Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) (18 page)

Then she turned her back on Octavia, giving her the cut direct.

Rafe wanted to intervene, try to smooth things over, try to charm the crowd. Or, more importantly, to kiss Octavia until the hurt look in her eyes faded into something else.

But he sipped his whisky and watched.

Watched too closely, perhaps. There were others in the crowd who were capable of observation, even if their skills didn’t match his own.

Octavia shrugged when Lucretia cut her, as though she had expected it. But Rafe thought Lucretia had miscalculated. Octavia had made a gesture of peace and Lucretia had refused it. That refusal would endear Lucretia to the most prudish women in attendance, who would die before accepting a connection with someone as ruined as Octavia was.

But some of the women and most of the men eyed Octavia as though they were curious, not horrified.

Octavia looked around, apparently deciding which person she might safely approach without being cut again. It was crucial for her to choose correctly — once another person cut her, the crowd was more likely to turn against her. She might find nothing but turned shoulders and petty whispers.

She made brief eye contact with Rafe, but she didn’t come to him.

He wanted to go to her. To show the crowd that he accepted her — that they could accept her, and adore her, despite her reputation.

But he didn’t have to. After a pause that was almost too long, Ferguson’s wife Madeleine approached Octavia, greeting her as though she was delighted to see her. Rafe relaxed slightly. The duchess’s acceptance was far more important than his.

He could focus his efforts instead on the shadows, where he worked best. A few carefully placed words and compliments, a few new rumors, a few reinterpretations of old stories — he could turn his skills toward changing her reputation from the background.

Not that it would be easy. If it was only the matter of her ruin four years earlier, he could have done that in his sleep. But she had been Somerville’s mistress — it was a lot to ask their peers to accept her. Even if Madeleine fully accepted her, there would be others who wouldn’t.

He lingered on the side of the room, watching. The eddies and currents shifted, adjusting to the new formation created by Octavia’s arrival. She was suddenly the center of everything — a whirlpool that drew some in. Others stayed well back, assessing the danger.

He could guess what they were all thinking. Would a would-be suitor stand a better chance if he approached her immediately, as if he didn’t care about her reputation? Or was it better to wait and see whether she was more well-behaved than she had been? And should the women give her the cut direct, as they always had in London? Or should they follow the duchess’s lead and accept her to avoid incurring Ferguson’s displeasure?

Octavia stood at the center of that, seeming entirely unaffected. She didn’t need Rafe to play the knight in shining armor. Which was a good thing, since that wasn’t a role Rafe knew how to play.

He ignored the realization that he
wanted
to play that role for her.

However, he wasn’t the only person watching the scene. Ferguson, Thorington, and Callista had returned to the room immediately after Octavia’s arrival. Ferguson joined his wife almost immediately after Madeleine started talking to Octavia. He seemed entirely charmed by her — which the other suitors would notice, even if they didn’t have Rafe’s skills at observing a crowd. If Callista had already been lost to Thorington, as most of them assumed she was, and Octavia had more of Ferguson’s affections than Lucretia did, Octavia would be inundated with offers.

Rafe clenched his hand around his glass as the first men approached her. He reminded himself that this was a good thing. They should stop trying to ruin the party and let Octavia direct her efforts toward winning outright.

But ruining the house party had been fun — the most fun he’d had in ages.

Watching Octavia marry someone else was not his idea of fun.

In his dark ruminations, he stayed still for too long. It was an amateur mistake. He never should have displayed that much interest in her arrival.

Ferguson had seemed to be entirely occupied with welcoming Octavia. But a few moments later, he walked to Rafe’s side. “You depress me, Lord Rafael,” Ferguson said, pouring himself a whisky from the decanter.

Rafe had met Ferguson many times in London and spent a week watching him at Maidenstone. He knew the man’s tricks — and he guessed that Ferguson and Thorington didn’t like each other in part because they were too similar. So Rafe used the same humor he would have used to manage Thorington. “I would inquire as to how I have depressed you, but I doubt that it would be enlightening.”

Ferguson acted affronted. “I am
always
enlightening.”

Rafe watched the currents shift again. His sisters had joined Octavia’s circle — those daring minxes should have known that unmarried ladies would be judged far more harshly for associating with her than married ladies would be.

“Where are your witty responses?” Ferguson asked. “You seem distracted.”

Rafe’s instincts came to life, too late. He had revealed too much of what he cared about, in a place where such information could harm him — and in a place where such information could harm Octavia.

If the gossips knew that she had shared her bed with Rafe less than twenty-four hours before, they would be merciless in their assessment of her character.

He turned to Ferguson, already regretting that last glass of whisky. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “Miss Briarley’s arrival has shocked everyone. How have I depressed you, since you seem to want me to ask that question?”

“I am depressed because I cannot stomach the idea of letting Maidenstone go to your family. Just when I think I’ve warned off Thorington and Callista, you stand here looking at Octavia like you can barely stand to be apart from her. It’s good that Lord Anthony has no interest in Lucretia, or I’d have to burn the abbey down and walk away.”

Damn
. It was too late to change whatever Ferguson had seen on his face, but there was still hope that he could change the perception of it. “Neither Anthony nor I have any designs here,” Rafe said. “But if you must burn the abbey, evacuate the wine cellar before you do.”

Ferguson wasn’t easily fooled. “I’m sure Lord Anthony wants nothing to do with marriage, or with Lucretia. But I trust you’ll believe me when I say that I will not condone a union between you and Octavia.”

“I wasn’t aware that I asked for a union with Octavia,” Rafe said blandly.

Ferguson gestured in her direction. Rafe didn’t turn. He didn’t need to look at her to guess what he would see. She was already on her way to conquering the party. With the possibility of a fortune and a house attached to her, along with her indomitable personality, she could win over enough people to make a life for herself. As long as she behaved impeccably, and as long as she inherited Maidenstone, she might find acceptance.

If she misbehaved, or if she didn’t inherit….

“She needs this,” Ferguson said, his voice low. “I don’t know her, and I don’t know why she didn’t come to the party before this — I was led to believe that she didn’t want to. But I know of her. And I would guess that the circumstances of her ruin weren’t fair. If she wants to return to society, this is her best chance.”

“Your assessment is accurate enough. But why are you talking to me instead of helping her?”

Ferguson looked him up and down. It was another tactic Rafe had seen before, meant to make him uncomfortable. The gaze didn’t do the trick — but Ferguson’s next words did.

“I am helping her by talking to you. I have nothing against you — my enmity is reserved for your brother. But I won’t let him win through you. And if Octavia wants to reclaim her place in society, she can only do it by marrying someone who is entirely above reproach. Someone with a title and a fortune would help matters greatly.”

Rafe was far from being the least eligible man in the room — he had ducal ancestors, a reasonable inheritance from his mother, and enough charm to win over even the most flinty dowager. “Miss Briarley could do worse than me,” Rafe said. “Not that I’ve asked her, you understand.”

“She could do worse than you,” Ferguson said agreeably. “But she could also do better. Let me speak more plainly, since you share your brother’s inability to comprehend veiled threats. Your brother is a villain who came very close to ruining my cousin-in-law’s life this spring. I won’t reward him by letting his family inherit Maidenstone. If Octavia marries you, she won’t win the estate. And if you court her without marrying her, you’ll ruin her more completely than anything that has happened to her thus far. You’ve claimed you’re not interested in her — but I suggest, for her sake, that you stay out of her affairs.”

Ferguson left before Rafe could think of an appropriate response. Not that there was any response to give. Rafe had already known — or thought he knew — that his partnership with Octavia would end when their scheme to ruin the party was over and when he’d learned what he needed to know about Somerville.

Those schemes had ended sooner than he expected. For her sake, he needed to leave her alone now — to let her reclaim the life she should have had. Ferguson’s warning was clear.

He tossed back his whisky and left, headed for the billiards room. He couldn’t go to her. He couldn’t stay and watch her.

And he couldn’t consider, yet, how he was going to let her go.

O
ctavia couldn’t remember
how to behave herself.

Sometime after midnight, she wrapped herself in a peignoir and slipped out of her bedchamber. The rain had ended, and silence had descended over Maidenstone like a shroud. In London, she stayed out until two or three in the morning. But Lucy had declared the drawing room gathering over before eleven. And she had left without meeting Octavia’s accusatory gaze.

Lucy’s bedchamber was next to Octavia’s. Octavia looked at the door for a moment. What would she find if she opened it? Would Lucy be asleep? Would she be staring into the darkness, regretting? Would she have changed any of the furnishings, or would she have kept her life exactly the same as it had been when they were girls? Would the gifts Octavia had given her still be prominently displayed, or had she packed them all away in some secret place — some hidden shrine, like the one Octavia had found in the Gothic wing?

It didn’t matter. Octavia wasn’t sure she could see Lucy without yelling at her, and she couldn’t yell at her in the middle of the night.

She skirted the creaking floorboards in the center of the hall outside Lucy’s room and continued toward her real target. Only the most illustrious guests were given rooms in the family wing. Agnes had learned all the guests’ locations from the other servants. Now that Octavia was in residence, they seemed more willing to gossip with Agnes than they were when Octavia was still in exile.

Ferguson and his family occupied two of the rooms on this floor. The duke and his wife shared a room, unusually. His twin sisters also shared a room. Octavia sneaked by them, hoping they slept soundly. A new creak in the flooring had developed since she’d last stayed at the abbey, and she winced as she stepped directly on it.

No one stirred. She reached the stairs and went up to the next floor. These rooms were very nearly as commodious as the ones below. When there had been more living Briarleys, they had needed the space.

She held her breath and tapped on the third door.

It couldn’t have been loud enough for him to hear. She raised her hand to knock again.

Rafe opened the door.

“I….”

He touched her lips to silence her and pulled her into the room. “What are you doing here?” he asked after closing the door.

He didn’t sound happy to see her. And he looked wretched.

Or maybe not wretched. Maybe wonderful.

His hair was a mess. His cravat was gone, as were his jacket and shoes. His shirt gaped opened. The bed however, hadn’t been disturbed. The room was lit well enough to see, and sheets of foolscap were mingled with piles of newspapers on the desk in the corner of the room.

He looked disheveled and sounded unhappy. He smelled of whisky, but his eyes were clear — clear enough that she saw the frown in them.

Her heart whispered a quiet warning.

“I thought we should discuss our partnership,” she said, carefully, as though that was all there was between them.

She didn’t ask why he hadn’t come to her. Or why he had disappeared from the drawing room.

Or whether he had thought of her all day, as she had thought of him.

“Our partnership,” he repeated. He raked a hand through his hair, adding chaos to it. “You can’t very well ruin the party now that you’re invited to it, can you?”

“I must admit I would still like to,” she said. She could focus on her anger toward Lucy and ignore her growing anxiety about Rafe’s reaction — or lack of reaction — to their lovemaking the previous night.

“How did you come to be at Maidenstone? Your appearance tonight was a shock,” he said, ushering her into a seat near the cold fireplace.

She told him about Lady Maidenstone’s visit as he straightened his papers and locked them in his desk. By the time he joined her next to the fireplace, some of the grim lines around his eyes had eased. His voice sounded lighter, almost normal. “I’m surprised you didn’t murder Lucretia as soon as you arrived.”

“I thought of it,” Octavia said. “But I don’t think adding murder to my list of faults would help me on the marriage mart.”

His frown returned. “I thought you didn’t intend to compete for Maidenstone.”

“I still don’t know if it’s possible,” she said. “But Ferguson asked me to meet with him in the morning. I shall know then whether I have any chance of winning. But if I’m to win, I’ll have to marry. Those are the rules of my grandfather’s will.”

Her words were easy enough. But an undercurrent of anxiety rippled through her. She shouldn’t have mentioned marriage. The warning in her heart grew louder.

Rafe’s pause added a knife edge to the anxiety. Finally, he said, “You’ll have plenty of options for suitors here. Please choose someone interesting — if you win Maidenstone and stay here, you’ll need someone who can make you laugh when you’re bored to bits.”

She had known that she was in trouble, but she hadn’t expected to be quite so hurt when he didn’t immediately, eagerly propose marriage to her. It was silly to think that he would — silly to think that twenty-four hours would have turned him into a suitor instead of a rake. And if he offered for her now, she would never know whether he wanted
her
, or whether he wanted the chance to win Maidenstone.

She sat up a tiny bit straighter. She had come to the party tonight as Miss Briarley — but she was still Madame Octavia. She donned confidence like a cloak, hiding the anxious, reckless heart underneath. “I’m sure I can find someone interesting,” she said. “Or at least someone who would offer me a drink when I visited him at night.”

He laughed. “Would you care for a drink?”

“How lovely of you to ask,” she said. “Brandy, if you please.”

Rafe retrieved a decanter and two glasses from his dressing table. “Back to the matter at hand,” he said as he poured. “Do you still want to ruin the party, or is our arrangement at an end?”

“I suppose the answer depends on Ferguson’s conversation tomorrow,” she said, taking her glass from him. “If Ferguson makes it clear that he won’t let me inherit, I may still try to ruin Lucy. She deserves some punishment for keeping me from the party.”

“And if Ferguson says you can inherit?” Rafe asked, watching her over the rim of his glass.

There was an intensity to the question that Octavia didn’t understand but couldn’t miss. “Then I should compete, shouldn’t I?”

“You don’t sound so sure of that.”

Octavia sipped her brandy. The alcohol was smooth and sultry — something Miss Briarley had never drunk, not when she was seventeen and dreaming of weddings and babies.

But Miss Briarley never would have known Rafe. She likely would have married some other man long before this — someone she’d barely had any conversations with beyond the inane subjects discussed at parties. Someone she would have married for his title and fortune, not for what he made her feel.

She realized, finally, belatedly, that she hadn’t gone to Rafe that night because she needed to know what he was thinking about her. Or, at least, that wasn’t the only reason.

It was because he was the only person she wanted to talk to. He had all the ability to break her heart…but when she was with him, she felt safe.

Which of those was real? The anxiety, or the comfort?

“What if I’m not meant for that life anymore?” she asked abruptly.

“For which life? Marriage?”

“If I were married, we would not be having this conversation. I could not sneak around the house and drink brandy at all hours. I could not host the sort of parties I hosted for Somerville. I could not wear this kind of clothing,” she said, gesturing at her peignoir. It was her most opaque robe, covering her most opaque nightrail — but there was still more lace and silk than a lady would have chosen. She’d never needed it for Somerville, as it had turned out, but she wore it now for herself.

Rafe coughed. “That would be a tragedy.”

She heard laughter in his voice, but she had already warmed to her theme. “I’m not saying that I want to be a courtesan. But a wife and a courtesan are both owned by their men. Should I give up my name and give my hand to only one man, forever? Or should I make my way as best I can without a husband, and at least have the freedom to change my situation if a protector betrays me?”

“I am not the most impartial judge of that question,” Rafe said.

That
stopped her, more quickly than any answer would have. “What do you mean by that?”

He set his brandy aside. “I mean that I don’t have the best view of marriage. But the arrangements made between men and mistresses typically aren’t satisfactory either.”

“That’s not helpful,” Octavia said.

Rafe shrugged. “You already said yourself that you weren’t excited about either possibility. From what I’ve seen of the world, I share your chagrin.”

She hadn’t heard of any heartbreak in his past, nor did she know of any past mistresses. “What caused you to feel this way?”

“If you’d shared a house with my parents, you wouldn’t ask.”

Octavia didn’t remember much about her own parents’ relationship. She thought they had been fond of each other, but it had not been a love match. “Did your parents not like each other?”

“They liked each other too well, at first. When the love ended, they should have been civil about it and let each other go their own ways. But my mother couldn’t tolerate my father’s mistresses. And when she tried to pay him back in kind, he punished her for it.”

“How did he punish her?” she asked.

“He kept her children, even the ones she had with other men, and sent her into exile. I would have hoped for her to find more happiness on the Continent than she did in London, but she was always chasing new loves. It’s not a comfortable way to live.”

“Have you seen her since your father died?”

“No. She died around the same time, before we could find her. Thorington brought her body back from Europe. Her tomb is in St. George’s in Hanover Square in London if you’d like to visit her.”

He sounded as charming as always, but there was a remote, closed-off look in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pried into your affairs.”

Rafe waved her apology away. “It was a lifetime ago. But I can’t say that my parents’ example gives me any insight into how to solve your problem. They were miserable in marriage and even more miserable pursuing pleasure with others. They probably would have been happier if they had given up on their romantic ideals and found people who made them comfortable.”

Then he slanted her a look that she found odd. “Was that what you had with Somerville? Did you agree on comfort rather than passion?”

The abrupt turn surprised her. He hadn’t mentioned Somerville at all the previous night, other than to ask if he’d hurt her — it was almost like he had chosen to forget where she had spent the last four years. Why did he care to know the circumstances now?

“We each fit the other’s needs,” she said.

She wanted to leave it at that. But Rafe had other ideas. “Do you know what I find odd about your arrangement with Somerville?”

She stayed silent, not wanting to encourage him.

He continued anyway. “What I find odd is that you are obviously an unconventional woman. Intelligent, passionate, determined, eager to go your own way and make your own rules no matter the cost. The very opposite of what I would have guessed that Somerville would want.”

That list of virtues felt like a compliment of the highest order, even though few men would have wanted those attributes in a woman. But she didn’t like Rafe’s line of questioning. “Somerville is unimportant. Our arrangement is at an end. Whether I choose to marry for Maidenstone or take another lover, it won’t be him.”

“But Somerville wasn’t your lover, was he?”

“Why does that matter to you?”

“It’s an interesting question. How did he keep his hands off of you for so long? How did you avoid it? There must have been something wrong with the man.”

The whispered warning in her heart grew louder. Why was he asking about Somerville? The obvious answer was that he wanted to know everything about Octavia’s past — but his questions didn’t sound like those of a jealous lover.

And Somerville may have turned her out at the end, but he had given her four years of security. She wouldn’t betray his secrets — especially to someone who might be fishing for them.

She shrugged, hoping she looked entirely unconcerned. “Somerville gave me a chance to build a new life, and I gave him the hostess he needed. Whatever else happened between us is, quite frankly, none of your business.”

“I apologize,” he said, inclining his head. “I couldn’t understand how any man could resist you. And I was too taken with the philosophical implications to consider how my questions might affect you. It was poorly done of me.”

She should have accepted his apology and left it at that, but she was always too curious. “What philosophical implications?”

“I always thought love was a fool’s bargain. But you made an arrangement for comfort and proved that comfort isn’t safe either. That only leaves one other option.”

Her heart still warned her. But she didn’t want to go to her room. And she couldn’t leave, not when Rafe looked so delightfully disheveled.

So she ignored the warning. “What option is that?”

“Do whatever feels right in the moment, take pleasure where you can find it, and hope to hell you don’t get hurt.”

Octavia laughed. “You sound like you’ve read a primer on how to be a rake, my lord.”

“I could have written it.”

He winked as he said it. She laughed again. “You’re not so dark as you’d like me to believe.”

“No? Generally speaking, if someone tells you they aren’t to be trusted, you should believe them.”

He sounded like he meant it.

Why did she want to ignore every warning? Her heart was suddenly screaming at her to go, to run. To avoid trusting him. To do anything but open herself up to someone who could hurt her. He’d run from her the night before. He could very well run from her again.

But under all her wounds and scars and memories, she still dreamed of sharing her heart with someone else. She looked into Rafe’s eyes. Despite his words, she saw something there worth fighting for.