Kitabı oku: «His Californian Countess»

The wind freshened and the sun reflected off the rippling water like dancing diamonds.

“This is all such … such an adventure.” Amber’s smile was even broader now, showing more of her even white teeth. Her eyes had gone wide with wonder, too.

Jamie looked away from her, feeling things he shouldn’t for an unescorted female. His gaze fell on the water, and through her battery of questions he experienced again the excitement of his first journey.

“So, does your adventure end with the voyage?” he asked. He looked back at her. The attraction he felt for this woman showed him how little he’d known of true desire before.

“End of the adventure?” his lovely rail-partner asked, calling him back from his mental wanderings. That endearing frown reappeared. It made her eyebrows arch downwards in the middle. “I hope the adventure continues for a long time.”

About the Author

As a child, KATE WELSH often lost herself in creating make-believe worlds and happily-ever-after tales. Many years later she turned back to creating happy endings when her husband challenged her to write down the stories in her head. A lover of all things romantic, Kate has been writing romance for over twenty years now. Her first published novels hit the stands in 1998.

Kate was Valley Forge Romance Writers’ first president, and is currently their vice-president. She lives her own happily-ever-after in the Philadelphia suburbs, with her husband of over thirty years, her daughter, their one-hundred-pound Chesapeake Bay Retriever Ecko, and Kali, the family cat.

Kate loves hearing from readers, who can reach her on the internet at kate_welsh@verizon.net

A previous novel by this author:

QUESTIONS OF HONOUR

His Californian Countess
Kate Welsh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

1876—New York, New York

Jamie took a sip of tea and winced at how scratchy his throat felt. Leaning back, he looked around the sitting room of the town house he’d bought and decorated with the best in French furnishings. It was what he’d needed it to be—a fitting setting for the Earl of Adair, a wealthy British lord. When he’d first arrived in New York City he’d needed the businessmen of New York to trust his finances and ignore the rumors his uncle had spread that he was penniless.

They had.

And Jamie had done what he’d come to America to do. He’d invested his late wife’s inheritance in the growing country, filling the Adair family’s coffers to overflowing. His title—Earl of Adair—had opened the doors to success, but he’d unexpectedly found the United States offered more. It offered freedom, something he’d craved his whole life. He much preferred the name he’d lost when he became earl, Jamie Reynolds.

Lord, he was exhausted. He dropped his head back and stared up at one of the crystal chandeliers gracing the ornate ceiling. His eyes wouldn’t focus and the effect blurred the beauty of the teardrop pendants.

He blinked. He hadn’t caught scarlet fever from his daughter Meara. Of course, he hadn’t. The doctor said it was nearly impossible for an adult to contract it. He was only tired. He wouldn’t be ill. He didn’t have time. Now that Meara was on the mend he had to redirect his attention to finding Helena.

Jamie glanced at the breakfast Mimm had laid out as he reached for the newspaper on the silver tray next to him. He couldn’t bring himself to eat, but to sit with his tea and actually read a newspaper felt wonderful—such a normal activity after days of dealing with one crisis after another with Meara.

Then his relief over his daughter’s recovery bloomed into a new worry in an instant. He sat dumbfounded and stared in horror at the masthead. “May sixteenth?” he gasped as he crumpled the edges of the newspaper in his fists. “This can’t be right. How could it be six days since she fell ill?”

But of course, the New York Times didn’t misprint its date. Last he remembered it was ten days into May. He’d still had nearly a week—one last-ditch effort to find Helena before the Young America sailed.

She’d eluded him for months since his search began back in Pennsylvania when the mine owner there told him Helena had run off to New York to catch a clipper to California. He’d hoped to find her before she boarded the ship. But he’d failed. Thank God he’d booked passage just in case he didn’t locate her before the sailing. Today’s sailing. At this point, he’d be lucky to make the ship himself.

So what was he doing just sitting there? He’d not a moment to spare. Jamie jumped to his feet and shouted, “Mimm! I have to leave.”

His rotund housekeeper rushed in. “What on earth is wrong, lamb?”

“Her ship sails in a little more than two hours. I must get to the Young America. Find her. Stop her.”

Mimm arched one of her eyebrows, giving him one of her shrewd looks. “Yer lady love, my lord? ‘Pears to me she’s not sharin’ yer feelings.”

“Helena was never my ‘lady love’ as you keep calling her. You know how I feel about that. I promised her father I’d see to it she was safe. I only offered for her to keep her off her damned guardian’s auction block. Now because I failed to explain why I was offering marriage she’s traveling as an unprotected miss. Her feelings for me are immaterial to my search.” Too agitated to stand still, Jamie paced across the fine Oriental rug, closing the distance between them. He’d given his word to a dying man. A man he very much feared had died in his place.

“You need sleep, not to go hying off after someone who don’t want nothin’ to do with you,” Mimm said. “Besides which, Meara’s out of danger, but not able to face such a journey. And frankly neither am I.”

“And I am not proposing either of you come along. I’ll meet you in California,” he said, then rushed off to see his trunk was packed.

Miriam Trimble had never learned there were things best left unsaid. But she’d been more than a mother to him. He owed Mimm for his very life so he guessed that gave her the right to say whatever she wished.

She eyed him when he met her in the hall outside Meara’s room several minutes later. “I still say this isn’t a good idea. You’re lookin’ a bit peaked to me, me lamb.”

He took her shoulders in his hands. “I’m sorry I snapped before, Mimm. I’m okay, as Americans say. It’s a childhood disease Meara had. You heard the doctor. All I could get is a lesser form. Besides, I don’t have time to be sick and that’s all there is to it.”

“Sickness isn’t all that cooperative, darlin’. I’m worried for you.”

He nodded and shrugged on his coat. “You needn’t be. I’ll be fine. Is Meara sleeping?”

“Aye.”

Meara needed sleep more than a farewell hug from her da. “I hate leaving her after being gone nearly all winter, especially without saying goodbye. Give her my love and tell her she’ll have a great adventure seeing this vast country from the rail car when you all travel to join me in San Francisco. I think perhaps the doctor is right about the air at Cape May. I asked Palmer to see that the house there is opened when he was here … was it yesterday?”

Mimm sighed. “Last evening after the little one’s fever broke.”

Jamie raked a hand through his hair. He really was exhausted. “I’ll make sure there’s a pony waiting in New Jersey for her birthday. That ought to help get her strength back and make up for my missing her special day. Tell her I’ll see her by mid-September.”

“We’ll miss you, lamb. Take care,” Mimm ordered. When he looked back down the hall, she had tears in her eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” he promised, then turned away and hurried from the town house. He couldn’t let the clipper sail without him. He stopped on his way to the docks to see his man of business. There, he and Palmer put in place the plans for Meara and her entourage, as well as the purchase of the pony. Then he hastened down Dover Street to Pier 28 where the Young America, black hull gleaming in the late morning light, stood ready for departure.

He arrived just as several longshoremen prepared to hoist the gangplank off the clipper’s gunwale, making him the last to board. Mindful of his driver carting his trunk behind him, Jamie strode up the gangplank, his knees growing weaker by the minute. He knew he didn’t present the aristocratic image his uncle would expect, but he’d finally gotten to a place where that didn’t matter. America had not only allowed him to amass a sizeable fortune and given him a buoyant sense of freedom; it had helped him put most of the ghosts of his past to rest.

Except for the reason he needed to watch over Helena. Because if he was right that Harry Conwell had given his life for him, Jamie’s past was still a threat to his present and future.

Many of the passengers were on deck, but Jamie didn’t see Helena. He found the steward and asked if she’d boarded. The man returned to him rather quickly with the news that she had and so Jamie began his search again.

Then he saw her. Sunlight gleaming in her blond hair, she stood at the rail, looking down at the murky water. He walked over and tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled to face him. Though there was a strong resemblance, this young woman wasn’t Helena. She had the same heart shape to her face and the same perfectly turned-up nose, but rather than blue, she had the biggest, darkest brown eyes he’d ever seen. A poet would say a man could fall into their depths and not care if he were ever seen again.

He felt a primeval punch to his gut. He’d never felt this before. It was attraction that went past that to desire, but was untainted by lust. He was quite unprepared.

She tilted her head and frowned a bit. “May I help you, sir?”

It was only then he realized he’d been staring. He blinked and the deck shifted under his feet. “Sorry. At first I thought you were someone else. But you aren’t her a’tal.” He nearly cringed at the sound of the Irish lilt in his voice before he remembered. He was free. He could talk as he wished. His uncle had drilled repressing that accent into him all his life, but he was his own man now. Jamie Reynolds answered to no one.

“Should I be sorry I’m not her?” the young woman asked.

“Definitely not.” He didn’t know what surprised him most, her sweet, warm smile, her answer, or his. Nor did he know why she’d unnerved him so completely. “Is this your first trip at sea?” he asked, needing, for some reason, to keep the conversation going. He knew he should probably continue his search for Helena, but now that the ship was under way, all urgency deserted him. He pushed thoughts of Helena away, suddenly wanting to know more about this lovely, innocent-eyed woman.

“I was born in California, but my family died of fever. I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle but I traveled overland. I remember little of the journey and only a bit more of the state. This is my first trip anywhere since except to Poughkeepsie, New York. I went to a college there.”

He raised his eyebrows. “College?”

She nodded. “Vassar.”

“Beautiful and intelligent. Not qualities I’ve seen in combination all that often.”

Her little pointed chin notched up a bit. “Are you saying it is mostly homely girls who have good minds?”

She had backbone. He liked that. “I was speaking of London and the young women of its marriage-mart Season. Beauty and pretty manners are prized. Intelligence isn’t.” He hoped she hadn’t noticed the bitterness in his tone.

She blushed prettily and he relaxed. “That was a compliment, then?” she asked, her head tilted a bit.

“Of course. Colleges for women are rare, aren’t they? England has Girton College, but they don’t offer a degree.”

“Vassar does and there will be more colleges that do, I assure you. You find London’s women distasteful for some reason.”

And she was perceptive. “Many of them are only interested in learning how to trap a man into marriage, then to run his house and his life afterward. They aren’t beating down Girton’s doors, I assure you.”

She smiled. “And you had to come all the way to America to escape them?”

“I had other purposes in coming here. It’s a happy coincidence that they’re there and I’m not.”

She seemed to ponder his answer with an adorable little frown wrinkling her smooth forehead. “It wasn’t very smart of them to let you escape.”

He laughed. “So if they’d been smarter, I wouldn’t be here? Intelligent women can be dangerous then. I must remember that.”

It was her turn to laugh. And it was such a low and sensual sound it reminded him he’d been too long without a woman’s warm body beneath his.

She flashed a look at him from head to toe, then gave him a teasing grin when her eyes met his. “You look quite capable of defending yourself against danger of any sort,” she said. Then she did the strangest thing. She looked out over the water and her expression changed from temptress to pixie in an instant. “Oh, look! We’re moving. It’s so beautiful,” she cried, so animated she fairly vibrated with glee.

“We’ve been moving since we began talking.”

“I hadn’t thought there’d be so much water! Which is rather silly of me, isn’t it? It’s only that this is all such … such an adventure.” Her smile was even broader now, showing more of her even white teeth. Her eyes had gone wide with wonder, too. Innocent eyes.

He looked away from her, feeling things he shouldn’t for an unescorted female. An innocent one at that. His gaze fell on the water and through her battery of questions, he experienced again the excitement of his first voyage.

Growing a bit tired, but not wanting this interlude to end, he leaned on the rail and pointed out Brooklyn with its verdant-green rolling landscape, Manhattan and the few landmarks within it that he’d learned to spot on earlier trips.

The wind freshened and the sun reflected off the rippling water like dancing diamonds. The ship vibrated and the deck shifted under his feet. Crewmen seemed to fly up the ratlines. A whooshing sound from the bow cutting through the water filled the air, disturbed only by a drone of conversation from the passengers still on deck or the occasional shout of a crewman going about his business.

“So, does your adventure end with the voyage?” he asked now that they entered the harbor. He looked back at her. It was a lowering thing to admit, but the attraction he felt for this woman showed him how little he’d known of true desire before. He certainly hadn’t felt anything like this for Helena for whom he’d embarked on this voyage. For her he felt only duty and obligation. Perhaps he should be looking for her now, but he had the whole voyage to relay her father’s worry for her safety and to offer whatever assistance she needed.

“End of the adventure?” his lovely rail-partner asked, calling him back from his mental wonderings. That endearing frown reappeared. It made her eyebrows arch downward in the middle.

I must get her name.

“I hope the adventure continues for a long time.”

“Where did it begin, if I may ask?”

“Begin? I grew up in the mountains in Pennsylvania. I’d been to Poughkeepsie, New York, for college, but that city is small, especially compared to New York City. I’d been through there on the way to the school, but I never left the rail station. The cities have been very exciting.”

“Cities, not city?”

She laid her hand over his on the rail and smiled at clearly happy memories. “I stopped off in Philadelphia. For the Centennial Exposition and—oops.” She lifted her hand from his and covered her mouth with it. His gaze flew to her eyes and found them widened. He didn’t know what could have alarmed her when all he felt was the loss of her innocent touch. “I shouldn’t have mentioned our Centennial, should I?”

He smiled. “I took my daughter to see it. I assure you most people in Britain have got over the revolt. It has been a hundred years, after all. Though there are those who still insist on referring to America as the colonies.” His smile widened. “I suppose it follows that a country bold enough to revolt against an ancient power would spawn colleges for women and female adventurers,” he teased.

“Adventurer?” She took a deep breath, which made her breasts swell inside the pretty blouse she wore. “My, but I like the sound of that! I’m an adventurer!”

He dragged his gaze off the sight of her lovely bust line, but it fell on her mouth. Then what she’d said sank into his muddled mind. Jamie laughed as the ship fell out a bit from under them, and by some fortuitous hand of fate, she fell right into him. Glad he was anchored against the rail, he caught her in his arms and enjoyed the feel of her petite form from the instant their bodies came into contact. Then he steeled himself and regretfully helped her get on her own feet.

Flushed, she ducked her head and apologized for her clumsiness. “Not to worry,” he told her, while keeping his enjoyment to himself. “You’ll get your sea legs under you quick enough.”

She hugged herself and shivered. “Well, unless I want to take a chill, I must get to my cabin and unpack. I may come up again after finding my shawl. It’s been nice talking with you. I suppose I’ll run into you again. Large as the Young America is, it is small in the general scheme of life. Thank you for helping occupy my mind. I was a bit nervous about leaving the docks.”

“I didn’t get your name,” he said as she turned to walk away.

She pivoted and shot him that enchanting frown for a split second before her lovely smile blossomed. “No, you didn’t,” she replied, then hurried away.

His bark of laugher turned several heads, but he didn’t care if they thought him odd or gauche. She was really quite refreshing and he was sorry to see her go. But she was correct. During more or less the next one-hundred-and-thirty days if the ship had fair winds, they would see each other constantly. He couldn’t help but be glad of it. He’d get her name when next they met.

Jamie turned back toward the river and leaned his forearms against the gleaming gunwales. After several minutes, his eyes began to burn and the reflected sunlight became annoying rather than appealing. Perhaps his pixie had taken the magic of the sailing with her and perhaps she’d had a good idea about settling in.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what cabin he’d secured for himself. He started off and realized his legs were less steady than they’d been all day. He made a grab for the rail. The movement of the ship made walking difficult so he stayed put for a few minutes longer. Finally, a boy dressed in what appeared to be a uniform, passed near him. “My name is Reynolds,” Jamie said, his voice sounded rough and strained. “I wonder if you could direct me to my cabin and help me locate another passenger, Miss Helena Conwell.”

The crewmember, a boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, stared in obvious surprise for a moment, then his confusion seemed to clear. “Ah. Lord Reynolds, is it? We’d begun to despair, thinking you’d missed the ship.” The lad had it wrong—he was Lord Adair, not Lord Reynolds—but British titles were confusing and mostly unimportant to Americans. That was why he dropped its use whenever possible. But arranging for a specific cabin near a woman who was not in his party had needed a certain amount of diplomacy and prestige, as well as extra funds.

“Sir, are you quite all right?” the crewman asked.

Jamie straightened and shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the swirling thoughts muddling his brain. His mind bounced next to Mimm and all her fussing that he might be ill. It was ridiculous that he could have gotten what his daughter had. Meara’s doctor had all but promised it was only a disease of childhood. But even if Jamie was sick in some more minor way, he still couldn’t let on. They’d surely put him off the ship. Helena was on the Young America and he had to make sure she was safe and that she understood all that had happened.

“I’m perfectly fine,” he answered finally, then stiffened his back and notched his chin up.

The crewman nodded, but looked a bit dubious. “Your cabin is actually across the saloon from Miss Conwell’s. Close as possible, as you requested. This way, sir.”

Jamie’s exhaustion increased as he moved below, following the crewman through the saloon in the raised poop deck until he stopped before a cabin door.

“Stateroom six is yours, sir. The lady’s is just over there. Stateroom three,” the crewman explained and indicated Helena’s door or hatch or whatever the hell it was called aboard a sailing ship. The lad tried unsuccessfully to cover a smirk. “I’ll be steward for both staterooms during the graveyard shift. Just hang that little sign on the door if you’re needing privacy with her.”

Jamie felt his temper instantly rise. “Miss Conwell is a lady, sir, and I’ll thank you to keep that in mind when you speak of her or to her. Her late father was a great friend of mine. I am merely here to pay a debt to him by seeing she reaches her chosen destination unmolested. She is alone in the world or she’d never be traveling unchaperoned.”

The young man had the grace to blush. “I’m sorry, my lord. I apologize for repeating what the doc said …” He cleared his throat, then continued, “I’ll do what I can to put an end to the gossip.”

“See that you do,” Jamie ordered. “The doctor is a drunk from what I saw when I was aboard to arrange passage. I cannot imagine why Captain Baker keeps him on.” Then for some reason he thought of the pixie-woman he’d been talking with. She also seemed to be alone and he couldn’t help be worried for her, too.

“Is there anything more I can do for you, my lord?” the lad asked, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else.

Jamie was so annoyed he waved him away when he could very well have used his help unpacking. He’d left Hadley, his valet, at the town house. The man was more liability on the sea than an asset and Jamie had no wish to make the poor fellow miserable for the four months it would take them to arrive in San Francisco.

He looked at Helena’s door, tempted to knock, but he didn’t want to give anyone the idea there was even a hint of scandal brewing about her. He had wanted to see her immediately, damn it. It had been weeks since they’d danced at her birthday ball. He’d been disappointed when he’d realized her friendliness that evening had been a ruse. He’d wanted to establish at least a degree of peace between them and he’d failed. That night she’d run from her guardian and it would seem from him, as well.

He felt unsettled and unsure. It was as if a curtain had risen on his life, as if he were part of a comedy. Worst of all, he was as powerless as a marionette controlled by some sadistic specter. Nothing made sense and he could not reason it all out.

Except the vow he’d made at his wife’s graveside. That was written firmly on his heart. He would never again deviate from his chosen course as he almost had with his offer of marriage to Helena. He would only marry again for love. But as he didn’t understand what love meant or trust the nebulous emotion when declared, marriage was for him not a possibility.

It seemed to him that thus far those who declared love expected the object of that rather unstable emotion to declare it in return. Yet those who’d so far declared it to him had deserted or betrayed him. Consequently, the very idea of surrendering his heart to anyone caused a visceral fear to course through him. No, he’d had enough of that painful emotion to last him the rest of his life. His heart was locked up and he’d tossed away the key.

He stood in the doorway, staring at her door. He’d finally caught up to her.

After a while, his thoughts swirling, he wondered why he was still there in his doorway when he felt so very awful. So heavy. His throat so sore. He turned into the room behind him and was hit by a wave of dizziness. He looked around, his mind spinning like a child’s top. Why was the room tipping? Swaying? Why was the room so dark? His town house was always bright.

He looked around again, confusion swamping his mind even more. Where was he? This was not home. He should find out where he was. The room spun out of control as he turned back to the door. He grabbed for it, but missed and it swung away from him. Then the floor rushed up at him as blackness descended. And two thoughts revolved in his head. He needed to confess to Helena his part in her father’s death. And he didn’t know the pixie’s name.

Amber turned and took a survey of her pretty cabin. Yes, it looked perfect. This was the cabin of an adventurer. The handsome man she’d flirted with on deck had called her an adventurer and that had given her the idea to make the cabin reflect her new path in life.

On the wall near her porthole she’d tacked the image of Memorial Hall in Philadelphia painted on rose-colored silk. It looked lovely against the cherry wainscoting. It had come from her unscheduled stay in the City of Brotherly Love. As she’d told the handsome man—that was how she thought of him—she hadn’t wanted to pass up seeing the Great Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and World’s Fair.

Above the bed she’d tacked the postcards from all her adventures. There was one of the Women’s Pavilion and Memorial Hall and some postcards from the Philadelphia Zoo where she’d seen too many exotic animals to count. And all the colorful tickets from everything she’d seen. It was a week she’d never forget.

Taking in the fair and zoo hadn’t been the first adventurous thing she’d done, though. The first had been applying for a post of governess to two small girls of a wealthy California family curious about the state where she’d been born. Then, rather than travel the whole way by train as she’d originally planned, Amber had decided to play decoy to help a friend. She’d left town wearing the clothes of a young woman named Helena Conwell, who was in love with a mineworker Amber had known since childhood. But Helena’s guardian was bent on keeping the lovers apart even though he no longer had any legal control over her. The happy couple had escaped west while Amber, still playing decoy, would travel by clipper to San Francisco while using Helena’s name.

Amber sympathized with Helena’s wish to marry the man she loved. Amber herself would never marry, though. She’d never have the children she’d always wanted, either. Those dreams had vanished the day Joseph died.

He’d been gone a year now. But the memory of his final moments when they’d carried him from the mine, clinging to life, would always haunt her. He’d loved her so deeply, so perfectly, that he’d fought pain and death itself just to see her one last time. The memory brought with it a pain so sharp that each time it rose in her mind she still needed to press upon her broken heart to get past the moment. She would never risk that kind of pain again.

So now she would build other memories.

Alone.

She had no choice in that. She’d given her heart and Joseph had taken at least half of it with him. The rest would remain hers and hers alone.

Now she would help raise two precious little girls. The little darlings had even written her from their home in San Francisco with the help of their mother so they could tell her how excited they were to meet her.

Excitement was what all this was about. Excitement kept the pain at bay. That was why she’d flirted with the handsome man.

Amber used to spend holidays and summers with her friends from Vassar at their families’ summer homes on the banks of the Hudson River near the college. She’d always watched those carefree young women act the coquette and now she’d finally done it herself. But she was a bit embarrassed that she had. He must think she was terribly bold. Or a bluestocking, which she supposed wasn’t as bad. Of course he may have thought she was both. The absurdity of that made Amber giggle. No one at home would believe it of her.

But this voyage was about a change as well as excitement. A different life from the one she led as a teacher in the town where the mine had taken Joseph seemed the only way to forget her pain. With any luck someday she would remember the happiness she’d felt in the arms of her own sweet Joseph without the accompanying hurt.

Enough of this! She’d said goodbye to that old life. A life better left behind if she could not share it with Joseph. It was time to greet a new day. One on the high seas!

Suddenly tired from all the turmoil of getting to the pier and the sailing and, yes, of flirting, then remembering all that had brought her to this place, Amber decided not to go back up on deck. She tossed her shawl over the chair in her stateroom and lay on the charming bed. She stared up at the elaborate canopy and realized she dreaded seeing the man from deck again anyway. She’d run out of flippant things to say and she’d been terribly affected in physical ways that she’d never been with Joseph.

After a while she fell asleep, only to have the handsome man invade her dreams, and she felt things she’d never felt before, either. Oh, goodness, she wished she hadn’t had that conversation about “marriage duties” with her soon-to-be mother-in-law. Joseph’s mother had laughed, saying she found nothing of a duty about the experience and if her husband had done his job with Joseph he would make sure Amber didn’t see it as a duty, either. She had told Amber much of what she should expect and feel. And in her sleep, she finally felt most of these emotions. She didn’t wake again until morning’s light beamed through her small porthole. Though

her room was cool, her skin felt flushed and somehow needy.