Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) Read online

  “Well?” he asked. “What mutiny are the two of you plotting?”

  Serena and Portia glanced at each other.

  “Well?” Serena said to Portia.

  Portia wrinkled her nose at her sister. “This was your idea as much as it was mine.”

  “But Rafe will expect it from you,” Serena said.

  “But you’re the eldest. He’ll listen to you.”

  Serena grinned. “You cannot influence me by appealing to my seniority when you never respect it otherwise.”

  “I would respect it more if you didn’t remind me of it at every opportunity,” Portia retorted.

  Rafe sighed. “Do you mind if I go over to that copse of trees while you argue? I shall take a nap if you will need more than an hour to organize your thoughts.”

  Portia and Serena both spoke at once.

  “We just thought…” Portia started.

  “We need you to…” Serena said.

  Rafe pointed at Serena. “Tell me what you need. And do be brief. I have my toilette to consider if I’m to look my best at dinner.”

  That made his sisters laugh. Rafe was stylish enough, but he’d never been as concerned about his appearance as Anthony was. But Serena sobered quickly. “We thought you might take us to Brighton.”

  “Brighton?” Rafe frowned. “Why would you wish to go to Brighton?”

  “There are military men at Brighton,” Portia said, as though that explained everything.

  “I am well aware,” Rafe said. He had passed through Brighton, briefly, before Spain. Even without that memory, he wouldn’t have loved the town. It was still provincial compared to London, despite the Prince of Wales’s exorbitant expenditures to build his pavilion in the previous decades.

  Serena shushed Portia before continuing. “I would have preferred Cambridge, since I like scholars more than sabers.”

  Portia snorted.

  Serena raised her voice to cover Portia’s mirth. “But there is little to do in Cambridge at this time of the year. And Bath simply won’t do. Can you imagine what we would find there in August?”

  Rafe counted to ten in his head. But when he reached the final number, his sisters still looked at him expectantly.

  “Is there a reason you don’t want to stay at Maidenstone?” he asked.

  Portia rolled her eyes. Serena spoke quickly. “Thorington has made it very clear that the family’s fortunes depend on Anthony marrying one of the Briarleys. It seems unlikely, at best, that Anthony will come through — and why would he? Lucretia is boring, and Callista is far too wild for him.”

  “But not for Thorington,” Portia said, in a smug sing-song voice.

  “On that we’re agreed,” Serena said. “But even if Thorington realizes what is good for him and marries Callista, it seems that his fortunes are too sunk to be revived by her unless they win Maidenstone. And if they don’t, where does that leave us?”

  “The same place we always are,” Portia said. “On the shelf. But at least I still have my youth.”

  “Not for long,” Serena said tartly.

  Rafe interjected before his sisters descended into their usual bickering. “Neither of you are on the shelf. And I don’t understand what Brighton has to do with all of this.”

  “There is no one at Maidenstone who appeals to us,” Portia declared.

  Rafe somehow managed to refrain from laughing. He crossed one leg over the other at the ankle, attempting to look interested, but not too interested. “We have been here for all of twenty-four hours. I think your dramatic declaration is premature.”

  “You never love anyone, but surely even you know that it’s lightning bolts, not the slow development of some sad accommodation between two people who are incapable of affection,” Portia said earnestly.

  For someone who didn’t believe in love, he was more annoyed than he should have been that his youngest sister, of all people, was calling him to task about it. “Whether love is a lightning bolt or a volcano or a summer storm or any other overwrought metaphor you might have for it is irrelevant. If you really want to make a match immediately, this place is the best for it. There are more marriageable men here than anywhere else you might find in August. Not all the men here can marry a Briarley — they’ll be happy to marry a duke’s sister instead.”

  “I don’t want to marry someone just because he can’t have a Briarley,” Portia sniffed. “I deserve better than a castoff.”

  “And most of the men here are second or third sons,” Serena said, sounding almost affronted. “I should be a countess at the very least.”

  “Not all second sons are bad,” Rafe said.

  “No offense, Rafe,” Portia said. “But second sons are the worst.”

  “No offense, Portia, but you’ve had several seasons to find an eldest son.”

  He probably shouldn’t have retaliated like that. Serena and Portia both narrowed their eyes. They didn’t look particularly similar — Serena’s blonde hair and green eyes were very different from Portia’s more unusual red and blue. But Rafe’s comment temporarily united them.

  “I thought I had ages to find the right match,” Serena said. “I could have married anytime these last four years if I’d known it would come to this.”

  “I couldn’t have married until Serena did anyway,” Portia added. “It would have been rude to marry before my elder sister.”

  That undid some of their union. Serena kicked Portia’s ankle, but she continued to press her agenda with Rafe. “I had no idea that Thorington was about to lose all his fortune. I thought I had time to make a love match.”

  Thorington’s fortunes were more tenuous than Rafe had known, which explained why he was so intent on making Anthony marry a Briarley. Rafe would be fine — his inheritance was separate from Thorington’s. But the girls wouldn’t have dowries once Thorington’s creditors started knocking.

  Without dowries, and with the rumors about their parentage, making a match would be difficult. Rafe tried to lighten the mood. “A love match, but only if he was an earl or higher?” he teased.

  Serena shrugged. “Might as well aim for the firmament. I could settle for less. But I still want love if I can have it.”

  They were all silent for a moment. Rafe wanted his sisters to find love — truly, he did. For all that they occasionally annoyed them, he loved them more than anything. If they wanted love, then love was what they should have.

  But there was also the matter of expediency and practicality — two words that had nothing to do with how Portia and Serena usually went about their lives. They were too young to remember the lean years as vividly as Rafe did, when their father had run through all their money — not that there had been much to run through, since the previous generations had done their share to deplete the family’s fortunes. Rafe had barely scraped through university. Cynthia and Pamela, the two sisters between Rafe and Serena, had married decently, but those marriages were made for economic security rather than love. He supposed they were happy enough, but he rarely saw them.

  Serena and Portia, though, had been ten and eight when Thorington had inherited and started managing the estate far better than his ancestors had. They had been three and one when their father had cast their mother out after Anthony’s birth.

  In other words, all they knew was comfort. Thorington and Rafe had given them the security that they would otherwise have lacked. And, unlike Rafe, they didn’t remember how love could turn to hate and life could change in an instant. Their mother was a story and a dream to them, nothing more.

  But her infidelity still affected them. Without dowries, it would be difficult for Serena and Portia to make the matches they could have made otherwise.

  Somerville had proven that to Serena already. She didn’t mention it now — Rafe didn’t think she was heartbroken, just angry that he had judged her to be inferior. Money would have smoothed over the rumors of bastardy enough for most men to accept them, especially since they were legally ladies. Without money, though, som
e families might remember that their mother had been unfaithful and decide that their dangerous parentage wasn’t worth the risk.

  Waiting for a love match, especially in their situation, was akin to waiting for the Rapture. It might solve some problems, but the chances it would happen in their lifetimes, and that it would end as they expected — with salvation, not damnation — were laughably small.

  He sympathized, but someone had to point out the obvious. “If you want marriage, there’s no place better than here to find a match,” he reiterated. “Brighton might have a garrison full of possible matches, but military men aren’t the steadiest of suitors.”

  Serena’s gaze turned almost uncomfortably sympathetic — as though they viewed him with as much pity as he viewed them. “They could be, if the right opportunity presented itself.”

  Rafe ignored the implication. “Regardless, the second and third sons you’ve disparaged here are willing to make a match. The men who’ve run off to make their fortune in the military aren’t.”

  Portia and Serena looked at each other for a long moment. He didn’t know what was contained in their silent communication, but they finally turned to him with a united front. “If you won’t take us to Brighton today, promise you’ll take us in a week,” Serena said.

  He wanted to help them. But his revenge against Somerville was nearly within reach. He always put his mission above anyone else’s desires. He couldn’t admit, even to himself, how much Octavia played into his decision…and it wasn’t solely revenge that made him want to seek her out.

  “I can’t promise to take you to Brighton.”

  The shape of their mouths was the same — they must have inherited that surprised, disappointed expression from their mother.

  “Why won’t you help us?” Portia asked. “I thought you wanted us to be happy.”

  He couldn’t convince them to abandon their plans by appealing to practicality. They wanted love and romance. Rafe didn’t believe in the stuff. But he wasn’t above using it to manipulate others into doing what he needed them to do.

  He couldn’t promise them love of their own. But he could lure them into thinking of something else.

  “I must stay here,” he said. “You saw Thorington today. He is absolutely in love with Callista, and absolutely going to make a muck of it if he’s left to his own devices.”

  Their immediate glee almost made him feel guilty. “I know!” Portia exclaimed.

  “It is so obvious how he feels,” Serena added.

  “What are you going to do to get them to come together?” Portia asked.

  “It’s simple,” Rafe said. “Thorington can’t help himself and he can’t stay away from her — that part is taken care of. But he’s unlikely to marry her if he thinks that Ferguson won’t let her win the house because of him. So we need to remove that impediment.”

  Thorington and Ferguson hated each other — Thorington had secured an invitation through Lucretia by contacting her directly for it, since he had known that Ferguson wouldn’t have invited him otherwise. Rafe didn’t think Ferguson would let Callista inherit if she married Thorington — there was too much bad blood between them. Thorington had come very close to ruining the life of Ferguson’s cousin-in-law the previous spring. Ferguson would never forgive him for that, or reward him by letting him have Maidenstone.

  But Serena and Portia didn’t know that.

  “We can become more friendly with Ferguson’s younger sisters,” Serena said. “We already enjoy their company. And they have a good relationship with him. Maybe we can influence Ferguson through them.”

  Ferguson’s twin sisters, Lady Catherine and Lady Maria, were approximately the same age as Serena. Rafe nodded. “That’s a good plan. It will at least give you a chance to learn whether Ferguson is completely set against Thorington or whether he’ll reconsider. But I could use your help with something else.”

  It was risky, bringing them into his schemes, even tangentially. But he couldn’t risk being the only person talking about ghost stories at the party — it would be too obvious. If his sisters got some of the younger women excited about it, the rumors would spread more effectively on their own.

  And it would give Portia and Serena a reason to stop talking about going to Brighton — which was necessary, since he couldn’t give them a real excuse for why he wouldn’t take them.

  So he told them that he intended to scare away the other suitors through ghost stories. They thought it was a grand idea — “infamous fun,” as Portia declared — and vowed to help him. They also vowed to keep Thorington from hearing about it — which wouldn’t be hard, if Thorington was so single-minded in his pursuit of Callista that he ignored the people who would begin gossiping about ghosts.

  And they also agreed not to say anything more about Brighton until they’d married Thorington off. By that point, Rafe could very well have seduced Octavia and learned Somerville’s secrets. He might need a quick getaway, and Brighton could serve that purpose.

  He always laid the groundwork for an escape. But this time, he hated himself for thinking of it.

  By the time they’d made their plans, it was nearly too late to change for dinner. Serena and Portia ran off together, united, at least temporarily, because they thought they were helping Rafe to trick Thorington into marriage. They loved the plan, and they loved him, and they were confident that they would succeed.

  He would let them believe it all. It might even happen, although it would take more than a few parlor tricks to convince Thorington to marry Callista or to convince Ferguson to give them Maidenstone.

  But after a day away from Octavia, he was eager to get back to their schemes. There was no one like her at the party. Dinner that night would feel interminable as he stared at the clock, waiting until the appointed hour to go to her.

  And a quarter of an hour later, when he realized that he had thought of nothing other than her as he’d readied himself for dinner, he cursed himself.

  He was in more danger from his schemes than anyone else was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  That night, after Rafe had successfully spirited her into the house again, Octavia led the way to the Gothic wing. They snuffed their candles, relying on bits of moonlight coming through undraped windows and Octavia’s memory of Maidenstone Abbey’s maze-like halls. There was little risk of being caught once they reached the Gothic rooms. They comprised the oldest part of the abbey, where the monks had lived and died.

  Most of the rooms were closed up and unused, too old to be comfortable for modern guests. The family still held Sunday services in the chapel. The ancient tapestries were popular with visitors to the neighborhood; those who weren’t invited to Maidenstone often paid the housekeeper for a tour. But like the attics, no servants would go there after dark unless they had a very good reason.

  “Do you care to tell me where you are leading me?” Rafe said quietly as they came to a halt in one of the small rooms near the chapel.

  The room was dark and cool. Of the original furnishings, only a desk and an armchair remained. The rest of the furniture, hidden under protective cloth, was from the Tudor era, stored there after the first earl’s death. There was nothing to distinguish it from any of the other rooms in that wing, other than its size and its tapestries. It was approximately twice as large as the rest, and the tapestries that hung from the ceiling to the floor were ornate depictions of earthly pleasures rather than the more sober artworks that had survived in other rooms.

  “This was the last abbot’s chamber,” she said, her voice low from both caution and reverence. “It was here that he received the message from his brother that he would have to leave the abbey, by order of King Henry VIII. And it was here that they brought his body to lay it out after his brother killed him.”

  “How perfectly gruesome,” Rafe said, as nonchalantly as if he were discussing the weather.

  “Indeed. But I didn’t bring you here for the history lesson.”

  “I am relieved, Miss Briarl
ey. My brother is the historian, not me.”

  So it was back to Miss Briarley — as though he hadn’t kissed her the night before. He hadn’t mentioned it at all when he had picked her up at the hunting lodge. He had offered her his arm for the walk across the forest, but he had kept a proper distance between them — no “accidental” brushing up against each other.

  But his grin, when he had let her into the abbey, was still conspiratorial. And there was still teasing warmth in his voice.

  He was hot and cold, as hot and cold as any suitor she’d observed in London. She had to remind herself, brutally, that he wasn’t a suitor — even though, in some ways, he acted like he was. There was something about his actions that she didn’t understand — something that, if she continued to fail to understand it, might hurt her in the end.

  But she was a Briarley, and her Briarley heart told her to leap.

  She squelched it for the moment, though. There was time enough for leaping later. She reached into her reticule for the tinderbox and lit a candle again. “I am not much for history either, unless it has to do with Maidenstone. But you will want to see what I am about to show you.”

  “If you are about to show me the abbot’s severed head, I will be most displeased,” he said, taking the candle from her when she handed it to him.

  “No heads,” she promised. “Unless Lucy has been busier than I suspected.”

  He laughed. “She seems too determined to be a perfect hostess. I doubt she would risk getting blood on the carpets.”

  “There are ways to kill people without too much blood,” she said.

  “True, but beheading is bloodier than you might expect.”

  He said it like he knew it. She winced. He was so charming, so amusing, that most of the time she forgot that he must have seen a lot of ugliness in Spain. But an apology might make the moment worse, so she turned to the wall that separated the abbot’s chamber from one beside it.

  The tapestries there depicted Persephone descending into, and then fleeing from, the Underworld. It was a very unusual choice for an abbot’s chambers. Octavia felt for the gap between two of the panels, right where Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds. She counted over four stones, then up three, sliding her fingers into the groove she found there.