Chapter 7
Nicholas saluted her with a tankard of rum. “Would you like a flagon?”
Alexandra grimaced. “No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” He took a long draught, plunking shaving materials, and then a water basin, splashing the contents over the table. With his tankard of rum, he was more cautious. Not one drop did he allow to escape. With ceremony, he angled a mirror up against a pot to examine his face.
“The ration of rum should leave many a scar. Oh, to be witness to a senseless casualty.” Alexandra dragged a chair to the far side of the room and stood on top. She rearranged the overhead shelves, finding herself peeking, and then leaning to see what sort of barbarous face had been concealed by his thick black beard. No doubt it would reveal a weak chin.
“You lean any further, you will fall off that chair.”
She had been leaning so far to the left, she could not recover her balance quickly enough to pretend she hadn’t been doing exactly that. She caught the shelf with her hands before she plummeted to the floor. Reflected in the mirror, she jerked her gaze from his, her face flushing.
“Come down from there and watch me butcher my face. I’m used to having my valet perform the duty.”
With him drinking, he’d probably behead himself. She stepped down and rounded the table as he swiped from his throat up to his chin, leaving a red blotch. He attempted another swipe and she winced.
“Damn. I’ll bleed to death before the day is out. Here, you do it.”
In the bright light of the morning sun, she looked at the heavy beard. Scraping that rug off flesh? She swooned. “I can’t.”
He pushed the blade across the table. “You can’t do any worse.”
She had watched Molly shave her father but this was different. With shaking hands, she took the blade, not at all sure about putting a blade to a man’s skin. He grabbed her wrist and forced his tankard into her hand. “Drink,” he ordered with calm implacable authority that always rankled her. “Will steady your nerves.”
She drank a long draught, let it burn down her throat, coughed, then lifted it and drank some more. He removed the flagon from her hands, despite the desire to drink more.
“Not too much, it will blur your vision. I don’t desire to have my head on the table. Get on with it.”
She winced with the unhappy task. Biting her lip, she carefully scraped along his chin, rinsed the blade in the basin of water and scraped again. Her musings were erroneous. He did not possess a weak chin. On the contrary, it was a square chin denoting strength.
“What do you think?”
Devoid of beard, the beauty of his pure, classical bone structure reminded her of a painting of Admiral Horatio Nelson who she had idolized. Maybe his chin was almost perfect, but just enough off to have character. Below the ridge of his brow, intelligent, probing blue eyes raked her. Her cheeks heated. He was so much handsomer than she expected. “I could be charitable,” she teased.
“Be honest.”
The man was a force. “You’ll fairly do, I suppose.”
“Your commentary is hardly charitable. Do you think I’d have a chance with the females of England?”
Alexandra shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? Perhaps a swine herder’s, toothless daughter?” She giggled and put the blade to his throat again.
“What made you take up thievery?”
She stopped midstream, her fingers tightening around the handle. She had never denied his assumption. Or was he miffed because she had not called him handsome? She gritted her teeth, refusing, to add to his vanity.
She wiped the blade clean, her heart giving a traitorous leap at the sight of his broad shoulders so close to hers and his sternly handsome face etched with the morning light. “Why do you believe I chose the profession of thief?”
“Why do you always answer a question with a question?”
“Because you are a dim-witted, mulish man bent on believing what he wants.” She dropped the blade into the basin. Water splashed on his chest. She turned to leave. He caught her arm.
“Then let’s pretend you are not a thief. Why were you caught in Baron Sutherland’s library?”
She pried at his fingers, one by one, but he held fast. “I had my reasons.”
Nicholas scoffed. “Not good enough. Why would someone go to all the expense to have you privately transported when all they had to do was turn you over to the authorities?”
Alexandra straightened to her full height. “Because they wanted to get rid of me for good. To get rid of the last of my line.”
He snorted. “Of a sea captain and his wife?”
Of course, he put no relevant motivation to someone getting rid of another with low-birth lineage. She did not delude herself that she had a choice to tell him her history, however painful it was. Days of secrets, concealing the truth weighed like an iron anchor, sinking her farther into the muck.
She took a deep breath. Would he mock her? “I am not Alexandra Elwins. My real name is Lady Alexandra Sutherland.”
Nicholas gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Impossible. Everyone knows, Alexandra Sutherland died when she was a child, accidently dropped out a window by her kidnappers. The disaster was in all the papers, the most famous abduction ever, and the tragedy, on the heels of Baron Sutherland’s death.”
“The story was spun by my stepmother. To secure the baronetcy for her son…she invented a crime. At the funeral, she dramatically cried over a closed casket of her beloved stepdaughter—except the coffin was empty. Everyone in the country bought her woeful story of bereavement, declaring, ‘How could Lady Sutherland handle so much grief?’”
Nicholas stared and released her arm. “The idea is so fantastic. Of course, it is not unheard of, long lost relatives coming forward to claim rights to properties and titles of those who are deceased. It takes years of the court’s time to declare who is the official owner.”
“My father did not have a natural death. My stepmother poisoned him.”
“Poisoned? Those are huge allegations.” He inclined his head, mulling the likelihood. “How is it you’re alive? Where have you been all these years?”
Alexandra plunged in. “After my mother died, my father hired Molly Elwins as my wet nurse, her own child a stillborn. She stayed on as my nanny and we became very close. My father, Baron Sutherland was lonely, and in his despair easily charmed by Ursula Andrews, and—unaware of his new wife’s character.
“Molly grew suspicious when my father died suddenly despite his robust good health. She later eavesdropped on my stepmother, learning Ursula had poisoned my father, and then plotted to kill me. Before my stepmother could perform her evil deed, Molly and Samuel whisked me away in the middle of the night. We hid in southern England under an assumed name.”
Nicholas stood. His chair snapped to the floor. “Are you sure?”
Alexandra nodded. “Recently, I found a trapdoor in the kitchen and discovered a Bible gilded with gold and far too costly for a sea captain to possess. My surname, Alexandra Sutherland, not Alexandra Elwins was written in the first few pages with a long line of antecedents. I confronted my adoptive parents.”
Nicholas let out a low whistle, righted the chair and paced about the room. “Hard to believe you are the Sutherland baby and have been alive all these years.”
“When Molly and Samuel revealed what happened, I became furious with the secret they had kept from me.”
He ran his palms down the rough coral brick of the window frame. “You were confused. To feel betrayal and resentment is a normal reaction to news like that. I should know, I shouldered similar feelings toward my father. But why did you go to your ancestral home, knowing the past and the danger?
“Rebellious and foolish,” he answered for her. “There is more to the story. Tell me.”
She turned away. The dull ache she carried in her chest grew sharp just thinking about it.
“I’m not here to judge, but to help you, Alexandra.” He turned toward her. “We are alone and must help each other.”
She swallowed, her voice dropped to a whisper. “Molly had gone to London to visit a friend and on a chance meeting ran into my stepmother. Lady Ursula had Molly followed, hired a thug, and watched while the criminal strangled Molly.”
Nicholas swore. “I remember Lady Ursula and Willean, I have seen them at parties. She doesn’t seem like a murderer.”
“She is the epitome of brutality. Later, when Ursula caught me in the library, she bragged about the murder. Told me she had been enraged when Molly would not disclose my location, but since she had me, her problem was solved…and she was going to kill me. Her son, Baron Willean Sutherland, my stepbrother, held a gun leveled at my chest.
Suddenly cold, Alexandra rubbed her upper arms. “My life literally flashed before my eyes. I remembered Willean tripping me, pushing me down the stairs, holding my puppy over the second-floor balcony and threatening to drop her, putting cockleburs beneath my pony’s saddle to make her throw me.” “Oh, God.” Her voice cracked. She shuddered, blinked back the tears building behind her eyes.
Nicholas crossed the room.
She swiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. She didn’t want him to see her cry. To see how weak she really was. “B-but for some reason, Willean refused to kill me and suggested another, crueler solution. He paid to have me put aboard the Santanas.”
As she said those last words, the true horror hit her and the door to the years of tears she’d held back suddenly opened. Tears slid unbidden down her cheeks.
Nicolas cursed and yanked her into his arms while she wet his shirt with her tears. To think after all these years, the daughter of Lord Sutherland was alive.
“Molly is dead because of me. She protected me. And Samuel, I love him so much. I lied to him about where I was going.”
He smoothed his hand over the back of her head. “Cry all you want. You are not responsible for Molly’s death. Your stepmother killed Molly.”
They stood there for an eternity, every breath, every thought intertwined.
“I admire you, Lady Sutherland.”
She halted at the use of her title and her gaze snapped to his face. “You believe me?”
He wiped the tears from her eyes. “Your story is too extraordinary not to believe. My own stupidity was to believe you were a thief. Why did you never tell me?”
She toyed with the mother-of-pearl button on his shirt, driving him mad. “You are a stubborn man bent on believing what he wants to believe.”
“There is that,” he said. He was an idiot. He’d had questions, but had let his all-important titled existence be his guide, not his gut.
She moved away from him as if realizing the impropriety of their closeness. He desired to snatch her back in his arms, yet hesitated, respecting the distance she sought. He leaned his shoulder against the uneven wall of the cottage, and, frowning, he reconsidered.
She was not a thief. She was an innocent and he took great delight in that notion.
What this lovely woman had faced. Rising above her misfortunes, she had the ability to hope and emerge triumphant. She had the capacity to find light in the darkest corner.
She was an angel.
“All this time, Alexandra you have been positive and I’ve been moody and recalcitrant. You have survived far more than I ever have. I’ve been an idiot, an ogre and anything else you wish to call me. I want to apologize to you.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Nicholas.”
“Alexandra, I vow if we ever get back to England I will help you gain what is rightfully yours, and find justice for Molly and your father, Baron Sutherland. I will protect you.”