you were a child of unpredictable disposition, that you and your sister were well educated by a string of governesses.
‘I also know that your father has a penchant for self-destruction. He’s got himself into an appalling financial situation, and once his creditors discover his dire circumstances he will have to run for the Continent or risk facing an unpleasant, prolonged stay in a debtors’ prison. As a result he is now striving to procure for you a wealthy husband, regardless of age, status or your feelings on the matter. In short, you are loyal to a fault, left to perform the biddings of your father’s avarice. Is this correct? Tell me if I’m wrong.’
Rowena swallowed, her spirit, like her pride, shattered. She acknowledged the truth of his words with a slight, regal inclination of her head, thankful that none of this mattered to him. ‘I’d say your information is entirely accurate. I’m the only thing standing between my father and absolute ruin.’ Her lips curled bitterly. ‘What a pathetic creature you must find me.’
He stood for a moment, his imperturbable penetrating gaze studying the hurt his words had brought to her eyes. The sun filling the hall had brought a bloom of rosy colour to her delicately boned cheeks, setting off a sparkle in her jewel-bright eyes, the blue-green orbs slanting slightly upwards, thickly fringed with black lashes. There was a naïvety about her and an indescribable magnetism that totally intrigued him, as well as something special and fine.
‘I’m sure you are many things, Miss Golding, but being pathetic is not one of them. Now, isn’t it time you took me to your father?’
‘Yes, of course. Please come this way.’
‘A moment of your time, Rowena, before we go in.’
She paused and gazed up at him, noting how his expression had hardened. He had used her Christian name for the first time; though she noticed it, she liked the sound of it, the familiarity, and could not protest.
‘You may be amazed by what you hear. I apologise beforehand for misleading you.’ Without waiting for a response, he opened the door and strode into the room.
At the sudden interruption Matthew looked up from some papers he was scrutinising. With stupefied slowness his eyes focused on the man who had burst in.
‘What the devil…?’ He stared blankly, giving no hint of recognition at first, but then he froze, an expression of stunned horror on his face, and when he spoke the first word came out in a sibilant hiss. ‘You. How dare you enter my house uninvited? What do you want—and what the devil are you doing with my daughter?’
Rowena felt a strange slithering unease as she hovered in the doorway. Fear began to congeal in her breast and run its tendrils through her veins as she watched the two men.
The visitor walked to within a yard of where Matthew Golding sat beside the fire in his cumbersome wheelchair and stopped. His eyes flicked over the older man’s portly frame with contempt. As Matthew made a feeble attempt to straighten his neck linen, the corners of the taller man’s mouth twisted in derision.
‘I want answers, not questions, Golding. This is not a social call. I want justice, and by God I will have it. I am here to collect a debt. When I left Antigua I thought you were dead. Imagine my surprise when I discovered you are very much alive. You must have known I would catch up with you sooner or later, that I wouldn’t let it pass.’
Matthew’s face took on a look of incandescent rage. ‘What the devil are you talking about? How dare you force yourself into my house?’
Rowena was speechless, frozen in shock, unable to assimilate what was happening. She gaped at her father in blank confusion. When she moved towards him, bewilderment was written all over her face. ‘Father, what is this? And why are you not pleased to see Mr Whelan? Did you not tell me you were expecting him?’
Matthew looked at Rowena as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘You brainless, witless girl,’ he snarled. ‘This isn’t Phineas Whelan.’
Rowena stared at him through eyes huge with horror and disbelief. ‘He isn’t? Oh, God,’ she cried. With sudden, heartbreaking clarity all the pieces of this bizarre puzzle began to fall into place. The whole gruesome picture was suddenly presented to her in every horrendous detail. In the space of two seconds, all those images collided head on with the reality of what it all meant, bringing her whirling around on the stranger in a tempestuous fury.
He smiled sympathetically. ‘I apologise.’ He cocked a mocking brow. ‘I take it that Mr Whelan is a suitor?’
‘How dare you?’ Rowena hissed with poorly suppressed ire, stepping closer to the intruder. ‘How dare you do this? Of all the treacherous, despicable, underhand… How dare you tell me you were Mr Whelan?’ Her mind screamed at the injustice of it, and her fury increased a thousandfold when she found his eyes resting on her with something akin to compassion or pity. It was too much to bear.
‘I didn’t.’ His tone was brusque where before it had been soft. ‘You assumed. I am sorry. I’m not proud of deceiving you. You do right to put me in my place.’
Rowena’s eyes narrowed into slanted slits of piercing green. ‘Your place? Just who are you?’
A crooked smile accompanied a slight inclination of his head. ‘Tobias Searle—at your service.’
This pronouncement of the name that had bedevilled them all since her father had been brought home close to death was like acid on a raw wound to Rowena. ‘You fraud. You disgusting fraud. You’re no gentleman, that’s for sure, and you are not welcome in this house. How dare you come here hoping to be received?’
Tobias stared at her with a look like a man who has just realised that the fragile flower he has casually picked is in actuality a hornet’s nest. It came to him that there was a changeling in the room, for this termagant was not the winsome girl who had let him in. The face that had been so open and radiant was now closed and turned against him.
‘I was quite prepared not to be received. I considered it wise not to tell you who I was until I had been admitted to your father.’
‘You told me my father was expecting you.’
His lips curved in a cynical smile. ‘That was true. He has been—for the past four years, in fact—but I confess I wasn’t invited.’ He fixed his gaze on the man in the chair. ‘Have a care, Golding,’ he warned, ‘for I would not hesitate to expose your ugliest secret to the illustrious people of Falmouth and beyond.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I would like to say I want recompense for a cargo of rum and sugar you stole from me, but it is as nothing compared to the compensation you owe to the families of the men who perished on one of my ships—the Night Hawk—when it was fired in Kingston Harbour four years back. The lengths you went to to prevent the ship collecting the cargo you coveted for yourself was nothing short of murder. Men who were asleep on board didn’t stand a chance of saving themselves.’
Purple veins stood out on Matthew’s forehead, his eyes protruding from their sockets as he glowered up at the other man. ‘That was not my doing,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I swear it. Jack—Jack Mason—’
‘I know Jack Mason. Captain Jack Mason, the master of the Dolphin—your vessel, I believe.’
‘Aye—and Mason, renegade that he is, made off with it and left me to rot
