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Authors: Maya Rodale

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BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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He couldn’t wait to arrive at Cliveden.
And yet, he had never dreaded anything more. He didn’t know if Devon would be in residence. He didn’t know if Devon would deign to see him, let alone lend him money. Before he met Angela, he would have died without a second thought rather than ask his brother for money. But things were different now. He was different now. He just hoped that Devon didn’t make him grovel. Because Phillip would, even though he didn’t want to. He would do it for Angela. He would do anything for her. Once again, he prayed that she would wait for him and manage to forgive him when he returned for her.
Finally,
finally
, the decrepit carriage they had rented was rolling down the long drive, flanked on either side by ancient oak trees. The house came into view, and even his imbecile traveling companions shut up upon seeing it. Cliveden was a marvelous house. It had almost been his.
“You stay in this carriage. I will be out shortly,” Phillip commanded.
“With the money,” Pierre added, stating the obvious.
“Yes,” Phillip said wearily.
“I think we ought to come in with you,” François growled.
“And I think that if you taint this house with your filthy, stinking selves, I will have all forty footmen and forty house-maids beat you so thoroughly that I could mail your remnants back to France in a snuffbox.”
“We will wait in the carriage,” Pierre said. “But if you are not out in an hour, we’re coming in.”
“Fine,” Phillip said and slammed the carriage door.
And just as he was debating whether or not to knock, Marksmith, the family butler, opened the door.
“Lord Phillip,” he intoned. The old man could not possibly be glad to see him. But his demeanor, stony as ever, did not show what he thought at seeing the prodigal son return.
“Is my brother at home?”
“Wait here, and I shall see.”
Phillip waited in the hall, watching Marksmith enter the library. A moment later, the butler exited and said that Phillip might enter. It was strange, being treated like a guest in one’s childhood home, and in the house he had expected to be master of. But really, now was not the time to dwell on such things.
“Phillip.” His brother stood from where he had been seated behind the big, old mahogany desk. He could not hide his shock at Phillip’s appearance. Presently, Devon looked like a cleaner, more genteel version of Phillip, for Phillip had not shaved in a few days, and the clothes he wore were obviously old and worn. No one would confuse them in this moment.
“Devon,” Phillip said with a nod in greeting.
“Would you like a brandy?”
“Please,” Phillip said automatically.
Devon walked over to the sideboard and poured two glasses, handing one to Phillip before returning to sit behind the desk and taking a sip.
“What brings you here?” Devon asked. Phillip looked at the clock on the bookshelf. One hour. He decided not to beat around the bush.
“I need to borrow money. About twelve hundred pounds, and I need it within the hour. Borrow, being the operative word. I swear I will pay you back however and whenever you’d like. Name your terms. I accept.”
“Who is she?” Devon asked, catching Phillip off guard.
“What?”
“Who is she? The woman you are doing this for?” Devon always expected the worst of him, didn’t he? So what if Phillip had given him and everyone else reason to believe it? It was time to put a stop to all that.
“It’s not what you think. It’s not like the other times. I need the money, because otherwise, they’ll take her from me, to be used in the most despicable way. No woman deserves that, obviously. But especially her.”
“I didn’t think it was like the other times. But you certainly confirmed my suspicions,” Devon said, much to Phillip’s surprise.
“Really?”
“If it was like the other times, you would have said you needed me to fight a duel for you,” Devon said, referring to an incident that had taken place years ago with the Duke of Grafton, involving Phillip’s indiscretion with Lady Grafton and the duel that Devon had fought while masquerading as his twin, which resulted in Devon fleeing to America for five years. Devon continued: “Or you would have asked me to act as your second. Or you would have at least just asked me to give you the money to pay off some girl’s family. You wouldn’t have offered to pay it back.”
“So things are different now,” Phillip said with a shrug and another glance at the clock. He really did not have the time to talk about this.
“I’ll say. You haven’t taken a sip of your brandy, either. The brother I know would have been helping himself to more by now. You are my brother, aren’t you? What have you done to the one I knew?”
Phillip wondered if that was a hint of a smile on his twin’s face or a grimace.
“Damned if I know,” Phillip responded.
“So who is she?” Devon asked again.
“I’ll gladly introduce you later, but she’s waiting for me, and I need to return quickly.”
“Who is waiting for you?” Emilia, Lady Buckingham, interrupted, walking slowly and carefully into the room with a child in her arms. She stumbled slightly on the edge of the carpet, and Phillip moved quickly to catch her and the child before she could fall.
“Thank you,” Emilia said, sounding rather surprised that he had caught her. The surprise was in her eyes, too—blue eyes, like Angela’s. But Angela’s eyes were a brighter, lighter blue. Did Emilia really think he would let her fall with a child in her arms? Had everyone thought so little of him?
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“This is your niece, Bella,” Emilia said. “Dora is taking a nap. She’s four.” This child seemed to be about one or two years old and was not obviously a member of either sex just yet. But it was a girl, which meant that Phillip was still the heir to the Duke of Buckingham. Something had stayed the same.
“Take her,” Emilia said, holding the squirming brat out to him.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he answered, looking at it—
her
, he corrected—warily.
“Please. My arms are tired from holding her. I swear, she gets heavier every day,” Emilia said, thrusting the child into his arms and going over to collapse in a chair.
Phillip looked down at the child. She smiled at him—a big, lopsided, drunken grin—revealing two teeth.
“Da,” she said.
“No. Can you say, ‘Degenerate uncle’?”
“Da.”
Apparently not. And then she pulled his hair.
“That is not acceptable behavior,” he said sternly, feeling awfully stupid talking to this little creature. She kept trying to pull his hair. Annoying. Phillip shifted the child to hold her with one arm balanced on his hip, so that his hair would be out of her reach.
“Who is waiting?” Emilia asked again. “Is someone in that carriage parked out front?”
“Do
not
go near that carriage,” Phillip growled. “In fact, you should probably go lock yourself in a room with a few loaded weapons.”
“Who the hell did you bring here?” Devon thundered, looking warily at the door and then at his wife and child, who was now resting her head on Phillip’s chest, though still trying to reach for his hair. Devon smiled at the sight of his wife and child, safe.
“Well, now I’m definitely interested,” Emilia said with widened eyes.
Phillip explained about the debt, the collectors, and the deadline as quickly as possible. Another glance at the clock told him he had thirty minutes left.
“What should I do, Em?” Devon asked.
Oh dear God,
Phillip thought. His fate—and Angela’s—was now in the hands of a woman he had misled, lied to, and tried to compromise so that she would be forced to marry him instead of the man she loved, thus giving him access to her dowry.
He had only done it for the estate, his father’s pride and joy. Well, he had really only gone so far so that his father might have expressed some approval at a match that would ensure the continuity and wealth of the estate. But his father was dead, and the estate looked a lot better than when he had last seen it.
But that reason was really rather weak, he knew. He had treated Emilia horribly. He had almost kept her from marrying his twin, the man she loved. And now his future happiness, and Angela’s, too, was in this woman’s hands.
“You want us to pay a thousand pounds—” Emilia repeated slowly.
“One thousand seventy-four, actually, plus our travel expenses,” Phillip admitted, adjusting the child he still held in his arms.
“You want us to pay all that for a gaming debt?”
“Lady Buckingham—”
“Oh, for Lord’s sake, Phillip, call me Emilia. We’ve been through enough that I think we can be on familiar terms. Besides, we are family.” They were, weren’t they?
“Emilia. Don’t do it for me. Do it because they threatened to take the woman that I—” He stopped himself before he said “the woman I love.” He wanted the first time he said it to be to Angela, not someone else. “Don’t do it for me. Do it for my fiancée. They said they would take her if I couldn’t pay.”
“
Your fiancée?
” Emilia and Devon repeated this simultaneously. Phillip shifted the child again, because she was squirming now.
“If she’ll still have me. I did leave rather abruptly. It was for her own good, but with my reputation, I expect a devil of an argument when I get back to the abbey, so if—”
“The abbey?” they both echoed again.
“That’s where I met her. Stanbrook Abbey. But that’s beside the point, and time is really of the essence. So—”
“An abbey? What the hell have you done now?” Devon asked, looking meanly at him.
“I have little time before they come in here. I promise I will tell you everything some other time. But don’t do it for me, although I will pay you back. Do it for her. She doesn’t deserve to pay for my mistakes.” Plural. He had made so many.
“And if we don’t?” Devon asked.
“I’ll have to kill the two Frenchmen out in the carriage and bury them here. I’ll really enjoy it; they are the most loathsome creatures. But then I’ll hang. And Angela’s friends at the abbey will say how they warned her about me and—”
“God, shut up, Phillip. You sound like the sentimental novels Emilia is always reading.”
“You do,” Emilia gushed. “It’s lovely. And you, dear husband, have been known to enjoy hearing them read to you.”
Phillip looked at Devon curiously, but his twin avoided his gaze.
“Hush. I’m writing a bank order. They do accept those, do they not?”
“Sure. And your terms for the loan?”
“Pay it back.”
“At what percent interest?” Phillip asked, shifting the weight of the child in his arms.
“Since when do you know what interest is?” Devon looked up at him curiously.
“Since not knowing about it got me into this damned mess.”
“What will you do when you pay them off and get your fiancée?”
“Haven’t really thought that far ahead. I guess I’ll go to Aston House.”
“You’ll need more money to fix that place up.”
“You’ve seen it recently?” Phillip asked, shifting the squirming brat again.
“What’s left of it.”
“Bloody hell,” Phillip swore and pushed the thought out of his mind. He’d deal with it later.
“Listen, I’ll lend you the money to start on that, too. But after you dispatch with those thugs you have out there. Best if you don’t let on that you have more funds at your disposal.”
“You know this is killing me, don’t you?” Phillip said plainly.
“Oh, yes.” Devon grinned so widely Phillip feared his face would crack.
“That’s why you’re doing it, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much, yes,” Devon said, still grinning. “I’ve waited for years for this moment, you know. My older brother asking me for money. Splendid, really.”
“But
you
are the older one,” Phillip pointed out.
“I know,” Devon answered with a shrug. “But I still think of you as my older brother.”
“Touching. Truly. Oh, and if you haven’t noticed, we now have one more identical feature,” Phillip said, pointing to the scar above his right eye with his one free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the brat. Devon’s hand flew up to his own scar in the same place.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you? I had the scar first!”
“I told Angela you’d be livid when you saw it,” Phillip said with a smirk.
“It’s not funny,” Devon said to Emilia, who was laughing.
“I’ll just take that bank order, then,” Phillip said, doing so and heading for the door. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back. Promise. Oh—and take this back,” Phillip said, transferring the child into his brother’s arms. And then he left.
BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
12.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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