A Scandalous Lady (29 page)

Come out, come out wherever you are. . . .
Faith closed her eyes, and a tear slipped down her cheek.

“But Papa . . . he never forgot. And he never stopped searching. For him, at least I would hope for your compassion.”

“Compassion?” Faith found herself saying. “He threw me away! He kept you, and he threw me away as if I were of no more consequence than a wormy apple. And you, dear, sweet, beautiful Honesty—how dare you come here, into my castle, as if you are some queen to whom I must pay homage! You in your jewels and silks—living a life of ease and comfort while I've had to fight and scrounge and steal for every scrap.”

Features so nearly identical to her own gaped in shock. Then Honesty made a strangled sound somewhere between surprise and laughter. “Is that what you think? That I led a life of ease and comfort?”

“Look at yourself. I'll bet Papa made certain that you never wanted for a thing in your entire life. He wanted you. Honesty, the good daughter, while I was nothing but trouble from the day we were born. Growing from child to woman in a house on the cliffs, attending your parties and being courted by your beaus. . . . Do you have any idea what it's like to spend sixteen years running for your very life?”

To Faith's utter astonishment, her sister burst into peals of laughter that sent her whole body shaking and tears pouring down her cheeks. “Oh, Lord, Faith Jervais, have you got it wrong!” She wiped her face with one hand, and held her ribs with the other. “Dear sister, let me tell you what
my
life has been like for the last sixteen years. . . .”

Over the next few hours, Faith learned the story of her sister's own abduction, her life spent on the run with a man she called “the greatest confidence man in the West,” and the story of how Pinkerton Detective Jesse Justiss had tracked her down and won her heart.

By the time she was through, Faith had found herself laughing, crying, and living an adventure she'd never dreamed possible to live—all through the eyes of her twin. She sat on the floor, her back against the window, feeling as if she'd been whacked against a washboard and wrung out of emotion. “To think that I spent all these years thinking that Papa rejected me, when all this time, it's been me rejecting him.” She sighed. “What a pair of daughters we make—the liar and the thief.”

“True. He probably deserves better than we. But we've been given a second chance to make things right. Not everyone gets that chance.”

Faith couldn't agree more. Second chances didn't come around too often, but when one did, it shouldn't be wasted. The baron had taught her that. “There's something I don't understand. What would Phillipe Jervais have to gain by ordering us kidnapped?”

She didn't think she could be any more surprised until Honesty said, “Millions.”

Faith's mouth fell. “Millions?”

“Anton Jervais is one of the wealthiest men in the world, Faith. The plan was to drive him insane with grief. With us out of the picture, his son Alex would inherit Jervais Shipping. Except the job was botched. Your abductor was killed, and mine spirited me away.”

A downstairs clock tolled twelve times, making Faith aware of the late hour. “I can't believe it's midnight already.”

“So it is.” Honesty smiled. “Happy birthday, sister.”

“It's my birthday?”

“Mine, too. We've just turned twenty-one.”

When Honesty reached over to squeeze her hand, Faith did not pull away. Instead, she squeezed back. “Have you a wish for your birthday?”

“Only for a healthy baby.”

“You're to be a mother?”

Honesty laid her hand over a barely noticeable bulge of her belly. “I thought it was seasickness. What about you? Have you a birthday wish?”

She hesitated, then confessed, “I think I should like to see my father.”

“It's a wish easily granted. If I'm not mistaken, his coach is pulling up the drive as we speak.”

Suddenly light-headed at the prospect of seeing her father, Faith swayed when she stood up. Honesty was at her side in an instant, and with her arm hooked in the crook of Faith's elbow, they started for the door. “Millions, eh? I wonder if he holds a fondness for old Spanish galleons?”

“Why, do you have one?”

“No, but I know someone who is looking for an investor.”

 

The old gentleman stood in the open door of the carriage, staring transfixed at the manor. Troyce had heard a pair of girlish giggles just before the front door opened. The following silence told him that Faith was probably standing on the veranda, seeing her father for the first time.

A second later, his heart nearly burst when a flash of gray flew across the lawn and Faith launched herself into her father's arms.

A bittersweet smile played on his lips as he watched the reunion between Anton Jervais and his daughter from the window of his study. They held on to each other as if fearing the other would disappear, and God knew, he understood that fear. He'd felt it only this morning when he'd left Faith to the company of her sister.

A rap on the door drew his attention away from the window, and he turned just as Devon entered the room. “May I come in?” she asked.

Troyce bent over the ledgers he'd been trying to lose himself in and waved absently in the direction of the chair that faced the fireplace.

“I suppose they'll want to take her with them,” she said.

The same thought had been parading through his mind ever since he'd realized her family had made themselves known. “It's their right. She belongs to them.”

“Are you going to just let her leave?”

“What else can I do, Devon? It's her family. They can give her so much more than I ever could.”

“Except your love.”

“My love,” he scoffed. “Why would she want me after everything I've done to her?”

“Because you believed in her when no one else did. Not even me. You gave her something to hold on to. You gave her a chance to better herself.”

“Better herself? She's a goddamn heiress, and I had her scrubbing chamber pots.”

“You didn't know that when you brought her into this house. She was naught but a guttersnipe you found on the docks of London, for God's sake! If you don't do something to keep that girl, then you're a bigger fool than I ever was.”

 

“I think that's it. Our trunks are packed, I've got our tickets, Jesse is checking us out of the hotel—so why do I feel as if I'm forgetting something?”

Folding the last of her gowns, Faith listened to her sister with half an ear. Over the last week they'd spent together in London, she'd learned that Honesty often talked to herself without expecting answers, and in this moment, Faith was grateful for that. Their father had booked passage on a ship for America, which was due to leave port in only a few hours. After sixteen years, she was finally going home.

Except, it didn't feel like home.

It felt like punishment.

As they had nearly every moment of the last seven days, her thoughts turned to Westborough and the lord of the manor. He'd said not a word to her the day she and Scatter had left. He'd simply placed a wreath of orange blossoms on her hair, then bowed over her hand and kissed her knuckles. Then, as now, the gesture had broken her heart.

She didn't know what she'd expected from him. A declaration of love? A promise of forever? Aye, they were silly, fanciful yearnings for her to harbor, yet harbor them she did. For in her heart, she would always be a pickpocket. And he would always be her prince of dreams.

“What is it, Faith?”

She glanced up, startled.

“You sighed.”

“Did I?”

“It's your baron, isn't it?” Honesty sat on the bed and clasped her hands in her lap.

Faith shrugged languidly. “He's not
my
baron.”

“Does he know how you feel about him?”

“He knows.”

“And does he feel the same way about you?”

“A little perhaps. But it doesn't change anything. He still must marry a woman of his grandfather's standards else he will lose everything.”

“And what kind of woman is of his grandfather's standards?”

“Virtuous, wealthy, and titled,” Faith recalled, flicking the criteria off on her fingers.

“Three out of three isn't bad,” she countered her eyes, twinkling.

“ 'Tis more like none out of three. I'm hardly virtuous, I'm far from wealthy, and I've no title save the ‘Miss' at the forefront of my name.”

“Oh, Faith, for someone who remembers so much, you've certainly forgotten a lot of things. Our mother was the daughter of Comte LeCroix who scandalized her family by marrying a merchant. They wanted to take us from Mama and Papa and raise us among the aristocracy. Papa adamantly refused and took us to America. But it does not change the fact that we are both
le noblesse
in our own right.”

She was a lady, then? A true, blue-blooded, peer-in-her-own-right
lady
?

“Faith, whether you met none of those standards or all of those standards, it should not make a difference. If you love him and he loves you, neither virtue nor wealth nor title should stop you from being together.”

“What should I do, then?”

“Well, for starters, you should
not
get on that ship.”

“But—”

“No buts. Papa, Jesse and I have been watching you fight to keep a Brit's stiff upper lip, as the saying goes, all week and the three of us are ready to hog-tie you and haul your skinny rear end back to Westborough.” She twisted around, and dragged an unresisting Faith down to the bed. “Sister mine, I love you. I would keep you with me till the end of my days if I thought that's what it would take to make you happy, but it's plain as the nose on my face that your heart is here with your baron.”

“It cannot be—”

“It
can
be, if you want it badly enough. If I've discovered anything with Jesse, it's that love is the most precious thing in a woman's life, and once found must never be let go. At least not without a fight. You should tell him how you feel.”

“And offer him what?”

“The virtue you surrendered to him, the wealth your father bestowed upon you, the title you inherited from your mother, and most simply and importantly, your own precious heart.”

For the first time since the night she'd spent with Troyce on
La Tentatrice
, giddy hope blossomed within Faith's breast. She gave her sister a quick hug, then sprang off the bed. “You're right,” she said, dragging a gossamer shawl around her shoulders. “I've spent my life running from my fears, it's time I faced them head-on. If he takes my love and throws it back in my face, then I shall find a way to recover. But if he doesn't—”

“If he doesn't, then all your fairy dreams will have come true.”

As Faith raced out of the room and down the main staircase of the hotel, she focused solely on finding her father and begging him to take her back to Westborough.

Halfway across the lobby, she came to a stunned halt. “Troyce?” She blinked, certain the sight of the baron standing in the midst of the nearly empty lobby was a dream. Wearing a tailored black suit so much like the one he'd worn the night of the ball, he looked so handsome that her heart stopped beating for a second. “What are you doing here?”

“I warned you about stealing from me.”

“Now you wait just a minute, Baron. I stole nothing from you!”

“Ah, but you did, Faith. You stole my heart.” His stride was slow, sure, and incredibly sensual as he crossed the lobby.

Faith wasn't certain she'd heard him right. He came to a stop less than a breath away from her and gazed down on her with those glorious silver eyes. His dark hair had been trimmed and combed back behind his ears. His coat was finely cut grosgrain that accented the breadth of his shoulders, and his cravat had been tied in an intricate knot at the base of his throat.

And in his hand, he carried a perfect red rosebud.

“It's silk,
cherie
,” he said, immediately allaying her fears that she would start sneezing all over his chest. “A reminder of the most wonderful night of my life and a token of many more. It will never make you miserable, nor will it ever die . . .” He lifted his gaze from the blossom and gazed steadily into her eyes. “Like my love for you.”

He presented the rose to her, and Faith took it numbly. The roaring in her ears was so loud that surely she could not have heard him right.

“My father said something to me the day I left England,” he said, his voice gruff. “We'd gotten into a huge row over my grandfather's expectations for me and my father's relationship with my mother. I couldn't understand why he would give everything of himself for her. And he said to me, ‘Where there's faith, there's hope. Where there's hope, there's love.' ”

Faith could hardly breathe for the pounding of her heart.

Eyes like mist on stone lifted to stare solemnly into hers. “He hadn't lost his faith, and I hadn't yet found mine. Until you. Faith, you gave me hope, and somewhere in it, I learned what it is to love—and how it felt to be loved.”

She pressed her fingers to her mouth, and a sob caught in her throat.

And then, there in the midst of the hotel lobby, he dropped to one knee, took her free hand, and brought it to his lips, then pressed it against his rapidly thudding heart. “I can't make you the princess you always wanted to be. But I can make you a baroness, and one day, perhaps, a viscountess. It's less than you deserve, but it's all I've got. Do you think it might be enough?”

“I don't want your bloody title, Baron,” Faith answered, so choked up she could hardly form the words. “All I've ever wanted was you.”