The Heir and the Spare (12 page)

“I know this is your house and everything, but why are you still here?” she said, standing and glaring at him. And then she noticed that he was not wearing the same clothing as earlier in the evening. In fact, he looked, and smelled, as if he had been galloping all over the countryside.

“You’re Miss Highhart,” he stated.

Emilia felt her mouth fall open, but no sound came out. She was struck dumb at the most asinine thing he had ever said. Well, of course she was Miss Highhart.

He took a step toward her. She took one step back.

“You fell in my arms on the stairs at the Carrington Ball. And then later that evening, I found you in the library. Your ankle was hurt, but you were up trying to get a book because you were bored. Is that why you are here, when all the other guests are in the drawing room? Are you bored now?”

Emilia was feeling many things at the moment, and boredom was certainly not one of them. Shock and overwhelming confusion were on the top of the list of what she was feeling. She watched as he stepped closer and closer, with that air of confidence and determination.

And he was approaching her from the French doors that led to the terrace. Clearly, he had entered the room that way, and not from the main doors that lead to the hall. But why? Unless . . . unless he didn’t want to be seen.

“I helped you to the settee,” he was saying, now standing before her, with the settee right behind them. “And I knew I should have left. But I simply could not. We kissed.”

His voice was husky; there was a roughness to it, as if he had thought the words, but had never said them aloud before. It was certainly not the way he usually spoke to her. It made her heart drum in her chest. It made her breath catch in her throat. Her palms were damp.

And this was not the way he usually acted with her. It was as if . . . as if . . . those other girls . . . It dawned on Emilia that the shortness of breath and the kicking of her heart might not be the symptoms of desire, but fear. Because he clearly meant to compromise her.

“We kissed. For hours or minutes, I don’t know. It made me forget everything. Everything but you. And now here we are again. Alone. We—”

Devon meant to say, “We shouldn’t be here alone together.” He meant to say, “We need to talk.” He meant to explain everything to her. But she had already fled— dropping her book, tripping over the carpet, and banging into a table on her way out.

At
first Phillip thought he had drunk too much again. Parkhurst cornered him in the hall and asked if he was angry with him. Phillip said he was not and asked why Parkhurst would think so. His friend said the previous evening he had seen Phillip leave the library, and when he had called out, Phillip had ignored him. He had probably been drinking too much, and then had the notion to go drink some of the brandy in the library. As to why he ignored his best friend, Phillip assumed that he hadn’t heard him.

He did wake up with a deadly headache this morning.

But he might be going mad. Or maybe it was the rest of the world. In the drawing room, Roxbury and Lady Sheffield asked if he had enjoyed his ride this morning. Phillip closed his eyes and tried to make sense of it. He certainly had not been out riding this morning.

“I didn’t ride this morning,” he said.

“But we saw you!” Lady Sheffield exclaimed.

“You waved to us,” Roxbury added.

“Are you sure it was me?” Phillip asked. He was not going insane. They were.

“Well, it was from across the north field. But I recognized your horse, and the rider looked like you. And as Lady Sheffield said, you waved to us.”

“Yes, and then you galloped away from us. We are remarkably put out,” Lady Sheffield said, pouting.

“Right. My apologies. Excuse me.”
Galloping?
Absolutely not. The mere thought of it made him want to be sick, right there on the carpet in the drawing room in front of his guests. He quickly left the room.

In the dining room, the servants were clearing away breakfast. Phillip demanded a cup of coffee, which was provided immediately.

“Oh, there you are, Phillip.” His cousin George strolled into the room with Knightly by his side.

“What is it? What did I do now?” Phillip snapped.

“Drink too much last night, Huntley?” Knightly asked.

“Apparently I did,” Phillip muttered.

“Really? You didn’t seem very intoxicated. In fact, you turned us down for a game of cards to retire early.”

Mad. The whole world was mad.

“Anyway,” George said. “We were thinking perhaps two o’clock for the picnic.”

“What picnic?” Phillip asked, full of dread.

“The one at the old ruins that we spoke about this morning. I suggested it, and you said it would be an excellent way to spend the afternoon. And then I went off to make arrangements with the butler before we could set a time.”

“Right. Two o’clock. Excuse me,” Phillip said. He did not finish his coffee. He needed something stronger. He hoped that he hadn’t finished all the brandy in the library last night.

Marksmith stopped him on his way to the library.

“These arrived, my lord. They are addressed to your father, but considering his condition, I thought you might wish to see them instead.”

Phillip accepted the stack of letters and flipped through them. The majority of them were from various tradesmen, probably requesting payment. He handed them back to the butler, saying he would deal with them later.

He hoped that perhaps in his epic blackout he had proposed to Miss Heiress Highhart and she had accepted.

Phillip paused outside of the library door because he heard voices within. Female voices.

“Do you really think he meant to compromise you?” one of them asked.

“Consider the circumstances,” an American voice replied. “His reputation. The fact that we were alone, in a dark room, and he was speaking of kissing. And his reputation.”

She must be talking about him, Phillip thought. He leaned against the door frame and continued to listen.

“But I thought you desired him. I thought you had wanted to kiss him again.”

“I do. I did. I don’t know. Last night, I saw the way you and George look at each other. You are both in love. And I want the same, and he never looks at me like that. And then for him to find me alone in a dark room and suddenly seem quite amorous . . . it just doesn’t seem right. Am I making any sense at all, Annabelle?”

“I think so. He came on too strong all of a sudden. And you are still not sure of him, at least not enough to risk being caught in such a compromising situation.”

“Right. And you know the strangest thing of all? I didn’t think too much of it at the time, because I was so overwhelmed, but it’s been nagging at me all night.”

“What is it?”

“He had changed his clothing. He wasn’t wearing his evening clothes, but boots, and an overcoat. And he smelled like he had been out riding through the countryside.”

“Really? I wasn’t keeping a close watch on him last evening, but I think it might have been noted if he was gone so long as to change and go riding. And at night, nonetheless. Emilia, that is odd. Are you sure of it?”

Perhaps he hadn’t been too drunk. Perhaps the world was not mad after all. Phillip turned on his heel and stormed off. Perhaps his twin had returned.

First, he questioned the butler. “Where is he?” Phillip growled.

“I beg your pardon?” Marksmith replied, smoothly and patiently, without so much as blinking.

“You know who I mean. Where is he? When did he . . . How long has he . . .” Phillip was so apoplectic with rage he could not manage sentences. His head was throbbing again. He wanted to hit something. Someone.

“I’m sorry, my lord, I do not know what you are speaking of.”

Phillip looked him in the eye. Again, the man did not blink. Either he really did not know, or his years of maintaining a face devoid of expression rendered him incapable of revealing anything. He could be hiding something; Marksmith had always favored the younger son.

“I’m going to fire you when I get the title,” Phillip huffed.

“Of course, my lord.”

Phillip found Parkhurst in the drawing room and dragged him away from a game of cards.

“He’s back.” Phillip spit out the words once they were out of earshot of anyone else.

“Who?” Parkhurst asked, glancing wistfully back at the card game. He had been winning, for once.

“The Spare,” Phillip said bitterly.

“Phillip, he’s dead. And you did not see a ghost. Or did you? I bet if any place is haunted, it’s this old house.”

Phillip resisted the urge to smack his friend. Ghosts. Really.

“The house is
not
haunted. I did
not
see a ghost. And he is
not
dead. I made that up.”

“What? I’m sorry, but what?”

“It’s a long story, Parkhurst. And now is not the time. He’s been masquerading as me all morning. We have to find him and put an end to it. Right now. Let’s go.”

“Are you suggesting that we search all the rooms in this house? That could take days. And what about the ones occupied by your guests?”

“Damn. Damn.
Damn.
” Phillip looked around for something to kick, and came up empty.

“Let’s go have a brandy and think this over,” his friend said. “We’ll find him, of course, but we ought to decide what to do with him once we do find him.”

“Smart of you, Parkhurst. For once. Let’s go plan.”

The real problem was
not
that Devon had returned. He couldn’t fathom why his twin had returned after all this time, and he feared it might be to challenge him for the title. But Phillip’s claim on the title was secure. Unfortunately, his claim on his senile father’s debt was also secure.

The problem was that his twin had apparently been sniffing around his heiress. It all made sense to him now— he had never been at the Carrington Ball, but Devon had. Devon caught her when she fell. God only knew what else had happened between them.

She was having doubts about him, too. All thanks to his stupid twin. He had to secure Miss Highhart, and her fortune, before his brother could interfere further. And before she could think over things too much.

Phillip resolved to take care of it this afternoon.

“Ruined at the ruins,” Parkhurst chuckled, when Phillip told him of the plan.

“Shut up, Parkhurst.”

Devon stood before the window in his room, dressed only in his breeches, and allowing the sun to warm his chest. He was watching as the guests milled about in the garden, paying particular attention to the ladies strolling along the pebbled paths. Stupid bonnets and parasols, hiding Miss Highhart from him.

Now that he knew who she was, any lust he may have felt for her had vanished. Well, perhaps not
all
of it. And therein lay the problem: he had kissed her when he shouldn’t have, and he had liked it. He had also left. And now, she, not knowing better, was being courted by his fortune-hunting, virtue-stealing twin.

He could attribute at least a modicum of intelligence to her for fleeing last night. Of course, in the moment, he felt oddly hurt, his ego slightly bruised, until he realized that it was Phillip she had fled, not him.

Then again, there was one reason American women came to England for the season: to catch a titled husband. If that was what she was after, though, she had thrown away a chance to use the oldest trick in the book to secure one.

At any rate, her marriage prospects and such were none of his concern, so long as they did not involve any sort of scandal that would hurt his reputation with her father, Harold Highhart.

And he would be damned if he let his twin screw that up for him. He had decided to come out of hiding this morning. Although he hadn’t yet introduced himself to anyone but George, he had made no effort to hide.

Absentmindedly, he ran his fingers over the scar above his eye. The skin was raised slightly, and devoid of color. It was not horrifically obvious. Most never noticed, or at least never mentioned it. But every time he looked in the mirror, it glared out at him.

He remembered the day their father had taken them both on a hunt. It was the first and last time. They had been twelve years old. All through the morning the three had ridden over the grounds, with the duke ignoring the glares and taunts that flitted between the brothers as each tried to impress their father by putting the other down. After a while, Devon began to ignore Phillip as well, and instead concentrated on the hunt. His shots had felled two pheasants. Phillip had shot nothing.

They had given their horses to the groom and were walking toward the house. Before stepping inside, the duke had said, “You did well, Devon. Perhaps you might like to instruct your brother.” Before Devon could even reflect on the stunning fact that he had received a compliment from his father, Phillip caught him unaware and smacked him in the face with the butt of his gun.

With blood in his eye, Devon managed to laugh and say, “Well, at least you can hit something.”

He could still picture his brother’s face, at twelve years old, turning bright red, and then redder, as he struggled to think of a retort. Devon walked away before Phillip could strike him again.

It had been a long time ago, but the scar remained.

While the heir may have gotten private lessons in shooting, hunting, and estate management, Devon taught himself and practiced until he was better. After all, he had to do something to occupy the long hours in which no one, not even their string of governesses, paid attention to him. He did so not only because it killed his twin to be second best, but because he wanted to impress their father who, with the exception of that one morning, never offered compliments to his spare son.

And here they were, going off to the ruins today. George had arranged everything, at the wishes of his fiancée. Devon had sought out his friend that morning, and after a brief conversation, George had agreed to keep a very close eye on Phillip and Miss Highhart. In the meantime, Devon was going to take a much needed hot bath and think of the next step in his plan.