The Heir and the Spare (9 page)

“Do you really wish to?”

“Yes. Though I am not sure of him, and after last night . . . well, I haven’t been to the country yet. And I have lived in cities all my life. I should like to go.” And give him one more chance, she added silently.

“Very well, then. We shall go,” her aunt said, reaching for the newspaper and flipping straight to the gossip pages.

“I thought you didn’t like Phillip,” Emilia said.

“I don’t, quite simply. But the scoundrel attracts gossip where he goes and I should hate to miss it. You, my dear, better not be a part of it.”

They appeared to be perfect English gentlemen, Devon thought, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass, a slightly bored expression on his face. Father and son, sharing the customary port and cigars in the dining room after supper. Footmen standing in the background like statues, waiting for a request to bring them to life. The chandeliers overhead cast a soft glow, and the long mahogany table gleamed under the light. Devon looked down the table at his father. The duke was not partaking of his port, and a cigar remained unlit before him. He sat motionless at the head of the table, coming to life every ten minutes, initiating the same conversation each time.

“Phillip, you need to take a wife. I haven’t many days left in me and I want the estate to be secure before I go.”

“I’m not Phillip. I am Devon. Your other son.”

“Don’t try to fool me with that one, boy! Always blaming things on your brother! He’s dead now, so it won’t work anymore.”

“I’m not dead. You know that. It’s me, Devon. And I’m here, just as you asked.”

“Don’t try to distract me, Phillip. You need to take a wife.”

The first two times, Devon tried to reason with him. The third time, for his own amusement, Devon pretended he was his twin, and told his father he was married with seven sons. His father showed no reaction. Devon cast an idle glance at the footmen, wondering if they would reveal that they found the exchange amusing. But they were too well trained to show any expression. The fourth time the duke brought it up, Devon remained silent.

I traveled across an ocean for this,
Devon thought. To make his father proud of him, when the father in question didn’t even recognize him. Marksmith had told him that His Grace was becoming more and more forgetful with each passing day. Sometimes, he hadn’t even recognized Marksmith. Sometimes, His Grace did not even answer to his name. Logically, Devon knew he ought to pity his father. He knew better than to take it personally, but still, he did.

In an effort to avoid that uncomfortable fact, Devon had immersed himself in work this afternoon. First he had reviewed the account books of the various holdings, all of them showing poor choices, if any at all. Most of the tenants had left for jobs in the city, leaving vast tracts of land completely unproductive. Upon opening a drawer while looking for ink, Devon discovered a stack of unopened, strongly worded letters from creditors demanding to be paid for waistcoats, boots, hats, gloves, carriages, horses, jewelry. There were a few letters from other peers, demanding payment for Phillip’s gaming debts. It was clear that Phillip had no clue as to the state of the family finances and was spending as he always had done. Or else he did know and couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. Many a peer lived on debt alone, but eventually it came time to pay up.

Knowing what he did now, Devon resolved to pay that hundred pounds he had deliberately lost in Phillip’s name. In fact, he considered paying off all the debts, and straightening out all the books, and putting everything back in working order. But the chance of Phillip having to beg for help from the one he had always called “the spare” was too tempting.

Then there was correspondence from America to be dealt with. Devon had been hired at Diamond Shipping shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia. After five years, he had earned the position of president. He worked closely with the owner, Harold Highhart, and he was the one who insisted Devon take time off to visit his father, and that he could continue to work from their London office. Hoping for some good news, Devon opened the letter from Highhart.

It was a standard business letter, detailing the latest developments—profits and purchases of two more ships to add to their fleet. There were instructions for Devon. The letter concluded, however, on a personal note:

He had known that Harold had a daughter, though he had never met her.

Devon looked down the dining room table at his father once again, after pouring another glass of port. He thought that it was very lucky of this Miss Highhart to have a father who cared for her well-being. He might be able to forgive his father for being unable to differentiate between his identical twin sons, but he could at least remember he had two sons. The heir and the spare. Devon wondered if the redhead saw any differences between them.

“Phillip, it’s high time that—”

Oh, for God’s sake, not again.

“Good evening, Father. I am going to retire now.”

“It’s about time you took a wife.”

It was unforgivably rude to leave the room while his father was talking. But he couldn’t tolerate it anymore tonight. His father didn’t seem to notice his departure at all.

“It’s nothing personal, Lord Devon,” said Marksmith, who had been waiting with the footmen. “His mind is simply not what it used to be. ’Tis nothing more than age.”

“I am going to London tomorrow. Can you have my things ready?” Devon had to leave, if only for a few days, in an effort to preserve his sanity.

“Of course. Will you be staying at the family residence?”

“Is Phillip there?”

“Yes.”

“Then no. I’ll be staying at the Cavendish Hotel.”

“Of course. Lord Devon, there is something I must discuss with you . . .”

But Devon had already walked away.

Phillip arrived at the estate with a smirk of satisfaction. The house, the lands, the title, everything would soon be his. As the Marquis of Huntley, he did possess his own estate, but it was smaller, and so far north as to practically be in Scotland. Phillip could rarely be bothered to take the trip. Not when Cliveden was far more convenient and far more impressive. His smirk vanished, however, when he thought of the upkeep, the debt, and the proposal he had to render. Dismissing the thought, he strolled into the great hall and informed Marksmith that eight of his friends would be arriving that afternoon. He then went to the library to have a brandy and an obligatory chat with his father.

The duke was sitting before the fire.

“Hello, Father,” Phillip said, strolling over to the sideboard where the brandy was kept. “Just arrived from London. I’m having some friends come down.”

“Eh? Phillip, you’ve been here for days.”

“No, I just arrived.” Silly old man. Totally lost in the brain.

“Have you given any thought to what we discussed the other night?”

“We didn’t discuss anything the other night,” Phillip replied, bored. He couldn’t quite decide which was more agonizing, conversations with his absentminded elderly father, or the father of his youth, who was always bringing up Devon’s achievements and concluding with “I expect more of you, as my heir.” Well, just wait until he snagged an heiress. Hopefully his father would be lucid the day he gave him the news.

“Must have been Devon then.”

“Couldn’t be. He’s dead,” Phillip said, pouring himself a liberal amount of brandy.

“Right. I wanted to tell him something,” the duke said, his voice trailing off, as he tried to remember. “ ’Tis a pity he’s dead.”

“Yes. It’s positively tragic,” Phillip replied.

“How did he die again?”

“Fell off a ship. Right into the ocean,” Phillip responded, staring into the depths of his brandy.

“But he can swim.”

“Not anymore he can’t. He’s dead.”

Every now and then Phillip wondered where his twin was and what he was doing. Probably stuck in a log cabin in some godforsaken American territory.

The Duke of Buckingham was having a rare moment of lucidity. They didn’t come very often anymore, but when they did, he clung to them with an ironclad grip.

It was nothing more than a memory. Did it happen years ago? Decades? Months? It could not have been yesterday, but the scene unfolded in his mind, fresh, as if it had happened recently. He didn’t try to understand, he just let it happen again, in his mind.

Phillip slunk in the chair before his desk and told him his youngest son was dead.

“How did it happen?” he asked, knowing his voice was cold. Because he had felt cold inside. It matched the look in Phillip’s eyes.

“Poor sot got too drunk, fell overboard,” Phillip had said, while brushing an invisible speck of lint off of an expensive-looking jacket.

“Overboard?” he had echoed.

“He was on a ship. Set off for America because of the nasty business with the duel,” Phillip said, still focusing most of his attention on that invisible spot of dirt on the sleeve of his jacket. The duke’s eyes had narrowed. He could be lying. Phillip was known to lie.

“Right.” He couldn’t believe Devon had been in that duel. He was the coolheaded one, the smart one. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to do what the Duke of Grafton had accused him of. He wouldn’t be so damn foolish as to get himself shot, either. But he had seen his son, briefly, for a moment, while the boy was asleep. He saw the wound on his shoulder. He had to believe it.

“Phillip, it was you, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he huffed.

“You ruined Lady Grafton. And don’t try to lie to me. I know what you have done in the past. And you are too foolish to learn from your mistakes. No—don’t contradict me. I am your father. I know you.”

“Do you?”

He ignored that. “What I don’t know is how you managed to convince him to do it.”

Phillip smirked. “I told him you wanted him to.”

The memory was fresh, the regret still raw. Regret so all encompassing that the duke could not move, could not do anything but feel it. Had he done things differently, it might not have turned out like this . . . His young son, so full of promise, was dead.

Or was he? His grief was not entirely for his loss, but for the mistakes he had made that he, like his heir, learned too late to remedy. It was grief, all consuming, raging grief, tempered with regret and one last spot of hope that led him to hire private investigators. Just to be sure. He needed answers.

Devon had not died. He had come home, hadn’t he? Or was that a hallucination, too?

Marksmith stood in the hall, taking a deep breath. He had but an afternoon to prepare for the arrival of eight guests. He could manage this; it was at least better than the last time Phillip arrived, unannounced, and declared that thirty of his reprobate friends were on their way.

He summoned the staff and began giving orders for rooms to be aired and readied, for the housekeeper to prepare the menus, and bid all the servants not to mention anything regarding the recent appearance of the second son. He made a note for himself to send a letter to Devon, alerting him to Phillip’s presence, for he had gotten the distinct impression that Devon had no wish to encounter his twin. They had always loathed each other, and Marksmith feared to even imagine the scene that might ensue between them. Marksmith hated inciting the heir’s temper. At the age of twelve, Phillip had thrown a decanter of brandy at him, and when it smashed against the wall behind him, shattering into pieces, Phillip insisted on taking the funds to replace it out of Marksmith’s wages. He then, as he always did, promised a new butler would be hired when he inherited the title. With a sigh, Marksmith looked at his watch.

A few hours later, the staff had achieved the impossible, and the first guests arrived—a young lady stumbling unintentionally into the arms of a footman as she stared up at the house, and a fashionable woman, most likely her chaperone, who told her not to stare at the house as if it had two heads.

Marksmith showed them into the library, where Lord Phillip stood to greet them. “Hello, Lady Palmerston, Miss Highhart. You are the first to arrive. I am so pleased to see you,” Phillip said, striding across the room, paying particular attention to the young woman, who smiled warmly at him.

Marksmith couldn’t help but be startled by this, something he carefully kept from his expression. He had never before seen the heir court a proper young lady, let alone invite one to Cliveden. Perhaps this would not be one of the usual house parties, comprised of debauched young gents and women of ill repute, that Phillip had started hosting when his father’s health had begun to decline. Marksmith glanced at the chaperone, wearing a bright blue traveling dress, with a matching cap decked with feathers atop her head. For a moment he thought she might have rolled her eyes.

“How was your journey?” Phillip asked, guiding the young woman to one of the settees near the fireplace.

“Just fine, thank you,” she answered in an American accent. “The countryside is more beautiful than I had imagined.”

“And Cliveden is especially magnificent, and it shall be mine one day. I’ll take you on a tour of the grounds later.”

“That sounds wonderful,” the chaperone spoke, reminding Phillip of her presence. He looked at her and bowed politely.

Then Phillip turned to him.

“For God’s sake, Marksmith, what are you doing still standing there? Do fetch some tea for the ladies. I’m sure they must be parched.”