed to make the long journey from Africa once a year for a few weeks of carousing. But Stuart and Edie had reconciled, Nick was married and running a brewery with Denys, and James was starting to talk about finding a wife. Paris wasn’t what it used to be.

He took a swallow of bourbon and glanced at the two men opposite. “Did you send word to Stuart?”

Both Denys and James shook their heads, but it was James who spoke. “We thought, since you’ve been his first lieutenant on this mission, you ought to be the one to do it.”

Jack nodded. “I’ll write him tomorrow.” He paused, glancing at his companions. “Any regrets, gentlemen?”

“None,” Nicholas said at once, a reply that was followed by equally definitive answers from the other two.

“It’s over then.” With those words, Jack felt strangely bereft. For a year, he’d had just one purpose, and now he had none. The realization brought a hint of panic.

He’d always been a carefree sort, ready for any amount of adventure but not one to be pinned down. He’d never spent much time planning his future or brooding about his past. No, he’d always lived very much in the present. So why did Van Hausen’s death bring this feeling of emptiness? Why did the idea of returning to Paris and his former life leave him utterly cold?

Because, he realized in astonishment, he’d changed. Whether because of this mission, or just the passage of time, he wasn’t the same fun-loving chap he used to be, and he had no desire to go back to his Paris days. But what else was there? With Van Hausen dead, he felt as if he’d been cut adrift, and the future that loomed ahead seemed without purpose.

But that, he reminded himself, wasn’t quite true. He had a new task ahead of him: not the ruin of a man, but the redemption of a woman’s honor. And with that woman, he’d be building a new life.

“You don’t have to attend the inquest, Nick,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“But you’ve done so much already,” his friend objected.

“I can’t return to England yet anyway. There’s Miss Holland to consider.”

Nicholas gave him a blank look. “Who is Miss Holland?”

Denys answered before Jack had a chance. “Jack’s fiancée. That is,” he added, overriding Nick’s sound of astonishment and giving Jack a questioning glance, “if he still means to go through with it?”

“I do.” Jack took a swallow of bourbon. “Does she know Van Hausen’s dead?”

Denys and James both shrugged, but it was Denys who spoke. “The news wasn’t in the evening papers. Too late in the day, I expect. When the police finished questioning us, we caught the last train and came straight here. Someone might have telephoned her, I suppose, but it wasn’t one of us.”

“Wait,” Nicholas interjected, holding up his hand. “Jack is engaged? Our Jack?” He glanced around. “This has to be a joke.”

“If so, the joke’s on Jack,” Denys told him. “Miss Holland isn’t his fiancée, not yet. But she is a beautiful woman of excellent taste who refused his proposal and called him a toad.”

At Nick’s chortle of laughter, Jack felt impelled to set the matter straight. “That’s not what she said. What she said was that she’d rather marry a toad.”

James grinned. “Either way, her emphatic refusal and her opinion of you will make winning her over quite a challenge.”

“There’s nothing I like better,” he replied, displaying an air of bravado he didn’t feel in the least. After all, a man had to put up a good show in front of his friends. “Besides,” he added with dignity, “in the fable, the toad was a handsome prince all along. He just had to make the girl see it.”

Of course, in the Grimm story, the toad’s magical transformation had taken place after he’d slept in the girl’s bed, an occurrence that in Jack’s case seemed an even dimmer prospect than it had for the frog. Thankfully, his friends did not point that out.

T
HOUGH
J
ACK HAD
compared his courtship of Miss Holland to a fairy tale, he was reminded on the following day that courtship in real life wasn’t quite so simple.

“She’s left town?” He stared at Ephraim Holland across the other man’s study in astonishment. He’d steeled himself for her grief, her condemnation, or the possibility that she’d refuse to see him, but the idea that she’d flee had never entered his mind. Granted, he knew little about the girl he intended to wed, but he did know she was no coward. “But she only just arrived.”

“I’m not sure how her departure concerns you, Lord Featherstone.” Holland resumed his seat behind a massive mahogany desk and beckoned Jack forward to take one of the leather chairs opposite him. “If you’ve come to impart the news of Van Hausen’s death, we’ve already been told. Suicide, I understand?” At Jack’s nod, he added, “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Jack studied the other man’s face, noting the shrewd eyes and cynical mouth, and he suspected there wasn’t much that surprised Ephraim Holland. “I felt I ought to be the one to tell your family of his death. I didn’t realize you already knew.”

“We were at breakfast this morning when Prescott Dewey telephoned to give us the news.”

“I hope . . .” He paused and took a deep breath. “I hope your daughter was not too overcome by grief?”

“She was shocked, of course. But grieved? No, I wouldn’t say so. Given the circumstances, she could hardly be expected to grieve.”

“It would not be reasonable,” Jack agreed. “But women’s hearts are seldom reasonable. Might I ask where she has gone?”

“She and her mother departed for England this morning.”

“England?” Jack jerked upright in his chair, dismayed. “With her reputation in jeopardy and no engagement between us announced? What is she thinking?”

“May I remind you there is no engagement? She refused you.”

“You are mistaken if you think one refusal would deter me.”

Holland tilted his head, giving Jack an assessing look. “Most men would not be so punctilious. At this point, they would deem honor satisfied. They’d shrug off any further sense of responsibility and go on their way.”

“I don’t know what another man would do, but I believe if I break something, it’s my responsibility to repair it.”

Something flickered in Holland’s eyes. It might have been a hint of respect. He straightened in his chair. “Let’s lay our cards on the table. I don’t like you, Featherstone.”

“Quite so. There’s no reason why you should.”

“My wife, however, has a better opinion of you than I. But then, she would. She has a soft spot for men with titles.”

Jack managed a smile. “I wish your wife had demonstrated her good opinion by telling me what was in the wind before she took Miss Holland to England.”

“In defense of my wife, I believe she did write to you before they departed for the pier. I imagine the letter will be at your hotel by morning. Either way, in light of Linnet’s refusal, her mother has rather given up on you.”

“I see. You do realize the longer an announcement of our engagement is delayed, the greater the scandal will become.”

“Yes. Mind you, marriage to a British peer is not what I’d choose for my daughter. I have never desired to support a useless institution like the British aristocracy with my hard-earned dollars. I would prefer my daughter marry an American.”

“Yes, a certain Davis MacKay, I believe?”

“Davis, at least, is a young man who believes in hard work and self-determination, not the entitlement you British lords espouse. I’ve been asking about you, Featherstone, and it seems your family in particular has seen itself as quite entitled, at least when it comes to American money.”

Jack wondered with a hint of despair if the profligacy and debauchery of other members of his family were going to haunt his entire life. “True. My brother married an American heiress, and spent her fortune into oblivion before he died. But Charles always was a rotter, even when we were boys. And our father was no better. He also married for money. And his father. Most of my ancestors have been inveterate gamblers, notorious skirt-chasers, and fortune-hunting cads. In examining my family tree, I fear we should have to go all the way back to the third earl before we could find a man of honor and integrity.” He paused, meeting the other man’s eyes across the desk. “Until now.”

“That’s an easy thing to say, but given your actions, not particularly creditable.”

“I realize that, but it’s no less true. As for feeling a sense of entitlement, I don’t. I’m a second son, you see, and I was raised to understand that I wasn’t entitled to a damn thing. The fact that I became the earl was an accident of fate. It was also a responsibility I had no ability to assume.”