Candace Camp - Promise Me Tomorrow

This locket had been her talisman all through the dark, dreary days at the orphanage. She had worn it under her dress every day and even slept with it on. As the years had passed, she had gradually forgotten whatever her life had been before the orphanage. She thought she remembered the woman in the portrait laughing, and she remembered a permeating sense of fear, of running and being so scared she thought her heart would burst. That, she thought, must have been when she was brought to the orphanage. But she could no longer remember arriving at St. Anselm’s or who had brought her there, and, of course, the matron had steadfastly refused to answer her questions about the event. She was not even sure if Mary Chilton had been her real name or merely one the orphanage had given her.

Marianne rubbed her thumb over the delicate tracery in an old habit, remembering the stories she had made up about her parents to help sustain her. She had imagined them wealthy and noble and very loving. A wicked man had stolen her from them and taken her to St. Anselm’s, but she knew that her parents were still out there looking for her. They would never give up.

She smiled a little sadly and set the locket back into its case. Children’s stories, that was all they were. No one was searching for her to bring her back to her family. Her only family was here: her daughter, Rosalind, and Winny and the others. Yet, as she climbed into bed and settled down to sleep, she could not quite still the ache in her heart for the family she had never known.

LORD LAMBETH GAZED DOWN INTO THE brandy snifter, circling it idly in his hand, and watched the liquid swirl around the balloon glass. Marianne Cotterwood. Who the devil was she?

He found it decidedly irritating that she had managed to slip away from him. Justin was not accustomed to being thwarted, least of all by a woman. Women usually hung upon his every word, smiling and fluttering their lashes, eager to be the one on whom he decided to settle his sizable fortune. He was cynical enough to realize that while his good looks might make the effort more palatable, it was his money that was the real lure. Marriageable girls had been after him since he reached his majority ten years ago. The truth was that he found all of them dead bores, and the thought of shackling himself to one of them for the rest of his life was enough to make him shiver. He supposed that someday, when he could delay it no longer, he would marry Cecilia Winborne, as she and his parents expected. Her family was equal to his in birth—or close enough to it to make the match a good one—and a future Duke had to produce a few heirs, after all. Then, of course, they would go their separate ways, and he would have mistresses to counteract Cecilia’s coldness.

Women of lighter virtue, of course, were rather more fun, not bound by the rigid rules of propriety that afflicted their more genteel sisters, but he found them just as vapid, primarily interested in their looks and his pocketbook, with few thoughts in their head. His friend Buckminster sometimes teased him that he should try his luck with a bluestocking female if he was so interested in intelligence, but the truth was that they were as serious and dull in their own way—and usually without the spark of beauty to ignite his interest.

The truth was, he had never met a woman who didn’t bore him within a short amount of time—and above all things, Lord Lambeth despised boredom. In fact, tonight he had been just about to leave Lady Batterslee’s rout, having judged it deadly dull, when he caught sight of the redhead.

He had had no idea who she was. He had never seen her before; he knew he would have remembered her if he had. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Just looking at her across the room had sent a thrill of pure sexual desire through him, and his first thought had been that he wanted to see that flaming mass of hair spread across his pillow. Then she had looked at him in that haughty way, lifting her chin, and had turned away, snubbing him. It was a reaction he was not used to receiving from a woman, and his interest in her had heightened. Nothing that had happened afterward, from discovering that she was an apparent thief to kissing her in Lord Batterslee’s study, had lessened his interest.

He smiled faintly to himself, his lips softening sensually as he remembered their kiss. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth glass of the snifter, wishing it were her skin. This was a woman, he thought, who could hold his interest longer than most. She was somewhat infuriating, of course…Unconsciously, he raised a hand and rubbed it along the cheek that she had slapped. The sting had been well worth it, given the kiss that had preceded it. Her mouth had been soft and sweet, and there had been a certain awkward naïveté to her kiss that had been curiously arousing. It had left him wanting a good deal more—and he intended to have it.

The only problem, of course, was that he hadn’t the slightest idea where to find her. He knew only her name—if she had not been lying to him about that, which was a distinct possibility. Thieves, in his experience, rarely balked at lying. However, she was scarcely the usual thief. She spoke and acted like a gentlewoman. Was she a lady who had fallen on hard times and chosen this way to keep herself afloat? It seemed absurd. More likely she had been blessed with good looks and learned to imitate the upper classes—a lady’s maid, perhaps? Then she had somehow managed to worm her way into Society. But whatever her background, it seemed to Justin a particularly daring and unusual thing for a woman to do. He certainly could not fault her for her courage.

Damn that fool Batterslee for barging in when he did! If only he had had a few more moments with her, Justin was sure that he could have wormed more information out of her, could even have convinced her that he did not intend to use his knowledge of her illegal activities to bludgeon her into coming to his bed. As it was, she thought him the basest of men and had fled without a trace.

He was not without resources, however. He had seen her with Penelope Castlereigh and Lord Buckminster. Perhaps they knew who she was and where she lived. He would make it a point to drop in on Bucky tomorrow and pump him for information. However long it might take, he was determined that he was going to find that girl.

RICHARD MONTFORD, THE SIXTH EARL OF EXMOOR, leaned back in his chair, contemplating the man standing in front of him. “Well, well…It’s been a while since we have talked, hasn’t it? Sit down, sit down.” He waved toward the chair facing his desk. “No need to stand there like a gapeseed.”

The other man shook his head, frowning. He was younger than the Earl, and there was only a hint of gray in his hair yet. He was conservatively dressed, though his clothes were well-tailored, and his features were attractive but not memorable. He was the sort of man one might pass on the street and never notice, but anyone who met him would immediately classify him as a gentleman.

“What is this all about, Montford?” he asked, his voice rough with irritation and something else, perhaps a touch of apprehension. “We are scarcely what one would consider friends any longer.”

“No. One would hardly recognize in you the flamboyant youth I once knew.”

“Flamboyant? Hardly. In a haze of opium and alcohol, more like. But as we both know, I have put that life behind me. I cannot conceive why you should wish to speak to me.”

“It is not so much ‘wish’ as necessity, dear chap. You have heard, I presume, the gossip about this American heiress who married Lord Thorpe, Alexandra Ward?”

“Of course. The Countess’s granddaughter whom everyone thought was dead. Is that what you called me here for—to rehash yesterday’s gossip?”