An Heiress at Heart (43 page)

Lady Thornborough’s mouth widened in an uncharacteristic grin that was almost like her nephew’s. “It’s simple, really. He is waiting for you under the old oak tree.”

*

The autumn sky was bright and clear as Lizzie raced down the path. She breathed in deeply of the scent of wood smoke mingled with the crisp air, moving as fast as her dress and shoes, which were unsuitable for out-of-doors, would allow. She slowed to a stop at the crest of the hill, caught her breath, and scanned the valley below.

Geoffrey was leaning against the fence and looking in her direction, waiting for her. He smiled and extended his hands. Lizzie ran to him, conscious of very little else until she felt his warm arms holding her tightly.

*

Geoffrey held her close, immeasurably happy to have her in his arms again, this time with no lies and no barriers between them. He had come so close to losing her, and he would never let that happen again. “Lizzie,” he murmured. “My dearest Lizzie.”

She sighed against his chest. “It feels good to hear you call me by my real name. I’ve been Ria for so long, I thought my true self was lost forever.”

“Lizzie.” He brushed his lips over her hair, taking in for the hundredth time her gentle rose scent. He laughed softly.

“Is my name so humorous?” she asked.

“Not at all, dearest. I was just thinking to myself that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

She laughed. “You know I love a man who is a poet.”

“Besides all that,” Geoffrey said, “there is a very important reason why I am glad to call you Lizzie Poole. It means I may ask you to marry me.”

Lizzie stiffened and made a move to pull away, shaking her head in disbelief. But Geoffrey kept her close with one hand, his other reaching to caress her face as he repeated the words that had been haunting him since the day she uttered them in Lady Thornborough’s parlor. “How many women can say they are married to the man they love, desperately and passionately, and that her husband
worships
her?” He gently brushed away a tear as it spilled onto her cheek. “I assume you do love me, desperately and passionately?”

Absurdly, all she could say was, “You… worship me?”

He chuckled. “Not, of course, in the same manner that I reserve for our Lord,” he said, feigning a note of defensiveness. “However, I believe He will not take me to task for doing no more than repeating the words of my beloved.”

“I am your beloved,” she breathed, as though hardly daring to believe the words.

“My dear, you have not answered my question.”

“But… after all I’ve done…”

He pulled out a handkerchief and began to wipe away her tears. “We have both done things of which we can be heartily ashamed. I suppose that only proves we are human.”

“But… my past. The lies. My less than stellar pedigree.” She looked at him, her face stricken with pain.

Her look cut Geoffrey to the heart, because he knew his words had put that sorrow there. “Lizzie, I have had plenty of time to reflect on the terrible things I said to you.”

She shook her head. “They were well deserved.”

“No.” He touched a finger to her lips. “Hear me out. In time I came face-to-face with the brutal truth that there was only one thing standing between me and the woman I loved more dearly than anything on this earth.”

She looked at him, her eyes questioning.

He said, “It was me. I hated myself for having fallen so far short of the ideals I had so proudly believed myself to uphold. It blinded me to everything else.”

“You are the most honorable man I know,” she protested.

He shook his head. “I was in as great a need to receive forgiveness as to give it. Christian charity covers a multitude of sins—and we are
all
in need of it.”

“But there are many in this world who will not be so charitable,” Lizzie pointed out, “if they should discover the truth.”

“Hightower is dead,” Geoffrey said with finality. “No one beyond our family knows the darker details of your history. You lived an honest life in Australia with your brother before you came to England. That is all anyone needs to know.” He reached up with his thumb and brushed away a stray tear from her eye. “As for that ‘pedigree’ you mentioned earlier, you are the granddaughter of Lady Thornborough. That should be good enough for anyone.” He paused. “And if it isn’t, you need only consent to be my wife and you will also be a baroness. That will most certainly stop the mouths of the critics.”

She sniffled, her eyes lightening.

Geoffrey felt his own heart lifting as he saw the hope growing in her eyes. “Lizzie, you were very brave to come to London.”

She shook her head. “Brave? Or foolish?”

“It’s no easy thing to cross the ocean as you did, and you could not know what awaited you here. You risked a great deal. You also brought me news of Edward. You answered questions that had been plaguing me for years, and in that way you gave my brother back to me. You’re a strong woman, Lizzie Poole. You’ve got a hard head, but it has served you well.”

Lizzie let out a tiny laugh as she gingerly touched her temple. “Yes, it would appear my hard head has saved me more than once.”

He clasped her hand and placed it over her heart. “But what’s in here is soft. It is filled with kindness and virtue.”

“Virtue,” Lizzie repeated with quiet disbelief. “I have not been accused of having that for many a year.”

“Well, my love, I understand it may be hard for you to accept. But accept it you must. I myself have learned a hard lesson from this. I was too ready to judge you once; but no longer. I will defend your honor and virtue against any and all comers.”

She brought his hands to her lips. “So you have already.”

He inhaled sharply at the delicate touch of her lips on his hands. He pulled her close to his own heart, and kissed her.

Society beauty Maggie Vaughn is horrified
to find herself engaged to a gold prospector from
humble beginnings. But what begins as a marriage
of convenience may blossom into
a true affair of the heart…

A Lady most Lovely

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London, August
1852

A
ren’t you the man who rode a horse twenty miles to shore after a shipwreck?”

This was just one of the many inane questions to which Tom Poole had been subjected this evening. Apparently everyone in London had heard his story—or some wild, exaggerated version of it. “It was only seven miles,” he said, barely glancing at the man who asked the question. “And I didn’t
ride
the horse.”

The offhand way he said this may have sounded to a casual observer like false modesty. But that was not the case at all. Truth was, his real attention was held captive elsewhere by the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

She was breathtaking—tall and stately, with every feature that Tom had always found desirous in a woman: gleaming dark brown hair, high cheekbones, and a full, sensuous mouth. A generous portion of her smooth, ivory
skin was displayed to great advantage by the low-cut neckline of her emerald-green gown. Tom had spotted her the moment she’d come in. He had been quietly observing her for an hour, even as he’d been taken by the elbow and introduced to every other person in this overcrowded ballroom. She, however, had remained far away—unreachable, like a star or a distant planet.

Tom had come to the soiree as a guest of James Simpson, his sister’s cousin. James had already informed him that the beautiful woman in question was Miss Margaret Vaughn, and that she and her fiancé were the guests of honor tonight. Even after he’d learned she was engaged, he could not curb his desire to meet her, to get closer to her.

He must get James to introduce him.

“You mean, you didn’t ride to shore on a wild stallion?”

Wild
stallion? With great effort, Tom pulled his eyes away from Miss Vaughn and tried to focus on his inquisitor—a man who, although he must have been the same age as Tom, was much shorter and a good deal more rotund. He’d been introduced to Tom as Mr. Carter, and he was typical of so many men Tom had met over the past two weeks. They were self-indulgent, self-important gentlemen who would not have given him the time of day seven years ago. Now Carter’s weak, watery eyes were focused on him with complete fascination.

“The horse was not wild,” Tom corrected him. “It’s a thoroughbred.” It was a fine racehorse, too, Tom added to himself, although it would never be used for that purpose again. It was Tom’s personal horse now.

“That’s not the way I heard it,” Carter persisted.
“Heard he could barely be contained in his stall during the voyage to England.”

“The horse is, understandably, leery of ships,” Tom allowed. That wasn’t even the half of it, of course. It was a wonder they’d gotten the horse to England at all. But now that he was on dry land, the stallion wasn’t too difficult to control. Not that Tom was about to confide this information. The closest Carter ever got to a horse was probably sitting in a finely appointed carriage. Tom’s gaze drifted back toward Miss Vaughn. She looked so poised, so cool and collected, as though she didn’t realize the crowd of people in the room had sucked all the air out of it.

It was hot in here, and Tom’s collar chafed. All his clothes, from his elaborately knotted cravat to his trim-fitting coat and trousers, were far too confining. He was still adjusting to the sheer volume of clothing worn by the upper classes. In Australia he’d rarely needed more than simple shirt and trousers, which left him free to do the physical labor his work required. He tugged a little at his cravat in an attempt to loosen it, even though he could imagine the look of disapproval this would bring from his new valet. Stephens was not just a servant but a mentor. He was teaching Tom how to dress and how to allow others to do dozens of things for him that any man should be able to do for himself.

He’d also been getting lessons on deportment from his dear sister. Indeed, Lizzie was an important reason why he had returned. For a time she had thought him dead, and he had thought her lost to him forever. Their reunion had been one of the happiest days of his life.

In addition to the joy of seeing his sister again and
the pleasure of meeting his new brother-in-law, Tom had been excited to see London again. He’d always loved the energy of the noisy, foggy, messy, bustling streets. Admittedly he was seeing a new side of the city now that he’d made his fortune. He’d been dirt poor when he’d left, laboring just to survive, living in parts of London that nobody in this room was aware even existed. Or at least, they did not acknowledge it if they did. In the past he’d been on the outside looking in, seeing the elegantly dressed men and women in their carriages, their well-lit houses, the elaborate rituals involved in “taking the air” in Hyde Park. Now he was one of them. Well, not exactly
one of them
. Perhaps
among them
would be a better way to describe it.

“What was it like to be held by wild natives?” Carter prompted. “They kept you for months, didn’t they?”

Again Carter had it wrong. “I stayed with them for about a month,” Tom said, trying to curb his frustration at having to carry on this conversation. “They tended my wounds and helped me recover.”

This drew a look of disbelief from Carter, who evidently preferred to visualize Tom being held prisoner at the point of a spear.

Despite the differences between himself and the Aborigines, it was here in London that Tom felt like he was truly among a different race. England was two countries, rich and poor, with the boundary lines clearly marked. And without question, the queen of this foreign race was the statuesque brunette now gracing the room with her sweeping gaze. He had heard she was worth millions, and he believed it. She carried herself with the air of one who has whatever she wants at her fingertips.

Carter was not done yet with his questioning. “Is it true that the Aborigine women walk around all day without a stitch of clothing?” he asked with an ugly leer. He didn’t understand. No one here did. The Aborigines had their own customs, their own kind of dignity. And yet to these rich Londoners, they were mere savages. Or animals.

Tom clenched his fists, and with great effort resisted the urge to punch this smug idiot in the mouth. He was finding it mighty hard to remember what Lizzie had been teaching him about how to behave in “polite” society.
Polite
. He suppressed a derisive laugh at the thought.

Fortunately, James joined them, walking up just in time to hear Carter’s last remark. “Carter, you’ve plied Tom with quite enough questions,” he admonished. “You cannot keep him cornered here all night. Besides,” he added with a wink at Tom, “Tom is needed elsewhere. I’ve been asked to introduce him to Mr. Denault and Miss Vaughn.”

“Thank you,” Tom said, once they were clear of Carter, “for rescuing me from that fool.”

“I had the impression I was rescuing Carter from
you
,” James replied. “You looked ready to throttle him. Not that I would blame you if you did. He is an absolute bore.”