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Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp

‘Delightful … Camp is firmly at home here, enlivening the romantic quest between her engaging lovers with a set of believable and colourful secondaries.’

—Publishers Weekly on The Wedding Challenge

‘Camp delivers another beautifully written charmer.’

—Publishers Weekly on The Marriage Wager

‘A beautifully crafted, poignant love story’

—RT Book Reviews on The Wedding Challenge

‘The talented Camp has deftly mixed romance and intrigue to create another highly enjoyable Regency romance.’

—Booklist on An Independent Woman

‘A clever mystery adds intrigue to this lively and gently humorous tale, which simmers with well-handled sexual tension.’

—Library Journal on A Dangerous Man

‘A smart, fun-filled romp’

—Publishers Weekly on Impetuous

Impulse

Candace Camp

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Also available from Candace Camp

The Courtship Dance

The Wedding Challenge

The Bridal Quest

The Marriage Wager

Promise Me Tomorrow

No Other Love

A Stolen Heart

A Dangerous Man

An Independent Woman

An Unexpected Pleasure

So Wild a Heart

The Hidden Heart

Winterset

Beyond Compare

Mesmerised

Impetuous

Indiscreet

Scandalous

Suddenly

About the Author

CANDACE CAMP is the bestselling author of over forty contemporary and historical novels. She grew up in Texas in a newspaper family, which explains her love of writing, but she earned her law degree and practised law before making the decision to write full-time. She has several writing awards, including the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award for Western Romances.

PROLOGUE

1872

HE WAS WAITING for her, as she had known he would be. Waiting in the same fever of impatience that had gripped her for the past hour while she sought her chance to escape from the house unnoticed.

He whirled around when she came in, his dark gaze shooting across the room to her. “Angela!”

He was young, just turned twenty, and he had the slim, lithe build of youth, all muscle and bone. His black hair, still damp from a ruthless dunking earlier under the pump, was pushed back and fell to the nape of his neck, curling over the collar of his rough shirt. Just looking at him made Angela’s heart squeeze in her chest.

They ran to each other, impelled by a hunger that had been building all day, until now they were almost consumed by it. His arms went around her, pulling her hard against him, and he pressed his lips on hers. Angela threw her arms around his neck.

They clung together, mouths and bodies molded as if they would get even closer if they could. He shoved back the hood of her cloak, revealing the glorious copper tangle of her hair. It had been up earlier, but it had, as usual, managed to escape from half its pins already. Now he completed its disarray by plunging his hands into its softness.

Need throbbed in him, a desperate, clawing thing that never went away, was only subdued now and then into a low ache. He pulled his mouth away and rained kisses over her face and neck. His hands, clumsy with desire, went to the ribbon that tied her cloak and tugged at it. It came loose, and her cloak slid off her shoulders to the floor. Beneath it she wore an evening dress of pale blue satin, cinched in tightly to reduce her waist to nothingness and pressing her breasts upward to swell above the low-cut neckline.

He sucked in his breath at the sight of her, passion rushing through him like wildfire. “Good God …” he breathed. “Your grandparents let you wear that in public?”

Angela giggled, enjoying the glitter in his eyes and the fact that she could arouse him to feel that way. “Oh, Cam, ‘tis no worse than what anyone else is wearing. It was one of Cee-Cee’s dresses. She wore it two years ago.”

“It did not look on her as it does on you,” he answered fervently.

“Anyway, Grandmama is hoping it will inspire Jeremy’s friend Lord Dunstan to offer for me. He’s terribly wealthy, you see, as well as coming from an ‘unexceptionable’ family.”

Cam’s upper lip curled in a sneer of contempt. “They are as good as selling you to the highest bidder.”

“The Stanhopes need an advantageous marriage,” she pointed out reasonably. “Anyway, what does it matter, since I have no intention of marrying any of the men they are pushing me at?” She linked her hands behind her back, emphasizing the thrust of her bosom. “I was happy to wear it because I knew you would be seeing it. Well … would it encourage you to bid high?”

His mouth widened sensually. “Aye. I would give all that I had to have you.” He reached out boldly and cupped her breasts.

“You have already given me what I want.” She gazed up at him with her clear blue eyes, as trusting as a child, but with all the desires of a woman. She had loved Cam Monroe for as long as she could remember, ever since he first came to work for her family in the stables, and it had seemed a miracle to her this summer when she returned from Miss Mapling’s School for Young Ladies that Cam at last saw her for a woman. It had been even more astonishing when he broke down two weeks ago and admitted that he loved her.

“The Earl would have my head for being with you like this,” Cam told her. “And rightly so. You’re no more than a babe. ‘Tis wrong of me to take advantage of you.”

But even as he said the words, he could not stop himself from bending and placing a tender kiss on the top of each quivering breast. Angela closed her eyes in pleasure and put her hands on his shoulders, caressing the powerful muscles that lay beneath his rough shirt.

“Hush!” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t say such things. ‘Tis not wrong! I love you.”

He let out a groan, lifting her up and burying his face between her breasts. “And I love you. Angel, oh, Angel. You truly are my angel, my beautiful red-haired angel. I think about you all the time. Sometimes I think I’ll never make it through the day, I want you so much. Today, when you went out riding with that insufferable toad Dunstan and I had to watch him flirting with you, eyeing you … I wanted to murder him.”

His mouth moved back up the smooth expanse of her throat, and he let her slide slowly down until her feet were once again on the floor. He kissed her lips, opening her mouth to his, and his tongue plunged inside, exploring, caressing, arousing. Angela trembled under the onset of pleasure.

“Angela!” Her grandfather’s voice roared through the stables.

They sprang apart and whirled around. Angela’s grandfather stood just inside the stable door, flanked by her brother Jeremy and Lord Dunstan, the very gentleman her grandfather and grandmother had been pursuing so assiduously.

The Earl rushed toward them, his white hair flying, his face mottled with fury. “Goddamn you, you young jackanapes! How dare you put your filthy hands on a Stanhope!”

He wielded his cane like a club, bringing it down with all his strength on Cam’s head. Luckily, Cam was young and quick enough to move, so that it did not strike him full on the head, but glanced off the side. Still, the force of it was enough to stun him and split his skin. He dropped dazedly to his knees, and blood welled up out of the cut beside his eye.

“Grandpapa!” Angela shrieked, and threw herself at her grandfather as he raised his arm to strike again. “Stop! No! Don’t hurt him!”

At all the commotion, Wicker, the head groom, came pounding down the stairs at the far end of the stables, where the grooms lived, and ran toward them, followed by two of the other grooms. “My lord, my lord, what is it? What’s the matter?”

The men stopped short at the sight of the scene before them. Wicker’s mouth dropped open, and one of the lads murmured, “Blimey!”

The Earl of Bridbury let loose a string of curses. Grabbing Angela’s arm, he thrust her at Jeremy. “Take your sister back to the house. I’ll deal with this young devil.”

Jeremy grasped his sister’s arm tightly, but she struggled, trying to wrench her arm away. “No! I won’t go! Let go of me! Cam!”

She turned toward Cam, who had lurched to his feet and stood facing her grandfather defiantly. At her cry, Cam started forward, but the Earl made a gesture with his cane, and Wicker and the other grooms seized Cam before he could reach Jeremy and Angela and dragged him back.

“Stop!” Angela shrieked. “No, don’t hurt him! Let go of me!” She twisted and fought to get away, but Jeremy wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her bodily from the floor, starting toward the door. She screamed, and her brother clamped his hand over her mouth.

“For God’s sake, Angie, will you stop it?” he exclaimed. “You’ll have everyone in the house out here to witness this. It’s bad enough as it is.”

“Angela!” Behind them, Cam lunged and struggled, fighting to get away from his captors, but the three grooms held on tightly.

Angela turned her head for one last glimpse of him. Then Dunstan opened the door for Jeremy, and he staggered outside with her. Dunstan followed them, closing the door after him and cutting off her view of Cam. Angela began to cry. Jeremy carried her determinedly toward the house, and as he walked, Angela’s struggles gradually subsided. She realized the futility of it; Jeremy was stronger than she, and she hadn’t a hope of getting away from him, not with the iron grip he had on her now. And having Lord Dunstan witness her vain struggles was humiliating. When they reached the door into the kitchens, Jeremy took his hand from her mouth and set her on her feet.

“I’m going to take you up to your room,” he told her. “We’ll go up the back staircase, so no one will see you, but if you start screaming, I shall have to put my hand over your mouth again. And you can’t get away. Here, Dunstan, take her other arm.”

“No!” Angela drew as far away from the other man as she could. “I won’t try to get away or scream. I promise.” It would be too awful to have this stranger holding her arm as if she were a prisoner.

“Good.” Jeremy opened the door and propelled her into the enormous kitchen, past the gazes of the interested servants and up the back staircase. “Honestly, Angela, whatever has gotten into you? Hanging about the stables with one of the grooms? Your reputation will be ruined if word of this gets out.”

“I don’t care! I love Cam, and I’m going to marry him!”

Jeremy’s mouth dropped open, and Dunstan let out a crack of laughter.

“Marry a stable boy?” he repeated caustically. “Oh, I say, that is rich.”

“Angela, be serious. You could not possibly marry one of the grooms. That’s absurd.”

“I love him.” Her voice gave a betraying quaver as she went on. “Do you think Grandpapa will hurt him? He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“I’d say you have an odd idea of right and wrong, then, if you don’t think it wrong for one of the servants to be taking the sixteen-year-old daughter of the house out to the stables and making love to her!”

“He didn’t!” she cried fiercely. “I mean, we never …”

“Well, thank God for that, at least, though it would still mean your reputation if anyone found out.”

They reached her room, and Jeremy opened the door and pushed her inside. He reached around and took the key from the inside of the lock.

“I’m sorry,” he told Angela, looking shamefaced. “But I can’t let you get out and go running back down to the stables.”

Angela shot him a stony look. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of forgiveness. He tried another smile, then backed out of the room and closed the door. Angela heard the key turn in the lock. She turned, looking around her room. It had been her home for her entire life, but now it looked like a prison to her. She threw herself down on her bed and gave way to a storm of tears.

It was two hours before the key turned again in the lock of her door. Angela slid off the bed and faced the door, smoothing her skirts down around her. She had been waiting and dreading and wondering so much that it was a relief to finally face her grandfather. She waited tensely as the door swung inward and her grandfather came in, closing the door after him.

He was by himself, which relieved her further. She had expected him to bring her grandmother and perhaps even her mother with him, to lend their tears and arguments to his, and she had dreaded the prospect of fighting them all. It was bad enough to have to face him. His face was somber and creased with worry. He looked at her for a long moment, letting her see the depth of his disappointment and disapproval. Angela straightened her back and waited him out. Her father had died young, and her grandfather had stood in the role of father, as well as grandfather, to her and Jeremy. She knew that she owed him loyalty, as well as love, and guilt burned in her at the thought of causing him disappointment, even pain. But she was determined to have the man she loved as well, and she knew she must stand fast if she hoped to grasp the happiness she wanted.

Finally, the Earl began, “He’s off the land. You won’t be seeing Cameron Monroe again.”

Fear rose up in her, choking off her breath. “What did you do? Did you hurt him?”

“No.” He shrugged. “No more than was necessary to send him packing. But I told him that if he ever shows his face on my land again, I’ll give orders to shoot him for trespassing.”

“Grandpapa! I’ll never forgive you if you’ve harmed him!”

“There’s no question here of what you will or will not forgive,” he replied harshly. “It’s you who should be worrying about earning my forgiveness. You’ve disgraced the family. It must be your mother’s blood in you—running off to tumble in the hay with a stable boy!”

“I am sorry that you feel that way,” Angela replied stiffly.

“How else should I feel? How else could I feel? You’ve betrayed us, thrown everything your grandmother and I have done for you right back in our faces. You’re an ungrateful, lecherous wretch of a girl!”

“Then I must suppose you will be happy to be rid of me,” Angela retorted, stiffening her spine against the hurt his words aroused in her.

“You tempt me.” He gazed at her with narrowed eyes. “But that young fool Dunstan is still willing to have you. You’ve fair dazzled him, though God knows he doesn’t seem the type to let a girl make him lose his good sense. After what you’ve done, I would not expect you to make a decent marriage, let alone one this good. You know it’s the connection Lady Margaret and I want—and ‘twill save your reputation, as well.”

Angela stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. Finally she said, “You think—you actually think that I will agree to marry Lord Dunstan?”

“You will.”

“I won’t.” She looked back at him, her face as implacably set as his. “I love Cam. I’ll have no one else, least of all that cold fish Dunstan.”

The Earl made a disgusted noise and waved his hand, as if to push aside her sentiments. “Don’t give me any of that mawkish drivel about love. Love has nothing to do with marriage, not among our class. Perhaps it’s all right for farmers or merchants or mill workers. But a Stanhope marries for family considerations.”

“Sells themself for money, you mean,” Angela shot back. “Well, I refuse to do that. I am going to marry Cameron.”

“You don’t marry servants. I don’t know what maggot’s gotten into your head, but you’d best be rid of it quickly. You will marry Lord Dunstan.”

“You cannot force me to marry him—any more than you can stop me from marrying Cam,” Angela pointed out. “You may lock me up, but I can promise that someday, somehow, I will get out of here. Cam will find a way to get me out. We are going to be married, and we will go to America to live, where nobody cares about things like rank. There’s nothing you can do to stop our love.”

“I think spending a lifetime in prison might slow the young man down a little,” her grandfather said sardonically.

Angela’s heart skittered in her chest. She stared at her grandfather. “What are you talking about? Cam won’t be in prison.”

“He won’t if you agree to do your duty.”

She wet her lips nervously. “You mean … you mean marry Dunstan?”

“Yes.”

Angela set her chin defiantly. “I don’t believe you. Why would Cam go to prison if I don’t marry Dunstan?”

The old man reached into his jacket and withdrew a glittering object, which he held out to her. “You see this dagger? The one from the case in the gallery?”

Angela nodded numbly. She was quite familiar with it. It had lain in its case in the long gallery as long as she could remember. It was a family heirloom, so old that no one was even sure how the Stanhopes had acquired it. Both scabbard and dagger were of intricately chased gold. Jewels marched down the middle of the scabbard, and a large emerald was embedded in the hilt.

“‘Tis an expensive thing,” her grandfather went on. Angela eyed the dagger as if it were a snake. “Not just the jewels, but the antiquity of it makes it almost beyond price. If a disgruntled servant were to steal it, taking his revenge for being dismissed, it would go hard on him, I think.”

“That’s absurd! Cam would never steal anything.”

“I’ll tell you this, missy—if you don’t marry Lord Dunstan, that dagger will come up missing. And I’ll be happy to tell the sheriff where to look for it, since I had to throw an insolent servant off my land tonight. When he goes to the Monroes’ house, he will find that dagger amongst Cameron Monroe’s possessions. Now, you tell me how well your precious Cam will stay out of prison with that sort of evidence against him. If there’s anything more that’s needed, I imagine an eyewitness who saw him take the thing right out of the case will turn up.”

Angela stared at him in horror. She had no doubt that her grandfather could do exactly as he threatened. The Stanhopes were a well-known and powerful family. Perhaps the family fortunes might now be on the decline, but they still ranked high, and people around here regarded them with awe and respect. They were wealthy in land, if not always in ready cash, and they provided the livelihood for many a family around about, either in the tin mines or on the estate. No one would doubt her grandfather’s word, and there would be men loyal enough to the Earl to lie for him.

“If you do,” she said, trying to still the trembling in her voice, “I will go to the sheriff myself and tell him what you’ve done and why.”

“If you wish to bring disgrace to yourself and the family by flaunting your love affairs with grooms, then do so. But no official will take the word of a lovesick girl over mine. They will say you are all about in the head, that you have been seduced by the man’s charm. He will still go to jail.”

“How can you do this? How can you be so wicked? So cruel?”

“I will do anything to save the Stanhopes,” he returned flatly. “You know how our fortunes have been going. Bridbury Castle is in sad need of repair. The lands need money spent on them, as well. And the tin mines simply are not producing what they used to. Both you and Jeremy will have to marry well. Dunstan is perfect. He has wealth and power, and his family is excellent. And your reputation will be saved. He is the only outsider who knows what happened tonight, and if you are his wife, he will have as little reason to reveal it as any of us.”

“I can’t,” Angela moaned. “You cannot ask this of me. I cannot give up Cam. I love him.”

“If you love him,” the Earl told her harshly, “then you damn well will give him up. Because that is the only way you can save him. If you don’t marry Dunstan, your Cam will die in prison.”

“No.” Tears streamed down her face. “Please, please, don’t send him to prison.”

“Marry Dunstan.”

“All right!” she cried out. Sobs shook her frame. “All right. I will marry Lord Dunstan!”

CHAPTER ONE

1885

A CARRIAGE RATTLED around the turn below at a spanking pace. Angela, watching from her perch on the rock, shaded her eyes to see it better. It was a large, comfortable black coach, very much like her brother’s. However, Jeremy and Rosemary were still in London, surely. It was the height of the Season, and Jeremy rarely ruralized at Bridbury at any time, but especially not during the Season.

Still, Angela thought she could make out a gold smudge on the side, which at this distance might very well be the family crest. Anyway, it had to be traveling to the castle. What else was there out this way except Bridbury? And who else would be coming here in a carriage except her brother? Unless, of course, she thought with a groan, it was someone like Great-aunt Hepzibah, coming to spend a few weeks with Grandmama. Having endured such a visit from her grandmother’s other sister only two months earlier, Angela was not sure she could bear that.

She gathered up her drawing pencils and pad and scrambled off the rock, whistling to the dogs. Socrates, who had been roaming in search of some mischief to get into, came bounding back, ears flopping comically. Pearl, sound asleep stretched out on a flat rock in the sun, merely rolled an eye, unwilling to make the effort to move until she saw that her mistress was actually going somewhere.

“Come on, you lazy dog,” Angela told the toy spaniel. “It’s time to go home. Why aren’t you like Trey? See? He’s already up and ready to go.”

Trey wagged a tail in acknowledgment of her praise, and she bent to scratch first him and then Pearl behind the ears. At that moment, Socrates plowed into her, pitching her sideways, and thrust his head under her arm to be included in the petting.

“Socrates, you foolish dog,” she scolded affectionately. “If ever a dog was less deserving of a name …”

He answered by giving her cheek a swipe of his tongue before she could dodge away.

“Come on,” she said, standing up and picking up the pad and pencil box. “Let us see who our guest is.”

They started off down the side of the slope. It was shorter walking down to the castle this way than along the more winding route the road took, so she knew she would arrive not long after the carriage did. Socrates led the way, his plumed tail waving, ranging ahead of them, then dashing back every few seconds to make contact with them again. Angela kept her pace slow to accommodate Trey, who, though he got around well on only three legs, could not keep up a consistently fast pace. Pearl, in her usual companionable way, stayed at Angela’s other side, distracted only now and then by an errant scent.

When they reached Bridbury, Angela saw that it was indeed Jeremy’s coach pulled up in front of the door. The servants were still unloading trunks from atop it. She ran lightly up the steps and through the front door.

“Jeremy?”

She started toward the main staircase, then stopped as an old yellow dog, his coat liberally shot through with gray, came hobbling up to greet her. “Hello, old fellow,” she cooed, bending down to pet him. “I’m sorry we ran off without you today. It was just too long and difficult for you.”

The look in his old eyes was wise and dignified. Angela curled an arm around his neck and gave him a hug. Wellington was her oldest pet, almost fifteen years old now, and, if the truth be known, still her favorite deep in her heart. It always hurt her to leave him behind. However, it was just as painful, if not more so, to see him struggling to keep up and always falling behind, and if they went far, he simply could not make it.

At that moment, an orange cat came daintily down the banister of the stairs and made the short leap onto Angela’s shoulder. It draped itself with familiarity around her neck. Angela went up the stairs, her collection of animals following her, and along the hall to the drawing room her grandmother preferred. Along the way, another cat joined the group, this one a fat gray Persian with a face so flat that Jeremy said it looked as if it had walked into a door.

The two dowager Lady Bridburys, both her mother and grandmother, were in the drawing room, her mother half reclining on a fainting couch and her grandmother sitting ramrod-straight near the fire. The elder Lady Bridbury let out an inelegant snort at the sight of Angela surrounded by her animals.

“Honestly, Angela, people are going to start saying you’re odd if you persist in walking about with that entire menagerie.” She lifted her lorgnette and focused on Trey. “Especially when some of them are so … different.”

“No, they will simply say that they fit me perfectly. Everyone already thinks I’m odd, you know.” She crossed the room and gave the old lady a peck on the cheek in greeting, then turned toward her mother. “Hello, Mama. How are you this afternoon?”

“Not well,” her mother replied in a die-away voice. “But, then, I am rather accustomed to it. One learns to adjust.”

“I should think you would be accustomed to it,” Angela’s grandmother, Margaret, commented. “You are never well.”

Laura, the younger Lady Bridbury, assumed a faintly martyred look, her usual expression around her mother-in-law, and said proudly, “Yes, I do not enjoy good health. But, then, it was always so with the Babbages.”

“Pack of weaklings.” Margaret dismissed them contemptuously. “Thank God the Stanhopes don’t suffer from such nonsense. I did not have so much as a chill all winter.”

Laura gave her mother-in-law a rather pitying look. She had known the dowager countess for almost thirty-five years now, and she still was unable to understand why the woman took so much pride in her robust condition. In her own opinion, a woman ought to be suffering from something most of the time; otherwise, she would never get enough attention from the male members of her family.

However, Laura knew it was useless to try to make Lady Bridbury understand any point of view other than her own, so she turned back to her daughter. “Have you been out walking, my dear? You should wrap up. You might catch a chill. I know it is April, but the wind, you know, can be so dangerous. You should wear a muffler.”

Angela’s grandmother rolled her eyes, but Angela merely smiled at her mother and replied, “Doubtless you are right, Mama.”

She kissed her on the cheek as well, and nodded toward Miss Monkbury, her grandmother’s self-effacing companion, who sat away from the fire, knitting. Miss Monkbury gave an odd ducking nod in reply and continued to knit. Angela sat down between her mother and grandmother, saying, “Did Jeremy come home? I saw the carriage outside.”

“Yes. And he brought a decidedly peculiar young man with him,” Margaret answered. “An American.”

“An American? I wasn’t aware that Jeremy even knew anyone from America.”

“One doesn’t, normally,” Laura agreed.

“That is one of the things that is so odd about his coming here. A Mr. Pettigrew, Jeremy said he was. Jason Pettigrew. I ask you, what sort of name is that? Sounds like a commoner, but then, I suppose all Americans are, aren’t they? He looks like a solicitor, but when I told him so, he denied it.” Her frown seemed to indicate that she suspected he had lied to her.

“I found him rather shy,” Laura put in. It was rare that her opinion on any matter agreed with her mother-in-law, though she never disagreed directly. “Of course, he does speak in that American way, but other than that, he seemed quite gentlemanly.”

“Yes, but what is he doing here? That is the question, Laura,” Margaret put in impatiently. “Not whether he is polite.”

“But what is Jeremy doing here, either?” Angela asked. She, of course, lived at Bridbury year-round, and had for four years now, ever since the divorce and its attendant scandal. But Jeremy and his wife spent most of their time in London.

“That is what I asked him,” Margaret assured her. “But he would not tell me. He said he had to talk it over with you first.” She looked affronted.

“With me?” Angela was astonished. She loved her brother, and owed him a great deal for what he had done for her over the past few years. They had a pleasant relationship. But she could not imagine anything that he would want to discuss with her before he would discuss it with their grandmother. Angela was well aware that her position in the family was the least important of anyone’s, except perhaps Miss Monkbury’s.

“Yes. Apparently this Mr. Pettigrew is to be a part of the discussion, also. He and Jeremy retired to the library. I have rarely been quite so astonished. However, I find that the present generation is so often graceless.” She sighed.

Angela stared at her. “Mr. Pettigrew? But why?”

“I just told you, I haven’t the slightest notion,” her grandmother replied acidly. “I was not taken into your brother’s confidence. You had best go to the library and ask him yourself. However, do, please, go up to your room and change into something a trifle more presentable first.”

“Yes, Grandmama, of course.” It was useless to point out that if Jeremy was waiting for her, her grandmother might have told her so when she first came into the room. She stood up, saying, “If you will excuse me, Grandmama. Mama.”

“Of course, dear child,” her mother responded, sniffing her lavender-scented handkerchief, obviously suffering another of her weak spells. Her grandmother gave Angela a peremptory nod.

“And, Angela!” Margaret called out as she neared the door. “For goodness’ sake, leave those animals behind. You cannot meet this American person looking like a zookeeper.”

“Yes, Grandmama. Perhaps I should leave the dogs here.”

Her grandmother raised a single icy brow at this sally and waved her out of the room.

Angela walked down the long gallery that stretched across the front of the house and into the west wing, where the bedrooms lay. She found her maid, Kate, waiting for her in her room. Kate already had one of Angela’s better dresses, a dark green velvet, spread out on the bed, and a pair of slippers to match it waiting at the foot of the bed.

It did not surprise Angela that her personal maid was well aware that Angela was to join her brother and their surprise guest. In fact, she would not have been astonished if Kate knew why Jeremy had come to Bridbury. There was nothing as swift or as efficient as the servants’ grapevine.

Kate, a woman much the same age as Angela, with laughing brown eyes, a wealth of chestnut hair and a buxom figure, jumped up from the chair when Angela entered and hurried over to her, clicking her tongue admonishingly. “Where in the world have you been? You look like half the county is clinging to your skirts. Out drawing them pictures again, eh?”

“Yes, I have to confess that I was.” Angela glanced down at her skirts, a little surprised to find that several burrs and a few sticks, as well as dust and pieces of dried grass, were clinging to the hem of her dress. “I was hoping to find some flowers out already, but I could find nothing but lichen on the rocks.”

“Well, if it isn’t flowers, it’s birds, or some kind of berry bush or something.” Kate shook her head. “I’ll tell you the truth, my lady, I can’t fathom what you see in them little flowers, growing in cracks and such, looking more like a weed than anything else.”

“They intrigue me—so secret and hidden. It’s like finding a prize when you do spot something unique. And they’re lovely. Simple and delicate. Besides, it gives me something to do.”

“Well, selling your pictures to them journals and magazines and such, that makes sense, to make a little money.”

“Yes.” Angela loved the flowers and shrubs and birds, and loved just as much to draw her pencil sketches and watercolors of them, but it was nice to be able to sell a few from time to time to periodicals and books. It gave her pin money, which saved her from having to depend on Jeremy for absolutely everything. She had lost her inheritance, of course, when she left Dunstan; the dowry she had taken with her into the marriage had stayed with him. She did not regret losing it; she never would. But it was hard, having to live on another’s kindness, even her brother’s.

Kate had been undoing the row of tiny buttons down Angela’s back and helping her out of her dress as she talked. Now she held out the green dress for Angela, still chattering away merrily. Kate was allowed far more liberties than the typical maid. She had taken on the job of Angela’s personal maid when both of them were in their teens, and the two of them had been close from the start. Kate had gone with Angela when she married Lord Dunstan years ago, and their bond had been forged into hardened steel during the ordeal of those years. It had been Kate who helped Angela find the courage to leave Dunstan and then accompanied her when she stole out of the house in the dead of night. For that brave loyalty, Angela loved Kate almost like a sister. Since the divorce, her other friends, even close ones like her cousin Cee-Cee, had absented themselves from her life. Kate was now Angela’s only confidante, her most valued friend, and it was only at Kate’s insistence that she continued to serve as Angela’s personal maid. Angela had asked her to remain at Bridbury as her companion.

Kate had turned down the offer. “A companion, miss? Nay, that’s only for a gentlewoman. I couldn’t be content with that, now could I? I need something to do, and not stitching little embroidery, neither. ‘Sides, I like making my own money and not living off someone else’s charity. It’s like slavery, I think, like selling yourself, just for the sake of being able to be genteel-like. But I ain’t genteel, and never will be. I’d sooner sweat and have my independence.”

“Have you seen the Yank that’s with His Lordship?” Kate was asking now, as she knelt and began to unbutton Angela’s shoes.

“No, I haven’t. Have you?”

“Aye, I did. I carried some of his bags up. Just to see what he looked like, you know, and maybe get an idea who he was.” She giggled. “When I carried them into the room, he was already there and had taken off his shirt. He looked that surprised to see me. I knocked, and he said to come in, but I guess he was expecting one of the footmen. Ned and Samuel were carrying the trunks. His jaw dropped open, and he blushed bright red. Then he started scrambling to put his shirt back on. He’d dropped it on the floor, and he had to pick it up, but then he put his arm in the wrong sleeve, and he couldn’t get it on. He kept jerking it and twisting, that loose arm flapping around like some crazed bird. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. I guess I got a better look at him than I would ever have expected.”

Angela couldn’t help but smile. “Poor man. I am sure you did nothing to ease him.”

“Of course I did. I curtsied and asked if he wanted me to unpack his bags, trying to act like there was nothing wrong. But he kept apologizing to me.” She shook her head in amazement.

“Well, he is American. Perhaps he’s not used to castles and servants and such.”

“More like he’s not used to girls,” Kate retorted. “He’s got a prim-and-proper look to him, so stiff you think he might break if he tried to bend over. And plain dressed. Not badly dressed, just … so very severe. All the other girls think he’s dead handsome. I thought him only all right, if you like that sort of pasty look of a man who spends his life indoors. Me, I like a man with a little meat and muscle.” She grinned. “Gives you something to hold on to, you know.”

Angela shook her head in mock despair. Kate was an inveterate flirt, and Angela was sure that she had broken more than one poor man’s heart. But she liked to talk as if she were a wilder sort than she was, primarily, Angela thought, to entertain her.

“Did you find out why he’s here?” she asked as Kate finished with her shoes and rose to take a critical look at the overall effect.

“No. Dead mum about it, His Lordship’s man is, which I’m thinking means he doesn’t know. All I know is, Ned said later that he caught a glimpse into one of the bags, and it had a powerful lot of important-looking papers in it.”

“A solicitor, perhaps. Or a man of business. I wonder what he has to do with Jeremy,” Angela murmured. “Even more, what could it have to do with me? Well, I suppose the only way I shall find out is to go down there.”

But Kate would not let her leave until she had fussed with her hair a bit, pinning in the strands that had come loose during Angela’s walk. “There, now you look beautiful.”

Angela barely glanced at her image in the mirror. It had been many years since she fussed over her looks. All she cared about was appearing neat and ordinary. The latter was a difficult task for a woman with hair the color of burnished copper, she had found, but over the years she had made blending in an art form. She wore subdued colors and plain styles, and her hair was always done in a simple bun worn low upon her neck. She never wore any jewelry, except perhaps for a cameo brooch at her throat. Even her hands were without adornment, the nails clipped short and no rings upon her fingers.

She walked down to the library and knocked softly on the door. Jeremy answered, bidding her enter. When she stepped inside, Jeremy rose to his feet, as did the man who was sitting in the wingback chair across from him. Angela cast a quick, curious glance at the other man, noting that he was, as Kate had told her, not bad-looking, but perhaps a trifle rigid.

“Angela.” Jeremy smiled and went over to her to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “You look in health.”

“As do you. This is a pleasant surprise.”

“Not so pleasant for Grandmama, I believe.” He smiled. “I thought she might eat me for arriving unannounced.”

“Is Rosemary with you?” Angela asked as her brother led her toward the chairs.

“No. Couldn’t expect Rosemary to leave London during the Season.” He stopped in front of his guest. “Angela, I’d like you to meet Mr. Pettigrew.”

The man in question bowed stiffly to her, and they exchanged greetings. Almost immediately Pettigrew excused himself, saying that he was sure the Earl would wish to talk to his sister alone. Angela waited politely until the young man had left the room, then turned to her brother, eyebrows going up.

“Jeremy … what in the world is going on? What are you doing here in the middle of the Season? And who is that young man?”

“An American. An assistant to another American—whose name I don’t know,” he added darkly.

“But what has it to do with me? Grandmama said you wished to see me.”

“It has a great deal to do with you. Well, with all of us, but you are the one who—” He stopped and sighed. “I’m sorry. I am telling this all muddled. I have been in such a state recently … it’s a wonder I can make any sense at all. Here, sit down, and I shall start all over.”

They sat down in the leather wingback chairs, facing one another, and Jeremy, taking a deep breath, plunged into his story. “It started, oh, I’m not sure, a year or two ago. Someone bought a portion of my share of the tin mines. We needed to repair the house in the city, and somehow Rosemary and I seemed to have an inordinate amount of expenses as well, and, anyway, I sold a goodly block, I’d say about ten percent of the mine. Then, just this last year, I sold another portion of it, not that much. At the time, Niblett brought it to my attention that someone had bought others’ shares in the mine. You know, Aunt Constance had owned a part, and then it was split among her children when she died, and all of them sold their shares. There had been several sales like that. I thought it odd. Niblett didn’t want me to sell any more, but I couldn’t see any harm. It was not the same person who had bought the first amount I had sold, or so I thought, and the others had been sold to still other companies and people. So I sold another chunk, almost ten percent again. But three or four weeks ago, well, Niblett got this letter. It seems that a company in the United States claimed that it owned a—a majority of the mine. It turns out that Wainbridge—Grandfather’s friend, you remember him, don’t you?—had sold this company his fifteen percent. And Tremont—that’s the name of the American company—owned all the other bits and pieces that had been sold over the years, too, including both the ones I had sold.”

Angela gazed at him for a moment, assimilating the information. Finally she said, “You mean that this American company actually controls our mine now?”

Jeremy nodded, looking miserable. “I’m sorry, Angela. I don’t know how it happened. Even Niblett was surprised. He knew there had been some activity, but he did not know that it was all being bought by the same company.”

“Is it so very bad? I mean, I understand that you are getting less money than before, but that would have happened even if different people had bought from you.”

“Yes, but Tremont now has control over the decisions. I do not. It can do whatever it wants with the mine.”

“I see. So if they make poor decisions, you will suffer.”

“We will all suffer.”

Angela was well aware that this was true. She was completely dependent upon her brother, and her mother and grandmother largely were, also. Whatever wealth the Stanhopes had, had passed to Jeremy.

“Of course. But is it so bleak? We cannot assume they will make bad decisions, can we?”

“According to the letter, they intend to close the mine.”

Angela gaped at him. “What? You can’t be serious!”

He nodded vigorously. “I am. I couldn’t believe it, either, at first. But this week Mr. Pettigrew showed up in London. I’ve been meeting with him and Niblett and my solicitor. It is worse than bad. It’s. Oh, God, Angela, this American practically owns me!”

“Mr. Pettigrew?” Angela’s voice rang with disbelief. “But he seems so mild….”

“No, not him. Though he is not so mild when you are dealing with him in business. But I am talking about the company that bought the mine. It is owned by some American. I don’t know who. I haven’t met the man. Mr. Pettigrew is merely his representative, and he refuses to say who the principal is.”

“But, Jeremy, this doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone buy a mine only to close it down?”

“I don’t know! That’s what I argued. Pettigrew said that the mine simply was not producing enough. He showed me all these figures demonstrating how its production had gone down over recent years. Of course it has. That’s precisely why everyone was so willing to sell to Tremont. He went on and on about how we had been taking everything out of the mine and not putting anything back in. He talked about all the improvements that needed to be done to make the mine profitable again, though we had not used the profits to do so. We just took them out and spent them. You can’t imagine how lowering it was to have to sit there and hear him point out how foolish I had been, all in that quiet, prim way. Of course, Niblett had said the same thing to me time and again, but I had never done what he advised. You know me. I never have had a head for business. I assumed that Niblett was just complaining. And, besides, we were always desperate for money. You know how it’s been with us. Rosemary’s money wasn’t enough to save us, and after—” He stopped, red flaring up in his cheeks. “Well, that is, you know, we simply haven’t had the money.”

“I know.” Angela looked down at her hands in her lap. She knew what he had been thinking but had stopped himself from saying. Angela was the reason that they had not had the money. When she fled Dunstan, she had lost his money for the Stanhopes, and in that way she had failed her family, finally and enormously. It was to Jeremy’s credit that he had never thrown that up to her. He had never even tried to convince her to go back to Dunstan.

“Anyway, Pettigrew said that they had considered making those improvements, putting money into the mine so that the profits would be greater. But he said that they had decided that they did not have enough—connection was the word he used—to make that great an investment.”

“What did he mean?”

“I didn’t know. I asked him, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out a number of papers—notes and deeds. He had the deed to that piece of land that Grandfather sold to Squire Mayfield before he died, as well as the hunting cottage I sold two years ago. I sold it to an Englishman, but apparently he was merely a solicitor buying the cottage for someone else, an American. Last year Squire Mayfield sold his plot to the same man, as well.”

“The same one who owns the mine? But, Jeremy, who is this man? Why is he buying so much of our property?”

“Apparently he is obsessed with the English nobility. That’s the only thing I can think of. It is all so bizarre. He must be excessively wealthy, and I assume he is trying to—to buy his way into Society. I am not sure what his reasons are. Pettigrew would not explain it, really. He is quite polite, but you cannot pry anything out of him that he does not want to say. Believe me, I tried all the way up here from London. But he would just start talking about the scenery or asking questions about the estate.”

“But why did this man choose you to buy these things from? And how can closing down a mine and buying property in England make him a part of Society?”

“I can only assume that the Stanhopes must have been an obvious choice—titled and desperately in need of money. Besides, we have the other main requirement.”

He stopped and eyed his sister a little uneasily. Angela looked up at him. “What is that?”

“A female of marriageable age and condition in the family.”

Angela froze, staring at her brother mutely. She felt as if all the air had been knocked from her lungs.

When she said nothing, Jeremy went on hurriedly. “That is the plan, apparently. He wants to marry into the British nobility. I presume he must realize that no matter how much land he might buy or how much wealth he might have, he would never be accepted. So he wants to marry a daughter or sister of an earl or a viscount or.” He trailed off miserably, sneaking a glance at Angela’s stricken face. “I am sorry, Angie. You don’t know how sorry I am that he should have chosen to fix on this family.”

“Oh, he chose well, all right,” Angela said bitterly. “A family with a daughter so disgraced that they could not hope for any better marriage for her. One they would be happy to sacrifice for a little money.”

She jumped to her feet and began to pace agitatedly, her hands clenched into fists at her side. “I won’t do it, Jeremy! You cannot ask this of me. Our grandfather already sacrificed me once for money for the family. You cannot ask me to do it a second time!”

Jeremy rose and went to her, reaching out to touch her shoulders. She flinched away from him, and he sighed. “I wish there were some other way, Angela. I talked to Pettigrew until I was ready to drop. I pleaded and argued and pointed out the unfairness of it. He apologized and flushed and looked perfectly miserable, but he would not budge. He is not the one who makes the decisions. He is merely representing someone else.”

“Why should you have to beg and plead and argue?” Angela turned to face him, her eyes bright with anger and a touch of fear. “Just because he owns some land that was once ours does not mean he can bend us to his will. They’re closing the mine, anyway—Oh, wait. Of course. I see. That’s why he talked about shutting down the mine. He will close it only if I don’t marry him. Is that it?”

Jeremy nodded, unable to meet Angela’s eyes. “And if you marry him, he will make the improvements so that the mine will earn more money.”

“Ah, I see,” Angela’s voice was bitter. “Both the carrot and the stick. So if I don’t agree to marry this—this bully, the family will not only lose the money we are getting now, we will lose the added amount we would have gotten. Well, he has certainly contrived to put me into a thoroughly untenable position.”

Jeremy groaned, turning away and plunging his hands into his hair. “That isn’t even the worst of it. He bought up my notes, as well.”

“What notes?”

“Practically every one I have ever signed. Personal notes, all the encumbrances on the property—almost every cent I have borrowed in the past ten years. I owe it all to him now! If he chose to call it due, I would be ruined. I could not begin to pay it. He could take half our land. Oh, God, Angela, I don’t know what I am to do!”

“Jeremy!” Angela gazed at him, shaken. “What kind of man would do that? Arbitrarily choose a family, people he has never met, in an entirely different country, even, and inflict such damage on them? Bend them to his will by any means, fair or foul?”

“You, of all people, must know that there are such men,” Jeremy blurted out.

“Sweet heaven, you are right.” Angela passed a suddenly trembling hand over her face. “Doubtless Dunstan would have done the same if he had lacked position in Society.”

“No. I should not have said that.” Jeremy swung around to face her. “This man is not necessarily like Dunstan.”

“Someone who wields a club like that over your head? Someone that ruthless? That unfeeling? What else would he be like?”

“It does not mean that he would be the—the same sort of husband. That he would … would …”

“Beat me?” Angela supplied, when Jeremy could not get the words out. “Make my life unbearable? Of course he would. Do you think such a man would brook disagreement in a wife? Or refrain from taking it out on me when he is in a bad temper? Jeremy.” Angela felt panic rising up inside her. “You said when I ran to you that I would never have to marry again. You promised me!”