Page 13 of A Daring Pursuit (The Clandestine Sapphire Society #2)

I n the quiet ride to Stonemare, amidst the lack of oxygen Mr. Oshea seemed to steal from everyone—her, leastways—Geneva just realized that Miss Hale had never answered the question of what had happened to her parents. She hadn’t seen a personal maid, which Geneva found extremely odd, considering the amount of clothes the woman hoarded. The house was large and spotless. Someone tended to it. The sparse number of servants didn’t mean there weren’t any, but for one as pretentious as Miss Hale… Yes. Definitely odd.

“When did your cousin arrive?” Geneva asked her.

Her head was turned away as she appeared to be staring out at the passing landscape. “I’ve no idea.”

“Less than an hour ago,” Noah Oshea said for her.

Geneva wondered what she was seeing, as the rain had started back up after its short reprieve, rendering the view useless.

“And with no prior warning. Typically rude of him,” Docia bit out.

Rain pelted the carriage, slowing their progress to the castle, but no one seemed inclined to speak. Geneva took the opportunity to study both Mr. Oshea and his brother. There was a similarity, but nowhere close to that of Mr. Oshea and the new earl. All had the dark hair, broad noses, stubborn chins. The youngest brother, however, didn’t have the gray eyes the older brothers had. Julius’s were more like the color of hers, a dark, indiscriminate blue.

“Finally,” Mr. Oshea breathed.

It wasn’t just that the sound that set her skin afire—it traveled over her with the force of a flaming deluge.

“We’re here…” His voice jarred Geneva back from her thoughts and she glanced out the window.

Oh, no . She wanted to sink through the carriage into the muddy ground below, recognizing the deep-green barouche immediately. She’d ridden in the blasted thing. Any lingering doubts were squelched when the door opened and the marquess’s emblazoned coat of arms revealed the fact. She cringed as the trio emerged, along with a maid, and watched as they were ushered into the castle.

Abra’s parents had arrived along with Baron Ruskin—and no Hannah. There would be no avoiding him or his evil marchioness. Westbridge wouldn’t allow anyone to dismiss Geneva outright— one could hope —but Lady Westbridge had no such restraints.

“We shall have to wait until the other conveyances have moved,” Mr. Oshea said unnecessarily.

“I have an umbrella,” Julius offered.

But Mr. Oshea’s eyes were on Geneva. He’d read her expression and was helping… her . She forced her features to relax. While his assistance was appreciated—truly appreciated, beyond words appreciated—it wouldn’t save her from having to face Lady Westbridge.

Geneva studied the baron, worried anew, praying he was good enough for her friend. She didn’t trust his intentions. But then, she acknowledged, whose did she trust but her own? She forced herself to recall Hannah’s reassurances. It was right for someone to be concerned and she knew Lady Westbridge didn’t harbor any such concern. In the end, it was Abra who would suffer. All because of her mixed heritage.

Geneva donned her own cloak of hostility. She could handle Lord Ruskin and Lady Westbridge. She nodded at Julius. “Thank you, sir. There’s no need to wait on my account.”

“There certainly is,” Miss Hale bit out. “That is one of my best gowns you are wearing and your slippers will never survive the muck.”

“Oh,” Julius said, his eyes dropping to Geneva’s feet. “I’m afraid Docia is quite correct.”

“We shall wait,” Mr. Oshea decreed, brooking no argument.

In the end, it mattered not. The Marquess of Westbridge and party were still in the vestibule when Geneva entered. “Oh, Lord Westbridge. How lovely to see you,” she said with heartfelt emotion. Lord Westbridge was the personification of Geneva’s idea of a loving father. The stately countenance, the stern look in the hazel eyes Abra had clearly inherited from him. He took Geneva’s hand and bowed over it, leaving a sheen of guilt in its wake.

Raising his head and spearing her with a paternal narrowing of his eyes, one brow lifted, and spoke too softly for those around to hear. “Miss Wimbley. What are you doing in Northumberland, you naughty child? I must have misinterpreted my daughter’s… words. I could have sworn she said you and she would be traveling to Cornwall for a visit with—” His eyes swept the hall. “Lady Perl—Pender,” he quickly corrected with an admonishing look that heated Geneva’s face to some ungodly shade she likely couldn’t name. He leaned closer. “And the man I sent to travel with the two of you?”

Panic banded her chest; she swallowed back bile.

“Never mind. I shall deal with you later. Where is that elusive daughter of mine?”

“Upstairs, my lord. I-I’ll let her know you’ve arrived,” she whispered.

Lady Westbridge glared down her pointed nose. She had small eyes that always seemed too close together. The marchioness abhorred that the marquess treated Geneva with such respect as one of Abra’s closest friends. She was older than the type of woman Geneva had thought the marquess would have wed, but Abra had told her he hadn’t been looking for a child bride. By no means was Lady Westbridge in her dotage, as she was in her early forties, if memory served. The woman didn’t speak, but her rancor seeped through every layer of Geneva’s fine clothes.

“Lady Westbridge. Lord Ruskin.” Contriteness had Geneva lowering her eyes. She dipped a respectful curtsey. Of no matter, however, as Lady Westbridge’s lips tightened.

Lord Ruskin stepped forward, a puzzled look on his handsome face. He and Hannah shared the same wheat-colored hair and bright-blue eyes. But there was a seriousness about his demeanor that Hannah insisted had not been there before he’d left for the Continent.

“Geneva, you’re back—” Abra’s steps slowed on the grand staircase. “Papa? Mother?” Geneva feared her friend would faint and tumble the rest of the way down the stairs. But Abra was not so missish as to lose her comportment. Miss Greensley would be proud. Abra gathered her poise and continued her descent with grace, going to her father.

“Darling.” Lord Westbridge leaned in and kissed her cheek, murmuring quietly. He was careful in making certain no others could hear, but Geneva imagined his edict: Your mother warned me this friendship I’ve condoned would come back to haunt me .

Abra’s eyes dropped and she nodded.

Lady Westbridge looked as if her spine would splinter under such rigidity. “Lord Ruskin insisted on accompanying your father and me, Abra.” The woman’s words seemed to grind out of her.

Abra’s head lifted quickly, her amber-toned face darkening with a deep flush. Geneva nearly groaned.

Granted, the baron was an attractive man, Geneva felt forced into admitting, but his staunchness concerned her for the future of the Sapphire Society should he learn of Hannah, Abra, and Geneva’s endeavors. He didn’t seem the sort to embrace change.

With Meredith gone and Lady Westbridge determined to marry Abra off, Hannah would be next. Where would that leave the Society?

Where would that leave…her?

Geneva started up the stairs, desperate for escape. Before she reached the top, Mr. Oshea called out. “A word, Miss Wimbley?”

She couldn’t turn. If she moved her head an iota, the unshed tears blurring her sight would spill. She just couldn’t. Not in front of Lord Westbridge. Not in front of Lady Westbridge. And most especially, not in front of Mr. Oshea. “Later, sir.”

Even Lady Westbridge’s gasp failed in cheering her. Though there would be a gossip bill for cutting the man in his own entryway. The thought didn’t stop her. She quickened her steps.

Sadly, one couldn’t outrun one’s guilt.

Geneva escaped to her bedchamber and tugged off the lovely white kid gloves and tossed them on a chair. Oh, no. She’d forgotten to leave them with the footman like a true lady. Another breach of etiquette in the face of many. Her tears spilled over even knowing it did no good to brood over the lack of cultivated behavior. What a hopeless case she was. Raising her head, Geneva moved to the vanity with sluggish steps. She took a handkerchief and dried her tears. What a colossal fool she was.

Blast, it was cold. The chill in the chamber had her clutching the hooded spencer tighter about her, and she realized the fire was just embers, presumably because she’d slept away from the castle the night before. She took up a poker and stirred the fire, tossing on more fuel. The room was too cold for her to remove her spencer.

She paced the room slowly. Partly to keep warm and partly to pull her thoughts together. In the end, she considered, the Clandestine Sapphire Society stood for those who had no voice. For women, for children, for education, the poor, the abused. That would never change. Not as long as she remained on this earth and was a viable member of the population. She would never, ever give up the fight the CSS stood for.

Geneva strode to the escritoire in the corner of the room and lowered the desk portion. She sat in the hard chair and pulled out the latest article for Hannah. Anything was better than contemplating Lord Westbrook’s disappointment in her. Perhaps worse: Miss Hale’s scathing words, suggesting Geneva would only qualify as a mistress to a man such as Noah Oshea.

The thought of putting herself in such a position sickened her—the lack of self-respect, the disdain of her friends. Her entire life, she’d fought to prove her own worth, from Mrs. Cornett’s thoughtless remarks on a young girl’s desire to read to exacting deference among her peers at Miss Greensley’s.

Even in those days, when the excessively and unduly indulged ladies had mocked and treated her atrociously unfair all because she hadn’t been born and bred in the illustrious confines of Mayfair, Geneva had still managed to find solace in her aspirations and penning them to paper. Those moments of solitude, of which there were many, had been where her dreams of equality for women and those of lesser fortune due only to one’s circumstances had taken root.

That same need to lose herself in her cause raced through her.

She uncapped the inkwell, yanked out a sheet of foolscap, took up her steel nib pen, and tapped it against her lips. There were so many issues that failed the women, their children, and the poor, she hardly knew where to begin. But this was her life’s blood.

After a moment, she set her pen to the paper.

To the Women of England (and men, if you dare to listen): When women are entombed in the vortex of poverty and squalor, the mothers of all children, doomed in cycles of economic dependence and exploitation, are denied your right to work, your right to earn a fair wage, and your ability to participate in the greatest economy in the world, you do all women, in fact, a grave injustice. Women, you are undervalued and underpaid for your labor. Women, you are relegated to menial and low-paying positions, denied opportunities to care for your families. This hurts and limits the entirety of economic welfare for all. Therefore, I implore all of you: Demand equal pay for equal work. Insist and create pathways presented to you for the same economic empowerment afforded to men. We. Women. We carry, in our wombs, the future of the world. Without us, men would be left to pound their chests or one another, knowing the end of their world was upon—

Someone tapped at the open door, startling Geneva from her fierce scribblings.

“Miss Wimbley?”

She swallowed a groan. “Mr. Oshea.” She stood so quickly, the chair toppled over. “This is my bedchamber, sir.”

He appeared in the arch holding her bags, a wolfish smile tilting his lips.

A fluttering sensation in her stomach left her wondering if she’d ingested something disagreeable. The chill abated and the chamber grew unbearably warm.

His gaze surveyed her small abode that sent another quivering sensation through her.

“So it is,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to being brushed off in my own home.”

With a prim sniff, she tipped her chin up, her nose in the air, not unlike an expression she’d often observed in Miss Hale. “You should have sent a footman.”

Mr. Oshea dropped the bags on her bed then strolled over and set her chair aright. He turned a grin on her that muddled her ridiculous brain, solidifying the notion of turning it over to scientists for studying after her time expired on this earth. “They are inundated with the flood of arrivals,” he said.

She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze from his curved lips. Her fingertips tingled—

“Miss Wimbley?”

Startled, she glanced down, surprised to find she clutched her pen so tightly, it dug into her fingers. Carefully, she turned and set it aside.

But once the eye contact between them had severed, Miss Hale’s words roared back. I suggested he take you as his mistress .

Pride and fury curled through Geneva. She would rather die in the gutter than become any man’s mistress. She gave him a wary look. “What is it you require, sir?”

He chose to ignore her question. “You’re still wearing your cloak?”

Irritation flooded her. “What has that to do with anything? In case you’ve forgotten, I was not here last night and the fire was not tended.” She marched to the small wardrobe, shucked the spencer, and hung it on a peg.

“Why are you really here, Miss Wimbley?”

“It’s my chamber.” Her impatience blasted through the room. “For the duration of my stay, leastways,” she muttered under her breath.

“You have the most interesting ability to misinterpret a question,” he returned. “You said you were here to take back what my father stole from you. What exactly did you mean? What did he steal?”

There it was: the bill.

She angled her head to one side, contemplating him for a long moment. She was not used to sharing her deepest thoughts, fears—certainly not her dreams. Not with many and certainly not with men. His shoulders looked broad enough to carry some of her worries, but trusting him was another matter entirely. He didn’t wear his greatcoat, but he was big. An image of the man who’d visited her mother all those years ago appeared in her mind like an apparition. Ghostly and transparent. She shivered.

“What is it?”

Jarred back, she studied the concern etching his features in the creased forehead and lines bracketing his mouth. Rather than answer, Geneva went back to the escritoire and pulled a small, private case out. Quickly locating the yellowed, folded missive, she then strolled over to Mr. Oshea and held it out.

*

Noah reached for the letter, not quite convinced it wasn’t a venomous viper. But of course, a piece of paper that looked years old couldn’t kill a person… Only, he knew that wasn’t true. He hadn’t known Julius’s true origins. He had in fact, being honest with himself, avoided what he would learn. But there were lies surrounding his younger brother’s arrival at Stonemare. Lies Noah had precipitated. Because, if he looked too deeply, he feared losing the brother he’d raised and so desperately loved.

With chilled fingers, he opened the note and read.

Lord Pender,

I beg of you, please. Things have turned most dire. My husband… is a violent man. You must do something to save my Gen… All that is precious to me is in your hands. Everything in my posse—

Nothing about Julius. Even in the areas impossible to make out, it was clear the author’s concern was over Miss Wimbley. Not indicating a claim to Julius.

Relief rushed through Noah and blood worked its way back into his hands, his face. He looked up to find Miss Wimbley watching him with an intensity that stole his breath. “I take it you are this “Gen” she refers to?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder why she didn’t finish it.”

“That’s not all that difficult to understand,” she said with a grim smile. “My father was a violent drunkard. I suspect she heard him coming up the stairs and hid it away before he entered and for some reason never got back to it. In any event, I’m here to find answers, Mr. Oshea. I believe it was your father who visited my mother when I was but five years old. He took something from her that belongs to me. Something invaluable and cannot be replaced. That is what I’m here for.”

The coiling sensation in Noah’s gut tied into hard knots. He calmly handed the note back to her, keeping a tight rein on his emotions. “And what might that be?”

“A locket. A ruby locket my mother promised was my legacy,” she admitted, going back to the small desk and lifting the case.

Stunned by her words and at a loss for his own, he watched her slim, delicate fingers—stained with ink—gently take the case and replace the missive in its allotted place.

“I had hoped to speak with him, but of course, I arrived too late.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. And relieved. “I’m not sure how I can help you after almost twenty years.”

She turned quickly, spearing him. “Twenty years? You have quite a memory for something you would have no way of knowing.”

What a dolt he was. She was too shrewd by half. “I am at your service for any assistance you require,” he said quickly as visions swarmed him of the small parcel hitting the floor and the fragile chain that had reflected the firelight that night nineteen years ago. For all he knew, Father could have sold that tiny chain to pay some gambling debt. Likely had so.

Surprise lit her features, and… gratefulness, perhaps. “Truly?”

“Of course.” He failed to understand why he couldn’t shut his mouth and take his leave. As quickly as possible. It was the fault of those dark-blue eyes. They begged for his aid. Her lips begged for something else. Something only he could give her. He moved closer, unable to bear the distance between them a second more. She was so lovely.

Slowly, she straightened and turned her body, facing his. The tip of her pink tongue touched her bottom lip. The shot of lust hit him like a dagger, piercing his chest with unfulfilled need.

“Th-Thank you. I didn’t expect that,” she said softly.

He reached forward, allowing her time to move away if she so desired.

She didn’t.

He took her hands in his, leaned in, and brushed his lips over hers. They tasted sweet as a summer apple snapped straight from the tree. Her fingers moved up and clutched his lapels. His own hands gripped her by her upper arms. Over and over, he feathered her lips, touching the seam with his tongue.

Her lips parted on a surprised inhale. He didn’t hesitate and slipped inside.

She stilled.

He explored the soft confines, reveled in the velvet stroke of his tongue against hers until she capitulated like warmed butter. There was an inherent need to stop, but the reasons to do so escaped him. Underlying guilt pelted him with a second bullet, but he couldn’t stop.

She broke away, panting for air. “Sir?”

The urge to cover her mouth again hit him like the magnetic forces he’d spent years studying. Not yet. If he could but bottle the sensations. He wanted to howl at the moon.

“I-I don’t think this is what you meant by your ‘help,’” she said. “Was it?”

His hands fell away and flexed in and out of fists at his sides. “No,” he said on a soft sigh. The current situation did not escape him. He was in the unique position of controlling what information Miss Wimbley acquired. He truly was a cad. He strengthened his voice. “No, of course not. I will do my utmost to assist you, Miss Wimbley.” And he would… to the best of his ability. His decision firmed. Perhaps it was time to learn exactly where his younger brother had come from.

The band tightening his chest released, allowing him to breathe without choking. “You’ve nothing to wor—”

“Geneva?” Lady Abra’s voice sounded from the sitting room. Loudly.

Miss Wimbley’s eyes widened in sheer panic.

Noah flinched. He put a finger to his lips and moved quickly to the side of the wardrobe on quiet steps then indicated she slip out.

With a swift nod, she hurried to the door and left with a fleeting glance in his direction before disappearing into the outer chamber. “I’m here, Abra.”

“What are you doing?”

“Writing an, er, observance for Hannah.”

Lady Abra laughed. “Observance? Don’t you mean a composition? Or an essay?”

Noah didn’t hear Miss Wimbley’s response but found the conversation highly enlightening, especially recalling the ink on Miss Wimbley’s fingertips. He stole back across the room, ignoring their conversation and, indeed, found a paper right there on the flat. He lifted the paper and studied the tidy, efficient handwriting with its bold strokes, then read.

Each word entrenched the core of her beliefs and gave him insight to the mystery that was Geneva Wimbley. Her intelligence showed through her words like a goddess’s flaming torch. Passionate words for a cause leaped off the page like a spray of well-aimed needles pricking his skin. Words that tugged at him. Showed clear purpose. Something of which was blatantly missing in his own life.

He. Had. No. Purpose…

Only, he did, as his vow to help her locate the answers she sought fleeted through him.