The Bride's Necklace

At least they seemed to have accepted Claire. But then, Claire was so sweet and generous nearly everyone did. It was Tory they considered the problem, the one they needed to get rid of. Still, no matter what the others believed, no matter what they did to her, she wasn’t going to quit.

Gritting her teeth, Tory pulled the blouse on over her shift and shoved her arms into the sleeves, stepped into the skirt and fastened the tabs, the garments crackling with every move. The blouse scratched under her arms and the collar chafed the back of her neck.

She knew how she sounded, snapping and popping with every step. As she passed a gilded mirror in the hallway, she discovered how awful she looked. The sleeves of the blouse stuck out like wings and the skirt poked out front and back like a stiff black sail.

“What in God’s name…?”

Tory froze at the sound of the earl’s deep voice, turned to see him striding toward her, dark eyebrows raised in disbelief. Dear sweet God—of all the rotten luck! Didn’t the man have anything better to do than lurk around the hallways?

Cord stopped in front of her, leaned back and crossed his arms over the very impressive width of his chest.

“Perhaps, Mrs. Temple, when you were asking me all those housekeeping questions the other day, you should have asked my advice on how to manage the laundry. I might have suggested you consider using a bit less starch.”

Tory felt the color rushing into her cheeks. She looked like a complete fool in the ridiculous garb, which was perhaps the reason the earl looked even more handsome that he had the day before.

“I am not in charge of the laundry, my lord. However, I assure you that in future, I shall see that more care is taken in the training of your staff in that regard.”

A corner of his mouth curved up. “I would think that a very wise course.”

He made no move to leave, just stood there grinning, so she simply stared back at him and lifted her chin. “If you will excuse me, my lord.”

“Of course. I imagine you have airing and polishing to do—and laundry instruction of course.”

Her face colored again. Turning, she left him, trying to ignore his soft chuckling laughter and the crackle and popping of her skirts.

Still smiling, thinking again of Victoria Temple in her god-awful, overstarched clothes, Cord continued down the hall to his study. He had a meeting this morning with Colonel Howard Pendleton of the British War Office. The colonel had been a good friend of his father’s. He had also worked closely with Cord’s cousin, Ethan.

Aside from the hours spent rebuilding his family fortune, the balance of Cord’s time was spent trying to locate his cousin and best friend, Ethan Sharpe. Ethan was the second son of Malcolm Sharpe, marquess of Belford, his mother being Cord’s aunt. When Priscilla and Malcolm Sharpe were killed in a carriage accident on their way in from the country, Lord and Lady Brant had taken in the marquess’s children, Charles, Ethan and Sarah, to raise as their own.

Since Cord had no siblings, he and the children had become extremely close. There had been the occasional bloody nose, and once Cord had accidentally broken Ethan’s arm in a wrestling match that ended up with the two of them landing in the creek. Cord would have suffered a well-deserved birching had Ethan not sworn he had fallen in accidentally and that Cord had been trying to save him from drowning.

The incident had cemented Cord and Ethan’s friendship, though Ethan was two years younger. Perhaps it was partly to prove himself that he had joined the navy as soon as he graduated Oxford. That had been nine years ago. Since then, he had left the navy but not His Majesty’s Service. Ethan Sharpe captained the schooner Sea Witch, serving Britain now as a privateer.

Or at least he had been until he and his ship disappeared.

A soft knock sounded on the study door. His short, stout butler, Timmons, stuck his head through the opening. “Colonel Pendleton is here, my lord.”

“Show him in.”

A few moments later a silver-haired man in the scarlet tunic of a military officer walked into the study, gold buttons glittering on the front of his coat. Cord rounded his desk and walked over to greet him.

“It’s good to see you, Colonel.”

“You as well, my lord.”

“Would you care for some refreshment? A glass of brandy or a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you. I’m afraid I haven’t much time.”

Cord passed as well, his mind on Ethan, his worry building each day. For nearly a year, he had been searching, refusing to consider the possibility that the missing ship and its crew might simply have perished in a storm. Ethan was too good a captain, Cord believed. Something else had to have happened.

Both men seated themselves in comfortable leather chairs in front of the hearth and Cord got directly to the business at hand.

“What news, Howard?”

The colonel actually smiled. “A bit of good news, my lord. Three days ago, one of our warships, the Victor, arrived in Portsmouth. She was carrying a civilian passenger named Edward Legg. Legg claims to be a member of Captain Sharpe’s crew.”

Cord’s chest tightened. He leaned forward in his chair. “What did he say about Ethan and his ship?”

“That is the good news. Mr. Legg claims that on their last mission, two French warships were lying in wait off the Le Havre coast. Someone had informed them as to Captain Sharpe’s arrival—or at least that is what Legg believes. A battle ensued and the Sea Witch was damaged beyond repair, but most of the crew was captured, not killed, including Captain Sharpe.”

“How did Legg wind up on the Victor?”

“Apparently, once they reached the mainland, Legg and another sailor managed to escape. The other man died of injuries he received during the fighting, but Legg made it to Spain, where he came upon the Victor returning to England.”

“Did he say where Ethan was taken?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t know.”

“Was Ethan injured in the fighting?”

“Legg said the captain suffered a saber wound and other miscellaneous injuries in the battle, but he didn’t believe they were serious enough to kill a man like Captain Sharpe.”

Cord prayed Legg was right. “I’ll need to speak to him. The sooner, the better.”

“I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

They talked a few moments more, then Cord rose from his chair, ending the conversation.

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Pendleton said, moving toward the door.

Cord just nodded. Ethan was alive; he was sure of it. The boy who had never shed a tear during the setting of his broken arm had grown into an even tougher man.

And wherever he was, Cord meant to find him.

Three

Tory’s laundry problem was resolved. Mrs. Wiggs, the laundress, professed her innocence, hands shaking as she reached out to examine Tory’s overstarched apparel.

That night the woman worked late to wash and repress the clothes and by morning managed to come up with a second skirt and blouse for Tory’s limited wardrobe, the black skirt shortened to precisely the correct length.

Today, the household, along with a small fleet of young male sweeps that Tory had employed, was immersed in the task of cleaning the chimneys. The warm days had allowed the bricks to cool so the only danger the boys faced came from falling down the three-story shaft.

There was little chance of that, Tory discovered. Like monkeys, they climbed the rough bricks, making their job look easy, which, of course, it wasn’t. Several of the servants assisted them, Mrs. Rathbone among them. Tory checked each fireplace as the sweeps and servants worked.

Satisfied with the progress being made in the Blue Salon, she made her way into Lord Brant’s study, where earlier he had been working. She had noticed the long hours he spent there, poring over stacks of paperwork and reviewing the sums in the heavy ledgers sitting on the corner of his desk. In a way it surprised her.

None of the wealthy elite who visited Harwood Hall did the slightest bit of work. They felt it was beneath their dignity, and instead were content to deplete whatever sums they had managed to inherit—her stepfather among them.

The thought sent a familiar jolt of anger shooting through her. Not only had Miles Whiting, her father’s cousin and the man next in line for the title, managed to gain the Harwood lands and fortune, he had also wormed his way into her grieving mother’s affections, convinced her to marry him, and thereby stolen Windmere, her mother’s ancestral home.

Miles Whiting—if she hadn’t managed to kill him—was the lowest form of humanity as far as Tory was concerned. He was a thief, a scoundrel, a molester of innocent young women. Beyond that, for the past several years she had begun to suspect he might even be responsible for the death of her father. For all that he had done, Tory had vowed a thousand times that someday Miles Whiting would pay.

Or perhaps he already had.

Resolved not to think of the baron and what might or might not have happened to him, Tory walked over to the fireplace in the corner of the study.

“How is the work progressing, Mrs. Rathbone?”

“There seems ta be a bit of a problem with this one. Perhaps you’ll be wantin’ ta take a look.”

Tory stepped closer. Bending down, she stuck her head into the opening and peered up the chimney—just as one of the sweeps knocked down a load of soot. Black dust flew into her eyes and mouth. Coughing, she inhaled a breath and sucked a snootful up her nose. Gagging and wheezing, she backed away from the chimney and turned a furious stare on Mrs. Rathbone.

“I guess they musta fixed the problem,” the older woman said. She was scarecrow-thin, with a sharp nose and wispy black hair shoved up beneath her mobcap. Though no smile appeared on her lips, there was an unmistakable gleam of triumph in her eyes.

“Yes…” Tory agreed through clenched teeth. “I guess they must have.” Turning, she started out of the room, her hands and face covered with soot. The way her luck had been going, she wasn’t at all surprised to see the earl of Brant lounging in the doorway, his broad shoulders shaking with mirth.

Tory cast him a glance that would have sliced a lesser man off at the knees. “I realize you are lord here, but in this I would advise you not to utter a single word.”

Tory walked past him, forcing him to step out of her way to avoid getting soot on his perfectly fitted, nut-brown coat. The earl kept smiling, but made no comment, wise enough, it seemed, to heed her words.

Upstairs in her room, cursing her stepfather and the circumstances that had brought her this low, Tory changed into the second set of garments Mrs. Wiggs had very opportunely provided. She took a moment to compose herself, then returned to her work downstairs.

It occurred to her that in the entire Brant household, her only ally was the butler, Mr. Timmons. But he was a meek, rather mildly mannered man and he mostly kept to himself.

It didn’t matter, Tory told herself as she had before. Nothing they could do was going to make her leave.

Cord reclaimed his study within the quarter hour, the chimney sweeps gone off to some other part of the house, Mrs. Rathbone wisely going with them. He wasn’t certain if the older woman were responsible for what had happened to his housekeeper, but he had a strong suspicion she was.

He didn’t like the idea of the Temple girl having problems, but he couldn’t help grinning as he remembered her black face and hands, the white circles of her eyes staring up at him in fury.

She wasn’t having an easy time of it. Still, Victoria Temple seemed capable of handling the job he had given her and he didn’t think she would appreciate his interference. She was an independent little baggage. He rather admired that about her. He found himself wondering where she had come from and why it was that she and her sister both possessed the manners and speech usually reserved for the upper classes. Perhaps in time, the information would surface.

Meanwhile, Cord had more important things to do than worry about his servants, no matter how intriguing they might be. This afternoon, he planned to interview the sailor, Edward Legg, in regard to the whereabouts of his cousin. Concern for Ethan loomed at the front of his mind and he meant to explore every avenue that might lead to his return.

Cord glanced toward the chessboard in the corner, a game in progress still laid out on the board and only half finished, the intricately carved pieces resting in the exact location they had been for nearly a year. The long-distance game had become a tradition between the two men, played whenever Ethan went to sea. In his letters to Cord, Ethan made known his moves, and in Cord’s reply, he countered. Their skill was fairly well matched, though at present, Cord was ahead two of the last three games.

In the current match, Cord had moved his queen and posted the information in a letter, which had been delivered to Ethan via military courier. But he had never received a reply. The chessboard sat in the corner, a silent reminder of his cousin’s disappearance. Cord had left instructions that the pieces not be touched until Captain Sharpe’s return. He sighed to think when that might be.

Seating himself behind the desk, he turned his thoughts away from Ethan to the stack of paperwork he needed to do, investments to be considered, accounting to be reviewed, but it wasn’t long before his mind began to wander, returning once more to the scene earlier in his study.

A faint smile tugged at his lips as it occurred to him that his housekeeper had had the audacity to issue him a command—and that he’d had the good sense to obey it.

At least the house was beginning to look better, the downstairs floors so shiny Tory could see her face, the household silver once more sparkling. Getting the servants to complete their assignments was like pulling the teeth of a chicken, or however the saying went. Still, little by little, the work was beginning to get done.

And Claire seemed happy in her new home. So far, Tory’s worries about the earl had not surfaced. Perhaps he was simply too busy to pay attention to a serving girl, no matter how beautiful she was. Still, she didn’t trust him. The earl was an unmarried man and exceedingly virile. There was every chance he was simply another lecher with designs on Claire.

The evening meal was over. Along with most of the servants, Claire had retired upstairs for the night, but Tory still wandered the shadowy halls. She wasn’t the least bit sleepy, or perhaps it was her stepfather that stirred her restless thoughts, worry that she had accidentally killed him—though at the time, there hadn’t been much of a choice.

Surely if he were dead, the authorities would have been searching for his murderer or might even have found her by now. She hadn’t seen anything in the newspapers, but she had only read them sporadically since her arrival in London. Mostly, she had simply been trying to survive.

Deciding that perhaps a book might help her fall asleep and hoping the earl wouldn’t mind if she borrowed one, Tory held the oil lamp out in front of her and climbed the short flight of stairs up from the basement. As she passed the earl’s study on the way to the library, she realized a lamp had been left burning on his desk. She was making her way in to snuff it out when she noticed the chessboard in the corner.

She had seen it before, had admired the exquisite inlaid board and its ebony and ivory pieces, and wondered which of the earl’s acquaintances might be his opponent. But days had passed and the pieces had not been moved.

Tory wandered toward it. She was very good at chess, had been taught by her father and played often with him before he had been killed. Looking down at the board, she couldn’t resist seating herself in one of the ornate high-backed chairs to study the moves the earl and his silent opponent had made.

On closer inspection, she saw that although the pieces had been dusted, small circles at the base of those remaining on the board gave evidence the game had been interrupted some while back.

Tory studied the board. Assigning the ebony pieces to the earl, which somehow seemed fitting, and prompted by a sense of competition that was simply part of her nature, she reached over and moved one of the ivory horses. Up two and over one, fitting the beautifully carved knight into a spot that jeopardized the opposing black bishop.

She ought to move the piece back. The earl would undoubtedly be angry if he discovered it was she who had made the move, but some mischievous part of her simply would not let her. He could always put it back, she thought. If he made a fuss, she could simply say it got shifted in the dusting. Whatever he might think, Tory didn’t return the knight to its former position.

Instead, sleepy at last, she snuffed the lamp on his desk, picked up her own and headed back down to her room.

The gold crest on the door gleamed beneath the lamp on the side of the Brant carriage as it rolled up in front of Cord’s town house. It was well after midnight. After his unproductive interview earlier that afternoon with Edward Legg, who’d had little more to add to his tale besides how gallant and courageous Captain Sharpe had been during the ship’s ill-fated battle and how much Legg admired him, Cord’s mood had plunged straight downhill.

With his pursuit of Claire Temple somehow stalled and not wishing to put himself back in the clutches of his former mistress, he had decided to pay a badly needed visit to Madame Fontaneau’s very exclusive house of pleasure.

Cord wasn’t sure what had changed his mind, why he found himself detouring, instructing his driver to take him to White’s, his gentlemen’s club, instead. But there he had sat some hours later in a deep leather chair, sipping a glass of brandy, immersed in a game of whist, brooding and losing his money.

His good friend, Rafael Saunders, duke of Sheffield, had been there, as well, doing his best to cheer him out of his dismal mood, but his friend had miserably failed.

Instead, Cord had finished his drink, ordered his carriage brought round and returned to his town house. Now, as the coach rolled to a stop in front of the three-story brick building and the footman opened the door, Cord descended the iron stairs and made his way inside the house.

He tossed his kidskin gloves into the crown of his beaver hat and left them on the table beside the door. He glanced up the staircase, knowing he should try to get some sleep. He had important papers to review at his solicitor’s first thing in the morning and he hadn’t been sleeping very well.

But instead of going upstairs, he headed down the hall to his study. Earlier, for whatever reason, his mind had veered away from his need for a woman to the work he needed to do, to Ethan and, amazingly, to his two latest employees.

The latter in itself amazed him. Had it simply been lust for Claire, he might have understood, but the lovely, ethereal girl appealed to him less and less while the older, slightly impertinent sister intrigued him more and more.

It was ridiculous. And yet as he watched Claire Temple glide through her work like a princess in a fairy tale, the thought continued to nag him that seducing the lovely Claire would be completely unfair. Where women were concerned, Cord was a man of vast experience, while Claire…well, he wasn’t certain the girl completely understood the differences between male and female.

In truth, seducing her would be like pulling the wings off a beautiful butterfly.

Out of sorts with women in general and cursing himself for not partaking of some badly needed sexual relief before returning home, Cord eyed the stack of papers still sitting on his desk. He removed his coat and tossed it over a chair, loosened and pulled off his cravat, rolled up his shirtsleeves and prepared to settle in for a couple of hours of work.

As he crossed the study, his gaze slid over to the chessboard in the corner. He continued a few more paces before he found himself frowning, turning back to where the inlaid board sat between two ornately carved high-backed chairs.

Cord studied the pieces on the board. He knew exactly where each one rested, had stared at them so many times he could close his eyes and see them in his sleep. Tonight something was different, slightly out of place. Cord stiffened in anger as he realized one of the pieces had been moved.

He told himself he must be wrong, but seeing the knight that now threatened his bishop, he remembered the game he and Ethan had started, the game they might never finish, and a muscle ticked in his cheek. Certain one of the servants had moved the piece, he stormed out of the study, his temper in high dudgeon, strode down the hall and started toward the stairs leading down to the basement.

Thoughts of Ethan kept him going, past the below-stairs’ first and second hallways, past the kitchen. Anger still pumped through him as Cord reached the end of the corridor and hammered on Victoria Temple’s door. He didn’t wait for her to answer, just lifted the latch, strode through her small sitting area and on in to her bedchamber.

The pounding must have awakened her. As the bedroom door slammed back against the wall, he saw her jerk upright in her narrow bed, trying to blink herself awake.

“Good evening, Mrs. Temple. There is a matter of some importance I wish to discuss.”

She blinked several more times. “N-now?” She was dressed in a thin white cotton night rail, her usually clear green eyes heavy-lidded with fatigue, her mouth rosy from slumber. A single thick braid of chestnut hair hung over one shoulder while stray wisps curled around her cheeks.

He had thought her merely attractive. Now he saw she was far more than that. With her finely carved features, full lips and straight, patrician nose, Victoria Temple was a very lovely young woman. If she hadn’t been so overshadowed by the otherworldly beauty of her sister, he would have noticed long ago.

She shifted on the bed and his blood began to thicken. In the moonlight streaming in through the bedchamber window, he could see the outline of her breasts, the dark shadows of her nipples, the pale arch of her throat beneath the small pink bow on the front of her gown. Desire sank into his loins, pulled low in his belly.

“My lord?”

He dragged his gaze back to her face, saw that she was staring up at him as if he had lost his mind, and a fresh bout of anger rippled through him.

“Yes, Mrs. Temple, we need to discuss this now—this very instant.”

She seemed to finally awaken. Glancing down, for the first time she realized the state of her undress and that a man stood next to her bed. With a small squeak, she jerked the covers up over her very lovely breasts.

“Lord Brant—for heaven’s sake! It is the middle of the night. Need I remind you it is highly improper for you to be standing in my bedchamber?”

Highly improper and extremely arousing. “I am here for a reason, Mrs. Temple. As I said, there is something of importance I wish to discuss.”

“And that would be…?”

“Surely Mrs. Mills instructed you in the matter of my chessboard.”

She paused in the act of scooting backward, taking the covers with her, then continued until her shoulders came to rest against the headboard. “What…what about it?”

“Mrs. Mills and the rest of the servants received strict instruction that those pieces were not to be moved under any circumstance.”

“Are you…saying someone did?”

“Exactly, Mrs. Temple, and I expect you to ferret out the culprit and see that he doesn’t do it again.”

“You are here…in my room at—” she broke off, glanced at the small clock on the bureau “—half past three in the morning, because someone moved a chess piece? I don’t see how that could possibly be of such importance that you would come barging into my bedchamber in the middle of the night.”

“What you do or do not see is none of your concern. I don’t want those pieces moved—not until my cousin is returned.”