Page 35 of The Lost Lord
“I leave on Thursday to spend the weekend with her and Livingston.” On Friday mornings he woke early and went to the buggy to take him northward. The journey filled most of the day.
“Ask Miriam what she thinks of transporting passengers as a packet ship,” Howard requested. To Richard’s unending relief, his friend had no objection to Miriam’s involvement in the venture. Howard valued Miriam’s analysis. It didn’t matter who held knowledge to him. Howard wanted the best work he could get no matter what the source.
“I assume you mean something other than our guests in need of transport?” Richard said with a cocky half-grin.
Howard cast him a dark look. “We don’t discuss them. For you, it’s all fun and games. For our guests, this is a deadly business.”
Chastened, Richard dropped his gaze to the floor. “Miriam thinks it’s going to delay the ship, waiting for passengers to sign-up. Particularly since this is our first voyage attempt.”
“I like to diversify our income sources,” Howard countered.
Richard chuckled. “You and Miriam think alike. She prefers to have her fingers in multiple pies as well.”
“She’s a smart lady, your Miriam. Pretty too.” Howard observed. It was the first time Richard had ever heard him express approval of a woman. Richard didn’t know what the man did to satisfy his base needs. Dock whores, most likely. Richard shuddered and immediately recoiled with guilt. Not that that emotion was ever far away from him. A woman had to be fairly desperate for money to tolerate a man like Howard in her bed. Richard found himself wishing for a stiff drink to ward off the discomfort of his newfound empathy.
“Miriam is far more intelligent than I am,” Richard agreed. His heart pinched. Somewhere between nearly killing her and asking for her hand, his affection for her had morphed. He was selfish enough to want her for himself.
“Has she figured out your connection to Lizzie yet?” Howard demanded.
“Miriam knows.” Richard swallowed. They had been so busy sending messages, planning a wedding and their new shipping venture that he hadn’t found a moment to try and appraise Miriam of her friend’s betrayal. It had taken all of Richard’s talent for fibbing to convince Miriam not to ask Lizzie to be her bridesmaid. Only the fact that Howard, his proposed groomsman, and Lizzie despised one another had dissuaded her. Soon, if all went according to plan, Richard would be able to stop looking over his shoulder as if to conjure Lizzie.
“You’re headed north this evening?” Howard asked, shaking him out of his thoughts.
“Yes. To Cliffside.”
“Give your lady and her father my regards,” Howard said without looking up. He looked like a bear as he hunched over his desk strewn with papers.
“I shall.” Richard grinned. “When we next meet, I will be a married man.”
Howard only grunted in reply.
* * *
Anticipation sweetly twistedin his stomach all the way up the steep road to Cliffside. Richard had come to appreciate the minor luxuries that a bit of coin in one’s pocket offered. He had rented a horse for a month, which gave him a freedom of movement he’d once taken for granted. Nightfall had darkened the valley below, through which wound the Hudson River, by the time he arrived.
“I was afraid you’d fallen in,” Miriam said as he handed up his satchel to one of the domestic servants they employed here. On his first visit Richard had called him a footman and been corrected. Now, he’d forgotten the man’s name but was reluctant to ask. It didn’t matter, for the moment the servant disappeared with his luggage Miriam fluttered down the stairs like a wraith in a billowing white wrapper.
“We were afraid you’d fallen into the river.” She bent her head for a kiss. Richard obliged. Her warm mouth warmed him. Miriam pulled back enough to murmur, “You’re chilled.”
“The wind coming off the river was fit to freeze me in my saddle.” It felt so nice to be fussed over. The world was a friendlier place when there were people who would miss you if you fell off a cliff than it was when everyone wished for such a calamity to happen.
“Do you want supper?” Miriam asked, clutching the neckline of her wrapper. Her modesty made Richard smile.
“No,” he answered. “Only bed.”
“This way,” she replied. “Father has let you stay down the hall instead of the guest house, on account of the cold snap. Our wedding is also a factor I presume.”
“Does that mean you’ll come to visit me in my room this evening?” The louche invitation popped out of his mouth without his brain’s intervention. He’d meant to talk but Miriam’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
“How shall I resist the temptation?” she chuckled with newfound sultriness.
Richard swallowed. Painfully. The greater question was, how would he resist sleeping down the hall from the woman who tempted him beyond reason? She was hardly the first woman who had gazed at him with adoration—hell, Lizzie could fake that—but every time Richard had known the woman’s affection for him extended only as far as his purse. With Miriam, an answering tide of desire sucked at him until Richard wanted to drown in her storm-gray eyes.
“By locking your door,” he replied, grasping her bare fingers and raising her knuckles to his lips. He brushed a kiss across her knuckles and heard her faint inhale. The shy dimple at her cheeks appeared. “As I shall do to mine.”
Miriam didn’t pout, but she did duck her chin and peer up at him through thick lashes. “We are to be married, Richard. I don’t wish to wait until our vows are formalized before a pastor to make our love real.”
She pressed a key into his palm. A hush fell over the darkening hallway as she closed his hand around it. The simple glide of elegant fingers over his sent a shiver promise up his arm.
