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Wicked Becomes You(3)

By:Meredith Duran


“Yes.”

He looked up sharply. “Bit nervous?”

Her voice failed her. She nodded.

He chuckled. “Should’ve seen me. Shaking in my shoes. Best man had to hold my head over a chamber pot. I’ll tell you what he told me: ‘So long as you lay the cornerstone straight, Providence will build the house.’”

She managed a smile but found the adage ominous. Thomas had thirteen houses, all of them in terrible disrepair; another would only add to the expense.

Now came another knock, and Uncle Henry straightened and extended his elbow to her. She realized only belatedly, from the pain in her loosening fingers, that she’d been squeezing her hands into fists.

But he loves me, she thought. That is all that matters. He loves me, and I want this. What was all of it for, if not for this? I’ve wanted this forever.

And so did Mama and Papa and Richard. They wanted this for me, too. We all did.

I want this.

She cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said. She laid her hand on Henry’s arm. “I’m ready.”

Alex arrived without warning, flustering his brother’s butler with his refusal to be announced. There was a mystery here, and in his experience, ambushes were the most expedient way to uncover the truth.

He walked toward Gerard’s study on legs still braced for the unsteady sway of a ship. He could smell the widow’s perfume rising from his skin, and the scent compounded on his fatigue, making his stomach churn. The lady had slipped into his cabin last night after thirty days of idle flirtation, but this headache was enough to make him regret having entertained her. The attraction between them had been more the product of boredom than true interest. What harm? he’d reasoned. Left to his own devices, he wouldn’t have managed to sleep anyway. He barely remembered what a sound sleep felt like.

Odd to think that the insomnia had seemed a blessing, at first. So much useful time no longer squandered on unconsciousness. But after five months, the nights were beginning to stretch into dry-eyed eternities. The widow’s company had not made the time pass more quickly for him.

At least her perfume would lend him the illusion of having bathed.

As he turned the corner, he willed himself to focus on the task at hand. It would be convenient to find an obvious explanation for his brother’s actions, but nothing in the house spoke of want. The threadbare Aubussons had not been replaced by newer, plusher, cheaper rugs. The wallpaper bore no darkened patches where frames had been removed. In the box stalls in the mews, which he had checked upon arrival, a new pair of chestnuts now gave company to the matched grays. The carriages showed no signs of neglect. Everything looked exactly the same, which made Gerry’s decision all the more baffling.

The door to the study stood open. For an uncanny second, as Alex paused in the doorway, he had a sense of looking onto a scene long dead: his father, sitting ramrod-straight at his desk, industriously scrutinizing the household accounts. With the déjà vu came other, equally dead impulses—to stay quiet; to walk on by; to avoid a fight that could not be won. The weariness that touched him was not all from the insomnia, nor the long journey either. As a boy, he’d had to work very hard to believe in possibilities.

He exhaled. It was only Gerard at the desk, of course. His older brother was the picture of the Earl of Weston before him, lantern-jawed and stocky, as well-fleshed as a bull. Came home more frequently in the evenings, though. And there were other small differences—such as the fact that their father would have shot himself before surrendering any title to family land.

Of course, it would have been a waste of a bullet, in Alex’s view. He had no interest in the patrimony. It wasn’t his, anyway.

Why the bloody hell am I here, then?

He sighed. He was heartily sick of this question, having asked it of himself all the way from Gibraltar. Little else to do in the early hours before dawn. Best answer: his sisters had asked it of him. It would be his favor to them, then—enough to purchase twelve months’ freedom from additional pestering. “Cheers,” he said from the doorway.

Gerard looked up. “What—Alex!” He started to rise, then caught himself. “You’re back! We had no idea!”

“Neither did I,” said Alex. “A sudden decision when I reached Gibraltar. The whole place reeks of blood pudding—brought the motherland to mind.”

In fact, he’d received several telegrams during his stop there: two outraged screeds from his sisters, and a half-dozen cautions from friends who had seen Christopher Monsanto dining in Buenos Aires with the Peruvian trade minister. It seemed that the Yank now had his overbearing eye on Alex’s contracts with the Peruvian government.