Reynolds asks that you stay in your room until he’s taken care of some pressing matters. He wants to make sure it’s safe for you to come down. He was quite adamant.”
“How can it not be safe inside the earl’s home?”
“He said he isn’t sure about your rights under the laws here in the United States. Or his for harboring you. He thinks it would be unwise for you to risk being seen until you have a plan and he knows no one can legally force their way inside to look for you.”
Her heart fell. She knew the answer to that. She had no plan and no rights with a father as powerful as hers. With his connections at city hall things went his way in spite of the downfall of Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall political machine. That was why she had run here. Amber’s husband, the Earl of Adair, had as much power here and abroad as her father. She’d hoped the earl would be able to help her find a safe haven. She was beginning to fear there was no such place.
“I should dress and be on my way,” she told Heddie Winston. “I don’t think Mr. Reynolds understands whose runaway daughter he’s taken in. I am nothing more than Lionel Wexler’s chattel.”
Mrs. Winston smiled kindly and shook her head a bit. “You should know Alexander Reynolds isn’t afraid of your father, dearie.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t believe he’s afraid of anyone. Considering the man who raised him, I can’t imagine there is a person alive who could intimidate Mr. Alex.”
She took the tray to the sitting area where Patience had eaten last night. “Now you sit right over here and eat your meal. When you’re done, have a good soak. The bath is the door at the end of the hall. I’ve left a robe in there and I have someone brushing your dress out and fixing the torn hem. She’ll bring it up when she’s finished and then she’ll draw your bath. I’ll see she tidies up in here while she waits to help you dress.” Heddie turned back and motioned to the slipper chair. “I washed out your chemise and I’m about to iron it the rest of the way dry. Everything will be just fine. You’ll see.”
Patience ate what she could, no longer as ravenous as last night. Trying not to notice the time passing, she bathed, dressed and let the young maid fool with her hair. Then she paced. Three hours after Heddie Winston left her, Patience had run out of tolerance with hiding in a child’s room. She had begun to feel like a prisoner again.
Opening her reticule, she spread the jewelry her mother had brought along on that fateful visit just before the accident that had taken her life. It had been her grandmother’s and her mother’s. She fingered it now, remembering with a sharp pang the day her mother had given the items to her. And the shame she’d felt as she’d hidden it, guarding it under a loose floorboard in her closet. She’d made sure no one knew she had it, especially after her mother’s death and her father’s subsequent desertion. For the five remaining years of her marriage, she’d kept it hidden from her husband, at first unable to use it for escape. Following her mother’s departure that day, he’d kept her a virtual prisoner.
Finally he’d had a heart attack that had left him so wasted, the worst he’d been able to do was strike her on the back of the legs with his cane as she passed him. She’d learned to wear extra petticoats that made the attacks as ineffectual as he’d been in bed.
He’d blamed her for that, too!
And so she’d endured, knowing she had nowhere to go, hoping Edgar Gorham wouldn’t live much longer, thinking she’d be able to use his wealth to build a life for herself once he was gone. He’d lived two and a half years longer, though, and all she’d been able to do was fight against his attempts to crush her spirit. She was unsure of how well she’d succeeded.
She fingered the pieces of her heritage nestled in a handkerchief, hating the thought of selling the only visible tie she had to her mother and grandmother. But she had no choice. She could not enter another marriage to a man she despised. She needed to thank Alexander and be on her way.
Chapter Two
Alex stood at the window of Jamie’s study, looking down at the busy street below. He watched as Palmer, his man of business, entered the carriage and drove off. Palmer had given him a good picture of the man their guest was up against. The news wasn’t good. Other than Amber and Jamie, Patience Gorham probably hadn’t a friend in the world who’d go up against her father.
Or Howard Bedlow.
And she was up against them both.
Dammit!
A noise behind him drew his attention. Reflected in the window’s glass, Patience stood in the doorway to the study. “Got impatient did you?” he said and plastered on a grin before turning. Thank God he’d had a bit of a forewarning. The way he felt at that moment he’d have sent the girl scurrying out the front door.
Into danger, no doubt.
Alex cursed under his breath. He’d been wrong. With some nourishment and rest, she was even lovelier than he’d remembered. And more than a bit alluring.
“I’m sorry to disobey your order but I must get on my way,” she said. That soft melodic voice that had followed him into sleep washed over him.
At dawn, Winston had relieved him of his watch on the house so he’d gotten a couple of hours of sleep but she’d been there waiting for him in his dreams, with her rich silky hair, those heart-stopping eyes and that voice that got him hard every time he heard it. And this time was no exception. Which left him feeling like the worst sort of cad. The poor thing was terrified of men—himself included.
He forced his mind off his hunger for her and onto her situation. It was good that no one had come pounding the door down, sure she was inside. Now that it was nearly nine in the morning, he was almost sure no one had seen her arrive last night. But he was just as sure there would eventually be an inquiry since apparently Patience and Amber corresponded.
“Disobey my order?” he asked. His heart ached at this window into the kind of life she must have led thus far. He was sure it was the kind of life his mother had been forced to live.
“Mrs. Winston said I was to stay above stairs.”
Alex sighed. “You have no obligation to do as I say, Mrs. Gorham. I merely suggested you remain there for your safety. But you may do as you wish.”
Though it seemed forced, she gave him an ironic little grin. “Would that that were true. I came to thank you for your hospitality. And to ask if you know of a shop where I could sell my jewelry.”
Alex considered her. “A pawn shop? You know you won’t get half what it’s worth, don’t you?”
She clutched her reticule to her stomach looking pained and sad. “That cannot be helped. I need the funds to get away.”
The jewelry means a great deal to her. It couldn’t be a gift from her late husband, then. With her desperation so clear in her eyes, she would be a lamb for the shearing to any pawnbroker.
He gestured toward the divan and, breaking protocol, he took a seat in the chair nearest her so she would know he had no intention of crowding her. “I must warn you, that sort of establishment is probably being watched.”
She shook her head. “My father has no knowledge that I have it. My mother gave it to me just before her death. I was to use it to get away from
