Sweet Fire Page 16

  “It’s difficult to believe.”

  “Would it help if I approached you on bended knee?” he asked.

  “No, oh, no!” She started to laugh as he left his chair and fell on one knee in front of her. “Please don’t.” Then he was on both knees, his hands folded in a single fist, raised toward her in the posture of prayer. “Stop it, Brig, how am I ever to take you seriously?”

  Brigham took Lydia’s wrists and gently pulled her off the rocking chair and onto the floor. “How can you not?” he said softly, solemnly. His mouth was very near hers; his eyes were darkening. He saw Lydia’s gaze drop to his mouth, rise to his eyes again, then back to his mouth. She didn’t need to say what she wanted. Brig knew.

  Lydia let him kiss her this time. Over his shoulder she watched the clock on her mantel. She suspected Nathan would be as punctual as Brigham, and that left her with fifteen minutes to fill. Brigham’s kisses gave her no doubt how he would like to spend the next minutes. She pushed lightly at his shoulders, tilting her head back and taking a long draught of air. “Brig,” she said. His mouth moved to her neck. She felt his tongue lick at the base of her throat. She said his name again, softly this time and with just a hint of breathlessness. “No, Brig, I can’t think when you do that.”

  “I don’t want you to think. I want you to feel.”

  Lydia inched away from him, batting his hands lightly and playfully when he made to reach for her. “I know what I feel when you touch me like that,” she said. Revulsion. Pain. Disgust. None of that showed in her voice. She got to her feet. “Tell me about Banna…Bacca...”

  “Ballaburn.”

  “Yes, Ballaburn. Is that the name of your estate?”

  “Estate.” He laughed, returning to his chair. “That’s too grand a word. It’s a station. A sheep ranch. Ballaburn raises some of the finest Merino sheep in the world. Our wool is prime.”

  “And can you make money doing that?”

  “Back to the money, are we?”

  “Well, yes.” Lydia’s attention was caught by a noise somewhere down the hall. She pressed her hands to her middle. “Please, Brig, excuse me. I think I hear—” She broke off as she headed toward the door. “I’ll only be a moment. Wait for me.”

  Brig’s tawny eyebrows were drawn together. Something was not as it should be. Lydia’s sudden attack of nerves alerted and alarmed him. Had she heard one of her parents? Madeline? Brig realized he was better prepared to face Samuel’s censure than Madeline’s. Samuel would want him to marry Lydia; Madeline would want to draw blood.

  Lydia slipped into the hallway and hurried toward the back stairs that Nathan would be using. He was a third of the way up when she saw him. “You’ll have to be more quiet,” she whispered.

  Nathan nearly laughed aloud at her admonishment. “I’m not near the sneaksman I used to be,” he said softly. His hand slipped around her waist when he reached her. He was standing on the step below the landing and their faces were level. “Are you certain you want me here, Lydia? It’s not too late. I could leave now and come back in the morning.”

  She shook her head and her fingertips found the side of his face. She touched his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. “The morning will be too late,” she said. “I’ll have come to my senses by then. You must know why I want you here.” The look in his eyes was all the confirmation she required. He thought she asked him to come to finish what they began earlier in the evening. He didn’t believe that she wanted answers to her questions, didn’t believe that she deserved a better explanation for his incredible marriage proposal. He, like Brig, thought she wanted him in her bed.

  Lydia kissed Nathan full on the mouth. “This way,” she said, placing a finger to her lips. Taking his hand, she led him along the dark hallway to her bedroom. She paused at the door, opening it carefully and soundlessly. “You first.”

  The moment Nathan was inside Lydia slammed the door behind him, turned the key in the lock, and waited.

  “Lydia?” Brig asked, turning away from the window.

  “Lydia?” Nathan asked, turning toward the closed door.

  “Nathan!”

  “Brig!” Nathan spun on his heel and faced his old friend.

  “Lydia!” They both shouted her name simultaneously, realizing they’d been had.

  Nathan tried the door and found it locked. “Damn you, Lydia, open up. We’ll wake the entire house.”

  “If you haven’t already,” she whispered harshly from the other side of the door. “Do you think I care? I’m quite safe on this side.” She took the key from the lock, dropped it between her breasts, and went in search of her father’s shotgun.

  “She’s gone,” Nathan said, leaning against the door. His mouth curled to one side in self-deprecating humor. “I’d say the little baggage had this planned.”

  “Baggage?” repeated Brig. “Little bitch is more like it. What’s she up to?”

  “I’m certain we’re going to find out.”

  “Can’t you do something about the lock?”

  Nathan bent, looked at the keyhole, and shook his head. “She’s taken the key. By the time I get the door open she’ll be back. I don’t think she plans to be gone long.” He straightened. “Did you propose to her this evening?”

  Brig nodded. “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she give you an answer?”

  “No. What about you?”

  “No.”

  Nathan sighed. “I’d say we’ve been found out, wouldn’t you? She’s more her father’s daughter than I would ever have supposed.”

  “Too right she is.” He was not amused by the revelation. It was anger that brightened his eyes, nothing else. “Madeline whelped a blue-blooded bitch.”

  Jamming his hands in his pockets, Nathan moved away from the door when he heard Lydia’s approach. “Have a care, Brig,” Nathan said softly. “The least we can do is let her say her piece.”

  “Do you really think she might still choose one of us?”

  Nathan shrugged. “She might.” Behind him the key grated in the lock and the door opened. The first thing to enter the room was the barrel of a shotgun. He backed away respectfully.

  Lydia kicked the door closed and waved the shotgun in the general direction of Nathan and Brig, indicating that they should move closer together. They complied without argument, both of them standing on the marble apron of the fireplace, backs to the mantel. “Thank you,” she said calmly. “I shouldn’t want to have to use this. You may as well know that I don’t know much about this weapon. I chose it because it sprays the buckshot. If I have to fire, I don’t think I can miss.”

  “You know enough,” Nathan said under his breath. She couldn’t miss. Whether or not she had the will to shoot was another matter entirely. Nathan wasn’t willing to put her to the test and he hoped Brigham felt the same way. “Are you going to tell us why you’ve brought both of us here?”

  “It’s not because I have any intention of marrying,” she said. She saw the sharp look that Brig cast in Nathan’s direction. She had never witnessed a more eloquent I-told-you-so. “That you think I could still consider it proves how depraved you both are. After tonight I want nothing to do with either one of you. I’m only sorry it’s taken this long to bring you together in such a manner. I should have liked to settle this the day after I heard you both talking in the garden. Remember?” Her cobalt-blue eyes strayed to Nathan. “Mother chanced upon us in the gazebo.”

  “I remember.”

  “Only it wasn’t chance.” Now she directed her gaze at Brigham. “You made certain my mother was in the garden.” Her eyes regarded both of them calmly. “Your mistake was supposing you could talk freely beneath my window.”

  Nathan and Brigham tried to recall what had been said between them that night.

  “Does it really matter?” she asked, divining their thoughts. “I learned enough to know that neither of you had any respect for me or cared anything about my feelings. I’m not certain I understan
d the nature of the game you’re playing and therefore I know nothing of the rules. I had to invent my own, gentlemen. I suffered Brig’s attentions these last three weeks while I waited for Nathan to try to see me again. I’m glad I wasn’t wrong about you, Mr. Hunter. I had hoped so very much that you wouldn’t give up. I’m only sorry Mother made it so difficult for you. Papa, however, righted the balance by directing you to the orphanage.”

  The shotgun was heavy in Lydia’s arms and she lowered the barrel fractionally. “It happened just in time, I think, because Brigham was merely looking for the proper setting to make his proposal. The Newberrys’ fountain, Brig?” she scoffed. “Really. How could I take you seriously there? All those gaping marble fish.” She made a show of shuddering, oblivious to the anger flushing Brigham’s features or the tension at the corners of Nathan’s mouth. “And you, Nathan, so willing to follow suit when I told you that your friend had proposed. Your offer was a novel one, I must say. I admire you for not dressing it up with pretty speeches about love and desire. Brigham was not nearly so forthright. He wanted me to believe that our marriage was for an eternity. You were quite clear about needing me only for a year.”

  Brig turned his head sharply in Nathan’s direction. “You told her that? Are you mad?”

  Nathan didn’t answer. He was watching the shotgun, watching it sag still lower in Lydia’s arms.

  “I think you’re both mad,” said Lydia. “Or so full of yourselves that you’ve lost all sense of good judgment. Coming here tonight, for instance. How easily you were convinced with a few kisses; how simply you were fooled into believing you were desired. You were fortunate I didn’t vomit at your feet. God knows, I wanted to.”

  “Lydia,” Nathan said, a note of caution in his voice. Beside him Brigham’s fury was palpable.

  She went on heedlessly. “If I was a fool in the beginning, you were fools at the end. My way is infinitely more satisfying.”

  Brigham looked as if he were ready to leap at her. Nathan knocked him aside and lunged sideways himself. The shot from Lydia’s gun blasted harmlessly into the wall, mantelpiece, and hearth. She was so shocked by her own actions that she screamed and dropped the gun. Nathan scrambled to his feet, picked up the gun, and since it was useless after one firing, thrust it back in Lydia’s shaking hands.

  “You might have killed us,” he said in a low voice. There was running in the hallway now, cries for Lydia, a call for the servants. He recognized Samuel’s voice, then Pei Ling’s. “You’d do well to think how your life might be different if that had happened.”

  Her entire body was trembling now, but she faced Nathan squarely. “You’re supposing that your lives are worth something.” Brigham was coming toward her and she spit on the floor at his feet. “What are two digger convicts more or less to the rest of the world?” Brigham’s hand evaded the block that Nathan threw up and connected solidly with Lydia’s face. She slammed against the door just as it was being opened from the other side.

  “Lydia!” It was Samuel. “Lydia! Answer me! What’s going on in there?”

  “That was stupid, Brig,” said Nathan. He held Brigham back when it looked as if he’d go after Lydia again. “Answer Samuel,” he told Lydia. “He’s liable to come in here shooting.”

  Samuel did indeed have a gun when he entered the room, a pearl-handled Colt that hadn’t been used in recent years but was kept in primed condition nonetheless. Lydia leaned the shotgun against the wall. Her left cheek was stained red in the aftermath of Brig’s slap. “These men were just leaving, Papa,” she said calmly.

  In the doorway, Pei Ling was brushed aside as Madeline stormed into the room. She yanked the belt of her satin wrapper closed and surveyed the occupants of the room and the damage.

  “Samuel? What have you done? What does this mean?” she demanded.

  Samuel’s voice was as calm and even as Lydia’s. “Lydia tells me these gentlemen were just leaving, Madeline.”

  “Leaving? Of course they’re going to leave. But what are they doing here in the first place?”

  “Lydia?” asked Samuel. He kept his revolver leveled on Nathan and Brigham, although he thought there was no danger. Neither of them appeared to be armed and neither appeared inclined to put forth an explanation. Brigham Moore was breathing a tad heavily and there was a coldness about his eyes that put Samuel in mind of Madeline when she was angry. Nathan, on the other hand, was much more difficult to comprehend. His wolf’s eyes were implacable, his features shuttered by indifference. His shoulder was placed to the right and a little in front of Brigham, but Samuel couldn’t tell if he was shielding Brigham or planning to hold him back. “Lydia,” he said again, “answer your mother.”

  “They proposed to me tonight, Mother,” she said.

  “My God!” Madeline’s hand went to her throat and her gaze was frozen on Brigham. “This is absolute madness. They proposed here? You invited them here to make their proposals?” Her anger was icy. Her mouth was set stiffly and the blue flame in the depths of her eyes added not a whit of heat.

  “I invited them here after they made their offers,” she explained simply.

  “You mean you accepted both of them?”

  “No, neither of them.”

  In the hallway, Pei Ling covered her mouth to smother a giggle. Her dark eyes darted from Lydia to her suitors to her parents. Other servants were crowding the corridor now and Pei Ling motioned them to be quiet else they would miss everything.

  “You decided to shoot them instead?” asked Samuel. He plucked at his graying mustache thoughtfully. It was a damned French farce, he thought. He was standing about in his nightshirt, holding a gun on his daughter’s suitors while his wife asked angry questions, his mistress giggled, and the servants gaped behind him. He wasn’t even concerned about a scandal. Who would believe this of the Chadwicks? “Or perhaps they asked you to put them out of their misery, so to speak.”

  “Samuel,” Madeline gasped. “How can you joke about this? Lydia’s gone entirely too far this time. Not only is she dressing like a bawd, wearing gowns Madame Simone meant for a gambling hall hostess, she’s acting like one. And you can’t say I didn’t try to warn her. Didn’t I tell her Mr. Moore was a convict and Mr. Hunter no gentleman? Yet you permitted her to entertain them both. At least I had the good sense to stop Mr. Hunter’s messages and his flowers. You saw to it that he was invited to the Newberrys’ party.”

  “A mistake,” Samuel acknowledged softly. He noticed that Brigham seemed about to say something, but that an almost imperceptible nudge from Nathan stopped him. “Do you men have anything to say for yourselves? No? Lydia? There’s more you want to say?”

  “Only that I was the object of some rivalry between them, Papa. Whatever their interest, it wasn’t me…not really.”

  Samuel indicated both men with a slight movement of his gun. “Well, since you seem to have worn out your welcome, if indeed you were welcomed at all, you had better take your leave.” He raised his eyebrows in question at Lydia. “You had something particular in mind, Daughter?”

  Lydia nodded. “The window, Papa. I was going to ask them to leave by the window.”

  Now Brig spoke up. “I hardly think that’s necessary, now that our presence is no secret. I’ll leave the same way I came in—through the door Lydia opened for me.”

  Samuel raised his weapon and pulled back the hammer. “Not just yet, I think. Lydia, Mr. Moore’s made a good point. Their presence is certainly no secret now. Was there some other reason you wanted these men to use the window?”

  “Yes, Papa.” Her features were serene, her smile beatific. “I asked Mr. Leeds to fertilize and mulch the flower beds today, especially the one just below my window.”

  From the hallway there was a burst of laughter. Samuel ignored it while Madeline slammed the door in the face of it. “You mean,” Samuel said, “that just beneath your window is a load of fresh manure?”

  “Very fresh. And lots of it. I specifically asked Mr. Leeds to see to it.”


  Brigham’s anger exploded. Color mottled his complexion. The boyish features that were so handsome in repose were contorted with rage. “Damn you! I will not be humiliated at your whim.”

  “That’s quite enough, Mr. Moore,” Samuel said. “I think you’ll gracefully take the exit my daughter’s left you or you’ll go out the door in a pine box. I won’t have any trouble gathering witnesses to say I shot a thief. You are a convict, after all. I doubt there will be much of an inquiry.”

  “Damn all of you,” Brig said softly. His eyes rested briefly on each of the Chadwicks before he turned abruptly and stalked to the window Lydia indicated earlier. “You coming, Nath?”

  “In a moment.”

  Brigham threw up the sash. The sweet pungent odor of manure was like a slap in the face. Until that moment he had hoped Lydia was bluffing. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder as he climbed over the sill. Madeline’s features were rigid, her face drained of all color. What he remembered most as he jumped was that she made no real protest to stop it from happening.

  Inside the room the occupants heard a thud as Brig landed. His curses followed immediately. Nathan waited for Lydia’s smile to fade before he spoke. “You’ve had your moment,” he said. “I can even find it in me to applaud that lion’s heart of yours, Lydia. I wish I could believe that you fully understood the nature of the enemy you’ve made this day.”

  Lydia shivered under the strength of his piercing glance and stepped closer to her father. “Are you threatening me?” she asked.

  Nathan shook his head. “Warning you.”

  There was no scandal. None. Members of the household staff remarked on the events of that night among themselves, but never breathed a word beyond the granite walls of the mansion. Madeline took to her room for most of the day, but when she emerged it was as if nothing had ever happened. Lydia was confined to her room for three days—for her protection, her father said; for punishment, her mother said—and when she joined her parents again, not even marginally repentant for what she’d done, her father hired a bodyguard. Samuel alone dwelled on Nathan’s parting words.