Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) Read online

  She was so intent on watching Rafe’s party, and so intent on tamping down her jealousy, that she didn’t notice the woman walking toward her until it was too late to move. A flash of muslin caught her attention. She turned her spyglass toward it before realizing that the woman was far too close to see properly with magnification.

  She slowly lowered the spyglass. Emma, Lady Maidenstone, was less than fifty feet away and walking straight toward her.

  “Damnation,” she muttered to herself. At least Lady Maidenstone was alone. Octavia didn’t want to see Lucy again. She especially didn’t want to see her next to Julian’s grave.

  There was no graceful way to stand up, and she didn’t want to draw attention from anyone in the gardens below. She rolled into a sitting position, sure that Agnes would have to use the dress for scraps after this ill treatment. “Isn’t it a lovely day for a stroll, my lady?” she said to Lady Maidenstone, as though it was entirely normal to be found prostrate in a graveyard.

  Lady Maidenstone stopped a few feet from her. “Also a lovely day to spy on a party,” she said. “If the servants at the hunting lodge hadn’t told us you were still in the neighborhood, we might have thought you’d abandoned us.”

  Octavia hadn’t crossed paths with Lucy or Lady Maidenstone since her arrival. There had been a few near-misses around the estate, but for the most part, they avoided each other. “Are you receiving regular reports on my whereabouts?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Lady Maidenstone said. “Lucy can’t be comfortable unless she knows what you’re doing and whether you intend to arrive and ruin her party.”

  “I won’t come to a party I’m not invited to,” Octavia said.

  She didn’t say she wouldn’t ruin it. Lady Maidenstone didn’t notice. Still, she wasn’t pleased with Octavia’s answer. “Should I confess that I almost hoped you would come even though we told you not to? Your grandfather loved you, you know.”

  “I know,” Octavia said.

  Lady Maidenstone looked down at her, seeming to consider something. Then she surprised Octavia by sitting in the grass beside her. “I’ve heard enough reasons not to love you from Lucy, and enough reasons to love you from your grandfather. But I would prefer to make up my own mind. Why are you here?”

  “Here, in Devonshire?” Octavia asked.

  “No — the newspapers and our new guests verified your tale about Somerville casting you aside. Why are you in the graveyard with a spyglass?”

  Octavia couldn’t give an honest answer to that. “I am thinking of running away to sea and thought I might test my spyglass here.”

  Lady Maidenstone laughed. “You should ask your cousin Callista for lessons. She looks like she could have defeated Nelson himself if she’d had the opportunity.”

  Rafe had said something similar. “Is she really so wild?” Octavia asked. “Lucy must not like that.”

  “Yes, Callista is wild, and no, Lucy does not like it,” Lady Maidenstone said. “But you didn’t answer why you’re really here.”

  “I wanted to see the house. I’ve missed it.”

  It wasn’t a lie, even though it wasn’t the full truth. Lady Maidenstone accepted it, though. “I’ll miss it as well, when the time comes to leave. I’ve grown fond of it.”

  “What are you doing here?” Octavia asked.

  Lady Maidenstone considered her for a moment, then shrugged as though she had decided not to care what Octavia thought. She pulled a flask out of her reticule and held it up. The sun glinted on the metal as she unscrewed the cap. “Your grandfather asked me to visit and share a drink with him occasionally. It felt macabre the first few times, but now I find it rather peaceful. The party won’t miss me at the moment. And I wanted a bit of quiet.”

  She offered the flask to Octavia. Octavia suddenly felt a prick of tears in her eyes, but she took a sip. “I drink brandy at Julian’s grave whenever I visit him, but I never thought you’d be the same,” she said as she handed the flask back.

  “I would never have thought to do this either,” Lady Maidenstone said frankly. She raised the flask toward the mausoleum, then took a longer sip than Octavia’s. “But I happen to like the Briarleys despite your unorthodox ways. And I had a lot of affection for your grandfather.”

  “I wasn’t aware that it was a love match,” Octavia said.

  “It wasn’t,” Emma said. Her laugh was easy, unaffected — however she had come to be married to a man fifty years her senior, it had ceased to bother her. “But he was kind to me. I’ll have to find another situation, of course. But the time I spent here was mostly lovely. And I would help the remaining Briarleys if I thought I could. He made me care more for your legacy than I expected to.”

  “Why didn’t Lucy come to the graveyard with you? She’s the one who cares about legacies.”

  Lady Maidenstone looked down at her flask. Her light grey dress was the very last stage of mourning, but she still looked beautiful — perhaps even more beautiful than she might have in another color, since the grey added an air of tragedy to her pale, ethereal features. She was so young to be widowed, and so young to have to make her own way after….

  But she wasn’t much older than Octavia had been when she had decided to become Somerville’s mistress. There was a wealth of wisdom in her voice when she spoke. “Lucy hasn’t visited the graveyard since your grandfather died. She always visited Julian on the anniversary of his death, but she couldn’t do it this year. She doesn’t…make peace with situations as easily as I do.”

  That was an understatement.

  “If you know that about her, why would you want me to come to the party?” Octavia asked. “Lucy wouldn’t want to lose Maidenstone to me.”

  “It is probably Fate’s doing that you never received an invitation,” Lady Maidenstone said. There was a musing quality to her voice, as though she had considered that question before. “Lucy would be devastated to lose. And I should think of my own future, if nothing else. If she lost, and you or Callista wouldn’t let me stay at Maidenstone, I would have nowhere to go.”

  “I know something about that,” Octavia said.

  “I know. Your grandfather told me to ask your advice if I wanted to go down the mistress path after his death.” She took another long draught from the flask. “I had rather hoped for a love match this time. But from the men I’ve met at the party so far, it seems there isn’t much of a market for young widows with no dowry to speak of.”

  “You should be able to make a match,” Octavia said. “You would need to come to London, though. I could help you with the dresses, at least. But I can’t attend any parties with you if you’re to maintain your respectability.”

  Lady Maidenstone shrugged. “If Lucy wins, I don’t have to make any decisions immediately. And I’ll be honest — I think she deserves it. She was the only one of you who was here when the earl was dying, and she kept the estate running through sheer strength of will. I know she was hurt that her grandfather didn’t acknowledge that and reward her for it.”

  “The Briarleys tend to reward bad behavior more than good.”

  “You’re all more than a little mad,” Lady Maidenstone said, raising her flask in the direction of the mausoleum again.

  Octavia looked back toward the house. It was a monument to that ancestral madness — all the men and women who had come before, adding on to the legacy of scandal and mayhem.

  She loved it as much as she had loved anything.

  But then, she’d loved Lucy as much as she’d loved anything, and that love had been betrayed. Winning the house would at least give her a solid foundation on which to build the rest of her life. Trusting another person, however, was an entirely different proposition.

  She had to trust at least a bit, though, or she couldn’t make progress toward her goals. “Would you help me to win if I let you live at Maidenstone indefinitely?” she asked.

  There was a long pause. When she finally looked away from the house, she saw that Lady Maidenstone had set the flas
k aside and was shredding a blade of grass. “I do not know,” Lady Maidenstone said slowly. “Your grandfather would tell me to take whatever offer was most advantageous.”

  It was the same thing he had told Octavia when Octavia had accepted Somerville’s offer. “If you ignored his advice, what would you choose?”

  Lady Maidenstone dropped the ruined blade and plucked another. “I don’t like to help any of you betray each other. The Briarley legacy is all well and good, but wouldn’t you be happier if you stopped hating each other?”

  The graveyard was full of stones marking the final resting places of generations who had hated each other. It was like every generation vowed to be different, and yet couldn’t help but follow the same patterns. Fathers were overly harsh with sons, and sons plotted against fathers, and brothers mistrusted each other, over and over, until almost all the Briarleys were gone.

  What would it have been like to have grown up in a normal family, with normal human dramas? With a father who hadn’t accidentally killed himself to avoid losing a horse race? With a brother who had common sense instead of brandy-fueled recklessness?

  But she was a Briarley. She took Lady Maidenstone’s flask and raised a toast to her grandfather. “Briarley contra mundum,” she said, and took a sip. “The time for Lucy and I to forgive each other is long past.”

  Lady Maidenstone took her flask back, closing it firmly and returning it to her reticule. Then she stood up and brushed the dirt off her skirts. “Your grandfather was right about you,” she said. “You are lovable. But Lucy was right, too. And I don’t know how to reconcile the two. Enjoy your spying — I don’t think I shall tell Lucy that I met you again. But it would be best if you stayed away from the house.”

  She walked away before Octavia could respond. And Octavia had to force herself to stay seated, to refrain from calling after her. It felt like it had been a lifetime since she had talked to a woman of her own age and class. And even though their conversation had been unusual in the extreme, it left Octavia feeling more alone than ever.

  But Octavia couldn’t afford to wallow. And she couldn’t afford to feel pity for her grandfather’s widow, or for Lucy. She picked up her spyglass again. Rafe would come for her that night, and she wanted to be ready for the next part of their mission.

  And she told herself that the mission was all that she needed to prepare for — and that her nerves were battle nerves, and not butterflies over seeing Rafe again.

  Chapter Twelve

  That afternoon, Rafe found himself strangely reluctant to play the nursemaid to his siblings. It wasn’t a duty he usually shirked. They all got along better when he kept the peace between them.

  If there was any good that had come of Rafe’s capture in Spain and his enforced idleness after escaping to England, it was that he could devote time to his family. Thorington needed a friend, not that he would ever admit it — Rafe was the only one who still treated him like a man rather than the duke everyone bowed to. And the younger siblings needed a buffer between them and Thorington. Thorington treated them too much like children. It was why Rafe knew about their society scrapes and disappointments better than Thorington did. They would never confess their sins to Thorington directly, and most people were too afraid to tell Thorington any gossip about his family.

  But Rafe didn’t want to spend any more time dealing with their problems today. He’d already spent nearly three hours with Thorington, Serena, Portia, and Miss Callista Briarley. Ostensibly, Thorington was giving Callista a lesson in British titles and forms of address so that she could acquit herself better at the party — and so that she would be a suitable bride for Anthony, who cared about appearances.

  It wasn’t lost on anyone, though, that Anthony had refused to come with them. And one would have to be unconscious, or possibly dead, to miss the sparks of attraction between Thorington and Callista.

  Rafe had sprawled on a blanket after their picnic, half-ignoring them as he watched the clouds overhead. He didn’t want to be there, listening to Callista’s voice as Thorington drilled her in British titles, even if it could refresh his memory of American accents in case he needed to impersonate an American again someday.

  He wanted to go to Octavia.

  She probably wasn’t at the hunting lodge anyway. He’d seen a suspicious flash from the graveyard as his family set out for the cliffs, like sunlight reflecting off a spyglass. She was the only likely spy in the area. It was something Octavia would do — she wasn’t meant for sitting at home, darning socks, while he had all the adventures.

  Rafe would far rather see her than stay with his siblings. But they had no idea that he had found Octavia. He couldn’t risk telling Thorington that she was in the neighborhood. If Thorington knew, he would try to convince Rafe to marry her and increase their family’s chances of winning Maidenstone Abbey. It would be convenient for Thorington’s schemes if all three Emmerson-Fairhurst men married Briarleys.

  Convenient for Thorington’s schemes — but Rafe couldn’t marry the target of his mission. And he shouldn’t even think of going to her that afternoon. He was using her, after all. She could have been dull, or a shrew, or both, and he still would have needed her to find ammunition against Somerville. Spending more time with her than was strictly necessary shouldn’t matter to him at all.

  It didn’t matter to him at all.

  And that kiss the night before shouldn’t have mattered. He had timed it perfectly — he should be happy about the timing, not the feel of her in his arms. Octavia was beginning to trust him. Their kiss would encourage her to consider allowing him to seduce her. He’d seen her watching him on their walk back to the hunting lodge. And he’d noticed how she’d shied away from him at the last moment on her doorstep, as though she wanted to let him touch her but had let her mind overrule her heart.

  That kiss in the stairwell had protected her from discovery during her mission against Lucy. It had also given him the chance to move forward with his mission against Somerville. Two goals, equally served. That was all it was.

  That was all he could allow it to be.

  But if that’s all it was — why had he dreamed of her the night before? Why, even now, did he wish that Octavia was with him on the cliffs? That they could walk there, just the two of them, in that perfect space between the sea and the sky, and talk of everything and nothing together?

  That he could kiss her and touch her and taste her until she was begging for him — until the only word she could say was his name, and the only man she would ever want was him?

  He punched his leg, hard, and told himself to focus. This was a mission, not a courtship.

  “Are you falling asleep, Rafe?” Serena asked.

  He feigned a snore. His sisters laughed. It wasn’t proper behavior in front of Callista, whom he barely knew, but she had lived in America for years — she didn’t seem overly precious about manners.

  But it was a good reminder to bring himself back to the present moment.

  So Rafe stayed on his best behavior the rest of the afternoon. He remained with his siblings until the very end, and then escorted his sisters and Callista back to the abbey after Thorington left them.

  He was too attuned to his instincts, though, to ignore the fact that he’d thought of Octavia at least once a minute. And he knew that his hunger, building slowly throughout the afternoon, had nothing to do with eating dinner, and everything to do with seeing Octavia again.

  He was in more trouble than he’d realized.

  But he was almost free to pursue his schemes — or so he thought. On the steps leading up to the abbey, right before they parted ways, Portia grabbed his arm. “Do you have a moment, Rafe? Serena and I need a word.”

  Of course they did. He’d heard them whispering to each other behind him throughout the walk, but he had stayed resolutely focused on making desultory conversation with Callista.

  He didn’t admit that keeping Callista entertained also kept him from thinking about Octavia.

 
He would have rather taken an hour for himself. But he’d learned from long experience that ignoring Serena and Portia usually resulted in far greater drama. He often only had one opportunity to rein them in before they ran amok.

  He turned to Callista. “Would you excuse us? I trust you’re ready to abandon the lot of us anyway.”

  “Of course.” Her brown eyes were still pensive — Thorington had left them abruptly on the cliffs, and Rafe could only guess how she felt about it. But she smiled with complete confidence. “Allow me to say that I wish you luck with your family. If they’re anything like Thorington, you need it.”

  Rafe laughed. “You’re too kind. But perhaps Thorington is the saint and I am the devil.”

  “That’s the most unlikely thing I’ve heard in an age. But you’re a good brother for trying to make him look better. Thank you for the escort, my lord. I trust I’ll see you again when Thorington pursues another harebrained scheme to ‘improve’ my education and manners.”

  He snorted as she walked away. Her education was more than adequate, although her manners weren’t quite as fine as someone who had been born and raised in London. But if Thorington wanted an excuse to spend time with her, tutoring her in British social mores was a good one.

  He hoped Thorington would see what was already blindingly obvious. Callista would be wasted on Anthony, who wasn’t ready for marriage. But she might be Thorington’s salvation.

  However, Rafe had more pressing matters to attend to. Portia took his left arm and Serena claimed his right. “Let’s visit the gardens,” Portia suggested.

  They walked until they found an empty folly — an open room with a simple roof supported by Grecian columns, covering two curved benches. Rafe waited until Serena and Portia had settled on a bench together before he sat down. The fact that they sat together told him all he needed to know about the seriousness of their conversation. The sisters rarely aligned themselves together, especially not against him.