The Defiant Debutante

‘Let us hope so—for all our sakes,’ Alex drawled, scanning the park for Lord Fairhurst, his annoyance increasing by the minute the longer he was kept waiting.

‘Nevertheless, try to imagine how she might feel,’ Nathan persisted. ‘Her mother is dying, you say, and she has no relatives in America. Maybe she doesn’t want to come to England. My fear is that when she is faced with your formidable manner—a daunting prospect for any girl—it will alienate her from the start. Has it not entered that arrogant, stubborn head of yours that you might like her, Alex? And, if so, will it wound your pride to admit it?’

‘Even for an arrogant, stubborn male like me it is not beyond the realms of possibility,’ Alex conceded with sarcasm. ‘I am protective of my uncle; as you are aware, he does not always enjoy the best of health. He is renowned for his generosity and I am naturally concerned that he is not taken advantage of.’

‘Yes, I can understand that. How old is the girl?’

‘I really have no idea, but it is my intention to marry her off to the first prospective suitor.’

Nathan watched an inexplicable smile trace its way across the other man’s face. ‘In which case, you do realise that you will have to provide a somewhat generous dowry?’

Alex regarded Nathan in casual, speculative silence, one dark brow lifted in amused mockery. ‘If she turns out to be a wilful hoyden with outrageous manners,’ he said drily, ‘it will be worth it to get her off our hands.’

Alex had been trained to discipline as soon as he had drawn breath. Already the American girl had caused a rift in his routine—a disturbance that had brought a feeling of unease which had begun to trouble him. It was like a pebble breaking the calm surface of a pond. Once thrown there was nothing to prevent the ripple widening in ever-increasing circles.

The quiet of the park was interrupted. Hearing the measured thud of horses’ hooves on the soft turf and the creaking of wheels, they turned to see a closed carriage bearing down on them. It came to a halt and they saw it had only one occupant, a man in middle age. He climbed out and calmly told an astonished Alex that Lord Fairhurst had died suddenly of a seizure during the night.

When Angelina and her mother, Lydia, had left Ohio, never in her life had Angelina known such grief. It broke her heart to think that as well as her father, all the people she had known in the settlement were dead, that whole families had been wiped out by the Shawnee.

Will Casper had accompanied them to Boston. He was a loner, a man of few words, who helped Angelina’s father on the land when needed. Will had become a good and loyal friend to them over the years. He had found a doctor to tend to Lydia after she was badly wounded in the Shawnee attack, but he could give them little hope that she would live beyond the next few weeks.

With a horse and wagon, a few meagre possessions and a rifle, they had faced east, pushing themselves hard on well-worn trails. The months of trekking through Pennsylvania and across the mountains were a harsh and emotional time for Angelina, during which she was veiled in a curtain of shock. Her pain defied release. It hid itself in a hollow place inside her heart, beyond the reach of understanding.

Will silently watched her battle to be brave and grown up. He showed her she wasn’t alone, and together they made it to the state of Massachusetts, making their home in a shack on the outskirts of Boston. The land round about was wild, and fast-flowing water cut its way through a steep rocky gorge beside the shack, moving north to the Charles River.

The night of the massacre and her own treatment at the hands of the Shawnee had scorched its memory on Angelina’s soul. Even now, two years later, she felt defiled and beyond redemption. The terrible, haunting nightmares had pursued her all the way back east. At first they happened every night, but now they were less frequent. But no matter how much time passed, she could not swallow her feeling of outrage and pretend the incident had never happened. She would never be able to come to terms with it, never be able to speak of it. Her terrible secret would remain a burden she would never be able to put into more manageable proportions.

Angelina galloped so hard towards Henry Montgomery that he half-expected a troop of Amazons to materialise from the trees in her wake. Riding the forest pathways on a pony as energetic as herself, she was reckless, like an Indian, and as refreshing as a cool, invigorating wind. With long bouncing braids sticking out from beneath a battered old beaver hat with an eagle’s feather stuck in its brim, she pulled her lathered pony to an abrupt halt in front of him, unconcerned by the clouds of dust that the restless animal sent into the air with its hooves, which covered his fine clothes.

Dressed in a worn brown jerkin, ill-fitting deerskin trousers and dull brown boots that no amount of rubbing would bring a shine to, Angelina levelled a steady dark gaze at the tall, silver-haired man. Silently they took stock of each other. She was guarded, wary, looking at him with a wordless resentment.

Henry Montgomery possessed a commanding presence. He had the poise and regal bearing of a man who has lived a thoroughly privileged life. With Angelina he aroused a curious inspection. He looked cool and contained in his immaculate charcoal grey suit and pristine white stock. He was the sort of gentleman her mother had told her about—his rather austere mien and noble bearing out of place here in the backwoods of New England.

Despite the unease and resentment his unexpected arrival caused her, knowing how much her mother was looking forward to meeting him, she had primed herself to be gracious.

‘You’re the Englishman,’ she stated without preamble, her pronunciation clear and distinct. Taking note of this, Henry smiled inwardly. He would have expected nothing less from Lydia’s daughter. Swinging her leg over her pony she jumped down like an Indian—lithe, supple and long limbed.

Henry inclined his silver head with amusement and quite without resentment on being confronted by the bold and forthright manner of the girl, who positively oozed energy and vitality. Somehow it came as no surprise to see the butt of a rifle sticking out of a saddle pouch on the side of her pony.

She held out a slim hand. ‘It is most kind of you to come all this way.’

Taking her hand in both of his, Henry held it, gazing with complete absorption into the darkest eyes he had ever seen. Set in a face burnt golden by the sun, they slanted slightly and were fringed with sooty black lashes. Her cheekbones were high, her nose pert, and an attractive little cleft dented her delicately rounded chin. Dainty and fine though her features were, her face could possibly pass for a boy’s, and with a baggy shirt and jerkin concealing her adolescent breasts, the same could be said of her body. But the mouth was much too soft and pink, too delicate, to belong to a boy. There was something inexpressibly dainty about her, which aroused vague feelings of chivalry.

‘I am Henry Montgomery—the Duke of Mowbray. And you are Lydia’s daughter.’ The likeness almost cut his heart in two.

‘My name is Angelina Hamilton,’ she replied, withdrawing her hand, completely unfazed by the stranger’s grand title and fancy clothes. ‘You’ve come a long way.’

If Angelina did but know it, Henry would walk through hell fire and promise to live in eternal damnation if Lydia asked him to. Even though he was fifty-five and a veteran of hundreds of dispassionate affairs, this girl’s mother was the only woman to have captivated his heart. He had loved her as much as it was possible to love another human being, but, because their parents had considered their relationship to be incestuous, he’d had to resign himself to letting her go. Yet, despite the distance, their hearts were still entwined, and neither separation nor time had lessened the pain or their love for each other.

‘I came in response to your mother’s letter.’

‘I know.’

Her eyes were questioning and direct, and her voice was steady, but there was something in it of a frustrated, frightened child.

‘How is she? In her letter she mentioned that she was ill—that she was wounded when Indians attacked your home.’

‘My mother is dying, sir.’

Carefully Henry schooled his features as he took note of the pain showing naked on Angelina’s young face upturned to his. A hint of tears brightened her translucent eyes, which were like windows laying bare the suffering and many hardships of her young life.

‘I’m so very sorry, my dear. How dreadful this must be for you.’

‘Mother knows she’s dying, but she set her mind on not doing so until she heard from you. She didn’t know if you would come in person. She didn’t expect you to. She thought that perhaps you would write in response to her letter.’

‘We used to be very close, your mother and I, before she married your father and came to live in America.’ He averted his eyes when Angelina gave him a curious, questioning look. ‘Come—walk with me back to the hotel. Mr Phipps, the proprietor, has kindly offered me the use of his buggy. You can take me to her.’

Mr Phipps was a man who liked to talk. All Henry had had to do was sit back and listen when he made it known that he was here to see Mrs Hamilton and her daughter, Angelina.

‘Real nice is Miss Angelina,’ Mr Phipps had told him. ‘Shame about her ma an’pa, though—what the Indians did an’ all. After the attack an’ when she’d buried her pa, she brought her ma back here an’ bought the old McKay place down by the gorge. It was a wreck of a place so it didn’t cost much.’

‘Did Angelina see what happened?’ Henry had asked him.

‘She saw all right—more than is right for a child to see. Done killed the Indian who killed her pa, she did. Stabbed him right through the heart, accordin’ to Will.’

Unable to comprehend what Angelina must have suffered during the Indian attack, Henry’s expression remained unchanged as he absorbed this shocking piece of information. ‘Will?’

‘Will Casper. He was out west at the time an’ came back east with her and her ma. Been right good to them, too. Don’t know what they’d ’ave done without him.’

‘How do they manage?’

‘Miss Angelina spends all her time huntin’ an fishin’ an’ lookin’ after her ma, while Will does all the work about the place—when he’s not off trappin’ beaver. They ’aven’t much—but what they do ’ave they make the best of.’

Moving towards the door through which the Englishman had disappeared, Angelina stopped on the threshold, suddenly feeling like an outsider in her own home. Knowing her mother wanted to be alone with him, she would go no further, but before the bedroom door closed she saw the Englishman bend and pick her mother’s limp hand up off the patchwork quilt and place it to his lips. At the same time her mother raised her free hand and gently placed it on his silver head, as if bestowing a title on the Duke of Mowbray. It was a scene that would remain indelibly printed on her mind for all time.

When he emerged from Lydia’s room after what seemed like an eternity, Henry passed through the house to the veranda, welcoming the cool air after the heat of the sick room. Night had fallen and a languid breeze stirred the trees. The air carried a heavy fragrance of jasmine, wood smoke and cedar wood.

Henry had been taken aback at first to see how ill Lydia was, and he knew she wasn’t long for this world. As fragile as a plucked wildflower, she lay still and as white as death against the pillows. But when he’d gazed once more into those glorious dark eyes, he had seen that the years had not quenched their glow.

Lydia had been his grande passion, the woman he had been prepared to relinquish his title and his family to marry. She had been part of his flesh and his spirit, and a large part of him had died when she left him. Without warning and without his knowledge she had married Richard Hamilton, sacrificing herself for his own sake, and gone to America. In a brooding silence he was conscious of the girl standing silently behind him, waiting for him to speak, her dog, Mr Boone, at her feet.

Henry turned and looked at her. The soft, silvery moonlight washed over her, touching the delicate, pensive features of her face. He saw the questioning black eyes in cheeks pale with apprehension, and it was only then, upon meeting that dark, misty gaze, that he realised the enormity of the responsibility Lydia had placed in his hands.

‘You know why your mother wrote to me, Angelina,’ Henry said, sitting in one of two battered old wicker chairs. ‘You also know that I am her cousin and closest kin. It is most unfortunate that on your late father’s side there are no close relatives. It is your mother’s wish that I take charge of you, and take you back with me to England. Would you like that?’

Angelina’s reaction to say no was instinctive, but, realising that this gentleman had travelled a long way to help her mother and herself, she could not be so discourteous. It wasn’t that she disliked the Englishman, but the question of being forced into something she had no control over that troubled her. Independence had become a part of everyday life, and she had no wish to renounce that.

‘I don’t know.’