Captivated By Her Convenient Husband. Bronwyn Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ into sharp relief the import of Fortis’s return and all it meant. Blandford and its mistress were no longer accessible to him. He’d hoped to capitalise on Avaline being a baron’s daughter to help solidify his candidacy for a knighthood. A living breathing husband was far more problematic to deal with than one who didn’t come home. But Fortis Tresham had come home and at the crucial moment. For Avaline and the Treshams it couldn’t have been more fortuitous, one might say, all puns aside. There was nothing funny about how conveniently Tresham had appeared just when he was starting to make his push with Avaline and with the courts. He’d begun the paperwork to declare Fortis Tresham dead a few days ago.

      Tobin’s stomach growled, rebelliously acknowledging it hadn’t been fed since dinner the night before. He’d even missed the midnight supper on Avaline’s account and now there was only soup to look forward to for supper tonight. He readjusted the steak. His jaw was eating better than he was. Of a certainty he’d have to withdraw his claims, but only temporarily. He did not think for a moment Tresham’s return merely a coincidence. It was anything but. It was far too convenient after a year missing, after Major Lithgow’s reputedly tearful meeting with the family in London last spring informing them that he had searched diligently for Tresham and come up empty-handed, that suddenly a man claiming to be Fortis Tresham had walked out of a Crimean forest and Lithgow had brought him home.

      No, it reeked of rotten and he knew why. The Duke of Cowden despised him. On the surface, one might think the two neighbours would be bosom friends. Both were shrewd businessmen. Both had made fortunes through a series of lucrative, successful ventures. Cowden sat at the helm of an exclusive investment group known as the Prometheus Club, a nod to setting the world on fire with innovation or some such literary drivel Tobin didn’t pretend to understand or enjoy. Tobin didn’t have time for such niceties. He only had time for money and for people who made him money.

      Therein lay the difference. He was well aware the Duke did not share his values or morals when it came to how money was made or how business was conducted. The Duke felt him to be a man with no scruples. Well, so be it. Scruples didn’t keep one warm or fed. Only money did that.

      Tobin drummed his free hand on the polished surface of the small table beside his chair, his feet resting comfortably on the fireplace fender. At least some part of him was comfortable as his facile mind went to work on this latest scheme. A missing man was home after an over-long, unsubstantiated absence. Perhaps someone should question that if Cowden didn’t? By rights, Cowden ought to be the one questioning it. The son of a duke, even a third son, came with enormous advantages. Fortis Tresham, through his marriage, had an estate and a pretty wife. Through his birthright, he had access to the Cowden coffers, entrée into the highest echelons of society. Whatever he wanted to do, he could do it without much effort at all: diplomacy, politics, or simply do nothing. Tresham could afford the latter, too.

      Surely Cowden was sharp enough to understand the temptation such a plum posed, or was Cowden too honourable to contemplate the allure? Perhaps Cowden believed too much in his unassailability to think that someone would attempt to grab Fortis’s seat at the Cowden table. Cowden might be above envisioning such contretemps, but Tobin wasn’t.

      He could easily imagine someone doing just that. He just needed to make Cowden imagine it as well and he would, as soon as his jaw healed sufficiently to pay a call and, in the most genuinely concerned way possible, voice his misgivings. After all, he didn’t want anyone taking advantage of his dear neighbour, especially if the one taking advantage wasn’t him. Meanwhile, if he couldn’t talk to anyone, he could write. He could begin making polite enquiries about the nature of Fortis Tresham’s return. He couldn’t ask directly, of course. He wasn’t family. No one was required to tell him anything. But he had friends on the inside, people whom he’d had contracts with and who would like to do lucrative business with him again. They could access information he could not.

      He smiled to himself and poured another drink one-handed. It would be the scandal of the Season come spring if it came to fruition. Cowden would never live it down, especially if Tobin could prove the Duke had done it wilfully. Still, even if the man was a fraud and he’d swindled Cowden on his own, Cowden would look like a fool. It wouldn’t do the old man’s business reputation any good. People would finally think he was losing his touch. That all assumed the news came out. If the opportunity arose, Tobin would give Cowden a chance to keep the secret. Tobin was very good at keeping secrets, for a price, and this, if it were true, would be a secret that kept on giving.

      He toasted himself in victory. It seemed every cloud did have a silver lining. Now, he had to prove it. All of this was merely conjecture until he had evidence. But if the evidence was there, he would find it. A dog with a bone could hardly compete. Tobin Hayworth was nothing if not tenacious.

       Chapter Four

      He was nothing if not tenacious and tenacity was what would get him off this battlefield alive. He was not going to die here in the muck and blood of Balaclava. He’d not survived this long to give up now. He crawled, all elbows and hips, belly to the ground in an ignoble undulation as he dragged himself towards what he hoped was safety. His arm hurt, his leg ached and he had to admit that some—no, a lot of the blood on him was his own. He was wounded. There’d been ample opportunity; the musket ball that whined past his ear could have grazed him after all, the sabre that had sliced at him could have caught him in the arm, the bayonet he’d dodged might have stuck his leg before glancing off. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it. But luck meant scrabbling through the remains of battle, looking dead men in the eye and keeping his own fears of joining them at bay, which was a very real possibility each moment he remained on the field and the sun sank closer to the horizon.

       Panic threatened to grip him. He was fighting it as much as he was fighting to make his way forward. Panic would swallow him whole if he allowed. It was near dark. The scavengers would be out soon and they would show no mercy as they rifled the pockets of the dead and the near dead. They’d kill him for his boots and his coat, which miraculously still had all its buttons. For people who had nothing, he was a slow, crawling, easy target of a gold mine and he had no strength left to fight them if they came.

       He dragged himself forward, another inch, another body length, and another again, each effort sending a shooting pain through his arm. He fought back the stabbing agony in his leg. He’d nearly reached the edge of the battlefield, the sun almost gone from the sky, when he heard it—the faint, hoarse rasp of a desperate man. ‘Help me.’

       He should ignore it. He was wounded and barely able to help himself let alone someone else. He’d lingered too long on the field already. Even now, he could hear the voices of scavengers. There would be no mercy for him, a British soldier far from home, if he were caught. But because he did know the danger, he turned back. He could not doom someone else to that fate. He began to crawl awkwardly towards the plea... Someone was on him. Oh, dear God, he’d been found. The scavengers had found him—no, no, no. He kicked and grappled, trying to get hold of his attacker. He would not go down without a fight. Never mind that he was already down. This would be a fight to the death...

      * * *

      ‘Fortis! Wake up. You’re home, you’re safe.’ The frantic words penetrated the fog of his brain, but still he grappled, unwilling to release his foe, unwilling to take the chance that the battlefield was the dream and home the reality. It would be a fatal mistake if he were wrong. He had his assailant now, his fists were full of white cloth.

      ‘Fortis! It’s me, Avaline!’ At the desperate words, the dream let go, his eyes flew open in horror and recognition. Avaline was beneath him, her dark eyes wide with incredulity and fright. She had not understood what she’d walked into when she’d tried to wake him.

      He СКАЧАТЬ