Rexanne Becnel (8 page)

“That’s not so! Your sister will make him defend you.”

“Your sister?” The words slipped out of Marsh’s mouth of their own volition. “You have a sister?”

Between them Mr. Guinea had begun to stir. From the garden Marsh heard a woman’s laughter, and inside, the spirited waltz came to an end. But Marsh’s attention focused solely on Sarah Palmer and the answer she would make him.

Her brow creased. “Yes, I have a sister. And a brother, if that’s any of your concern.”

A vein began to pound in his temple. He knew about her brother, but not about another sister. Why hadn’t he considered that possibility before? “Who is your father?” He did not think of the consequences of his question other than his need to hear the answer. “Who is your father?”

Her chin came up to a haughty angle. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my father was Humphrey Palmer, one of the finest gentlemen who ever lived—”

“And your sister’s father?” he broke in, sweating now.

“I don’t see that my family—especially my sister—is any of your concern.”

“Oh, just answer the man, why don’t you?” Estelle snapped. “Olivia’s father was Cameron Byrde. Everyone knows that,” she said to Marsh. “She’s one of us, born and bred. ’Tis this one who’s a snooty Brit come up from London town to lord over us….”

The rest of Estelle’s tirade against Sarah fell on deaf ears, for Marsh fixed on that one important fact. Sarah was not his sister. His father was not her father. Rather, her half-sister was the one sired by his own father. He was no blood relation to Sarah Palmer at all.

Thank God!

But his relief was short-lived. For Sarah’s brows had drawn together in confusion.

“What is the purpose of all these questions?” She shook her head and planted her fists on her hips. “What is this all about?”

Fortunately for Marsh, Mr. Guinea let out a loud groan, then lurched up into a sitting position, spewing curses as he did.

“Here, here,” Adrian said, cuffing the fellow on the top of the head. “There’s ladies present.”

“Bugger off,” the man spat, rubbing his jaw and clambering to his feet. He scowled at the boy, then at Sarah. He looked ready to curse her as well. But then his gaze landed on Marsh and his mouth snapped shut. Ducking his head, he sidled past Marsh, giving him a wide berth, then disappeared into the garden.

Marsh was relieved to see him go, for he had a far more complex matter to contemplate. Sarah Palmer was not his sister. Someone named Olivia was, and she was wed to the boy Adrian’s Uncle Neville. That simple fact changed everything and he needed to think about what it meant.

But not here. Especially not with Sarah’s confusion clearly giving way to suspicion.

Abruptly he bowed. “I’ll bid you all a good evening.” Then he turned and strode back into the ballroom. He heard Estelle’s angry call and her son’s curt reply. From Sarah there was nothing, however, and as Marsh sidled past the gaily attired men and women queuing up for the next dance, he was grateful.

Someone jostled him. His host, Mayor Dinkinson. “Leaving us so soon, Mr. MacDougal?”

“Ah…yes. But thank you for inviting me. It has been a most…a most interesting evening.”

“Can I not convince you to stay?” the man entreated. “Perhaps you would like a cigar. I have a box of the finest Cubans in my study.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“Can I not convince you to stay?” a woman’s voice came from just behind him.

Marsh stiffened, then turned to find Sarah standing there. Her face was composed into a pleasant enough expression. But there was fire in her eyes. A beautiful, dangerous fire.

Though he knew she meant to grill him—and that he was not yet prepared to address any of her questions—something reckless in his nature made him unable to resist the opportunity she presented.

He knew he ought to make some excuse—any excuse—and depart. But instead he gave her an abrupt bow. So she wanted a confrontation. Well, he would give it to her. Only it would be on his terms, he decided, as the music started up with a flourish of violins and cellos. He held out his arm to her, the light of challenge rising in his eyes.

“Very well, Miss Palmer. Shall we dance?”

T
HIS
was a mistake.

Sarah knew it as soon as she agreed. Dancing with Marshall MacDougal had hardly been her intention when she had intercepted his departure. She only wanted her questions answered, for there was something odd about his interest in Olivia—or, more accurately, Olivia’s father. Something that made her uneasy.

She hesitated as he held his arm out to her. But when one side of his mouth curved up in an annoyingly smug grin, she shoved aside any doubt. She could handle one dance. She would have to.

Mindful of the mayor’s avid observation, she gave her nemesis a sweet though utterly false smile. “Why, how astute of you to read my mind, Mr. MacDougal.”

She put her hand on his arm, ignoring the warmth and power that came through the fine worsted summer-weight wool. Drat. The musicians had selected another waltz. Her dismay only deepened when the annoying man swung her confidently into position.

Irritated by his high-handedness, she kept as much distance between them as possible as they began to dance. It was awkward, of course, for the waltz required a certain proximity if it was to be performed well, and she knew how to dance it very well.

So did he, it swiftly became clear. Still, she resisted his every effort to pull her close, an effort that made them the only ungainly pair in a room of smoothly circling dancers. It took all her concentration to resist the pressure of his palm at the small of her back.

“I could swear you were a better dancer than this, Sarah. Am I making you nervous?”

She shot him a lethal glare. “What you make me is angry.”

He let out a short bark of laughter. “That doesn’t seem to be very hard to do. You’re the prickliest woman I ever met. Most women would be relieved, even flattered, if a man rescued her from the unwanted attentions of a boor.”

“I could have handled him myself. Besides, a gentleman would not have beat the poor man senseless.”

“I hit him only once,” he replied. But his grin faded somewhat.

“Well, you didn’t have to hit him so hard.”

He swung her about, and again they faltered as she fought to resist his powerful embrace. This time, though, they nearly collided with another couple.

“We are going to come to a crashing halt if you don’t start cooperating,” he murmured.

She hated that he was right. Yet she could see that it was impossible for her to concentrate on their conversation and also fight him. So with a taut smile she relented.

He immediately pulled her closer, then whirled her around with a flourish of her skirts and his coattails. Again he gave her that smug half smile. “Much better.”

You think so? Well, we’ll soon see
. She met his gaze without blinking. “Why are you in Kelso? Why are you so interested in me and my sister?” she asked without preamble. “And don’t give me that balderdash about business and a holiday.”

“But it’s true.”

“It’s a lie and we both know it. Do you think I’m a featherhead? Do you think I didn’t notice that you first pursued me as if I were some…some eager dairy maid—”

“I got the distinct impression that you were eager and that you liked my pursuit—and the kiss we shared.”

“Then you turned right around and snubbed me,” she continued, ignoring the truth in his words. “Gave me the cut direct in front of all these people.”

He pulled his face into a serious expression, one she suspected was wholly false. “I’m sorry if it appeared I was ignoring you earlier.” He drew her nearer still. “I promise not to ignore you again.”

Sarah felt his hand move, warm and strong, at the small of her back, and her heart’s pace increased beyond the demands of the dancing. But she ruthlessly squelched any emotional response to him. He was just trying to divert her from this line of questioning. But she refused to be diverted.

“Now you are Mr. All-That-Is-Charming,” she went on. “But there is more to it than that. What is your interest in my family? Why do you care who my father was? Or my sister’s father?”

He stared at her a long moment before he answered. “Surely I am not the first man of your acquaintance who you suspect is looking for a rich heiress to wed.”

No. He was not. Yet Sarah sensed something false in his words and expression. She shook her head. “That’s not what I suspect. You would not be the first well-to-do American come to England looking for a title to wed—though usually it’s the rich daughters who find some impoverished fellow of better bloodlines than bank account. But I don’t believe that’s what you are about, Mr. MacDougal,” she finished in a challenging tone. “Not at all.”

“I don’t see why not,” he murmured, not taking up that challenge, but only whirling her about as well as any man she’d ever partnered at the poshest of town balls.

She studied him closely, taking full advantage of the proximity the waltz provided. He had a small scar beneath his right eye, and a slightly crooked line to his otherwise proud nose. She had to force herself to remember that his looks, no matter how appealing, had nothing to do with anything.

She cleared her throat. “I believe something’s going on here, something to do with…” She trailed off as her mind searched through all the facts she knew. “Something to do with Olivia’s father, it seems. With Cameron Byrde.”

Once said, what had been just musings became fixed in Sarah’s head. “That must be it. You show up at Byrde Manor on the pretext of fishing. Then you see me there and you assume I am related to Cameron Byrde. You thought I was his daughter, didn’t you? Then tonight…” She stared up at him, at his shuttered gaze and clenched jaw. “Tonight, when you found out I had a sister…you wanted to know who her father was.”

Her eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the blank wall of his guarded expression. “What does Cameron Byrde have to do with you? He’s been dead over twenty years—”

Then all at once it struck her with a terrible, sickening certainty.

Cameron Byrde, who was her mother’s second husband and Olivia’s father, had been widely renowned as a ladies’ man. Though her mother had loved him to distraction, Sarah had heard enough tales of the man’s escapades from Mrs. Hamilton to know he’d been a handsome ne’er-do-well, a selfish cad. Charming, to be sure, but also feckless and amoral.

Now here came a man of just the right age, traveling a very long way to make inquiries about him. They’d all been fools not to have anticipated just such an occurrence someday.

Something in her expression might have hinted at her suspicions, for Marshall MacDougal’s features darkened.

“You…you…” She could not quite force the words out. She did not realize she’d stopped dancing until he abruptly propelled her out of the whirling horde toward the edge of the dance floor.

He bent his head very near hers. “Don’t leap to any wild conclusions, Sarah.”

“You’re his son, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

“Keep your voice down,” he ordered. Then, with his hand wrapped implacably around her arm, he steered her out onto the terrace.

For one long, hysterical moment Sarah imagined he meant to deal with her as he had dealt with Mr. Guinea, just strike her down to prevent her from carrying on in a manner not to his liking. But as quickly as it came, that fear disappeared. Though he was capable of hurting her, she knew instinctively that he would never do so. At least not physically. Still, Sarah was afraid. And angry. Very, very angry.

With a furious shrug, she shook off his hold. The fact that he had not denied her words was proof enough that they were true. “You’re his son. That’s why you’re here.” A chill ran down her spine and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “Who’s your mother? When were you born—and where?”

For a moment he only stared at her. “That’s not important.”

“Not to you. But to my mother and my sister—” She broke off and stared at him. “If it’s true, then she’s your sister too. Have you considered that? That makes you my…my…”

This was not how Marsh had wanted things to go, especially as he watched a look of horror come across her face. For a split second only, he debated the wisdom of admitting the truth to her, before relenting. “You and I are unrelated by blood.”
Thank God
. He gave a mirthless grin. “You need not worry that you have lusted for your own brother, Sarah, for I am not your kin.”

Outrage sparked in her eyes. “I have never lusted for you!”

“Ha! You say that now. But we both know it’s not true,” he countered. For some perverse reason he wanted to make her suffer as he’d suffered. More accurately, he wanted to make her admit to her desire for a man she thought completely wrong for her. Not forbidden, just wrong.

So he caught her by both arms and, holding her captive, he vented the whole of his story. “I am Cameron Byrde’s son. His firstborn,” he added with a bitter sort of satisfaction. “He married my mother and sired me long before he wed your mother and sired your sister. I may have grown up a fatherless child, far away in America, but I am still Cameron Byrde’s rightful heir.”

He shook her, as if that might erase the expression of denial on her pale but still beautiful face. When it did not, the anger he’d been nursing these past few months erupted. “I am his son, son of a woman whose life he ruined. He is not here to feel my wrath, the bloody son of a bitch. But I will have my due. I will exact payment for the sorrow and misery he visited upon my poor mother.”

He pulled her resisting form close enough that their faces were only inches apart. His eyes burned down into hers, and he was painfully conscious of the fear and revulsion he saw there.

“I thought for a short while that you were she, my half-sister. But you are not, Sarah Palmer. We are free to explore the desire that seethes between us, even though it is fueled of hatred and distrust.” She shoved at his chest, but he only tightened his grip. “Do you deny it?”

“Yes! Let go of me, you dreadful cad, you horrible…horrible bastard!”

It was the wrong thing to say to him, the red flag that made the mad bull in him need to strike back. Immediately.

He yanked her against him, knees, thighs, belly, and breasts. Then he caught her mouth in a violent kiss meant to silence her and prove his power over her.

It was idiocy, of course. A primal reaction of domination. But then, he had a driving need to dominate this woman.

She fought him—at first.

But when he circled her waist and shoulders and caught her head in his hand, then deepened the kiss, working to seduce her with pleasure instead of force, her struggles ceased. Her stiff resistance subsided and her body seemed to melt against his. Then she rose into the kiss and met his thrusting tongue with her own, and he wanted to shout out loud with victory.

She could not deny her desire for him now!

Nor can you deny yours for her
.

It was a sobering thought, enough for Marsh to release her just as abruptly as he’d first caught her. She stumbled back, disheveled and dazed—and much more desirable than he wanted her to be. He searched his mind desperately for a way to kill his unwelcome desire for her, this snooty English noblewoman, and found it in her last words to him.

“I am not the bastard here. That dishonorable name belongs to your sister, and to your mother, who was never legally wed to Cameron Byrde. I mean to reveal that truth to everyone. To prove who I am,” he swore, reveling in the return of righteous anger. “Then I will claim Byrde Manor as mine, all of it, and anything else my father owned. You’ll see. All of you will see.”

Then, mindful of a couple advancing from the ballroom out onto the terrace, he made her a short bow, turned on his heel, and stalked away into the night.

Damn her
, he swore as he strode blindly through the mayor’s back garden. Damn her and all the other high-and-mighty Brits whose narrow caste system was at the root of his mother’s loneliness and sorrow. But he would make them pay. By damn, he would make them pay.

In the wake of Marshall MacDougal’s departure, Sarah stood wide-eyed and trembling, staring at the place where he had been, hearing again the hateful threat in his last words. He intended to ruin her family. He could not have stated it any more clearly. Her beloved sister. Her sweet, well-intentioned mother. He meant to hurt them, just as he’d been hurt.

Startled by a pair of voices behind her, she forced herself on wobbly legs to find a shadowed corner. She leaned back against the wall, pressing her hands to her mouth as a fear unlike any she’d ever known welled up in her. But that only made matters worse, for her lips were tender from his violent kiss, sensitive in a way that was mortifying.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, as the full impact of his perfidy hit her. “Oh, my God.”

She had to stop him. She had to prevent him from hurting everyone she loved. But how?

Then a glad shout went up from inside the hall as the musicians tuned up for galop, and somehow it cleared her head. To stop Marshall MacDougal she must first know if his preposterous allegations were true. And while she could easily believe that Cameron Byrde had gotten a child on some other woman, that did not mean he’d ever wed her.

Had Mr. MacDougal said he had proof of a previous marriage?

She didn’t think so.

So that was where she would start. She must find out who his mother was and whether a wedding had ever been performed. Unfortunately, however, she would have to approach the horrible Mr. MacDougal in order to do it.

She repressed the quiver of emotions raised by the thought of being anywhere near him ever again. Whether it was caused by fear or a perverse sort of anticipation, she refused to succumb to it. He was the most wretched man she’d ever had the displeasure to know. And she was the most terrible sort of woman to have such a visceral reaction to him.

But this was her family he threatened, and for them she would brave any risk. Even Marshall MacDougal.