His Californian Countess (17 page)

“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that. I already told him we got word the house was ready and decided to travel before the weather got too warm for Meara. It don’t sound too kind, considerin’ he expected to visit with Meara the next morning, but he knows deep in his heart why I wasn’t wantin’ that to happen. Said he understood and I saw the double meaning there.”

“Mimm, Jamie is going to find out what you did to Alexander now.”

Jamie’s rock pursed her lips and nodded. “Alexander said he weren’t going to say nothin’. I expect he thinks it leaves me beholdin’ to him. But it don’t.”

Amber shook her head. “I don’t want to lie to Jamie.”

“It’s an omission. We’ll cross that bridge if it winds up in front of us.”

Together, Lily and Mimm had her dressed in Helena’s gold lace and white satin gown in no time. It was more indecent now than it had been on the ship. Mimm frowned and shook her head when she came
around the front to survey their work. She gave Amber’s mostly exposed breasts a pointed look. Amber blushed, pulling at the neckline as Lily scrambled to the dresser and produced a fichu to tuck inside the bodice. It did a passable job concealing Amber’s swelling breasts.

She was uncomfortable in the constricting dress, but ready. And Jamie was still not home.

Mimm said he often walked when he needed to think. If he was trying to think of a way out of the conundrum he’d made of their lives by consummating their marriage when it should have been annulled, he might not be back until after she was delivered.

Either way, as she’d loved him already, she’d have been hurt, but at least an annulment would have been quick.

At the top of the stairs, Amber took Meara by the hand and led her down the main staircase to meet her uncle. With Meara chattering like a magpie, Amber remembered what Jamie had said about not being able to regret his marriage to Iris. It had given him Meara. Just as this marriage to Jamie had given her a child growing under her heart—a child she loved already. And the one she held by her hand also had a piece of her heart.

Amber couldn’t truly regret their marriage, only the state of things between them.

She opened the doors to the parlor and got her third nasty surprise of the day. Alexander Reynolds turned from studying the Samuel Colman painting over the mantel. He wore a nervous smile and the face of the man she loved. About the same height and same breadth to his shoulders as Jamie, he had only a few fine lines around his bright blue eyes and a head of wavy, blond hair to differentiate him as other than a twin to Jamie. He was a man Meara resembled even more closely than she did Jamie.

That thought set her mind whirling and Amber stood dazed. Thinking. Calculating. Jamie’s twenty-eighth birthday was to be on Thanksgiving that year. On his twenty-first birthday he’d tossed his uncle out of his life. That was one month after his wedding to Iris. Meara had told her all about the pony Jamie had arranged to have waiting for her on her seventh birthday. Her
late May
birthday. Which meant she’d been born seven months after their marriage.

Meara’s father must be Alexander! Why didn’t I put it all together before? Because I hadn’t seen Alexander Reynolds. Meara’s father. Dear God, Jamie could have warned me. Mimm could have warned me! No wonder Mimm had worried about telling Alexander that Jamie was on the clipper and out of touch.

“Expecting my cousin?” Alexander asked, calling her back to the problem at hand. His arrival. Jamie’s absence.

“Yes…No…He isn’t at home just now. I’m told you are the earl’s cousin, Alexander Reynolds.”

Alexander arched one of his eyebrows and gave her a charming smile, then advanced toward them. She felt Meara peeking around behind her.

Would he figure it out?

Or did he already know?

She forced a smile and turned, putting her hands on the shoulders of a very silent Meara and bringing her to stand in front of her. “My name is Amber. And this is Meara.” Past a knot of nerves in her throat she managed to add,
to lie,
“Meara, this is your cousin Alexander.”

Alexander stared at Meara with what looked to Amber to be love and longing. And she knew. He did know this was his child. Which brought up another question. What would he do with that knowledge?

More important—did he hate Jamie for being Meara’s legal father?

As she’d seen Jamie do so often, Alexander squatted down to eye level with Meara. “Good evening, Meara. That is a very pretty name for a very pretty girl.”

Meara curtseyed nicely as Amber had shown her to do before they came downstairs. “Thank you, cousin. I didn’t ever think I’d get to meet you. Da misses you, but he says you live far, far away. You should stay till he gets home. He’d be sad to not see you.”

Alexander stiffened and gave Meara a slightly tight smile. “Perhaps I’ll wait then. Do you know who you look like, Lady Meara?”

Amber stiffened involuntarily.

Meara looked up at her with puzzlement, perhaps feeling her tension. Amber smiled, then Meara’s gaze drifted back to Jamie’s cousin. “Mimm says I look like my da.”

His jaw went rigid. “I’ll bet she does,” he muttered, then he forced a smile. Amber was nearly sure Meara was taken in by the charming grin, but Amber saw anger and some other emotion that only the man himself could explain. “Actually you look very like our grandmother and therefore like us both since we favor her. She was a great beauty, much to my cousin’s and my good fortune.” His grin turned teasing, then he mugged a silly face and said, “Grandfather looked rather like a tall troll.”

Meara giggled just as, “Dinner, Meara,” floated up the hall from the back of the house.

“Oops. That’s it for your visit for a little while,” Amber broke in and Alexander stood to his full height.

“Please make yourself comfortable and excuse us a moment. I promised to deliver Meara on time,” she
said, then took Meara’s hand, knowing she’d made no such promise. She wanted a word with Mimm—the traitor. “Come, sweetheart, time for your dinner.”

“I thought I could eat with you and Da tonight.”

“He had to go out unexpectedly, remember. We’ll do something special tomorrow evening. All right?”

That seemed to appease the confused child and she skipped at Amber’s side to the breakfast room. “Here is Lady Meara for her very special dinner, Mimm,” Amber called out as she entered the breakfast room.

Mimm bustled in from the kitchen, carrying a wide soup bowl. “And here is your favorite chicken stew. Cook just finished thickening the gravy.”

Meara scrambled into a chair and Amber pushed her in. Then she took Mimm by the wrist and pulled her out into the hall. “You could have warned me,” she told the older woman in a whisper.

“I told you he’s not to be trusted.”

“I mean the resemblance.
And
the dates.”

Mimm’s face went beet-red. “I didn’t say because Jamie refuses to discuss it. It was his place, not mine. She was a little bit of a babe. The doctor said she was early, but—”

“I saw the look on Alexander’s face the moment his eyes fell on her,” Amber whispered.

Mimm nodded and in as quiet a tone she said, “As did I when he came after she was born. Oh, he knows the truth of it. And I’ve never figured out why he didn’t throw it up at Jamie when they fought. I expect he’s biding his time. I tell you, waitin’ for the other shoe to drop now that he’s here is gonna’ be the death of me.”

“Perhaps you misjudge him. Perhaps not.”

“I know what I’ve seen often enough. That one was
around and trouble always found Jamie,” Mimm said with a stubborn set to her chin.

Amber sighed. “We can only wait, as you say. But his estrangement from that man has hurt Jamie.”

Mimm pinned her with a penetrating look. “My lamb has someone else in his life now, lovie.” Amber guessed disbelief showed in her eye because Mimm squeezed her hand and said, “Believe it. He don’t need that one anymore. Now you had better get back before he’s rootin’ through the drawers.”

Amber sighed. “We just moved here. There’s nothing in the drawers. He’s more than behaved himself thus far,” she quietly assured Mimm, then returned to the parlor.

Alexander stood as she entered and smiled, seeming to ooze charm and friendliness. “And you, pretty lady?” he said. “You have not told me exactly who you would be in Lord Adair’s household. The governess, perhaps, if I am lucky?”

Amber stiffened, uncomfortable with his flirting. “I would be your cousin’s wife, sir,” she said a bit too sharply.

Alexander frowned—his charming facade slipping a bit—before he managed another smile. “Jamie is wed? When did this happen?”

“We met on the ship. Actually, we were married on the ship. There was a minister on board. Jamie didn’t want to wait.”

“Swept you off your feet, did he?” Alex asked, his grin almost gentle, but his eyes were uncomfortably penetrating.

“It was more the other way around,” Jamie said from the doorway. Tension, thick and heavy, flooded the room as Jamie advanced and dropped an arm possessively around her shoulders.

Amber whirled to face him, shocked at his sudden entrance. Then she gasped, for a whole different Jamie than she was used to faced her. Dirt smudged his face and his jaw was scraped, as well. She stepped back and saw that his normal impeccable grooming was gone. Blood stained his white shirt and the knee of his charcoal-gray trousers was torn, as was the shoulder of his frock coat. And he held himself stiffly as if he were in physical pain and not just affected by the tension in the room. Then a frightening thought added guilt to her worry. Had Mimm keeping Alexander’s presence in the country a secret put Jamie in harm’s way?

In spite of all that had gone before—all the hurt and disappointment—she was suddenly terrified for him. He’d been in danger.

Love, it seemed, wasn’t nearly as fragile as she’d thought.

“P
erhaps this is a bad time,” Alex said, his voice tight and controlled.

Jamie shook his head, and noted that while his neck hurt his head didn’t. He drank in the sight of Alex. His cousin had not changed much in the years since he’d seen him. After so long, though, Jamie was nearly unable to comprehend that Alex actually stood before him—nearly half a world away from his London apartment. “You should know that any time you might show up at my home wouldn’t a bad time, Alex. The fault between us lies squarely on my shoulders.”

Alex stared for a long minute, then he raked a hand through his hair. “It takes two to quarrel. As Mrs. Trimble pointed out, you were the worse for wear when I last cast my eyes on you. It was nearly a year before I realized you’d barely defended yourself. Ever since, I’ve felt the coward where you’re concerned. How then could I be sure of my reception?” He narrowed his eyes. “Actually, you don’t look at all the thing tonight.” He put a teasing spin on his words, but Jamie was sure
he saw concern in his cousin’s gaze. “Been brawling again, cuz?”

Jamie gestured toward Amber with a message to watch what he said. He didn’t want to worry her. “I should change. Is Hadley above stairs, Pix…ahem…Amber?”

Her lashes swept down, hiding the sadness he knew he’d written there. Had he even destroyed something as simple between them as his pet name for her? Or perhaps the look of sadness was about his hesitation to use it. Was she regretting the afternoon’s argument even half as much as he was?

“I believe Hadley is having his meal in the breakfast room with the staff,” she said and turned to his cousin. “You will stay for dinner, Cousin Alexander?”

Jamie almost let his sigh of relief become audible. Apparently, Amber was at the very least willing to act as his hostess in front of Alex. “Yes, please. We need to talk,” Jamie put in. He looked at both of them in turn. He needed to talk to each.

An idea occurred to him. If Alex were to stay there, Amber might rein in her temper enough so that Jamie could apologize before she shouted him down. And if Alex were in residence, Jamie might find a way to put back the ease between them that had always been there. An ease Iris’s entrance into their lives had destroyed. “Perhaps you would be our guest during your stay here in San Francisco?”

“I’ll see to having the guest room made ready, in that case,” Amber said with a forced smile.

Jamie heard the strain in her voice and centered his attention on at her. “How can I reassure you that all is fine? Just a tussle with a cutpurse,” he said, couching
his question so that she could respond to whatever was the cause of her upset.

Her worried gaze went first to Alex, then back to his own. “Are you sure it was just a robbery attempt? Are you sure it wasn’t a serious attack on your life?”

So it was both his worse-for-wear condition and Alex’s presence. Mimm must be casting doubts about Alex to Amber. He would talk with her again. And not for the world would he tell Amber that the attack had felt like an attempt on his life. “I’m fine. Just a little dust-up outside a jeweler. The cutpurse didn’t get a dime.” He forced a smile. “Or your gift.”

She blinked. “Losing an object would have been preferable to your putting yourself in harm’s way. You have Meara to worry about.”

He took a chance, cupped her cheek. “I have two others to worry about, as well. I assure you the thug was more than likely after what he could easily steal. He ran readily enough from the jeweler, who was not much taller than you.” Jamie left off the sound of the shotgun, as well.

Having given Alex time to think of a response to the invitation to stay with them, Jamie looked over at his cousin, who seemed a bit far away and more than a bit disturbed. “So are we to be graced by your presence for a while?”

“We can easily get reacquainted if I stay on at the Occidental Hotel where I’ve registered.”

“I won’t hear of you staying elsewhere. You are family. Your place is here. I’ll send my driver to retrieve your things. Do you have your valet with you?”

Alex’s lips curved in the mischievous grin that used to drive Oswald into a fury. “We mere misters learn to travel light. I’ve managed to tie my own neckcloths for
years, cuz. Laundries do a passable job of starching my collars, as well.”

“Amber, would you ask Gunter and Hadley to ride over to the Occidental after their meal to pack and retrieve Alex’s belongings?”

Alexander sighed. “You’ve learned to play lord of the manor quite well in the intervening years.” Shaking his head, he took out his room key and his calling card, then placed them on the console table near the doorway. “I paid in advance. If they could leave the key with the front desk—”

“Of course,” Amber said, still more than a touch tense. He foolishly basked in the sound of concern in her voice when she went on to ask, “Jamie, are you sure you’re all right?”

He nodded.

“Then I suggest you go clean up. If Mimm or Meara see you…well…go clean up,” she said and turned away to play his hostess.

As he watched her go, a shaft of longing struck deeply. She had to listen. Had to forgive him. Not for his sake, but hers. She deserved so much more than he’d given her thus far.

“I must say, your lady is a surprise. Wherever did you find a woman who values your skin over something from a jeweler’s case?”

Jamie’s lips curved in a helpless smile. “Some things are just meant to be, I suppose. I’ll tell you all about our great romance if you care to come along while I clean up. You can help with my damned neckcloth. Unlike you, I am lost without Hadley. And especially as I am not sure I can lift my right arm.”

“Glad to play valet. It won’t be the first time, will it?
Nor the first time I helped repair damage so Mimm won’t find out you’ve been in a scrape.” He chuckled. “Another scrape, I should say.”

“No, it won’t.” But it would be the first time in over seven years they’d shared a moment like this. He felt a bit lighter going up those stairs than he had climbing the steps to the front door minutes earlier. He could only credit Amber’s concern and Alex’s arrival for the change.

“The house is quite nice,” Alex said, following him into the master bedroom. “I see your fine hand in it everywhere I look.”

“That would be because I designed it. I had much of the furniture sent from New York, as well. I wanted a comfortable place for Meara when we’re here. Little did I know I was building my bride’s wedding cake. At least that is what she said it reminds her of.”

Alex smiled. “I will have to see it in the daylight to see that effect, I suppose.”

“So, how did I meet Lady Adair?”

Jamie started off warning Alex to go light on references to his and therefore Amber’s title even though Mimm refused to. Then he took off his ruined clothing with Alex’s help, and told him about how they’d met and married. He left off the more personal details, only saying that they’d decided to make a go of the marriage after he’d recovered. He added that he was deliriously in love with his wife. It felt even better saying it to Alex than it had to the jeweler.

Alex understood better than anyone Jamie’s fear for Meara and once again, as he’d been doing for years and years, apologized for the father he loathed. Then he asked. “Are you ever coming back to England? Or at least to Ireland? I kept waiting, then I decided I had to seek you out.”

“I was in no hurry to return before meeting Amber and now I have an American wife.”

“She was quite a surprise.” Alex grinned, his easy charm much in evidence. “I’d hoped she was the governess.”

“Actually she was headed here to become a governess to one of the original families of the area,” he said, but then he groaned as he tried to get a shirt back on.

Alex stepped in and helped him. “That’s some bruise raising. The blighter obviously meant business. It’s a rather odd place to strike his victim. You did say you had the box in your pocket already so he wasn’t trying to get you to drop it.”

“I caught his shadow and flinched away. Had I not he’d have rattled my brain box for sure.”

Alex paled a bit and looked away. “You should be careful. Perhaps a bodyguard is in order. Now tell me more about your lovely wife.”

“She’s quite the bluestocking. Educated at a degree-bestowing college in New York called Vassar.”

“As it happens I’ve heard of it. Quite serious about their studies, I hear.”

“She is very intelligent. And don’t let the diminutive size fool you. She tends to speak her mind. If she ever runs into your father, she’s liable to box his ears.”

Alex looked surprised. “I can hardly get my mind around that. I saw her with Meara. She seemed so gentle and kind. And I do believe she’d need a ladder to reach The Bastard’s ears.”

Jamie grinned. Between each other they’d been referring to Alex’s father as The Bastard for years. “Well, eventually in the next year or so she may get her shot.” He turned away so he wouldn’t give his inner feelings
away before saying, “There are a few…problems…that need tending back there. So are you and dear Uncle Oswald still not speaking?”

“I still give him the cut-direct if I am ever unlucky enough to attend the same function he does. On the subject of problems,” Alex said, “those between us were his doing. But I fell into his trap. I was a fool to let him drive a wedge between us. He’s been trying to accomplish that since we moved to live at Adair.”

“And I was a weak fool to buckle under to his demand to marry the woman you loved. I am sorry I couldn’t make her happy.” Not for anything would he hurt Alex by telling him his own father had been behind the accident that had killed her. After trying and failing to get his hand up long enough to do up the top buttons of his shirt, he turned back to ask for help and encountered fury in Alex’s gaze. He quickly masked it, but Jamie knew Alex. He knew what he’d seen. “I’m sorry she died that way. I truly am,” he added. Perhaps even a little honesty wasn’t the way to go. Perhaps there was really no hope for them to patch up things between them.

Alex shook his head and stepped forward, making short work of the top two buttons. But the anger began to simmer again in his blank gaze. “I know the truth about the accident, Jamie,” he said finally, reaching for the neckcloth sitting on the dresser. While looping it around Jamie’s neck Alex proceeded to tie it and said, “The stable boy who found her decided to try his luck in Bath. He recognized me and made it his business to tell me about that day. I have my theory, cuz. What is yours?”

Jamie closed his eyes and when he looked back the
anger he’d seen was banked, but still there. “That I’ve come to hate my title. I swear I would find a way to surrender it to you if there was a way to bypass him.”

“Do me no favors.”

“If it’s any small consolation, had the accident been mine you’d have got Iris back. Perhaps that was the plan all along when he pushed me to marry her.”

“A very small comfort. Sometimes I actually understand why Mrs. Trimble used to call me the spawn of Satan.”

Jamie groaned. “Another outspoken woman in my life.”

“One who will no doubt find a way to blame your problem earlier on me.”

“It was random,” Jamie said quickly, but he was sure it hadn’t been. And Alex had shown up just after. Jamie prayed it was a coincidence, hating his suspicions.

Amber paced the parlor, wishing Jamie would return from changing. Angry though she still was with him, that didn’t mean she wanted anything awful to happen to him. She glanced into the hall at the stairs. She supposed she could easily go up and see if he was all right, but she didn’t want to intrude. Jamie needed to heal from his turbulent life and perhaps a reunion with his cousin was the first key to that.

At least she hoped he was a key and not a danger. It was uncomfortably coincidental that Alexander had arrived the same day Jamie was attacked. Her mind whirled with unpleasant possibilities. Especially that Meara was his cousin’s child and not Jamie’s.

Had Jamie invited a viper into their midst?

Voices on the stairs drew her back into the hall. “I’m
told dinner is ready,” she informed the men when they reached the front hall. “Shall we go in?”

She turned back into the parlor and moved through it and into the dining room. The room was set on the informal side with the three places at the far end of the table. Jamie at the head, she and Alex flanking him. Jamie rushed to help move her chair in, and then he leaned over her shoulder to put a box on her plate. She sucked in a breath at his nearness, drawing in his lime-and-bay-rum scent.

She was at first relieved when he moved away. Then he took his seat beside her at the head of the table and she was bereft of his closeness. She looked down at the box and let her anger grow again. Staying angry seemed her only defense against her feelings for him. Did he think a gift could make up for what had happened that day?

That day?

Had it really only been hours since they’d arrived at the California Street address? How had so much changed so quickly? The velvet-covered box filled her vision. She flicked her gaze to Jamie. With so much changed, how could so much remain the same?

She still loved him.

She nearly touched the box, but pulled her hand back. Her emotions raw as an open wound, she had to blink back tears. She couldn’t let on there were problems, not without knowing if Alex was in league with his father. Not for anything would she give that monster the joy of knowing Jamie wasn’t happy.

“I saw it and thought of all that having you in my life has done for me, Pixie,” Jamie said, his voice pitched low, but not so low that his cousin couldn’t hear. It had an intimate sound. She closed her eyes when they
started to sting more. “I think Divine Providence took me to that shop.”

“Considering you were attacked outside it, I doubt that,” she said and frowned. “You should have handed it over.” She reached out to pick it up, then looked up at him again and her heart tripped over itself. She wanted him safe. And she wanted what was best for him. To deny that would be stupid.

Amber called Helena Conwell to mind even though Jamie now swore it was Amber he loved and not Helena. Though Amber had felt sorry for Helena in the situation with her guardian, the girl had been a little spoiled. Used to having the things she wanted. She wouldn’t have been good for Jamie.