Maverick Heart

  “I WANT YOU TO MARRY ME. IN FACT, I INSIST UPON IT.”

  Verity, Lady Talbot, Countess of Rushland, looked stunned, appalled. Miles hadn’t expected her to be happy about his proposal. That was why he had planned everything so carefully, so she would have no way out.

  Her chin came up, and she arched one fine, aristocratic brow. “You insist upon it?”

  “That deed of yours isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. If you refuse my offer, you won’t have a farthing to your name.”

  “I concede such a marriage might help me, Miles. What do you hope to gain from it?”

  “You,” he said in a silky voice. “In my bed.”

  HIGH PRAISE FOR JOAN JOHNSTON

  Winner of Romantic Times Best Western Author of the Year Award and Best Western Series Award AND HER PREVIOUS BESTSELLING NOVELS

  THE INHERITANCE

  “With her usual expertise for finding just the right balance of poignancy and humor, Joan Johnston delivers a delightful romance peopled with engaging characters who will surely steal your heart.”—Romantic Times

  “WELL-WRITTEN … A TREMENDOUS TALE … THE CHARACTERS ARE ALL FIRST-RATE.”—Affaire de Coeur

  OUTLAW’S BRIDE

  “Intrigue and passion, combined with a tender love story, make this one delicious, and the subplots promise us closer looks at her riveting characters in future books.”—Rendezvous

  “OUTLAW’S BRIDE is a very amusing and imaginative romp that has the Joan Johnston stamp of excellence all over it … A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TREAT.”—Affaire de Coeur

  KID CALHOUN

  “4+ Hearts! Powerful and moving … Joan Johnston has cleverly merged the aura of the Americana-style romance with the grittier Westerns she has written in the past, making KID CALHOUN into a feast for all her fans. This irresistible love story once again ensures Ms. Johnston a place in readers’ hearts and on their ‘keeper’ shelves.”—Romantic Times

  “UNFORGETTABLE … A TOUCHING TAPESTRY.”—Affaire de Coeur

  “This most enjoyable Western is packed with spunky women, tough men, rotten bad guys and ornery kids … just the ingredients for a fine read.”—Heartland Critiques

  “This story has surprises at every turn … and it’s all pulled together with Ms. Johnston’s special blend of humor. Plenty of action and adventure to keep you entertained, this is a top-notch Western romance with sparkling characters and dynamic dialogue.”—Rendezvous

  Dell Books by Joan Johnston

  After the Kiss

  The Barefoot Bride

  The Bodyguard

  Captive

  The Inheritance

  Kid Calhoun

  Maverick Heart

  Outlaw’s Bride Sweetwater Seduction

  The Bridegroom

  The Cowboy

  The Loner

  The Texan

  Comanche Woman Frontier Woman

  Texas Woman

  Published by

  Dell Publishing

  A division

  of Random House, Inc.

  Copyright © 1995 by Joan Mertens Johnston

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-78952-5

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Letter to Readers

  Prologue

  LONDON, ENGLAND 1853

  She could hear him pacing in the hall, the sound of his Wellington boots echoing off the high, second-story ceiling of the London town house. When he reached the end of the hall he slapped his riding whip against his buckskins, turned, and marched back the other direction. She opened her mouth to beg her maid, Jenny, to close the bedroom door, but her throat was so parched her voice cracked before coherent sound emerged. She gripped the bedsheets as another pain racked her belly.

  Verity, Lady Talbot, Countess of Rushland, bit her lip until she tasted blood, writhing as she labored to expel the child, unwilling to scream because that would bring him back into the room.

  She didn’t want him here. She wanted another man, the child’s father.

  The pain passed, as many others had over the previous afternoon and interminable night, leaving her exhausted, enervated, and on the verge of tears. Yesterday she had turned eighteen. Today she would become a mother.

  Dawn’s pinkened fingertips steadily crawled their way over the windowsill. The smell of burned wax assailed her nostrils as Jenny blew out the guttering candle beside her bed before hurrying down to the kitchen for more hot water.

  Miles. Where are you? Why aren’t you here? I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. If only I could undo it, I would.

  Leah, the elderly, white-haired nurse who had watched over Verity since her mother had died giving birth to her, patted Verity’s forehead with a cool, damp cloth, then pressed it against her cracked lips. “There, there, sweeting. Don’t try to speak. Save your strength. The babe cannot be long now in coming.”

  “The earl—” she rasped.

  “Your husband is pacing the hall, anxiously awaiting his heir,” Leah said with a soothing smile. “I must say, his lordship is impatient to become a father. But, after all, when a man’s heir is about to be born—”

  “Please. Don’t say any more.”

  Verity closed her eyes and forced her mind away from thoughts of her child’s father. Miles Broderick—Viscount Linden since his elder brother’s death nine months ago—was lost to her. She was married to Chester Talbot, Earl of Rushland. There was no turning back.

  At least Chester had no inkling of the truth. She hadn’t realized she was with child when she married the earl, believing, foolishly, that her lack of courses during the weeks before her marriage was merely the result of anxiety and unhappiness. Else she would have found some way out of the marriage, no matter what hardship it caused her badly dipped father to lose the generous settlement the earl had paid to have her.

  Verity forced back the self-pity and summoned righteous anger. Because, when all was said and done, it was not her father’s debts that had forced her into marriage, it was Chester’s threats against Miles.

  It was amazing to think a man as young as Miles—he had turned one and twenty over the past summer—could have earned such a deadly enemy. Verity knew the enmity was long-standing, dating to the days when both boys had attended Eton. When Chester had attempted to bully Miles, the smaller, slighter boy had beaten him in a bout of fisticuffs. Humbled and humiliated, Chester had proceeded to make Miles’s life at Eton a living hell. He had continued his malicious behavior when the two boys attended Oxford and was still at it years later.

  She had asked Miles if there was nothing he could do to cry friends with Lord Talbot. Miles had shaken his head and said, “He will not have it. He must beat me. It is not in him to give up.”

&
nbsp; “Could you not let him win once?” Verity had asked. “Perhaps if the challenge were gone …”

  Miles had shaken his head. “He would only become more brutal. For such as he, it is the fear and pain of his victim that give joy, not the defeat itself.”

  Chester had told her, without a trace of guilt or remorse, that he was responsible for the carriage accident that had caused the death of Miles’s elder brother, Gregory, and torn the flesh on the right side of Miles’s face to the bone. Chester had promised he could end Miles’s life just as easily as he had ended Gregory’s if she continued in her refusal to marry him.

  “Believe me,” he had said. “I will arrange Miles’s death so no suspicion will fall upon me. Do not think you can warn him. I will simply wait for a time when his guard is down and kill him.”

  The strange look in his yellow eyes, a sort of reptilian blankness, had made her shudder. Oh, yes, she had believed him.

  And married a monster.

  It was too late for regrets. What was done was done. Miles’s child would bear another man’s name. And she was condemned to be Countess of Rushland for as long as Chester Talbot lived.

  Verity moaned and threw her head from side to side as a vise gripped her belly. She suddenly felt the urge to push. When she did, the pain was excruciating. “Leah! It hurts!”

  “Yes, lovey,” Leah crooned as she made preparations for the coming child. “There is pain before the joy. Soon you will have the babe safe in your arms.”

  Tears seeped from Verity’s closed eyelids as she panted to catch her breath. There was no respite before her body was besieged again. She groaned in agony as rough fingers of pain clamped down on her belly to force the child out.

  “It’s coming. I have the head … and now the shoulders … Oh, lovey,” Leah said excitedly. “It’s a boy!”

  Miles, we have a son!

  “You’ve given the earl his heir!”

  The sob of joy died in Verity’s throat at Leah’s pronouncement, and a knot of fear rose to take its place. God help her if Chester ever realized how she had cheated him. Her husband’s heir did not bear a drop of Talbot blood. Tragic as that circumstance was, it was not nearly as heartbreaking to her as the knowledge that the man she loved would never be able to acknowledge his son. She sobbed again, but this time it was a wrenching sound of despair.

  “Oh, lovey, don’t cry,” Leah said as she placed the swaddled babe in its mother’s embrace. “Look here, what a fine boy he is!”

  As Verity took her son in her arms, she felt such a swell of love that she thought her heart would burst. Here was the best part of herself, and of Miles.

  I will make him a man worthy of his father, she vowed.

  She hadn’t realized Leah had left the room until she discovered Chester standing beside the bed. She looked up and saw nothing, no emotion at all, reflected back to her from his pale, golden eyes. That, in itself, was frightening.

  “Let me see him.”

  She swallowed over the lump in her throat, lifted the birthing sheet away from the babe’s head, and whispered, “Here is your son, my lord.”

  “Damn you to hell, woman!” he snarled. “Damn you to bloody, bloody hell!”

  She shrank from the venom in his voice, clutching her son to her bosom.

  He raked his whip across her shoulders once, twice.

  She screamed in agony and terror, and Leah came running.

  “My lord! My lord!” Leah cried. “What is wrong?”

  Verity waited for the upraised whip to fall again, but her husband lowered it slowly until she could see his trembling hand, the whip clutched between his white-knuckled fingers.

  “Get out,” he said to Leah.

  “But, my lord—”

  “Get out and close the door.”

  Verity didn’t dare make eye contact with Leah for fear Chester would turn his violence on the older woman, as well. “Go, Leah,” she said.

  Leah backed out of the room, closing the door with a quiet snick behind her.

  Verity’s heart leapt to her throat and pounded there, preventing her from begging for mercy.

  How had he known the babe was not his? What had he seen?

  She looked at the child again and gasped when she saw what had been hidden at first by the swaddling clothes.

  The soft down on her newborn son’s head was black.

  She was blond, as was her husband. Miles had hair as black as night.

  What had made Chester suspect the truth? She had said nothing, done nothing. Except she had not come virgin to his bed. She had wondered that he said nothing on their wedding night and been relieved when she believed her deceit had not been discovered.

  He must have doubted all along. And waited, like the gambler he was, to see whether the child was undeniably his son. Or female, which would not have affected the succession. But he had lost his gamble.

  She looked up at him, at the perfect features turned ugly by malice. “What will you do?” she asked.

  “What would you have me do, my dear? Announce to the world that my enemy has cuckolded me? No thank you.”

  “But … How will you explain …?”

  “The dark hair on my son’s head?” he said. “If anyone should be so rude as to ask, I shall blame it on my uncle, the Black Sheep of the family.” He laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound. “Now that I think of it, you will name the child Randal, after my uncle. Of course, I shall make certain there are no other blond-headed children with whom to compare my heir.”

  He used the butt of the whip to force her chin up. “I’ll not take the chance of getting another son on you. I may have to acknowledge another man’s brat as my heir, but I must draw the line at putting my own blood second to that of my enemy.”

  “But—”

  “You need not worry that I will bother you further. I will find what comfort I may in other beds. Unless, of course, the boy should die …”

  Verity clutched the babe close. “You wouldn’t dare—” Her mind raced. What would she—could she—do if he tried to take the child from her?

  “There is no need to resort to murder … in this case,” he drawled. “I am quite sure there are other ways to make the son of Miles Broderick pay for the sins of his father.”

  Verity stared at her husband in horrified disbelief. “If you dare touch a hair on this child’s head, I’ll leave you. I’ll run away—”

  He grasped her hair and yanked until she cried out with pain. She grabbed at his wrist, but there was nothing she could do to save herself while protecting the child in her arms.

  “You will stay exactly where I put you,” he said. “Otherwise I will cry your perfidy to the heavens and make your precious son a bastard. Do not mistake me. I will betray your shame—and mine—if you force me to it.

  “Enjoy your son, madam. At least I have the satisfaction of knowing he is all you will ever have of Miles Broderick.”

  “Why did you insist on marrying me? Why won’t you let me go?”

  “I like to win,” he said, releasing her hair and taking a step backward. “I think we must call this round a draw. I have robbed Miles of his firstborn son, as he has robbed me of my heir. However, I am still ahead in the game. So long as Miles is alive, I have the pleasure of knowing he dies a little every day at the thought of the woman he loves lying with her legs spread beneath me.”

  Verity gasped at his crudity, then remembered what Miles had told her about Chester. It is the pain and fear of his victims he enjoys most.

  She forced the expression of revulsion from her face as Chester leaned close enough to whisper, “We will be the only ones who know the truth, won’t we, my dear? Frankly, I don’t care to have an icy fish like you in my bed. It is enough that I keep you from him.”

  Verity lowered her eyes. She would not give Chester the satisfaction of knowing how sick it made her feel to think she had coupled with such a beast.

  She also saw no reason to inform Chester that he was wrong about the heartache Mil
es was enduring at the moment. Miles had suffered, to be sure. She had gone to see him the day the announcement she was breaking her engagement to him appeared in the Times and told him a string of lies to make him believe that she no longer loved him. She had explained how she was revolted by the horrible wound on his face and could never bear a lifetime of seeing him across the breakfast table. She had then announced that, since Chester had the most money and best title to offer her if Miles was no longer an eligible suitor, she had accepted the earl’s proposal. In fact, they were to be married within the month, as soon as the banns were read.

  She shivered as she remembered how the blood had drained from Miles’s face, leaving the livid red scar outlined against his flesh. It hurt even now to think of the contempt in his voice as he ordered her to leave Linden’s Folly, where he had gone to recuperate from his awful wound. He hadn’t made a single argument to win her back that day. He hadn’t once pleaded with her to change her mind before she turned and walked away. She didn’t think she would ever forgive him for having so little faith in her love for him.

  She knew it was foolishly unreasonable to have expected Miles to divine the terrible trouble she was in—that she was being coerced into a marriage she found abhorrent. If he had shown the least little bit of trust in her love, she knew she would have transferred her burden onto his shoulders that day at Linden’s Folly and let him cope with Chester’s threats in his own way. But in a moment of pique at his abrupt dismissal of her, she had turned and left him.

  And sealed her own fate, and his, and that of their son.

  She was certain Miles hated her now far more than he could ever despise his nemesis, Chester Talbot. It was very little comfort to know that because Miles believed she had betrayed him, Chester would be thwarted in his plan of lifelong revenge.

  Verity focused once more on the handsome Talbot features before her but saw only evil. She spoke the first thoughts that came into her mind.

  “I hate you. I find you an utterly revolting human being.”

  Chester slapped her hard with his open palm.

  She resisted the urge to reach for her stinging cheek. She stared defiantly at her husband, blinking away the tears of pain that formed in her eyes.