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Noelle rubbed the folds of her soft blue day dress between nervous fingers. She’d mapped things out thoroughly. The investigation file had clearly stated the location of the art gallery. It was one block off Regent Street, right in the heart of London. Her plan was simple and direct. She’d walk in, stroll about, casually inquire which gentleman was Mr. Baricci, then look her fill—trying to perceive exactly what made such a man tick—and take her leave. She’d have plenty of time to stop off in that dignified men’s shop on Regent Street and purchase her father’s tiepin before she veered off to the art gallery, and more than enough time afterwards to hurry back to the railroad station and catch the late afternoon train to Poole.
Unless something went wrong.
It wouldn’t. She wouldn’t allow it.
A clamor of clanging and hissing interrupted her thoughts, heralding the arrival of her train, and Noelle smiled, triumph surging through her veins. It was on time. She had both Grace’s and her tickets. All she had to do was climb into the first-class coach, settle herself in the compartment to which she’d been assigned, and heave an enormous sigh of relief.
London was at her fingertips.
Promise me you won’t seek him out.
Her father’s words echoed in Noelle’s head, spawning a twinge of guilt.
I won’t, Papa, she vowed silently, squelching the unwanted twinge. I won’t seek him out. All I’ll do is look.
“It appears we’re traveling alone,” Grace commented, wedging her chunky body into the high-backed seat.
Noelle nodded, looking about her and noting the four empty seats. “That should please you. Now you can get that extra sleep you were grumbling I’d deprived you of.”
“Humph.” Muttering a bit, Grace folded her hands in her lap. “I can’t sleep in trains. They’re too noisy.”
She was snoring before they left the station.
With an inward chuckle, Noelle leaned her head back and gazed out the window, watching the final passengers board. Her breath released in a rush when the coach finally jerked into motion, leaving the station behind. Thank goodness. They were on their way.
Twenty minutes later, she was bored.
Shifting restlessly in her seat, Noelle reached into her mantle pocket, extracting the two items she’d brought along to entertain herself: a novel and some playing cards. Well, neither would do. She was far too excited to read, and given that Grace’s head had now drooped into her bosom, there was clearly no partner with whom to share a rousing game of piquet. She’d simply have to watch the passing scenery until she either died of boredom or fell asleep.
The former was more likely than the latter.
She was thumbing idly through her novel when the train reached Southampton’s station about an hour and a half later. With some degree of interest, she studied the crowd of passengers that were boarding, the largest number thus far. Again, mostly businessmen, their faces hidden beneath top hats, only their whiskers peeking out as they climbed into their respective coaches. A few families, children in tow, headed for the second-class section, coats wrapped about them to keep out the chill.
A solitary man standing on the platform, hands jabbed in his pockets, caught Noelle’s eye.
There was something formidable about him, she decided. Maybe it was his size, or perhaps the power of his build. No, more likely it was his stance—straight and unyielding, taut, rigidly still. His massive shoulders were thrown back; his head, even beneath a top hat, was held visibly high—as if he were surveying his army and, as their commander, preparing to lead his men into battle.
Noelle found herself straining to make out his features. But only his chin and mouth—both hard, his lips full, severely set—were visible from this distance and with that bloody impeding hat in the way.
As if sensing her scrutiny, he turned his head in her direction.
Hastily, Noelle looked away. The last thing she needed right now was to daydream about some dark and forbidding stranger. The only stranger she could focus on today was Baricci.
An icy chill shivered up her back as she contemplated coming face to face with her sire. Now that it was no longer a notion but a reality, she wondered how she’d feel when she set eyes on him for the first—the only—time. Oh, he wouldn’t know who she was. But she’d know him: the man who’d impregnated Liza Bromleigh and bolted; the man who, then and now, made a career out of exploiting innocent women, then abandoning them.
Her papa was right. Baricci was a scoundrel. In fact, the only thing more despicable than his actions were those of Liza herself.
Now that Noelle had grown to adulthood, and thanks to a lifetime of familial love, she could reflect on her natural mother with incredulity and denunciation rather than with pain and rage. Although how in the name of heaven a woman could reject her own child, refuse to hold it, nurture it, was beyond Noelle’s comprehension. Still, for her it had turned out to be a blessing, giving her Brigitte and Eric as a mother and father.
It was for that extraordinary father that she ached. Because while she herself had never known Liza, never had to come to terms with who, what, her natural mother really was, Eric had raised Liza from when their own parents had died, loved her and protected her more as a daughter than a sister. And what had she offered him in return? Renunciation. Desertion. Degradation. And more grief and pain than he’d been able to withstand. He’d been emotionally dead when Brigitte came into his life, and without her healing love he might never have recovered.
Just pondering her father’s agony, Noelle’s hands balled into fists at her sides. Sometimes, late at night, she’d lie awake, staring at the ceiling and aching for the torment he’d endured those years after Liza’s death—years she herself had been too young to fully understand. It was that torment, that suffering Liza had caused him, that Noelle could never forgive.
Would seeing Baricci conjure up within her a wealth of resentment for the pain he had caused her father? Probably. But even so, Noelle had to go.
Abruptly, the compartment door slid open and a tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark wool coat stepped in.
It was the man from the platform.
