Teresa Medeiros Read online

  A fat man in a towering stovepipe hat rose with him, but his companion remained seated, in no apparent haste to abandon his leisurely breakfast.

  “Good morning!” he called out, spearing something with a silver fork. “Care for a kipper?”

  “No, thank you,” Justin replied. “May I help you gentlemen?”

  “We certainly hope so,” the plump man boomed out. He offered Justin his hand. “Thaddeus Goodstocking at your service.”

  Justin released her with obvious reluctance and allowed the man to pump his hand, but Emily noticed he did not offer his name. Wariness cut shallow grooves around his mouth.

  “And I am Bentley Chalmers.” The seated man dabbed his waxed mustache with his napkin. “Your charming valet was kind enough to offer us a spot of tea to wash down our breakfast.”

  Penfeld inched toward Justin as if sneaking out of an enemy camp. It was only too easy to understand how he’d been seduced by their creamy china, their salted kippers, their London gossip.

  Both of the strangers looked hot and stifled in their quilted waistcoats. The leaner man had been smart enough to drape his heavy frock coat over the back of his chair. Emily pitied Mr. Goodstocking. Sweat dripped into his bushy whiskers, and the points of his starched collar cut into his heavy jowls.

  “You must forgive our interruption,” he said. “We do so hate to draw you away from your native delights.” Her sympathy vanished as his piggish eyes raked her in leering curiosity.

  She was suddenly and painfully aware of her appearance. Her curls were tangled, her feet bare and sandy. With her scant garb, tan skin, and sun-burnished freckles, she must appear to these proper English gentlemen as the basest of whores. Her first instinct was to shrink behind Justin, but she had too often endured shame and condemnation from forbidding figures dressed in black.

  Justin was not oblivious to the exchange. He stepped in front of her, his jaw hardening with the glacial dignity she had glimpsed before. “You didn’t come all the way to New Zealand for a good cup of tea.”

  Mr. Goodstocking retreated from Justin’s frosty stare even as Chalmers rose with a placating smile, taking a thick leather packet from beside his plate. He refused to even acknowledge Emily, which was somehow more cutting than Goodstocking’s leer.

  “No,” he admitted. “We didn’t come for the tea. We came as agents acting on behalf of the Duchess of Winthrop to seek a man calling himself Justin Connor.”

  Justin hesitated; Emily could hear her heart pounding in her ears.

  “I am that man,” he finally replied, his New Zealand brogue as flat as she had ever heard it.

  Goodstocking’s gaze traveled from the ragged knees of Justin’s dungarees to his bare feet. He cleared his throat and exchanged a long look with his companion.

  Chalmers handed Justin the leather packet, then swept off his neat bowler in a deferent bow that might have belonged to another century. “Your Grace.”

  Penfeld gasped. Emily took a step backward without realizing it.

  Justin stared down at the packet in his hands. Chalmers’s benign address had conveyed a wealth of meaning. His father was dead. He was now the Duke of Winthrop.

  He ran his fingers over the pitted leather, desperate to feel something, anything at all. But all he felt was a vast emptiness. David Scarborough had been more father to him in six months than his own father had been in a lifetime. His grief was not the sharp pain of loss, but an overwhelming sense of regret for the moments they might have shared, moments lost forever to them now.

  Chalmers gestured. “Within that packet you will find several letters from your mother. She would like you to return to London immediately to assist her in the matter of settling your father’s estate. She needs you.”

  Those three words tightened the noose around his neck. For a terrible moment the old choking pressure returned. He was now the owner of that crude vessel anchored offshore and a fleet of sailing ships and steamers strewn from the English Channel to the Bering Strait.

  Not this time, he thought. Things were different now. He was no longer a helpless child or even a rash, rebellious young man. He was lord of the manor now. There was no one to stop him from returning to New Zealand and running his empire from the sunny coast of the North Island. He could hire men to take care of the mundane details of the business while he used his wealth and influence as he chose. He slapped the packet against his palm, seeing it not as a warrant of execution, but as a golden ticket of opportunity for both him and Emily, his chance to make amends to his family and to David’s daughter.

  Chalmers droned on. “It would have taken us much longer to find you, but we had the good fortune to stumble upon a detective who had located you while employed by a Miss Amelia Winters.”

  Justin didn’t even hear him. He was already dwelling on his first meeting with Claire Scarborough, praying he would have the courage to look her in the eye and tell her the truth about her father’s death. His jaw tightened with resolve. With Emily by his side he could do anything.

  He turned, eager to share his plans with her.

  Emily was gone.

  Chapter 14

  If your mother taught me nothing else, it was that wealth cannot buy joy.…

  Emily tossed the little blue journal on the stack of books and bound them together with a leather strip. Her hands worked separately from her brain, knotting and neatening, tying and folding in a soothing stream designed to numb both mind and heart. She bundled a pile of blankets into two bedrolls and began to wrap what was left of Penfeld’s tea set in soft scraps of flannel. Her hands did not falter until they ran across the box containing her father’s watch. Justin would have no need to send it to Miss Winters now. He would soon discover that all the gold in the world couldn’t buy him Claire Scarborough.

  She padded to the table and eased Justin’s symphonies from their hidden drawer. The embossed document she had seen once before slid out with them, but she tossed it aside. She had no more interest in grants or deeds or mysterious maps. The gold mine was as dead as her father’s dreams.

  All that remained in the drawer were Justin’s letters to Claire. Emily drew them out, crumpling them in her clumsy fingers. Justin had never shared them willingly, but they still belonged to her. They might be all she ever had of him.

  Justin’s shadow fell across her like a caress.

  Shoving the letters into the waistband of her skirt, she spoke without turning around. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to take all the books. You’d sink the dinghy. Perhaps even the steamer.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  “Packing,” she replied, jamming the sugar bowl into a wicker basket. She folded the tablecloth, refusing to halt her frenetic activity long enough to look at him.

  She heard the betraying shuffle of claws across the dirt floor. Fluffy had taken advantage of the open door to skitter in.

  She picked up another teacup, praying her clumsy motions would not betray her. “You’d best leave the lizard with me. You’d look odd walking him on a leash in Kensington Gardens. I suggest you buy a nice English bulldog instead.”

  Justin’s footfalls sounded behind her. The cup slipped from her hand and struck the edge of the table, shattering.

  “You’re going with me, Emily.”

  She crouched and gathered up the fragile bits of china. There would be no gumming them back together this time. The pieces were too jagged to fit.

  “No,” she said softly. “I’m not.”

  He caught her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Why not?”

  She inclined her head, fearful of finding her own pain mirrored in his tawny eyes. “I can’t go back to England with you.”

  He was silent for a long moment. She could almost hear the facile little wheels of his mind clicking. “If you’re in trouble with the law, Emily, I can help you. I’m an influential man now. I’ll have an army of barristers at my disposal.”

  She laughed weakly. “Probably a few judges
as well.”

  His fingers bit into her arm. “What is this? Your brave attempt at gallows humor?”

  Tilting her face to his, she flattened her quavering voice to dead calm. “Unless you care to tie me up and put me on that ship, I’m not going.”

  Justin was tempted to do just that. But as he gazed down at her, he didn’t see her pale and drawn as she was now. He saw her pelting down the beach with the children, her curls dancing, her merry, freckled face turned to the sun. He saw her swaying in the firelight with sensual abandon, her skirt billowing around her ankles. Try as he might, he could not imagine her trapped in the winter chill of London, her glow fading to pallor beneath a gray sky dulled with soot.

  Grief stabbed him, fresher than anything he’d felt at the news of his father’s death. Emily was right. She didn’t belong in London any more than he did. She belonged here, bathed by sunlight and sea, cloaked in the sweet melodies and loving grace of the Maori. Despite her tough veneer, she was a wild, fragile bloom that would surely wither if transplanted.

  He paced away from her, raking a hand through his hair. If it weren’t for David’s child, he would stay. But he couldn’t offer Emily a heart unfettered by the past until he’d repaid that old debt. “I have to go. I have no choice.”

  “I know.”

  Why didn’t she cry? Why didn’t she throw herself at his feet and beg him to stay? Her damnable pride was tearing him apart. A fierce regret touched him. He should have taken her last night, forged the bond between them that much stronger. What a joy it would have been to return to find her splashing through the waves, rosy and plump with his child!

  “I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few months. I’m leaving Penfeld with you.”

  “You can’t. You’d break his heart. He’d never forgive you if he missed a shopping expedition to Fleet Street. Trini can look in on me if you’d like, but I’m really quite good at looking after myself.”

  He snorted. “This from a woman who fell off a boat in the middle of the Tasman Sea?”

  She shrugged. “I tripped over my boot lace.”

  His shoulders slumped in helpless laughter. “Christ, Em, what am I going to do without you?” Aching with longing, he reached to fold her in his arms.

  She backed away, her dark eyes aflame with the dangerous sparkle of tears. “Please, don’t. I detest good-byes.”

  With those words she spun around and fled the hut, leaving him to gaze at the barren table and wonder how she could have swept his heart so empty with a single careless stroke.

  Emily stood alone on the bluff, gazing out to sea. Her fingers trailed absently over the blunt peak of the wooden cross.

  The sun’s splintered rays bathed her face in warmth. She closed her eyes. The wind raked her with tender fingers, fresh and pure like a melody never to be heard by any ears but her own. Its beauty made her ache. But when she opened her eyes they felt as dry and barren as the withered husks of the flowers rustling at the base of the cross.

  She was waiting for Justin. She knew he would come. She had seen him on the beach below saying his good-byes—embracing Trini, grasping the sun-browned hands of the solemn natives, lifting Dani to his shoulders for a last ride.

  The Winthrop steamer loomed like a dark blot on the misty azure and jade of a wet painting. Justin didn’t make a sound, but Emily knew he was behind her.

  “I hate ships,” she said. “They’re always taking people away.”

  “But they bring them back too.”

  She turned to face him, hugging back a shiver as if the wind were cold instead of warm. A jolt of shock raced through her. She had never seen Justin in anything but his faded dungarees. Seeing him fully clothed now was somehow more erotic than his near nakedness. He wore no coat, but a handsome waistcoat covered a shirt pressed to crisp perfection. Her mouth went dry with unexpected longing.

  The shirt hung loosely over his broad shoulders. Tenderness washed over her for the brawny young prospector who had come to New Zealand filled with dreams and hope. But she wouldn’t have traded a single thread of silver from his temples to have that man back.

  His lean form suited the elegance of his garb. Emily felt sorely lacking in her primitive skirt. She shuffled her feet in the sand, fighting a desperate shyness. “I’ve never seen you with shoes before.”

  He cast the polished leather a woeful glance. “They pinch like hell.”

  She drew in a breath, but instead of the laugh she had intended, a broken sob burst forth. Justin reached for her. She melted into him, throwing her arms around him like a bereft child.

  He held her as if he would never let her go, kissing her nose, rubbing his stubbled chin against her cheek, mingling her tears into a salty balm against his seeking lips.

  He buried his mouth in her hair. “I’ll be back for you, Emily. I swear it.”

  Her slender shoulders convulsed beneath Justin’s hands. Her small fists opened and closed against his back, and in the desperation of her grasp he realized something that cut him almost as deeply as leaving her.

  She didn’t believe him.

  With staggering reluctance he dragged himself out of her embrace. He reached in the inner pocket of his waistcoat and drew out a box.

  “I have no ring to give you. All I have is this.” His hands shook as he dropped the lid in the sand and drew out the shining rope of gold.

  The watch dangled between them, casting shards of sunlight across Emily’s tear-stained face. She sucked in a shuddering breath as he lowered the chain over her head. The watch fell between her breasts, golden bright against her tanned skin.

  He cupped her face between his palms and gave her one last kiss, hot, sweet, and fierce with promise. Then he started down the hill, nearly stumbling in his haste to leave her before his will faltered.

  “Justin Connor!”

  The croaked bellow brought him to a sliding halt. He shaded his eyes against the sun and looked back at the bluff.

  Emily was jumping up and down, waving her arms. “Show them you’re the best damned duke England has ever seen! Better than Prince Albert. Better even than the Duke of Wellington. And tell Mr. Thaddeus Swinestocking his spit isn’t fit to polish your shoes!”

  He wouldn’t have to. The hefty agent was standing beside the dinghy, his fat jowls drooping in consternation.

  Justin touched his fingers to his lips, then spread them toward Emily in a silent salute.

  “Buy Penfeld some china!” she shouted, cupping a hand around her mouth. “Wedgwood jasperware with a floral pattern.”

  The natives watched with solemn eyes as he climbed into the dinghy. The sailors used the long oars to shove them away from the shore. Penfeld perched awkwardly in the bow, clutching the sides of the boat with whitened fingers. Justin didn’t dare look at him. If his valet’s fat little chin quivered the tiniest bit, Justin feared he would throw himself overboard and swim back to Emily even if they were halfway to England.

  “Don’t forget that English bulldog! He’ll need a spiked collar. Keep him away from poodles. They’re not real dogs, you know, just rats with curly hair and you mustn’t breed …” Her hoarse voice was fading.

  The oars parted the water in long, rippling strokes, shoving away the shoreline. A plaintive melody filled the air, sonorous and sweet.

  He had told Emily the truth. The Maori could do nothing without singing.

  Not even say good-bye.

  Chalmers’s cool, questioning gaze touched his face, but Justin didn’t even blink. He kept his gaze riveted on the slender figure standing on the shrinking bluff and let the salty breeze burn the tears from his eyes before they could fall.

  It was twilight before Emily made her way down from the bluff. The last tawny rays of the sun bathed the beach. Her limbs, her eyelids, her throat, ached with a leaden heaviness like the weight of the watch against her breastbone, but her heart felt as drained as her eyes. She had watered her father’s grave with her tears for the last time. The sand had absorbed them, sucking them awa
y as if they had never fallen.

  The packet of letters she had taken from the hut rustled against her skin. She had spent the past few hours poring over them. They were simple letters written to a child, filled with the warmth, wit, and charm she had come to expect from Justin. They were filled with the pleasures of his days, the beauty of the island, his friendships with the Maori, and humorous anecdotes about her father. He had shared all of himself in those letters, everything but the puzzling truth that had kept him from posting them.

  Emily’s steps faltered as she saw Trini sitting cross-legged in the sand. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to see anyone. She just wanted to crawl back into the sea as she had come. She walked past him without a word.

  He scrambled to his feet. “Where will you go?”

  She forced back a groan. When Trini used words under five syllables, he was deadly serious. She turned to face him. “Away.”

  “What shall I tell the Pakeha when he returns?”

  “He won’t be back.” The bitter words shot out before she could stop them.

  “And if you are wrong?”

  She squared her shoulders. “Then I’ll be the one to leave this time.”

  A sad smile played around his lips. He drew a line in the sand with his toe. “Perhaps you are no wiser than we Maori. Seeking utu, your own personal revenge, for every slight.”

  “He slighted my whole life!” she cried.

  Emily realized then that it wasn’t about the gold. It never had been. She couldn’t forgive him for breaking the heart of a child who had believed in him. And she couldn’t afford to find out if he would do it again, Time had robbed her of her defenses. Her woman’s heart wasn’t as resilient as the child’s had been. Another blow would surely shatter it. She felt the warning prick of tears behind her eyes. She blinked them away, not wanting Trini to see her cry. Not wanting anyone to ever see her cry again.

  “It reminds me of something the Pakeha’s mighty God once said—‘Vengeance is mine.’ ”