A Dangerous Love (2 page)

That got Daniel’s attention. “A hundred pounds?”

“Yes. For that fund of yours.” He paused. “I can’t manage this without you. Besides, you might enjoy spending time with three young women.”

“Three ugly shrews, most likely, or they wouldn’t be called spinsters. Ten years of hard work and loyalty to you, and this is how I’m repaid.”

“What if I make it a hundred and twenty pounds?”

Daniel regarded him shrewdly. “A hundred and fifty.”

“Done,” Griff said, offering his hand.

After a slight hesitation, Daniel shook it.

Griff grinned. “I’d have gone as high as two hundred.”

“And I’d have taken fifty,” Daniel retorted.

As it dawned on Griff that Daniel’s resistance had been calculated, he erupted into laughter. “You rascal! I swear, you’re Wild Danny Brennan’s son through and through!”

Daniel drew himself up. “And legitimate parentage or no, you’re a bastard.”

“I’ll never argue with you on that score, my friend.” But before the month was out, Griff would prove he wasn’t the unscrupulous upstart the world supposed he was. Then nothing would stand in the path of Knighton Trading.

Lady Rosalind Laverick, second oldest daughter of the Earl of Swanlea, was poring over Swan Park’s expenses in a futile attempt to play pinchpenny when one of the footmen entered the drawing room.

“The outrider for Mr. Knighton has just arrived, milady,” he announced. “The man is expected here within the hour.”

“What? But surely Papa did not—” At his quizzical look, she stiffened. “Thank you, John.”

She waited until he was well away before storming off to her father’s bedchamber. When she entered, she was grimly pleased to find her sisters there, too. The youngest, Juliet, was tending Papa as usual, while Helena, the oldest, painted her in miniature. It was a cozy familial scene, one Ros
alind cherished. But to preserve it, she’d have to change Papa’s mind about his foolish plan.

He sat up in bed, the covers tucked around his wasting frame. Though never handsome, he’d once been very impressive, his height and booming voice cowing many a man.

He still possessed the piercing gaze and rigid chin that had made Rosalind tremble as a girl. But his body was now a heap of withered muscles and brittle bones, encased in skin that slipped around beneath her fingers whenever she grasped his arm or hand. Every time she saw him so beaten-down and ill, her chest ached.

Yet she dared not let sentiment interfere with her crusade. Not when the issue was so important. “Papa, I’ve been informed that Mr. Knighton’s arrival is imminent.” She marched up to the bed. “How could you? I thought we agreed—”

“
You
agreed, Rosalind. I told you that if any of you gels were amenable. So I wrote the man and invited him here.”

Helena groaned, but Juliet merely blushed and ducked her head.

“Oh, Juliet, you foolish girl!” Rosalind cried.

“You don’t understand—I don’t mind marrying him!” Juliet protested from Papa’s bedside. “Papa thinks it best, and I know my duty as a daughter.”

“To marry without love?” Rosalind snapped at Juliet, ignoring her father’s smug look. “You may think it your duty, as the bard says,

to make curtsy, and say “Father, as it please you.” But yet, for all that…let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say “Father, as it please me
.”

“Do not start quoting the wrong bits of Shakespeare again, gel,” Papa put in. “Shakespeare is against you more often than not. Consider Desdemona. If she had done her duty by her father and refused Othello, she would not have died.”

“As usual, you miss the entire point of the play,” Rosalind retorted hotly.

“Oh, Lord.” Helena stiffly rose. “Once you two drag Shakespeare into the argument, there’s no resolving it.” Gathering up her painting box in one hand and her cane in the other, she walked to the door haltingly.

“Where are you going?” Rosalind asked. She’d hoped for Helena’s support.

Helena paused. “I want to put my paints away before our guest arrives.”

“Don’t you care that Papa is planning to—”

“Of course I care. Unlike you, however, I recognize that arguing with Papa is pointless. If you’re not interested in marriage for yourself, hold your ground. I certainly have no intention of marrying Mr. Knighton, even if he would take a woman with my…shortcomings. However, Juliet seems more than willing to throw herself at him, and we can do little about that. Especially if she won’t stand up for herself.”

Rosalind watched in despair as her elegant older sister limped from the room. If only Juliet possessed Helena’s strength of will or suspicion of men…Rosalind sighed as she faced her father and younger sister. But Juliet was as timid as the bland pink-and-white girlish gowns she insisted on wearing. And just as she refused to wear dramatic colors—like Rosalind’s own vermilion chintz—she refused to disobey Papa.

“Papa,” she persisted, “you act as if this man is
our only hope. But one of us might still marry, and for love, too.”

“You’re twenty-three, gel, and Helena is twenty-six. You will not find husbands now, not without a decent dowry or sufficient portions. Helena may be beautiful, but her lameness is a liability. And you are not the sort of girl to attract a man—”

“You mean, I’m not beautiful.” His cold recitation wounded her. Just when she thought she’d inured herself to Papa’s heedless insults, they slipped past her guard again. “My hair’s as unruly as rusting wire, and I’m plump.”

“I was not speaking of your looks,” Papa put in, “but of your manner. Perhaps if you tried to be a bit less—”

“Forthright? Well-read? Clever?” she snapped.

“Overbearing and tempestuous is what I was thinking of,” Papa retorted.

“I am
not
overbearing!” When he raised an eyebrow, Rosalind tossed back her head. “All right, perhaps a little. But I could not run this estate for you if I were otherwise.” Oh, how had they gotten onto this awful subject? “Besides, what about Juliet? She might still marry for love, given time.”

“Accept it, gel—there’s no time left.” Papa’s rattling cough only proved his point.

She skirted the painful subject of his illness. “We don’t have to marry, you know. We could earn our way.”

“Don not be silly. When Mr. Knighton evicts you—”

“I can go on the stage like Mama.” At her father’s snort, Rosalind went on fiercely, “My looks may be lacking, but I’m tall and have a fine speaking voice. Helena could sell her miniatures. Juliet could do
something
. Mama’s actress friend, Mrs. Inchbald, would help us find lodgings in London. If we pooled our portions—”

“No!” Juliet put in. “We can’t leave Swan Park! We can’t abandon it!”

“Oh, blast, why not?” Rosalind snapped, glancing about the bedchamber with its crumbling moldings and shattered-silk drapes. “I see nothing worth sacrificing my darling sister for. What has this heap of stones ever done except make us the Swanlea Spinsters? If I must be a spinster, I’d rather be one in town.”

“You wouldn’t survive town,” Papa growled. “You remember what happened to Helena. Besides, your mother was much happier as a wife than an actress. Such a life is not for you, nor for Juliet, either. She deserves better.”

“Yes, but a forced marriage isn’t ‘better,’ Papa. Especially when the man is, according to Mrs. Inchbald’s letters, a scoundrel and a villain. You know that he had connections to smugglers and even sold smuggled goods himself.”

“Out of necessity, and a long time ago. He is perfectly respectable these days.”

“Mrs. Inchbald also said—”

“One moment, gel,” her father broke in. He motioned Juliet to his side and whispered to her. She nodded. Then he looked at Rosalind. “Give Juliet the house keys. I need her to fetch my restorative from the pantry.”

It was a flimsy excuse for getting rid of Juliet, but Rosalind didn’t entirely mind. Handing her sister the ring of keys, Rosalind tapped her foot impatiently while the girl fled.

Then Rosalind squared off against her father, barely noticing the click of the door. “What’s more,” she continued, “Mrs. Inchbald says that Mr. Knighton is a…was born on the wrong side of the blanket. Doesn’t that worry you?”

He broke into an alarming fit of coughing. Hurry
ing to his side, she thumped the middle of his back as Juliet always did. Apparently Juliet did it less vigorously, however, for he shoved her away, and growled, “Stop that, gel! I am not a bloody rug you beat the dust out of!”

Muttering to herself, she backed away. Ungrateful man! And they wondered where
she
learned to curse! Hah! How did Juliet put up with him?

As he dragged in several wheezing breaths, all her resentment vanished. Poor Papa. Not being able to leave his bed to order all of them about must drive him insane. It would certainly bedevil her. She returned to the bed, plumped up a fresh pillow, then eased it behind his back.

He settled into it. “Mrs. Inchbald is ill informed.” He slid under the covers like a turtle withdrawing into its shell. “How could Knighton be heir to my title and estates if he is a bastard?”

“Oh.” She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You see?” he mumbled, his face half-hidden by the sheets. “That is the trouble with you women—you never think things through. That is why women are so fickle. They let their feelings lead them about by the nose. One moment they love a man and the next they—”

A flurry of activity in the hall startled them both. Servants called out, and feet pounded down the stairs. Rosalind rushed to the window, but couldn’t see the front drive. Still, the sounds of hoofbeats and wheels crunching the gravel drive signaled the arrival of a coach.

Their cousin’s.

“While I’d love to stay and listen to your wisdom concerning my gender,” she said dryly, “I can’t. Your precious Mr. Knighton is here.”

She hurried to the door of the bedchamber, but
when she turned the knob, the door wouldn’t open. She tried again with no success, then gawked at it, a horrid suspicion leaping into her mind. “Papa—” she began.

“ ’Tis locked. I told Juliet to lock us in when she left.”

She’d locked them in?
Rosalind’s temper soared. Curse the wretched girl’s obedient nature! She kicked the door, wishing it was Juliet’s backside, then whirled on her father. “What do you hope to accomplish by this, Papa?”

“I know you, gel. You’d run Knighton off before Juliet had a chance to meet him.” Even the capricious firelight didn’t disguise the Machiavellian gleam in his eyes. “So I told her not to let you out until our guest retires for the evening.”

“If you think this will alter my behavior toward the man one whit—”

“It matters not.” He rose, parting the covers like Neptune rising from the waves. “If you drive him off now, I will merely arrange the match by letter. After seeing Juliet’s beauty and sweet temper tonight, he will agree to a match, never fear.”

Blast! If Mr. Knighton left Swan Park believing that Juliet would make him a suitable wife, how could Rosalind prevent the marriage? She had no choice but to let him stay. But somehow she’d persuade Juliet that the man was wrong for her.

Papa’s triumphant smirk vanished as he lapsed into another cough. She glared at him, refusing to go to his side. How was it possible to pity someone and also wish to throttle him? She loved Papa, truly she did, but his blindness drove her mad.

His coughing petered out. “One more matter, gel. I have a task for you to accomplish after Juliet lets you out.”

“Oh?” she grumbled. “What task?”

“There is a locked strongbox in the desk in my study. I want you to fetch it.”

“And bring it here?”

“No!” His gaze skittered away. “No, better put it where you can keep an eye on it. Your dressing room perhaps. Or in your writing table. Just until your cousin leaves.”

Suspicions snaked through her mind. “Why? What’s in it?”

“Only some papers I do not want him to see.” He glanced away.

“What
sort
of papers?” she demanded.

“Just do as I say! And do not mention them to anyone, or try to open the box. Else I shall have your hide.”

“But, Papa—”

“Promise you will keep it safe. Or I will have Juliet keep you locked up in here until you do.”

She sniffed. As if he could manage that. Still…“Oh, all right, I promise.” When he sank weakly back into the pillow, she added, “I do think, however, that if Mr. Knighton is so untrustworthy that you must hide your papers—”

“Merely a precaution. Nothing for you to worry about. Now let me sleep.”

Rosalind gritted her teeth. Why must Papa be so bullheaded and secretive? He wouldn’t tell her the truth, yet the more she learned about Mr. Knighton, the more alarmed she became. Something was rotten in Denmark, and it centered on her cousin.

Well, she’d learn what it was
without
Papa. Just see if she didn’t.

Chapter 2

Such a set of tittle tattle, prittle prattle visitants! Oh dear! I am so sick of the ceremony and fuss of these fall lall people!

Fanny Burney, English novelist, diarist, and sometime playwright
, Journal

S
o this is Swan Park
, Griff thought with unaccountable pride as his carriage raced up the majestic oak-bordered drive and past a shimmering pond alive with courtly swans. A refined air of ancient rank clung like ivy to the stone walls of the Jacobean manor, putting to shame his own impressive chateau. Perhaps once Swan Park was his, he’d establish himself here. Yes, it would sway even the most recalcitrant Parliament member.

“No wonder you want that certificate so badly,” Daniel muttered across from him.

Griff chuckled. “It would be quite an addition to my properties, wouldn’t it?”

As the house loomed up, servants streamed
through the entrance doors to form a long row on the terrace. In the center, two women presided over them.

“Tell me those two angels aren’t your spinster cousins,” Daniel growled.