Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) Read online

  Again, the sense of memory nearly overwhelmed her. She hadn’t done this in half a decade. But as her fingers found the secret lever, and as the wall in front of her slid open, the scent of old stone and still air was the same as it had always been.

  “A secret passage?” Rafe said behind her. “Your ancestors had entirely too much time on their hands.”

  Octavia laughed. “Time, money, and bad intentions. That would have been as good a family motto as Briarley contra mundum, although I suppose the sentiment matches.”

  Rafe stepped up next to her as she held the tapestry up to reveal the doorway. It was short, perhaps five feet, so they would have to stoop if they entered. But the tunnel beyond it was at least six feet tall — big enough that a man running for his life would have a chance of making it to the faraway exit. The tunnel was flat and narrow for the first few feet, running between the wall of the abbot’s chamber and the monk’s cell next door to a set of stairs that took the tunnel underground. After that, the tunnel was mostly flat until the stairs leading to the exit door several hundred yards away.

  “Where does this lead?” he asked.

  “One of the follies in the garden. That area used to be part of Maidenstone Wood, of course. But the other entrance is kept locked from the inside now. Lucy likely has the key now. Grandfather always kept it on his person.”

  Rafe held up his candle, but the light didn’t travel far. “Did he think he might need to escape someday?”

  “Laugh if you want, but more than one Briarley met an untimely….”

  Octavia cut herself off when the flickering candle illuminated something unexpected in the passageway. She grabbed the candle from him, ducked her head, and stepped behind the tapestry.

  A painting hung from the wall. There had never been a painting there before. The passageway was entirely utilitarian, meant as an escape route rather than an aesthetic experience. Octavia held the candle higher.

  “Is that you and Lucretia?” Rafe asked, stepping into the passageway with her.

  Octavia nodded, momentarily unable to speak. It was the painting that she had noticed was missing from the portrait gallery the night before — the painting their grandfather had commissioned of them the summer before their debuts. The girls were posed in the Maidenstone clearing, in front of the stone that gave the estate its name and the Briarleys all of their earliest superstitions. Ava sat on a chair, one that a footman had carried there every day while they posed. Lucy stood behind her, and Octavia still felt the protective hand Lucy had placed on her shoulder. They had posed like that for hours — a pose that, at the time, felt entirely natural.

  Looking at the painting now, though, Octavia couldn’t tell whether it was hindsight or the flickering candlelight that added an ominous edge to the art. That hand could have been protective — or it could have held Octavia back. And Octavia’s smile could have been comfortable — or it could have been smug, ready for a life she was sure she was going to seize with no effort whatsoever.

  Even if it meant leaving Lucy behind.

  She felt the pricking of tears, unfamiliar and unwelcome. She hadn’t cried over Lucy in ages — not even two months earlier, when Lucy had made it clear that she would never welcome Octavia to Maidenstone Abbey, or forgive her for leaving.

  “Odd choice to hang a painting here,” Rafe observed. “At least it won’t fade, although I would worry about dampness.”

  She blinked until the tears dissolved. There were dead flowers on the floor in front of the painting, along with stubs of burned-out candles and not nearly as much dust as Octavia had expected. The passage wasn’t known to the staff — the earls had always swept it themselves, twice a year, and oiled the doors at both ends. If it needed maintenance, they brought in workers from elsewhere, often in the dead of night. Octavia and Lucy might never have known about it either, but their grandfather had asked for their help as he grew older and the task made him tired.

  Lucy was the only person who could have moved the painting and left flowers and candles there as though it had become a shrine.

  But why would she do that, if she hated Octavia as much as Octavia hated her?

  “Are you feeling well?” Rafe asked gently.

  Octavia sighed. “I am fine. Merely surprised.”

  It was more than surprise. But he added an additional dose of surprise when he took her candle from her. Then he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. Her tears, which were nearly gone, refreshed themselves immediately.

  Suddenly, it all hurt again — Julian’s death, Lucy’s betrayal, Ava’s ruin. But mostly, always, inevitably, what hurt the most was that she missed Lucy. She felt stupid for missing someone who had hurt her so badly — but after four years, it seemed unlikely that she would ever quite get over it.

  Rafe’s arm was solid, safe. She leaned her head against him, staring at the painting until her tears blinded her. Then she closed her eyes, letting the tears roll down her cheeks.

  Rafe held her through all of it. She didn’t shudder or sob — she was too self-possessed for that. But he held her until she’d recovered that crucial first bit of her composure. She could fix the rest of herself later.

  “Thank you,” she finally said, pulling away. She missed the feel of his arm around her, but she was embarrassed that she had lost control. “We should go back to the business at hand.”

  He didn’t answer for several moments. He still held the candle up, looking at the painting until she nearly ordered him to stop. “No apology necessary,” he finally said, turning toward her. “Your relationship with Lucretia is complex. It would be more unusual if you weren’t upset by this.”

  “I’m not upset. I am more determined than ever to see our mission through.”

  Rafe continued as though he hadn’t heard her — as though he didn’t believe her. “But you should know that all families have their wounds. I’ll grant that your family’s wounds have been more spectacular than most. As far as I know, none of the Emmerson-Fairhursts ever killed each other.”

  “You’ve missed some fond memories, then,” Octavia interjected. “Or at least some good stories.”

  He didn’t laugh as he usually did when she teased him. He paused again, long enough that she wondered if he was done with whatever he wanted to say. But finally, he said, “I am always looking for a good story. But it occurs to me that some stories wouldn’t have become stories at all if someone, at some time, had taken the chance to turn the other cheek, or to offer help, or to grant forgiveness.”

  She looked down at the dead flowers. When she nudged one with the toe of her boot, the petals fell to the floor, but they didn’t crumble — they weren’t old enough to turn to dust.

  “I didn’t expect a lesson in forgiveness from you, Rafe,” she said, still looking at the wilted petals.

  It was meant as a deflection from her own feelings, but as he tensed beside her, she wondered if she had accidentally hit a wound. “You shouldn’t. I don’t forgive.”

  That sounded almost scarily final — almost like, no matter how long they were together, there was always the risk that he might not forgive her for something.

  She brushed that thought aside as soon as she had it. It came from her Briarley heart, not her rational mind. Her rational mind knew there was no future to care about anyway, save for the next few days.

  And at the moment, the portrait consumed her thoughts. Was Lucy’s hand in that portrait protective or limiting? And what would it be like now to have a real conversation with Lucy — the one they should have had years ago, standing at the edge of the gardens, before they’d ruined both their futures?

  “I also don’t forgive,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I believe that.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Because women are supposed to forgive?”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, right where Lucy’s hand had been in the painting. “No. Because if you really hated her, you would ruin her publicly. You would storm into
the drawing room in front of everyone and demand that you be given the same chance as your cousins. And then you would win everyone over, the same way I heard you did during your debut season — you outshone her then, didn’t you? You could outshine her again now.”

  “I can’t attend. I’m ruined.”

  His hand squeezed her shoulder. “You’re ruined, but you have the chance of inheriting Maidenstone Abbey. And if you did, most of society would accept you — or at least your children. And even if you didn’t, you’d have a damned sight more fun at this party than Lucretia is having.”

  She pictured Lucy at the edge of all those ballrooms in London, nursing some inner misery that Octavia had never understood. “Is she still unhappy in company?” she asked. “I had thought she might be more comfortable now that she is older.”

  “If that was your first thought, you don’t hate her enough. Trust me when I say that if she were truly your enemy, her misery would delight you.”

  She paused for a long moment. Lucy had ruined everything. If Lucy hadn’t been so self-righteous, so determined to stop Ava from going down a path she didn’t approve of, Ava might have been married now. And Julian would inhabit the house, not the graveyard. And Lucy would be…somewhere.

  Wherever she might have been, she wouldn’t be within weeks of inheriting Maidenstone Abbey. And all because she had betrayed Ava on a single, catastrophic, irrevocable night.

  “I hate her,” Octavia said. “And I will destroy her.”

  “No chance of forgiveness?” Rafe asked.

  “None. Not that she’s asked for it.”

  “Then I hope I shan’t earn your hatred,” he said, dropping his hand from her shoulder.

  “You won’t, unless you rat me out to Lucy.”

  He laughed. “That’s not something you have to worry about. Shall we return you to the hunting lodge, or is there more you wish to do here?”

  There was more she wished to do. She wanted to scare some suitors. She wanted to see Lucy — or perhaps she never wanted to see Lucy.

  But most of her wishes involved kissing Rafe in a stairwell. And while he’d held her and comforted her, he hadn’t made any other move to kiss her.

  She wanted to ask him to kiss her. Or, maybe, she wanted to lean in and kiss him herself — to capture that mouth the way he had captured hers the night before, to explore him, to learn the feel of his mouth and the hard plane of his jaw.

  She ached to know all of it. She ached to know all of him, and to know what she had missed by being Somerville’s mistress instead of someone else’s wife.

  But while her Briarley heart practically begged her to leap, she knew how badly kisses could end. If Rafe denied her, her embarrassment this time would be private and personal — but no less painful.

  She shook her head. “I had thought we could leave the costume here between hauntings — it would make it easier if I didn’t have to get dressed at the hunting lodge, and this area is easy enough to reach without being detected. But if Lucy comes here regularly, I cannot leave the dress here. I thought you should know about the passageway, though. We might be able to make our ‘ghost’ vanish here, since none of the guests would know how I walked through a tapestry and solid rock.”

  “That could be a viable option,” Rafe said. “Let’s plan to do it tomorrow night? I can maneuver the party into wanting to go on a ghost hunt then, with a bit of nudging. It’s a Sunday, so Lucy will likely want to retire early — and the silliest, most superstitious ones might like the thrill of hunting ghosts on the Lord’s day. That’s all the excuse we need to get them to come here, where you can scare them properly.”

  Octavia laughed. She appreciated his suggestions — but she also appreciated that he took hers seriously. Even Somerville had ignored her sometimes, then thought he’d come up with an idea that had originally been hers. “It’s brilliant. You were the best accomplice I could have chosen for this, weren’t you?”

  She had meant it as a compliment. But when he smiled at her, there was something sad around his eyes. “You have no idea, love. I hope you shan’t regret it.”

  Her breath caught — from the endearment, or from the warning implicit in his voice. His gaze immediately turned shuttered. He ducked under the low entryway, holding the tapestry back so that she could exit.

  She followed him. She couldn’t do anything but follow him. The die was cast. Whether they kissed again or whether they eventually parted with nothing at all between them didn’t matter — they were still partners for the moment. Navigating the path between her head, which wanted safety, and her heart, which wanted more, was her problem, not his.

  She pulled the hidden lever to seal the passageway, catching one final look at the portrait and the flowers below it before the door closed. How would the girls in the painting have lived if either had taken better risks with their hearts?

  And was she ready to take that leap, or should she heed the warning in Lucy’s pose?

  Chapter Fourteen

  He was in so much bloody trouble.

  The next night, he spent the entire walk to the hunting lodge debating whether he should pursue the next phase of his mission against Somerville. The next phase, obviously, was to seduce Octavia. And then, after that, he might learn her secrets.

  It would be all too easy. She was ripe for it. He was ripe for it. He had wanted to kiss her the night before. Wanted more than kissing, to be honest. He’d wanted it when he had retrieved her from the hunting lodge. He’d wanted it when he had opened the door to the abbey for her and found her grinning at him like they were about to capture a kingdom. He’d wanted it when she had pulled a candle from her reticule, prepared for any adventure.

  And then, when she’d found Lucy’s shrine to Octavia — for it could have only been a shrine — Octavia had looked so sad that he couldn’t help but hug her.

  Rafe didn’t hug the targets in his missions.

  That, obviously, was a problem.

  He had never felt the need to console a woman whose secrets he was about to take. Nor had he felt any particular compassion for the men whose allegiance he gained through deceit, or for the friends he made under his false identities. They all probably assumed that he was dead at this point anyway.

  But Octavia was different. Using her wouldn’t save someone’s life. It might keep Somerville out of power, and Rafe thought that was a worthy goal. But it was getting harder to lie to himself and say that all was fair in love and war — especially when he had never believed in love, and this wasn’t a war.

  When he reached Octavia’s doorstep, he was more unsure than ever about going through with his plan. If she had been as hell-bent on revenge as he was, he wouldn’t think twice about using her for his own ends — they would be making a deal that suited both of them, and there would be no reason to regret that.

  But even though she was so bloody fearless, her heart wasn’t suited for revenge. He had witnessed her hesitation as she looked at the portrait of her and Lucretia. She seemed too sad — likely unable to maintain the anger necessary to see her plan through to its bitter conclusion.

  And he remembered that her revenge was limited to ruining the party, not to harming Lucretia directly. There were any number of ways she could have hurt Lucretia if she really wanted to — drugging her, trapping her in a room with a man, and then spreading rumors about her would have ended her chances easier than anything else. Or kidnapping her and removing her from England until the estate was settled. Thorington might be willing do it for her, if he realized that getting rid of Lucretia could ensure that Callista would inherit by default.

  Rafe wouldn’t mention that idea to Thorington. If his brother hadn’t thought to resort to kidnapping yet, Rafe didn’t want to encourage him.

  He knocked on the door to the hunting lodge, squaring his shoulders. He either had to be clear in his mission, or he had to let her go. There couldn’t be a repeat of the previous night.

  When he had escorted her home the night before, she had
tilted her head up to look at him through lowered lashes. “Thank you for your assistance, Rafe,” she had said. “There is no one else I would rather have on this mission than you.”

  The sadness from finding Lucy’s shrine in the Gothic wing had lingered in her eyes, but her smile was wide and trusting. He had taken her hand without thinking and kissed her knuckles, ignoring the lips that he suddenly ached to touch. “I’ve enjoyed it, Miss Briarley.”

  “You shouldn’t call me that, you know. I’ve been Octavia for ages.” Then, she took a deep breath. “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

  So direct. So fearless. He dropped her hand as though it could burn him — which it might, if he allowed it to. He took a step back without thinking.

  She frowned at him. The trusting smile was gone, and her eyes were suddenly wary. She placed her hand on the latch and nodded at him as though he were a servant. “I beg your pardon. Good night, my lord, and safe travels back to Maidenstone.”

  Her voice had dropped, in both tone and temperature. He didn’t want to end it like that.

  “It isn’t that I don’t want to kiss you,” he said.

  Her hand froze on the latch. She turned back to face him fully. “No? Then what is it?”

  There were any number of answers he could have given her — any number that were closer to the truth. But he said what he thought she needed to hear. “I think it is best not to become…involved with each other while we are pursuing your mission. Kissing is too much of a distraction.”

  Something flickered over her face. “Perhaps I want to be distracted.”

  His need for her flared up. But he shut it down. He was already taking advantage of her trust to get to Somerville. He had planned to take advantage of her heart as well, since it was the quickest way to seal Somerville’s fate. He was no longer sure he could live with that choice. And she had a more forgiving nature than he did, but he didn’t think she would forgive him if he took her to bed and then betrayed her.