Robin Lee Hatcher (25 page)

I’m sorry, Libby.

He would do anything, give anything, to win her forgiveness, to earn back her love. That’s what had brought him to this house tonight.

After Libby left the Blue Springs, Remington was swamped by guilt. Memories of Libby had surrounded him. In the house. In the barn. In the paddock. Up on the trail. At the summer range. Everywhere. Without her, nothing was right. Nothing made sense.

Which was why, as soon as they were able, he and Sawyer had come to New York. They’d come to get Libby, and they weren’t going back to Idaho without her.

Through the crush, he saw Libby break away from Penelope Harrison and make her way toward the glass doors that led out to the courtyard. Slipping unobtrusively from his corner, he followed her, knowing that his chance had, at last, arrived.

Olivia drew in a deep breath of air, thankful to have escaped the crowd. She wasn’t used to having so many people around. It had been years since she’d attended such a gathering. She’d forgotten what it was like—the noise, the heat, everyone pressed together, having no room to move with ease.

She proceeded across the stone courtyard toward a break in the tall shrubs,
away from the glaring light spilling through the glass doors. But even in the garden beyond the shrubbery and courtyard, she found no peace, perhaps because it was so small. Another tall house rose to the left and another to the right and still another across the alley. She felt trapped, confined. She longed for wide vistas and sweeping valleys and—

No, don’t remember.

Sinking onto a marble bench, she lifted her face. Such a tiny patch of black velvet sky. So few stars. There was a place where the sky seemed to go on for eternity. A place—

Don’t remember.

She squeezed her eyes closed and let her head fall forward again. Why was she plagued with these thoughts tonight? It didn’t matter anymore. None of it mattered anymore.

Better to forget. It was so much better to forget. That was the advantage of being caught in a crowd of laughing, talking people. It was more difficult to think. She should go back inside before—

“Hello, Libby.”

Her breath caught.

“I’ve missed you.”

Oh, God, have mercy on me.

“Libby?”

She turned as Remington stepped toward her. In the shadows of the tall shrubs, he was little more than a shadow himself, yet her mind saw him with clarity. She saw his devastating smile, the light in his blue eyes, the slight wave in his black hair. She saw the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his legs.

She saw his deception. She heard his lies.

Olivia rose from the bench. “I didn’t know you were in New York, Mr. Walker.”

“I’ve been here a few weeks. It took me some time to clear up the matter of Bevins with the authorities. He won’t be back to bother you again, Libby. He’ll be in jail until he’s an old man.” He took another step toward her. “I’ve wanted to see you ever since I arrived. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to talk in private.”

Like a heavy woolen cloak, she pulled indifference about her, shielding her heart. “I can’t imagine we have anything more to say to each other.”

She moved to step around him, but he caught hold of her arm in a gentle grasp.

“Libby . . .”

She looked into his eyes. “I’d rather you didn’t call me that.”

“But—”

“Leave me alone, Mr. Walker. There is nothing for either of us to say. The past is best forgotten.”

“I need to tell you the truth.”

“I already know the truth. Father showed me his files, the cancelled payments to you, all of your telegrams.”

“Not all of them. He didn’t show you the last one I sent, or you would believe me. You’d know that I—”

She pulled her arm free and moved toward the courtyard, not wanting to listen to his lies.

“Libby, Sawyer is with me. He’d like to see you.”

A tiny gasp rushed through her parted lips as she turned. “You brought Sawyer to New York?”

“Yes.”

Don’t be a fool. You can’t be anything to Sawyer now.
Father would—

Remington held out his hand. “Here’s my card. Sawyer is always there in the morning, with his tutor. If you won’t come to see me, at least come to see him. He misses you. He loves you.”

Despite her better judgment, Olivia took the card. She stared down, trying so hard not to see, not to care.

“I miss you too, Libby.”

From within the house, she heard the sweet strains of a Tchaikovsky waltz begin.

“Remember the night we danced?” Remington asked, his voice low. “Dance with me again.”

“No,” she whispered.

“I love you, Libby.”

She stepped backward as if he’d slapped her. “Mr. Walker, of all the lies you told me, that was the cruelest one of all.” Then she whirled and hastened into the house.

In her wake, Remington’s calling card fluttered to the ground.

Twenty-Six

REMINGTON SOMETIMES WISHED HE WERE a drinking man. He would drown all his regrets, all his guilt, all his self-recriminations, in a bottle of brandy. But his father had taught him that liquor held no answers, and the lesson stayed with him.

He turned his gaze toward the fireplace, watching flames lick at the logs on the grate.

It had been nearly a week since the Harrison party, and still Libby hadn’t come to visit Sawyer. She loved the boy as if he were her own son. Remington had been certain she wouldn’t be able to stay away.

He leaned against the padded back of the leather chair, closing his eyes against the grim truth: she hated him more than she loved Sawyer.

That’s a lot of hate.

How could he overcome her hate if he couldn’t see her, talk to her, explain things? Despite appearances, he had protected her, not betrayed her.

Still, it was his fault Northrop had found Libby. He should have done something to cover his tracks. He should have known Northrop would hire other detectives. He should have led the hired lackeys away from Libby. He should have done a lot of things differently—beginning with telling her the whole truth as soon as he knew he loved her.

He sat forward, his forearms resting on his thighs.

Sitting and thinking of the things he should have done, the things he shouldn’t have done, would get him nowhere. That wasn’t going to win Libby back. That wasn’t going to free her of her father’s stranglehold. He needed a plan.

He couldn’t walk up to the Vanderhoff mansion and present his calling card. Even if Northrop allowed him to enter, Libby would refuse to talk to him. No, his best course of action was to seek her out away from Rosegate. Which meant he had to increase his social activities. Which meant he had to play the part of the marriageable bachelor. He would need to attract invitations to all the right homes and suppers and soirees and balls.

Remington rose and strode across the room to the fireplace. He leaned an arm on the mantel, staring once again into the fire.

Though his connections allowed him to move in the highest circles of New York society, he’d never cared to venture there. He had concentrated instead on increasing his personal fortunes. He mingled with the right men on Wall Street, and with their help, he invested wisely. On occasion he dined at their homes and met their wives and their daughters, but he never showed interest in matrimony. He had but one goal since his father died: find a way to destroy Northrop Vanderhoff.

He struck the mantel with his fist. What a fool he’d been! What a blind, ignorant fool!

“I’m not going to give up, Libby. I’m not ever going to give up.”

The supper party at Rosegate was a small affair—a select thirty guests, many of them descendants of the original Knickerbocker families, the nucleus of Manhattan society since the beginning of the century. There were a few exceptions, most notably the guest of honor, the Honorable Spencer Lambert, Viscount Chelsea, heir to the tenth Earl of Northcliffe.

The viscount, seated on Olivia’s left, had been attentive to her throughout the first ten courses. He sought to entertain her with stories of his adventures in the American West, bemoaning his failure to encounter an American bison but pleased about both the grizzly bear and the elk he’d managed to bring down.

Spencer
was the man her father had selected to be her husband. Olivia knew it even though nothing had been said to her. She wondered if the viscount would care that she could never love him and would likely despise him. But then, perhaps an English lord in need of a fortune to bolster his coffers didn’t care about such trivialities.

“I must tell you, Lord Lambert,” Penelope Harrison chimed in from across the table, “we are delighted you returned to Manhattan.”

“So am I,” he replied, his gaze on Olivia. “Indeed, so am I.”

She tried to make herself smile, but it was a halfhearted attempt. What she did or said mattered little. She wasn’t required to charm the viscount. The dowry her father offered would do that for her.

Olivia looked down the length of the table. Her father sat at the head, his face mostly obscured by glittering candelabra. How much would he pay to marry her off to this Englishman? He had spent a great deal to find her and bring her back. How much more would he spend to send her away?

It was rumored that Anson Stager put up a million dollars for his daughter, Ellen, to become the Lady Arthur Butler. Lily Hammersley was now the Duchess of Marlborough, at the price of four million dollars. The former Anita Murphy joined the ranks of American heiresses in England for two million dollars.

How much for me, Father?

She turned her attention back to Spencer, looking at him with a cool, detached eye. He was handsome enough, she supposed, with his golden hair and pale brown eyes. His face was narrow and clean-shaven. He was a few years older than she, perhaps not yet thirty.

He would want an heir. Besides money to replenish drained accounts, that’s what these marriages were about, really, begetting a son to carry on the title.

Unexpectedly she thought of a boy with tousled coffee-colored hair and dark brown eyes full of mischief, and her heart ached. Sawyer was in Manhattan. She remembered the Madison Avenue address of Remington’s home as if it had been engraved on her mind instead of on his card.

It must have hurt Sawyer, her leaving the way she had, without so much as a good-bye. He’d lost both his parents. He wouldn’t understand why she had abandoned him.

If she could go to him . . . If she could try to explain why she’d had to leave . . . If she could let him know she loved him and always would, even if there might be an ocean between them . . .

If only she could go to see Sawyer.

But to do so meant seeing Remington too, and that, she wasn’t ready to do.

Anna Vanderhoff sat at the opposite end of the table from her husband, playing her part as hostess with the ease born of years of practice. The guests to her right and to her left never felt neglected. She engaged them in conversation, encouraging them to talk about themselves, laughing when appropriate, all the while keeping an eye on the servants as they brought each course, watching to see that wineglasses were filled and no one was in want of anything.

But it was her daughter who captured her thoughts.