Page 7 of The Lost Lord
Richard let her go. His eyes followed Miss Walsh as she and her companions made their way slowly up the dusky shoreline until they became mere specks upon the horizon.
Chapter 4
The knock came when he was halfway finished with the bottle of wine which he had brought to accompany his lonely, rather tasteless supper. The dry chicken made Richard long for the fine cuisine he had taken for granted as earl’s son and, for fifteen years, his heir. The wine had a sourness to it that spoke of long journeys and poor temperature control.
His shirt hung loosely over his body when he opened the door. Lizzie placed her small hands on his chest and pushed him backward into the room. Richard always found himself surprised by Lizzie’s small stature, given her outsized personality. The top of her head barely came to his shoulder, yet he yielded when she gave him a final shove, so he sprawled backward onto the counterpane.
“If anyone catches us, our plans are ruined,” Lizzie scolded.
“Our plans? Were you planning to appraise me of what those plans are?”
Lizzie huffed a sigh. “You must have figured it out by now. Isn’t it obvious? Miriam likes you. She is wealthy, overprotected, and sickly. She might die at any moment, and then all of her lovely money goes into a trust for her cousins. Trust me, her cousins are the worst sort of people. Completely undeserving.”
“That is Miss Walsh and her family’s affair.” He was taken aback by the pure avarice animating Lizzie. Discussions about money were rare amongst English gentlemen. Americans were frank about the topic, but Lizzie had tilted into outright vulgarity.
“Don’t you think we should have her money? she whispered against his skin.
Richard pushed her away. A shocked silence stretched between them. “No, Lizzie, I don’t.”
“Think of the freedom it would buy us, Richard. I would no longer be under my husband’s thumb. If we were independently wealthy, I could pay Arthur to break our marriage. You could return to England with your head held high. Your nasty title-thieving brother wouldn’t be able to say a thing against you as a self-made man returning from America.”
“A self-made man doesn’t make his fortune by marrying an invalid under false pretenses and waiting for her to die,” Richard replied flatly. He had pride, plenty of it, more than was healthy.
“You have your warehouse money, too,” Lizzie pointed out.
As though that amounted to anything.
Lizzie advanced upon him. Richard felt helpless as she finished unbuttoning his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. He froze, stoic, as she licked one nipple. When she pressed his hand to her breast, he felt the small cushion with total detachment. Lizzie was a succubus, an enchantress out of a fairy tale. Richard did not love her, did not even like her. As numb as dead wood, he stood there while she undressed him.
For once, his body betrayed him. Relief flooded through Richard’s frame as he failed to respond to her touch. Lizzie’s eyes narrowed as he brushed her away and closed his trousers.
She chose that moment to say, “I’m pregnant.”
Richard’s heart stilled at Lizzie’s word.
“With child,” he repeated as his blood turned to ice.
“Yes,” she replied. “So, you see, we are in dire need of money. Arthur will cut me off the instant he finds out. He knows it isn’t his. My parents aren’t about to help. I cannot secure a divorce without funds.”
Richard lay flat on his back and pondered the life he had led to brought him to these circumstances. He was in no position to provide Lizzie with the life she believed she was due. The only thing of value Richard owned was his name, and even that was a fraud waiting to be discovered.
But the worst part, the part that made him rage with cold fury at his past self, was that he’d now impregnated another man’s legal wife. The series of unfortunate events and pure bad luck that plagued him had acquired the stink of self-destruction. There was no hope of passing the child off as her husband’s legitimate issue. He wondered which the most moral choice was—abandoning his child to a lifetime of poverty and stigma or going along with Lizzie’s coldly calculated plan to deprive a sickly friend out of her fortune.
“Does Arthur know?” Richard clapped his hands over his eyes. He could not afford morality. The choice was between his child and the lovely woman he had met for a few minutes on a beach. The decision had been made the day Lizzie had flung herself into his arms for a kiss, and Richard hadn’t bothered to resist.
“No. If I told him, he might use it as an excuse to keep me as his wife. I want the annulment as badly as he does.” Lizzie replied softly.
“What do you have in mind, Lizzie?” Richard asked.
Lizzie propped herself onto one arm and smiled at him, tracing the whorls of hair on his chest with one finger. “It’s simple, really. I will arrange for you to meet with Miriam a few more times. You focus on charming her and her nurse, Mrs. Kent. Sweep her off her feet, the way you did me. Miriam, not Mrs. Kent, of course. Then propose marriage and wait for her next asthma attack. When it comes, pretend to be helpless. Miriam passes tragically but not unexpectedly. You play the bereaved widower for a few months. Then, we marry.”
“That’s murder,” he said flatly, rolling away.
“No, it’s letting nature take its course. Like when you set the fire and your father died, surely you don’t blame yourself for that?” Lizzie asked with false sympathy.
“You know damned well I do.” Richard cursed himself for telling Lizzie about the reason for his banishment from England. There was an amoral logic to it. He would never go along with Lizzie’s plan, but she’d clearly latched onto this as her ideal solution and would push as far and as hard as she could to make it happen.
Lizzie’s words ricocheted around his mind as Richard tried to process what she wanted and how he could get out of this. He had not swept her off her feet. Hell, he’d hardly glanced in her direction when they first met. Hot fury sliced through him. Lizzie was a liar. Was she so desperate for romance that a simplehello my name is Richardpassed for romance, or had Lizzie been plotting this all along?
