Scoundrel's Daughter Read online

  Refastening the pins in her elaborately decorated straw hat, she smoothed back the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped her prim topknot. She centered the small blue bow at her collar, and pinched a bit of color into her cheeks.

  The wagon came to a jarring stop in front of a red-brick house with a black door, nearly throwing Dorothea off the bench and onto the floor. Regaining her balance, she came to her feet and stood unsteadily in the wagon bed with her trunk of clothes and several boxes of books and notes.

  Intending to speak sharply to the driver, she discovered him engaged in loud conversation with a man who’d come out from the house. It took Dorothea only a moment to understand that the two men were arguing.

  She cleared her throat loudly, then placed her gloved hands on her hips and began to tap one foot. Surely they did not mean to leave her up there. Her driver should notice she was incapable of jumping down and come to her assistance.

  But he did not. The argument continued, with both men gesturing toward the wagon bed, the man from the house shaking his head, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “I beg your pardon,” Dorothea said.

  A carriage drove past with a clatter, and a fruit seller with a cart full of apples called out to gain attention for his wares. With all the noise it created, the two arguing men did not hear her.

  “I beg your pardon!” she called, much louder this time, mortified at the necessity of raising her voice in such a crass manner.

  The driver and the man from the house stopped, then turned and gaped at her.

  “My good man,” she said firmly, “be so kind as to help me down. I believe I can clear up this misunderstanding.”

  The driver and the other man each took one of Dorothea’s hands and assisted her from the wagon. When she was upon solid ground, she turned to the gentleman from the house. “Are you the butler here, sir?”

  He laughed. “Couldn’t rightly say that I am, miss,” he said. “But I, er, I am at your service.”

  “Well,” she said, straightening her shoulders and tidying her jacket once again, “then you can tell me if this is the Bright residence?”

  “Aye, that it is,” the man replied. “Though Professor Bright is not at home.”

  Dorothea frowned at this news. She’d sent a letter to her father when it had become clear that she had no choice but to come to him in London and had received a reply from his solicitor, giving her travel instructions. It was unthinkable that her father was not here to greet her, though it changed nothing.

  She stepped out of the street and turned to the driver. “Everything is to be unloaded and carried into the house. I’ll direct you once you come inside and—”

  “But, miss—”

  “—and show you where everything is to go.”

  “But there’s no—”

  “Please be careful with those boxes,” she said as she made her way toward the front door of the house. “Some of those documents are irreplaceable.”

  The two men watched her trim figure retreat into the house, each muttering to himself.

  It was dark in the front hall, and Dorothea went immediately to the drawing room at the front of the house and pulled open the heavy drapes. The room was sparsely furnished, and filthy crates were stacked in every corner. Turning on her heel, she moved through the first floor of the house and found conditions to be much the same in every room. A few pieces of furniture, and boxes and crates everywhere. It was as if her father were in the process of moving either in or out.

  “Miss!” the manservant said, coming up behind her in the kitchen. “This is highly irregular! Your father is not—”

  “Your name, my good man?” Dorothea demanded as she turned to look up at him.

  “Creighton, miss,” he replied.

  “Is my father at the museum, Creighton?” Dorothea asked. She did not care for the man’s appearance and sensed that he was only as good a servant as he had to be.

  “No, miss,” the man replied, slipping a finger into his collar and pulling it away from his neck. “Your father has not yet returned from his African expedition.”

  Dorothea’s mind went blank for an instant. The solicitor had not mentioned that her father was on one of his trips, nor had he indicated that Alastair Bright might not be at home when she arrived. She experienced a moment of indecision, but quickly recovered herself.

  “Never mind,” she said, taking the tone her mother always used when she wanted to show that she was in charge. Dorothea certainly didn’t feel that way now, but she would never allow her father’s servant to know that. “I’ll just settle in, and we can rearrange my things after my father returns.”

  The driver, along with a burly adolescent hired off the street, shuffled in with her trunk and dropped it on the floor in the hall. “Where d’you want this, ma’am?”

  Dorothea took over a small room on the second floor of the house. In it, she found an old trunk and some blankets, a broken-down chair and a cracked mirror in a frame. For lack of a maidservant to do the work, she dusted and scrubbed every corner of the room and pulled the musty curtains off the windows. Finding herself fatigued and a bit short of breath, she rested for a while, then got back to work, taking it at a much slower pace. She got rid of the broken furnishings and had a few intact pieces brought in from elsewhere in the house.

  Creighton found a rusty metal cot in the attic and dragged it into the room, taking its mattress to the garden to beat the dust out of it. Once Dorothea had made up the bed and put her clothing away, she took a look around and decided the room would do. She would need a desk in order to keep her work organized, for she had every intention of continuing to do translations for the professors at Oxford, as well as for any new connections she might make here in London.

  Her father might even have contacts at the museum who would be interested in her skills.

  A sudden crash that seemed to vibrate the entire house startled Dorothea out of her room. Loud pounding followed the noise, along with a man’s deep voice, raised in anger.

  “Bright, you son of a bitch!” the man shouted in a distinctly American accent. “Open this door before I break it down!”

  Startled, Dorothea hurried down the stairs before she had a chance to settle her nerves and gather her wits. She made it to the door before Creighton and pulled it open.

  The tall man on the other side of the threshold was dressed like some ruffian from a Wild West show. His head of dark, uncombed hair was uncovered, and he held no hat in his hands. His shirt was dingy and half-open, Dorothea realized with alarm. And there was no collar in evidence.

  Holding up a pair of disreputably filthy trousers were equally dirty suspenders. The only thing missing was a pair of ornate six-shooters that Dorothea imagined all those cow-fellows wore.

  “Where is he?” the man demanded. “Get Bright out here! Pronto.”

  “P-Professor Bright is not at home, sir,” she said, closing the door partway to prevent the man from entering the house. “Now if you’ll kindly…” She couldn’t very well ask a ruffian of his ilk for a card. Surely he wouldn’t have one. “If you’ll give me your name, I’ll tell him you called.”

  “Not bloody likely,” the man said. “I’ll wait.”

  Pushing past her, he strode into the drawing room, tracking dust in his wake. Without regard to the state of his clothes, or his boots, the American came to a stop in front of the modest fireplace. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood motionless.

  Powerless to stop him, Dorothea followed the brash American.

  “Sir,” she said in her fiercest voice. “I demand that you leave my father’s house at once—”

  “Your father!” He let out a bark of a laugh and pierced her with his steely blue gaze. “Don’t tell me the old bastard has a partner in crime!”

  “I should say n—Crime?” Dorothea sputtered. “What on earth are you—” Her mother would never have dignified such a statement with a response. Clearly, the only thing possible was to make the
man leave. She strode back to the front entry with the reasonable expectation that the big American would follow. But when she turned round, he had not budged. His tall frame still dominated the drawing room.

  He was a big man, and Dorothea guessed he would be considered well made, with broad shoulders and muscular limbs. His face might not be so unattractive if ever he bothered to shave the layer of disreputable black whiskers that shadowed his square jaw.

  There was a murderous gleam in his eyes and an expression of pure ruthless anger on his face. He was not a man to be taken lightly, and a shudder of apprehension skittered down Dorothea’s back. The men she knew—her male neighbors in Oxford and the professors at the university—were all civilized men.

  Dorothea had no idea what to expect from this one.

  “I must insist,” she said, gathering whatever bravado she could muster, “that you leave this house at once.”

  “Not until I meet with your…father,” he said. His coldly appraising eyes raked over her, and Dorothea felt the heat of a blush start at her neck and work its way up. She had not given a single thought to her own dusty, unkempt appearance, but decided there was no course but to brazen it out with as much dignity as she could rally and hope that Creighton would appear and make the American go away.

  For six months, Jack’s raging anger had not abated. It had festered and grown until he had become fully capable of breaking the crooked little Englishman in half with his bare hands. Alastair Bright had masterfully lured Temple’s research party deep into Mongasa territory for the sole intention of stealing the tribe’s precious Kohamba.

  While Jack’s purpose had been only to photograph the figure and offer gifts to the Mongasa chief while he spent a few weeks studying the tribe, Bright had managed to filch the sacred statue, causing an uproar. Jack’s party had split up and escaped, only to fall into the hands of other, equally primitive tribes. It had been many weeks before his team had been reunited. Luckily, all five of the men had survived, no thanks to Alastair Bright.

  But Gauge O’Neill had fallen ill during their escape through the jungle. He’d contracted malaria and was down with the sickness all during their long journey to England. Even now, O’Neill lay in his bed in a nearby rented room, thrashing with fever, dehydration and joint pains.

  And Bright would pay for that most of all.

  In frustration, Jack slid his hands across his face and rubbed his eyes. He could not believe Bright had managed to elude him again. When Jack and his party had finally been reunited in Unguja, they’d sailed north, putting in at every port where their paths might cross Bright’s. Jack had come close to catching the wily fellow twice: once in Mogadishu and again in Cairo.

  Somehow, the swindling professor managed to stay at least one step ahead of Jack.

  “He’ll have to come here sometime, won’t he?” Jack said. She didn’t look anything like her old man other than her diminutive height. Her features might have been downright pretty if they hadn’t been screwed into a haughty, disdainful expression. Soft tendrils of auburn hair that curled around her face made her look as if a man’s hands had just been running through it.

  Jack stopped short. Her hair was a mess, and so were her clothes. Had she just arrived from the docks, too? Was she covering up for her father to allow him a chance to get away again?

  Not this time!

  He made a cursory examination of the boxes nearby, then stormed out of the drawing room and searched the entire main floor, throwing doors open and exploring every nook and cranny. Finding no trace of anyone else on the first floor, he trudged up the stairs while Miss Bright followed, protesting his intrusion with every step. He shook off her dainty hands as if they were a child’s and continued opening doors. At the back of the house, he discovered one door, locked against him.

  “Bright!” he roared at the closed door.

  “My good man, I cannot allow—”

  “Open it, or I’ll kick it in!” he bellowed.

  He heard no sounds coming from behind the door, but that didn’t mean anything. The weasel was probably hiding in a closet.

  “Sir! You cannot mean—”

  Before giving it another thought, Jack raised one booted foot and kicked the door open.

  The room was illuminated by a bank of windows along the back wall. And the space itself contained Bright’s collection of artifacts. He took a few steps into the room.

  Jack heard a horrified gasp behind him and glanced back at Bright’s daughter. Her face had lost all its color and she looked like she was going to faint. When her eyes rolled back, he grabbed her by the waist and lowered her to the polished wooden floor.

  What the hell? Surely the woman had seen her father’s collection of ancient erotica? He had to admit the articles were stunning…perhaps Bright kept the door locked to keep his daughter sheltered from such graphic works.

  Jack tapped her lightly on the face, but when she did not come around, he realized more drastic measures were needed. He pulled her jacket open, then unfastened the buttons at her throat.

  A faint pulse fluttered there, and looking at it gave Jack an odd sensation. “Damnable corsets…” he muttered. “How in hell is she supposed to breathe?”

  He opened a few more buttons, then reached in and unhooked the front fastenings of her corset. Thus freed, her breasts nearly overflowed the thin shift that rested between her skin and the rigid corset as she took a sudden deep breath.

  Her eyes opened.

  “Are you out of your mind, woman?” he demanded.

  Dazed green eyes looked up at him in puzzlement.

  “Lacing yourself up so you can’t breathe doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me.” He shook his head and left her where she lay on the polished wooden floor.

  He would never have left another woman in such a sorry state, but she was…He took a deep breath and canceled the mental picture she made from his mind. She was Bright’s daughter, and that’s all he needed to know about her.

  Ignoring the faint sounds made by the woman behind him, Jack walked through the collection of carvings and drawings that were assembled on various tables and pedestals throughout the room. He took a moment to appreciate the frescos and fragments of ancient Indian erotic bas relief.

  He had to give Bright credit. The man had amassed a superb collection that had to be worth a fortune. And no doubt, he had buyers from all over the world who paid him handsomely for such things.

  An ebony phallus from Siam, exquisite in its detail. A primitive stone sheela-na-gig from Ireland smiled lasciviously at him as she exposed her most private parts to all who cared to see. A scene from the Kama Sutra played out on the wall above the desk.

  Another shocked gasp from behind, and Jack knew Miss Bright had just realized what he’d done to her. Or perhaps she’d just gotten a good, close look at one of her father’s pieces. Finding amusement somewhere amid his anger, he managed to hide it and continued to walk around Alastair Bright’s collection while the man’s daughter made a hasty departure from the room.

  Jack knew more about old carvings than women’s fashions, but he recognized a travesty when he saw one. It was an utter crime to hide such magnificent assets behind a whale-bone corset, but clearly, Miss Bright had intentionally done so.

  Jack could not imagine why.

  Chapter Two

  With indignation puffing out her chest, it was difficult for Dorothea to return her bosom to its confines, the way her mother had taught her. There was a slight tremor in her fingers, which did not help, but she was determined to master her embarrassment, right her attire and confront the barbarian who had invaded her father’s house.

  Except that she did not want to go into that room again.

  She could not bring herself to think of those…obscene likenesses and their connection with Alastair. Why would such awful things be in her father’s house? Everywhere her eyes landed was yet another indecent piece—a carving or a painting. He even had some rude bas-relief sections hanging on the
walls. Surely there was some reasonable explanation why a reputable scholar of antiquities would possess such a collection.

  Dorothea straightened her bodice and brushed at her skirt, then paced the hall outside that awful chamber, waiting for the American to come out.

  Such unsatisfactory events would never have occurred if her mother were alive. Honoria Bright did not allow chaos or disorder in her presence. Yet here Dorothea was, on her own for merely half a day, and confusion reigned. What was wrong with her?

  And where was Creighton? Her father’s odious manservant had apparently decided to disappear at exactly the right moment. He should be the one to deal with this brash intruder. What did her father pay the man for, if not to keep street riffraff from entering the house? If ever a servant was in need of a reprimand, it was Creighton, and Dorothea was determined to see that he got it.

  She clasped her hands in front of her and moistened her lips. She paced the length of the upstairs hall. Creighton was not here. Dorothea was on her own. Her mother would not have shrunk from the challenge of removing an intruder from her house. No, Honoria would have set her face in a disapproving expression, taken firm hold of the man’s arm and physically ushered him out of the house. And, by heaven, no one would have dreamed of crossing her.

  Seeing no alternative but to confront the American in those coarse surroundings, Dorothea braced herself and marched back in.

  He was in a crouched position, putting him eye level with the most lewd carving Dorothea had ever seen. That the man could look at it so brazenly—actually touch it—brought a flaming heat to her cheeks and a palpitation to her breast. She felt slightly faint again, but used every ounce of her willpower to master it.