And yet it was obvious from every curve of his wife's sweet face that she had affection for this brother, the one person in her stepfather's cursed household who had offered her even the most simple kindness. Besides, Aidan's conscience nudged him, had it not been for this heedless fool, this miraculous woman would never have come to Rathcannon to change Aidan's life.
He battled long seconds to rein in his temper, bracing himself by laying one hand on Norah's shoulder. The feel of her warmth against his palm reminded him how much he owed her. Offering this brainless stepbrother of hers a decent welcome was little enough to give her in return. Yes, Farnsworth's arrival was ill-timed: The blithering fool could hardly have chosen a more inappropriate moment to make his appearance if he'd tried. But his visit might actually cheer Norah and Cassandra. Help take their mind off the encroaching danger.
Aidan heaved a sigh, a twinge shooting through his ribs. He cursed, low. "Farnsworth, it's been a helluva night. I'm..." Aidan looked from Norah to her stepbrother, fully intending to apologize for his churlishness, but somehow he couldn't squeeze the words past his throat. Instead, he said gruffly, "You're Norah's family. This is her home. Of course you are welcome."
The smile on Norah's face should have dazzled him. Instead, he fought the strange urge to interpose himself between her and the man whose handsome features were now wreathed in the most forgiving of grins.
Farnsworth came toward Aidan with the slightest limp and extended his hand. Aidan gritted his teeth and took it, giving it a brisk shake.
"Apology accepted," Farnsworth said, with a sunny inflection that made Aidan want to check his pockets to see if they'd been picked. "I don't blame you for being indignant on my little sister's behalf. She was treated shamefully by my father and by me."
"No, Richard! You were so kind!" She turned to Aidan, her heart in her eyes. "Aidan, Richard even met me at the docks before I left and made me a present of trunks full of clothes, the loveliest trousseau any bride could ever have wished for."
"Bah! As if a few trinkets could obliterate the wrong I did you," Farnsworth insisted. "I was a bumbling fool who might have blithely sent you off into disaster. Norah, no matter how well intentioned I might have been, Kane is right. It's only by the grace of God that you're safe, and... dare I say it? Happy?" Tenderness oozed out of every scented pore as Farnsworth caught her chin between his fingers and tipped her face up to him. "A blind man could see that you've formed an attachment to your new husband. And yet I fear there are shadows in your eyes. You know, you could never hide it from me when you were troubled. Please, darling, let Richard help, if I may."
Aidan could see the moment Norah's joy at her stepbrother's surprising arrival was tainted by the memory of the tense time all at Rathcannon had suffered. She nibbled at her lower lip, looking so delicate, so uncertain.
"Aidan was just—just saying how dreadfully much he has to do. I'm certain that you will be an absolute godsend, considering all that has happened," she confided.
Aidan's hands tightened into fists. The mere thought of this polished Englishman being privy to Aidan's darkest fears made every nerve in his body sizzle. "Norah, your brother has come to visit with you. There is no need to distract him with matters that are none of his concern."
Farnsworth's brows drew down over his straight nose. "That sounds rather ominous, Kane. Is something amiss? If so, you may consider me at your service. After all, we are brothers now."
Aidan knew a swift need to snap out a denial, yet he leashed his tongue for Norah's sake. "I... thank you for your offer. I will be sure to consider it should I ever happen to need your aid."
"But you were just saying how much there is to be done. Surely Richard can be of use. I know he may seem a bit... a bit..." She hesitated, plucking nervously at a fold of her gown, her cheeks coloring.
But if she feared offending the fool, she needn't have. Farnsworth let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Shallow? Scatter-brained?"
"That's not what I meant to say at all!" Norah said defensively. "Perhaps... impulsive."
"Ah-hah. A more diplomatic way of saying scatterbrained," Farnsworth observed. "Perhaps it would be better if Kane didn't entrust me with this great dark secret."
"Don't be ridiculous. It's not a secret." Norah turned to her brother. "Last night Aidan's daughter, Cassandra, was nearly abducted from the castle gardens."
Farnsworth clapped one hand to his chest, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Abducted? By brigands?"
"We don't know for certain who made the attempt. We can only be glad it didn't succeed."
"My God, she's just a child!" Farnsworth exclaimed. "How old is she?"
"Fifteen," Norah supplied. "Aidan went out in search of the men who did it, but they'd vanished."
"But why would anyone strike out at an innocent girl?"
"To get to me," Aidan ground out.
Farnsworth seemed to be struggling to digest that, outrage blossoming on his face. "The villainous churls!" He groped for his cravat, shuddering. "Of course, one does hear of such... such abominable things happening, and yet—My God, it makes my skin crawl when I think of what the poor innocent girl might have been subjected to. She could have been murdered. Raped."
"Farnsworth!" Aidan snarled, the man's words stirring up all his own fears and nightmares, every time he thought of how close Cassandra had come to being helpless, in the power of maniacs bent on revenge. His stomach twisted, his chest constricted.
The English fool stopped, casting a horrified glance at Norah, as if suddenly realizing what had slipped from his unguarded tongue. "Forgive me. I just... I cannot tell you what a shock it is to hear of such a thing."
"There is more, Richard," Norah said. "It seems this monster has struck a set of wagers—one about Cassandra, and—and one about me."
Farnsworth's jaw set with determination and his arms crossed over his chest. "Exactly what are you going to do about this, Kane?" There was challenge in the words, a gauntlet flung down.
"I'm going to find the bastard behind this. And then I'm going to kill him."
"You're confident of your ability to do so? That 'bastard' already practically waltzed into your very home, took your daughter. By God, he seems like a cunning devil."
"What he is, is an arrogant fool. He'll make a mistake, and when he does, I'll be waiting."
Farnsworth raked his fingers through his blond hair. "Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to sit in the infernal gardens sipping tea when my sister is in danger! You may not want my help. You may not approve of my involvement in Norah's coming here. You may not even like me very much. But you will accept my aid in bringing this cowardly cur to heel."
"Damn it, I have enough of a disaster on my hands without—"
"Without what? Another man to help guard your womenfolk? Another pistol raised in their defense? Another set of hands to help flush this bastard out of hiding? Thunderation, man, think!"
"Aidan, please." Norah placed a supplicating hand on his arm. "Richard can help. I know he can. And you... look at you already. You need to sleep and eat. And you're injured besides."
"Injured? You mean you already had an altercation with this animal and he got away?"
"No, dammit. If I'd gotten my hands on him the devil himself couldn't have wrenched him from my grasp. I—" Aidan thought about the confrontation with Gilpatrick and his teeth ground closed. No, there was no way to explain such a thing to Farnsworth without revealing more vulnerable places. And the idea of exposing vulnerabilities to anyone save Norah was beyond comprehension.
"Kane, be reasonable. My sister needs me. You need me. Your daughter needs me. You can hardly expect any decent man with a shred of honor to walk away from such a duty."
"Cassandra and Norah are mine to protect."
"And you've obviously been doing a damn fine job of it!" Sarcasm dripped from Farnsworth's voice, but he stopped with a muttered oath. "I don't mean that, Kane. I know I've begun badly here, and that you have every right to dismiss me as a
heedless fool after I allowed Norah to come stumbling over here alone. But give a man credit for attempting to right his past mistakes. For owning up to them. Surely you can understand my need to make things right."
Aidan wanted to fling a bitter rejoinder back at him and stalk away. He wanted to shove the idiot bastard out Rathcannon's doors and bar them behind him. But Richard Farnsworth's words burrowed past anger and wariness, past exhaustion, frustration, and stark foreboding, touching a raw chord in Aidan's own chest.
Surely you can understand my need to make things right.
God, could any man understand that need to right past wrongs better than Aidan himself? The need to strip away a thousand regrets and feel clean again, whole again?
His gaze flicked from Richard Farnsworth's earnest features to Norah's face, the depths of her dark eyes revealing all too clearly the bruises his harsh words to her brother had caused her, the hurt, the uncertainty, the torn loyalties rending this woman Aidan would have done anything to protect from pain.
"Papa?"
The sound of Cassandra's voice in the corridor made Aidan start, the words punctuated with the staccato rhythm of her slippers tripping toward him.
"Mrs. Brindle said you'd gotten back."
He turned to see his daughter rushing through the door, fully intending, Aidan was certain, to fling herself into his arms. But at the sight of the handsome stranger, the girl slammed to a halt, one hand sweeping to smooth her skirts, the other to pat a curl back from her cheek as she hastened to cloak herself in adolescent dignity.
Her eyes brightened, her cheeks stained delicate rose as if the horrors of the night before had already been swept from her mind, relegated to the status of childhood nightmares about dragons lurking under her bed.
To Aidan it seemed as if his daughter had aged five years in that single heartbeat. She was beautiful—beautiful and breathless with anticipation and yet more poised than he'd ever seen her.
"Father, why didn't you tell me we were expecting company?" she asked, favoring Richard Farnsworth with her loveliest smile. "We haven't been introduced. I'm Cassandra Kane."
Farnsworth looked as if the girl had neatly divested him of the power of speech. Aidan had always known that Cassandra was beautiful, and he should have been prepared for the effect a first glimpse of her would have on a stranger. Yet Farnsworth's gaze clung to the sweet curves of the girl a trifle too long, and Aidan suspected that as a young soldier he himself had worn the same glazed expression the first time he'd set eyes on Delia March. In a heartbeat, Farnsworth seemed to shake himself, a coolness wisping over his eyes as he adopted a more appropriate expression.
"So you are my new niece." He reached out to clasp one of Cassandra's dimpled hands in both his own. "I am... enchanted."
"We've had about all the 'enchantment' we can survive here of late," Aidan snapped, irritation coiling through every fiber of his tall frame. "I doubt I could survive another bout. Cassandra, this is Norah's stepbrother," he said, as if those words alone would be enough to drive the glittering interest from his daughter's eyes. If anything, her interest seemed even more marked.
"Well, I can hardly go about calling him 'Norah's brother,' can I?" Cassandra said with a breathless laugh.
"Call me 'Richard.' I would be honored, unless you think such familiarity too bold." The embodiment of impeccable manners, Farnsworth hazarded a glance at Aidan. "I just thought that since we are family, after a fashion..."
Cassandra beamed. "Considering that, it would be absurd to stand on ceremony, wouldn't it, Papa?"
Aidan started to grumble something about ceremony and propriety being in place for a reason, but Cassandra was breezing on.
"I think 'Richard' is a lovely name. I shall be delighted to use it, but only if you will call me 'Cassandra.'"
"'Cassandra,' then. Did you know that you were named for a princess of Troy? They say that Helen's face launched a thousand ships, but I vow, if my charming new niece had been ensconced within the city's walls, every ship on those ancient seas would have come to pay homage not to Paris' stolen beauty, but to you."
The girl fairly shivered with delight. "What a pretty thing to say!"
Aidan grimaced. He'd wager his fortune the glib-tongued fool fairly spat rose petals every time he opened his mouth. The risk was always being cut by hidden thorns. "Cass, if you're to enter society next year, the first rule is that only a simpleton puts any store by such nonsense. It is a game. One you mustn't take too seriously."
Farnsworth's teeth flashed beneath his smile. "I would think a gambler the likes of you would know that life itself is one huge game, and the man who wins is the one willing to take the biggest risks. With the cards, or the dice, or... with the ladies."
"Richard, you mustn't tease so," Norah intervened, her gaze flicking to the muscle ticking in Aidan's jaw. "I'm afraid after all that has happened, we're decidedly lacking in a sense of humor."
"Forgive me." Richard spread his hands out in apology. "It's just... a treasure such as Cassandra must be guarded at all costs. I would deem it an honor to be allowed to serve her."
He sketched the girl an elegant bow. Aidan saw his daughter's cheeks dimple, her chin tip up in that age-old discovery of feminine power.
He gritted his teeth, trying his damnedest not to heave the bloody fop out the door by his breeches. Norah must have noted his thunderous glare, for she grasped his sleeve. "Aidan, please," she breathed low, for his ears alone. "It will be lovely to have Richard about. He can distract Cassandra, watch over her, leaving you free to make your search for whoever tried to harm her."
"The man is an incorrigible flirt."
"He's harmless. He will guard her every bit as carefully as he has guarded me."
Aidan looked down into that soft ivory face, remembering it the first night she'd stayed at Rathcannon, her eyes wide and frightened, her hands knotted in her nightgown as he stormed about the bedchamber, bent on terrifying her so badly she'd flee the castle with the first whisperings of dawn. She'd been so damned brave, so much at his mercy.
He will guard her every bit as carefully as he has guarded me. Norah's words echoed in Aidan's mind.
That was what he was afraid of.
No, blast it, Norah was right: He needed all the help he could get at the moment. Every pair of eyes to keep guard, every set of hands to defend. He needed the aid of every mind sharp enough to help him discover a foe so cunning it terrified him, so elusive it seemed as if the phantom figure were no more solid than a moonbeam slipping between his fingers to disappear.
Much as Aidan disliked the elegant fop who was Norah's brother, the truth was that Norah had affection for him and, what's more, believed in him with the same blind trust she had offered to Aidan himself.
Aidan had spent the years since his marriage to Delia dragging on mantles of doubt and distrust and cynicism until they were as common to don in the morning as a fresh cravat. He'd become so jaded, he could look into the Madonna's own eyes and see there one of Satan's angels. Distrust. The wariness of a hunted animal. It had lived inside him so long, he'd nearly missed the treasure that was Norah. Wasn't it time to believe in someone? Wasn't it time to believe in her?
"Kane?" Farnsworth paced toward him, his gaze starkly earnest. "When your daughter is with me, I vow she'll be as safe as if she were clasped to her mother's own breast."
Claws buried deep in Aidan's gut unsheathed, dug deep into his most secret fears. Farnsworth couldn't know... couldn't possibly guess that such a comparison would fire Aidan's unease and rake across his nerves like the blade of an assassin's knife.
Aidan brought himself up sharply. No, the only way to assure Cassandra's safety was to begin his hunt, not stand here, bandying words with some idiot English fool.
"I have business to attend to now," Aidan said roughly.
"Of course," Farnsworth said, straightening his cravat. "You must carry on with your search. But before you leave, let me reassure you of this: You may hold me personally
responsible for anything that happens to your daughter from this moment on."
Aidan barely suppressed the sarcastic twisting of his lips. The day he was rash enough to entrust Cassandra to a bumbling idiot like Richard Farnsworth was the day the earth would crumble into the sea. The bastard was there as entertainment, a mindless distraction for both Norah and Cassandra. That was all.
"I'll not lay a burden of responsibility quite that heavy upon you, Farnsworth."
Those strange eyes clung to Aidan's for a heartbeat, something unguarded in them for just a breath of time. Then it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving nothing behind but bored arrogance, affable foolery. "I promise you, Sir Aidan: By the time I leave Rathcannon, you will know exactly how far you can trust me."
Oddly unsettled, Aidan turned and walked out of the room, away from Norah's pleading gaze and Cassandra's excited one. Away from the memories Farnsworth's words had spawned, the rattle of coach wheels, the lash of thunder, the sound of Cassandra screaming from her mother's arms.
* * * * *
Laughter rippled through the open window as sunshine streamed down to set the stable yard a-glitter. Norah leaned out the open window to peer out at a scene as pastoral as a Gainsborough painting: serene skies, banks of flowers, and a golden-tressed little beauty in rose-hued skirts, delighting in an exquisite cream pony. And delighting in the day and in her guardian knight who lay against a backdrop of lush green grass, weaving her a crown of meadow flowers.
From the moment of his arrival, Richard Farnsworth had scarcely left Cassandra's side, watching over her with a fierce protectiveness that had touched Norah deeply. Tending her with a seriousness of purpose that had made Norah hope, believe that her scapegrace stepbrother might at last be finding his way, shedding the futile posturings and useless affectations of the ton for something better and more wholesome.
Richard had been so solicitous and tender when he'd come to her alone, saying that he wanted to help, to make certain Norah could support her new husband and care for him during this trial. That unselfish emotion was the reason he'd been so attentive to Aidan Kane's daughter. It was the least he could do, Richard had insisted, after being such an incompetent bumbler when Norah had needed him before.