“A female who holds you off at gunpoint mightn’t be an easy conquest.”
Richard shrugged. “I know enough to get round an innocent country miss. She’ll be eating out of my hand in no time.”
“If tonight’s any indication, she’s more likely to bite your fingers off. You’re sounding like such a coxcomb, I’d almost like to see that.”
Richard’s laugh held an acid note. “I can act the charmer when I have to. Good God, I learned that lesson long ago. My amiable ignorance in response to insult saved me a parcel of beatings from our dear schoolfellows.”
He shuddered, recollecting the tortures their friend Jonas Merrick, also illegitimate, had undergone at Eton because he was too stiff-necked to play the game. Well, Jonas had had the last laugh last year when he’d been named Viscount Hillbrook. Richard intended to have the last laugh too, even if only to irritate the high sticklers by flashing the legendary Harmsworth jewel under their supercilious noses.
Cam looked unimpressed. “Nothing will change the circumstances of your birth.”
“Perhaps not,” he said with a bitterness that he’d reveal to nobody else. “But surely you of all men understand the need for defiance.”
The murky details of Cam’s conception had been subject to even more spiteful gossip than Richard’s. Cam’s mother, the duchess, had divided her favors between her husband and his younger brother. Nobody, including reportedly the duchess, knew which Rothermere had fathered her son. Scandal of that magnitude at the highest levels never lacked repeating.
All their lives, Richard and Cam had paid for their parents’ sins. At Eton with Jonas, they’d forged a bond based in shared adversity. Until recently, Jonas had gone his own way, but Cam and Richard’s friendship had never faltered, despite Cam being a pattern card of decorum and Richard’s flair for outraging the prudish. In a rare contemplative moment, Richard had concluded that Cam strove to live down his notorious parentage by proving himself worthy of his title.
Still, through his harum-scarum existence, Richard had reason to be grateful for this steadfast friendship. Take the case in point. Loyalty brought Cam, even if vociferously objecting, to this small Oxfordshire estate.
“Any victory will be purely symbolic,” Cam said.
“Symbols can be powerful.” He summoned a smile as he returned to his chair. “Come, Cam. Let me have one last adventure before life becomes odiously flat. This next season, I intend to become a respectable married man. High time I set up my nursery with a virgin whose unimpeachable pedigree will restore some prestige to the sadly tainted Harmsworth name.”
Cam didn’t look any happier. “Marrying a woman you love can be an adventure.”
“Love, my dear fellow?” Richard’s laugh rang with cynicism. “I plan a fashionable marriage. No mawkish attachment. All I require of a wife is an unquestionably legitimate heir.”
“You’re selling yourself short. If any man deserves a happy family life, it’s you.”
Richard shifted uncomfortably. That was the confounded problem with old chums; they saw beyond civilized boundaries to places in a man’s soul that he never wanted to visit. “Dash it, Cam, I never thought to hear you turning sentimental.”
Cam’s expression remained grave. “I can’t help envying what Jonas and Sidonie have. He’s a better man for knowing her. It makes me think love is worth seeking, whatever the risks.”
Richard wasn’t fool enough to dismiss the genuine love Jonas shared with his wife, nor the joy he’d found as father to his daughter. “Jonas is a lucky devil. But Sidonie’s one in a million. I wouldn’t wager sixpence on the chances of finding a woman to equal her.”
But as Richard lounged in Cam’s luxurious library, so different from the dilapidated room he’d invaded earlier, he couldn’t help thinking of another woman. Prickly, clever, and surprisingly appealing Genevieve Barrett with her sharp tongue, snapping gray eyes, and voluptuous body. After tonight’s escapade, he found himself anticipating the coming days with an eagerness that would have astounded him this afternoon. Luring the vicar’s daughter into surrendering the Harmsworth Jewel promised entertainment beyond compare.
Chapter Three
First Genevieve noticed the dog.
She sat by the window staring vaguely outside, her embroidery ignored on her lap. The vicarage’s parlor overlooked a back lane running off the Oxford road. Across the room, her widowed aunt strove to entertain Lord Neville Fairbrother, who had called to see her father. This afternoon the vicar was with a parishioner and Lord Neville, to Genevieve’s regret, had decided to wait instead of returning to his nearby manor Youngton Hall. His lordship funded her papa’s scholarly endeavors, but she couldn’t like the man. Something about his deep-set eyes made her skin crawl and his oppressive presence sucked the air from a room.
&
nbsp; When a large mongrel trotted along the lane, she straightened with surprise. In Little Derrick, stray dogs received scant welcome. The brindle hound sat on his haunches and checked back toward the corner. Within moments, a high-perch phaeton of an elegance rarely seen in these parts bowled into view.
Curiosity glued Genevieve to the window. The driver wore a beautifully cut coat and a beaver hat tipped at what even she recognized as a rakish angle. With the merest touch of his fingers, he controlled the pair of showy chestnut horses drawing the yellow and black carriage.
What brought such a swell to deepest Oxfordshire? He must be lost. The narrow lane led only to the vicarage’s stables. No man of style would find their humble abode of interest. Actually she couldn’t imagine why a man of style associated with such a déclassé mutt. The gypsies camped by the river would disdain such a dog, yet it was clear from the animal’s cheerful bark that he belonged to the driver.
The carriage and its spectacular horses, trailed by the less spectacular hound, disappeared around the wall surrounding the back garden. The man would discover his mistake soon enough and turn around, she supposed.
Genevieve waited for the man and his dog to reappear. A small drama to punctuate a dull afternoon. An afternoon that would have been considerably less dull if Lord Neville hadn’t hindered her scholarly pursuits. She had plans in train to change her life and his lordship’s presence interfered with their progress.
When the carriage didn’t immediately return, she lifted her needle with a sigh. She had little talent for embroidery, but it gave her an excuse to avoid talking to their visitor.
Dorcas, their maid, opened the door, clutching a small cardboard rectangle in her hand. Aunt Lucy had struggled to inculcate the habit of placing calling cards on a salver, but Dorcas couldn’t see the necessity. So far, Dorcas was winning that particular war. “Begging your pardon, missus, but the vicar has a visitor.”