Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) Read online

  It wasn’t just a garden anymore — it was a haven.

  She knew whose haven it was. Suddenly, Octavia wanted to flee.

  Lucy stood in the center of the orangerie, half-obscured by the plants and tables between them. A blonde woman was with her. They wore simple country gowns covered with aprons, appropriate for digging in soil. Lucy held a pair of pruning shears, sharp enough to look dangerous.

  But from the view Octavia had of her profile, Lucy was smiling. The woman next to her murmured something. Lucy laughed. Her tone was soft, easy. The way she used to sound when she and Octavia were sixteen and sharing secrets.

  Octavia’s heart twisted.

  She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t see Lucy again, not with the confusing whirlpool of emotion and memory that churned between them.

  But even though the orangerie was nearly one hundred feet long, any movement would be noticed — especially Octavia’s red dress, which she had worn for intimidation rather than inconspicuousness. Lucy turned, her expression still easy, as though she expected to see a servant.

  When she saw Octavia, she dropped the shears.

  The metal clattered on the wood floor. For a moment, Lucy’s raised eyebrows almost seemed excited. Eager. She took a step forward, kicking the shears by accident.

  Maybe it was the sound of metal on wood that reminded Lucy of what had come between them. Maybe it was Octavia’s dress, which she suddenly regretted choosing.

  Or maybe it was inevitable. Lucy blinked, hard.

  “I’m sorry that I startled you,” Octavia said. “I didn’t have time to send word.”

  Octavia couldn’t remember the last time she had sounded so uncertain. But her chest had constricted, and her diaphragm had given up the fight, and her voice sounded thready and breathless.

  Lucy didn’t have the same reaction. She squared her shoulders, facing Octavia as though preparing herself for a fight. “What are you doing here, Ava?” she asked, her fists clenched at her sides. “Come to ruin something else?”

  Just like that, Octavia was Ava again — the impetuous debutante, not the bored, cultured jade she played for the ton. Her face flushed. “Visiting the abbey is still within my rights. Much as you’d prefer it otherwise.”

  She sauntered toward her cousin, putting a sway in her hips — the way she walked when approaching a man whose vote she needed for a cause Somerville cared for. Lucy frowned, knowing Octavia was baiting her. “What are you really doing here?”

  Octavia didn’t know what to say to Lucy’s question. She’d played it endlessly in her head on the way to Devonshire — whether to throw herself on Lucy’s mercy, or whether to demand a room in exchange for everything Lucy had done. Those options disappeared in the face of Lucy’s unhappiness.

  They didn’t want to see each other. And even though Octavia had nowhere else to go, she couldn’t imagine sharing breakfast with Lucy again.

  The woman next to Lucy intervened. “Would you be more comfortable in the drawing room?” she suggested. “I could make tea….”

  “No,” Lucy and Octavia said at the same time.

  The woman sighed. “Briarleys,” she muttered. Then she extended her hand to Octavia. “I am Emma, Lady Maidenstone,” she said. “Your grandfather spoke very highly of you.”

  Octavia shook her hand. “And he spoke highly of you as well,” she said. That wasn’t entirely true, although he had seemed fond of the girl in a distant sort of way. But then, he had virtually purchased her from her impoverished parents solely for the chance to get another heir. Octavia doubted there was anything more than vague affection between them — and even that would be a miracle.

  Lady Maidenstone smiled. “You’re kind to say that. I would leave you to your happy reunion, but I think I should stay as a witness in case I must testify before the magistrate later.”

  Lucy and Octavia both snorted. The girl — her new grandmother, although it was absurd to think that — had more of a sense of humor than Octavia might have expected, given her perfectly arranged blonde hair and wide, innocent-looking blue eyes.

  “I shan’t kill Ava until I know why she’s here,” Lucy said.

  “And I shan’t kill Lucy until I know why I wasn’t invited to the party.”

  Octavia hadn’t intended to say it so soon. She needed a bedchamber more than she needed an invitation — the party was still almost two months away. But seeing the preparations in the main house had wounded her more than she cared to admit.

  Lucy and Lady Maidenstone exchanged a glance. “Did you not receive an invitation?” Lucy asked.

  “No.”

  Lucy looked her up and down. “I didn’t send the invitations. The Duke of Rothwell did. Perhaps he thinks you’re not quite the thing?”

  Octavia wasn’t ready to acknowledge defeat. “I’ve seen Rothwell in London. Do you really think he will choose you over me?”

  She was exaggerating. She’d seen Rothwell from a distance in the park, but she had never spoken to him. Lucy had always been able to tell when Octavia was exaggerating. She smiled now, already looking like she had won. “No respectable man will marry you, so it doesn’t matter whether Rothwell likes you or not.”

  “Are you sure you don’t wish to remove to the drawing room?” Lady Maidenstone asked, sounding desperately polite.

  They ignored her. “You haven’t won yet,” Octavia said to Lucy. “Callista could win.”

  Callista was their other cousin, the daughter of the earl’s youngest son. Like all the rest of the family, she had a Roman name — another Briarley tradition, stretching back for generations. Octavia didn’t remember her, beyond a vague memory that the girl had the same dark hair as the other Briarleys.

  Lucy sniffed. “Rothwell was here in March to make the final arrangements for the party, but he said he wrote to her last November — long before invitations were sent to the other guests. She should have arrived from America months ago. No one has heard from her since before Grandfather died. With the war, she could have trouble reaching England. She might be dead, for all we know. Once I make a respectable match, the estate will be settled.”

  Octavia wanted to draw blood. But she took a breath and willed herself to calm down. Of all the ways she’d envisioned this meeting, this was one of the worst ways it could have gone. She’d never played the peacemaker in their childhood squabbles. That had always been Lucy’s role. But she’d spent the last four years in London’s political circles — long enough to learn that diplomacy was sometimes expedient.

  And she still needed a bed for the night.

  “I didn’t come here to fight with you,” she said.

  Lucy eyed her suspiciously.

  “I didn’t,” Octavia said. She drew another breath, hoping her diaphragm would choose that moment to support her voice. “I need to stay here.”

  Lucy gave a disbelieving little laugh. “Four years, and you choose to return now? Where were you when Grandfather died?”

  Octavia shifted. Her heeled slippers pinched her toes, and she was tempted to ask Lady Maidenstone if they could go to the drawing room after all — but Lady Maidenstone’s eyes, at the mention of her dead husband, had taken on the same judgmental quality as Lucy’s voice.

  “I didn’t think I would be welcome,” she said, her voice gone again.

  “You wouldn’t have been by me,” Lucy said flatly. “But he would have liked to have seen you. You were always his favorite.”

  Octavia blinked, not expecting to hear that now. Their grandfather’s preference for Octavia was another layer of betrayal between them — perhaps the bedrock of it, although Octavia had nearly forgotten it, spending all these years in London instead of at Maidenstone.

  But despite it all, there had been a time when the girls had been inseparable. When they had shared a bed in the nursery, when they had shared lessons with their governess, when they had shared dresses and horses and secrets like everything belonged, jointly and completely, to both of them. When no one else’s preferences
had mattered because they had each other.

  Perhaps Lucy remembered it too. There was a gleam in her eyes that looked more like tears than triumph.

  But there had also been a time when Lucy had betrayed her.

  And if Lucy didn’t remember, Octavia did.

  Finally, Lady Maidenstone intervened. “This is a delicate situation. But I am technically Lucy’s chaperone, as odd as that feels. And I must say that I cannot condone her staying in the same house with a ruined woman.”

  There was no animosity in her voice — if anything, she sounded sad.

  “But she hasn’t inherited it yet,” Octavia said. “And I have nowhere else to go.”

  “What happened to Somerville?” Lucy asked.

  For a moment, she sounded concerned. Octavia shrugged. “He wants to marry. I am a hindrance to marriage, as Lady Maidenstone so kindly reminded me.”

  Lucy looked sympathetic for a moment. But even knowing that Octavia had nowhere else to go, she didn’t relent. “You can’t stay here. What about Briarley House in London?”

  The house had been closed since before her grandfather’s final illness. If Octavia was in London, it would be easier for possible paramours to find her — and harder for her to fend off their advances. She hadn’t told anyone other than Somerville where she was going, and she intended to stay in seclusion until she knew what she wanted to do next.

  She shook her head. “That won’t do. A quiet summer in the country would be better for me.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here,” Lucy said. “I won’t have you ruining my chances like you always did before.”

  That statement made no sense. Octavia had never ruined Lucy’s chances — if anything, she had been the one to force Lucy to go out into society. But Octavia didn’t say anything to defend herself. She had seen negotiations in London before. She knew how a negotiation was supposed to play out.

  She had nothing to offer. Lucy held all the power.

  Four years earlier, when Octavia’s brother was still the heir and Octavia was the toast of London, it had been the opposite. Lucy had trailed in Ava’s wake, seeming happy enough with the role. Or, if she wasn’t happy, she hadn’t complained about it.

  But what life would Lucy have wanted, if Octavia hadn’t insisted on a London debut? Was it this one, living in the country, mostly alone? Or was it something else entirely?

  There was a time when she might have asked. But she pushed that question away and focused, like the mercenary she’d been forced to become, on the present moment.

  “I will remove to the hunting lodge,” Octavia said abruptly. “If you could be so good as to lend me a couple of servants to keep the house, you shall never have to see me again.”

  “The hunting lodge is too close,” Lucy said, setting her jaw.

  It wasn’t particularly close to the house. Maidenstone Wood separated it from the main portion of the estate. It was a twenty minute walk between the abbey and the hunting lodge, and almost as long by horse since the road curved around the wood rather than cutting through it. Julian had lived there during his last few summers, hosting his friends away from his grandfather’s influence.

  Octavia hadn’t been there since the summer before Julian died. She didn’t particularly want to go there now. But she held her ground. “It was Julian’s, the last I remember. Grandfather gave it to him on his twenty-first birthday. Did you think to check with the solicitor about whether it reverted to the estate or whether it passed to me instead?”

  Octavia didn’t know the answer to that question — and from the uncertain look on Lucy’s face, Lucy didn’t know either. “It surely still belongs to Maidenstone.”

  Octavia shrugged, ready to bluff. “We can write to Rothwell, if that would make you more at ease. But it will take at least a week before he responds. If you don’t want me to go to the hunting lodge, I can take my room here. Your choice.”

  Lady Maidenstone touched Lucy’s arm. “There are advantages to having Ava at the hunting lodge, dear. At least you’ll know where she is, depending on how the party progresses. And Rothwell shouldn’t be bothered about the hunting lodge until the estate is settled.”

  That was an odd statement. But Lucy seemed to take it to heart. “You may go to the hunting lodge. But I would prefer not to entertain you here again. You understand, with your reputation….”

  Something inside Octavia snapped at that. “I only have my reputation because you ran to Julian and told him about Chapman. How dare you judge me for that?”

  “You have your reputation because you always did what you wanted, no matter what it did to others. It was always about you and your bloody suitors and your bloody dresses and your bloody parties. You were the one who left — you can’t expect me to be happy that you’ve returned. Goodbye, Octavia.”

  Lucy swept past her, kicking the shears aside. Octavia was too stunned to say anything — too stunned to even turn around and watch her go.

  “It might be best if you leave now,” Lady Maidenstone said gently. “You’re welcome to the hunting lodge. But Briarley House in London would be better, I think.”

  Octavia felt tears build and panic well up in her throat. She couldn’t go to London even if she wanted to. Somerville’s driver was no doubt already gone, and it would take more money than she wished to spend to get back in a private coach. And if the gossips heard that Madame Octavia was roaming around southern England in a public conveyance, the caricatures would turn ugly.

  That left the hunting lodge. “I will go to Julian’s house. And I will make sure to stay away from Lucy.”

  Lady Maidenstone sighed. “I had wished that you would reconcile, you know. She misses you.”

  “Did she ever actually say that?”

  Lady Maidenstone’s silence was answer enough. Octavia laughed bitterly. “Lucy can go to the devil. It was lovely to meet you, my lady.”

  Lady Maidenstone nodded. Octavia left, walking out of the orangerie and slowly crossing the gardens to return to the house.

  The house she would never sleep in again. With the cousin she would never speak to again.

  The cousin who had not only betrayed her, but still refused to acknowledge that she had done anything wrong — that anything that had happened after was her fault.

  The cousin who would inherit Maidenstone by default, even though she was responsible for the heir’s death.

  Octavia couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry. Not in front of the house, where scores of servants who had known her since childhood might be watching from the windows. Nothing good came of indulging in self-pity. The only thing that could save her was action.

  Action. And money. And a place to live — preferably one where she wouldn’t have to provide sexual favors to a man who had rented it for her.

  She could have that if she took Somerville’s offer.

  Becoming his friend’s mistress was the logical course of action. But even though she should have been thinking solely of a plan, the memory of Lord Rafael returned to her.

  Lord Rafael wasn’t for her. She might never see him again. And if she did, she couldn’t marry him. She pushed him out of her mind…as she had had to do, more than once, since their encounter in Somerville’s house. Had it really been less than a week since he had kissed her hand?

  Less than a week since she had lost everything, again?

  She needed money and a place to live. Something that couldn’t be taken from her, no matter what happened or how someone else might betray her.

  All of that was in front of her, in the house she loved.

  All she had to do was ruin Lucy. If Lucy was somehow made ineligible to inherit, it would force Rothwell to reconsider Octavia’s position. Octavia was convinced she could win him over if she had the chance.

  “Briarley contra mundum,” she said out loud, almost like a vow.

  For the first time since she’d arrived, her voice was strong.

  She would find a way to destroy Lucy. She would win Maidenstone and buy her
freedom from society.

  It was wrong, and it was evil to even think about it — but that was the Briarley way.

  Chapter Five

  Seven weeks later… Salcombe, near Maidenstone Abbey, Devonshire

  Rafe sat in the public room of Salcombe’s only inn, his back to the wall, nursing a glass of whisky. Not that he needed to nurse it. He’d bought the whole bottle, and he had all night.

  Boredom would kill him before the whisky did.

  After three weeks holed up in the backwater village of Salcombe, Rafe’s nerves were fraying. He hadn’t been this idle in years. Decades. Spain had had its moments of boredom — all men on campaign grew bored, of the rations and discomfort if nothing else. But blood and gunpowder had outweighed all of that.

  His brother Gavin, the Duke of Thorington, sat across from him, scowling at his cards. Rafe tapped his fingers against the table. “Play.”

  Thorington tossed his cards down and pushed the pile of money between them toward Rafe. “I’m done for the night. Take the earnings and buy something better for your health than whisky. A late supper, perhaps?”

  “It’s a shame you were born to wear a duke’s coronet — you would have made an excellent governess,” Rafe said, exaggerating his pleasure in his next sip of whisky. “Or perhaps a vicar. You could join the church and leave the dukedom to me.”

  Thorington sighed. But he didn’t continue the lecture. He would lecture their siblings until their ears bled — which was his right, since he’d practically raised them and still paid their way. But Thorington and Rafe were close. Close in age and close in spirit, even after Rafe’s years at war.

  Which was why it rankled that Thorington hadn’t taken him into his confidence. There was only one reason why Thorington would have brought them to Salcombe. And even though it was obvious why they were there, Thorington still kept it a secret — as though they were all so dimwitted that he could trick them easily. Or as though he knew he was about to make a mistake, and he didn’t want anyone to talk him out of it.