Like No Other Lover (2 page)

She’d always had more luck than her fair share of luck. And luck this time had appeared in the unlikely friendship of Violet Redmond: beautiful, charming, restless, and surprisingly unsentimental, Violet possessed a gift for creating mayhem at unpredictable intervals—a gift Cynthia rather admired, as she herself was no stranger to mischief. Violet had once threatened to cast herself into a well over a disagreement with a suitor, and she’d gotten one leg over the edge before she was pulled back by the elbows. She’d allegedly once challenged a gentleman to a duel. The great majority of the time her manners were exquisite, and though she’d made it clear that she hadn’t yet met the man she could
conceive
of marrying, it didn’t prevent her from encouraging London bloods to jockey for her attention.

So when the rest of the
ton
had dropped Cynthia with teeth-jarring finality, unsurprisingly, Violet had invited her to her family’s home in Sussex for a fortnight’s house party.

Cynthia was certain the invitation represented two parts friendship and two parts mischief, but she was in no position to care, and had every intention of making the most of it.

Her instinct for gaiety instantly located the table in the pub containing Everseas: two dazzlingly handsome men, one of them, Colin, infamous and newly wed—
so
newly the broadsheets were still agog about it—the other, judging from the way he was listing a bit in his seat, well into in his cups. A sleek black-haired woman—Colin Eversea’s wife?—smiled at a slim girl who paused by the Everseas’ empty plates and tankards and gathered them up in that deft many-armed way barmaids seem to possess. The girl conspicuously did not smile in return.

And then Cynthia watched the girl slip behind the bar, where an older man gave her braid a tweak and handed her a broom once her hands were empty again.
He
earned a smile. And his smile was the same size and shape and brightness as hers. Father and daughter. Cynthia turned her head away, suddenly feeling
immersed
in families. It was like a language she’d never learned, for she had no family at all.

“The Hawthornes,” Violet told her, seeing the direction of her gaze. “Ned and his daughter Polly. The Hawthorne family has owned the Pig & Thistle for nigh on centuries now.” She pretended she hadn’t seen the Everseas, and ignored the ironic hand lifted in greeting by Colin and slapped down by his brother.

Violet steered Cynthia away from the implied delights of Everseas to a much less promising table. At this sat three men: two older men, between them a chessboard with black and ivory pieces neatly rowed, and a younger man—large, dark, dour, bespectacled.

Ah, yes, of course. Violet’s older brother. Mr. Miles Redmond.

He’s…something to do with insects, Cynthia recalled vaguely.

He’d never seen Cynthia again after that night, and naturally had never said a thing about what he overheard. But that season she was ever a feature of gleeful
ton
gossip, always in the ceaseless ambient conversation in clubs and salons: he heard of reckless, predawn phaeton races, the triumphant winner earning all of Miss Brightly’s waltzes at Lady Murcheston’s seasonal do; about the volumes of terrible poetry written on the subject of her complexion and her eyes; and oh, the wagers—whimsical and desperate and inflammatory wagers that allegedly caused men to come to blows—recorded in the betting books at White’s concerning who would finally win her hand.

In short, many, many men had foundered on the iceberg of Miss Cynthia Brightly’s heart.

And she
encouraged
all of it, or so it was whispered, half in censure, half in awe.

He’d been drinking at White’s the day he’d learned of her engagement to the Earl of Courtland’s enormously wealthy heir. Nearly two years ago now. And though the news had nothing at all to do with him, it had knelled peculiarly. He’d gone still, puzzled and heavy.

And then, ever the gentleman, ever quick to do the right and gracious thing, Miles had joined everyone in drinking to Courtland’s good fortune. He’d continued drinking all night long, in an attempt to fill that peculiar resounding emptiness, but ever pragmatic, had given up before they needed to carry him out of White’s.

Though it seemed he
could
stand: his breeding was tugging him to his feet. They all stood: he and Mr. Cooke and Mr. Culpepper.

He didn’t yet look directly at Miss Brightly. He
did
manage to send a speaking look at his intractable sister.

“I can’t lie to you when you look at me like that, Miles,” Violet had once complained. “It’s like looking at my own conscience.”

He’d laughed. He had a good laugh, and his siblings liked to make him do it.

But he was very nearly the only person on the planet who could make Violet rue something. His father indulged her, and she loved and feared him; Lyon had spoiled her, and she had worshipped him; Jonathan goaded her, her mother despaired of her. Miles was the one who watched over her.

Watching over the things he cared about was his particular talent.

The mischief in Violet’s eyes faltered a bit.

Ah, that was better.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said prettily and a trifle less spiritedly than she might have before Miles fixed her with a disciplinary stare. “I should like to introduce you to my dear friend, Miss Cynthia Brightly.”

Miles refrained from snorting at the “dear.”

The admiration on the faces of the two old chess foes was unabashed and touching. They were fond of Violet—they’d known her since she was a baby, and loved hearing of her exploits—but Miss Brightly was new. They gazed at her with wordless delight for a moment before offering a pair of courtly bows and polite greetings to both young ladies.

Miles thought dryly: beauty confers a sort of royalty; it commands reflexive obeisance; it inspires awe and resentment and obsequiousness all at once. Everyone wants a role at its court, regardless of how we feel about its bearer. But she isn’t a
true
beauty, he told himself. Her eyes were too large, her lips too full. Her face
not
an oval.

Unfortunately, analysis failed to vanquish whatever was happening to his body.

Because it was required of him, he, too, finally bowed over Miss Brightly’s hand.

When he was upright again it struck him again how odd it was that he didn’t so much see as
feel
her: like a brush against the short hairs at the back of his neck, like a hot breath in his ear, as a low hum in his solar plexus, as a knot in his throat. His skin felt singed.

They regarded each other. She betrayed almost no recognition. But he felt it, almost as though it spun from her to wind him in a cocoon: that indefinable thing known as
charm
.

He understood at once he was the deliberate object of it. He was a man, but he was hardly a fool. If Cynthia Brightly was in Sussex, in Pennyroyal Green, in the
country
, without a husband or a fiancé…

Something untimely must have happened in London.

His realization must have done something cynical to his eyes, for something uncertain subtly shadowed hers.

He reminded himself that he genuinely did not like her. The realization restored his breathing and senses to something resembling normal. And he was a Redmond, after all: his manners were as fine as cognac, as instinctive as breathing. He would say something innocuous and polite now.

“I must leave,” he said, and turned and did just that.

Four mouths dropped into O’s behind him.

Miles was just as surprised as everyone else. He felt a peculiar sense of vertigo, as though he’d given a push on a pendulum and it had swung instead right at him and knocked him flat.

But he never paused as he deliberately wended his way through the drinkers and diners at the Pig & Thistle. He passed his youngest brother, Jonathon, who had lingered near the bar. Jonathon had said something to Polly Hawthorne to make her giggle, which was a good sound, as Polly Hawthorne, like nearly every women in Pennyroyal Green between the ages of seventeen and eighty, had been in love with Colin Eversea and was taking the matter of his marriage rather personally. She was at an age where
everything
was taken rather personally. She’d taken to sending dark, wounded looks at Colin Eversea’s wife, Miles had noticed.

Apparently, Polly wasn’t pulling Jonathan’s ale fast enough to suit him, because he was patting the bar with an impatient hand. And then he turned, and something he saw in Miles’s face made him raise his brows comically high in a question.

Why?
Miles asked, with a curt gesture of his chin at Miss Brightly as he took his greatcoat from the peg near the door.

He hesitated when he saw her cape hanging there. It was an ordinary cape—gray wool, clearly not new—but it seemed imbued with a peculiar charisma.

He stared at it. He frowned darkly.

Jonathan, being a man, understood the gist of Miles’s question. He accepted his ale from Polly and rose it to her in thanks, then took a long noisy draught before answering Miles’. He lowered his voice to do it. “Can’t say for certain why she’s here—Violet don’t know, either, and I escorted the two of them here from London—but I
heard
there was a duel. ’Twas kept very quiet, as it was the Earl of Courtland’s heir she was engaged to, after all. All I know is the engagement was broken and she seems untouchable in London—heard everyone’s dropped her, but
no one
seems to know quite why, and I reckon it’s ungentlemanly to discuss it. I certainly haven’t asked. I like her. She’s lively enough company,” he added carelessly. “I warrant Violet lured her here to cause mischief and to have a go at the rich eligible bloods at the party. Have a care, old man! Miss Brightly’s come for
you
,” he said, cheerfully ghoulish.

Jonathan mimed a fishhook with his forefinger, inserted it in his mouth, tugged it up and bugged his eyes out.

And at this Miles flung the pub door open, let it swing shut to the sound of his brother’s laughter, and plunged into the familiar rolling, soft dark of the Sussex downs.

He was suddenly nostalgic for the somehow more comfortable dangers of a Brazilian jungle.

But he’d never before been a mystery to
himself
.

He eyed the stairs. He could swiftly take them, instruct his valet to pack a light trunk, and then bolt for London—where he kept rooms—before the rest of the houseguests arrived in the morning. He took two swift decisive steps toward the stairs when the prospect of the imminent arrival of Lady Middlebough slowed him. Lush and brunette, married and bored, discreetly enough connected to learn of his repertoire of skills and the formidable appetite with which he applied them, sophisticated enough to signal her intent to him all but wordlessly at a recent ball, clever enough to secure an invitation to this house party from his mother—the very promise of her held him motionless for an instant. She was
precisely
the sort of woman he enjoyed.

He hesitated, and his hand slowly, involuntarily, curled, as if in anticipation of wrapping it around Lady Middlebough’s soft white thigh.

This reverie proved to be a grave mistake. It gave his mother, Fanchette Redmond, an opportunity to sweep into the foyer and intercept him with this horrifying bit of news:

“Your father would like to have a conversation with you, Miles, dear.”

He froze. The reverie popped like a soap bubble.

His mother put up her cheek for his kiss, and her son unfroze long enough to dutifully plant one on her soft lilac-scented cheek. And then Fanchette Redmond surprised Miles by kissing him on both cheeks, as though apologizing for the fact that he would have to speak to his father.

Because Miles baffled his father.

Whereas many bored wealthy young men dabbled in the natural sciences, to his father’s utter bemusement, Miles had set out to
become
an entomologist. “Insects and whatnot,” is how Isaiah Redmond referred to his life’s work. And Miles knew full well that if he hadn’t gone on a long journey involving dangers, privations, fevers, people who allegedly ate other people, and affectionate women who wore nothing for clothing above their waists all day, his father would have thought him less of a man than he ought to be.

And before Lyon disappeared, this hadn’t mattered in the least.

His father had steadfastly refused to present the idea of funding Mile’s next, grander expedition to his formidable investment group, the Mercury Club, for this very reason. But Miles had never once failed to accomplish something he’d set out to do. He’d begun shamelessly rooting out every possible funding source, even resorting to enchanting old Culpepper and Cooke with the idea. Still it was all taking rather longer than he preferred, and desperation—just a hint—encroached.

“He’ll be up to greet you in the library in a moment,” his mother added.

Leaving him to wait was very like Isaiah Redmond, too.

“One other thing, dear. As you know, we’ve a number of guests arriving, but your father and I have been called away to deal with some business on my side of the family, and I fear we must leave first thing in the morning. It involves a will, you see, and money and property, and your father absolutely insists upon seeing to it straight away, as you can imagine. I’ve arranged the seating and the meals and the entertainments and the like. You need only ensure the guests enjoy themselves until we return.”

Miles was speechless. Why, why,
why
did he suddenly feel as though it would be infinitely preferable to be the guest of hungry cannibals than host of this house party? He had nothing at all against
people
, per se. He had beautiful manners and a command of every kind of conversation.

“Of course, Mother,” he said calmly. Fooling his mother not at all.

She gave him a pat, not doubtful at all that he would do his duty—unlike, in the end, Lyon, who had allegedly been brought low by love and subsequently vanished.