The Rogue and the Rival (29 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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And then there were those who recognized it not as the likeness of His Grace, but of his twin, the notorious scoundrel Phillip Kensington, Marquis of Huntley. But how could she have known him? He had left town long before her arrival. And yet, the possibility of a liaison occurred to some; Miss Sullivan had portrayed him as the villain. Had he given her reason to? They, too, avidly discussed her portrayal of him, though their conversations were far more hushed and their suspicions much more salacious.
After all, what did anyone know of Miss Angela Sullivan? She was a recent addition to society, with few, albeit quality, connections. She was a young, unmarried woman who publicly
worked.
And then there were those rumors about her past . . . rumors about her and Lord Lucas Frost, who was most certainly not hiding his courtship of the young lady. Nor did he deny that he had been previously acquainted with her. The truth was forgotten or disguised and distorted and generally not confirmable, due to the fact that whatever had happened—
something
must have happened—occurred nearly a decade ago in a small, provincial village far from London.
But who needed facts when one had gossip?
Angela had known that publishing that drawing was an enormous risk. But drawing it—Phillip—had been a necessity for her sanity and perhaps her soul. Eight months, one week, and four days had passed since she had seen him last, and in all that time, in spite of all the dramatic upheavals of her life, she could not forget him.
Forget. Ha! The man positively haunted her dreams, and everything reminded her of him. The sound of a bell ringing always snatched her attention. She could no longer bear the sight of something so mundane as fried eggs, because she was reminded of the ones she used to cook for him. Men toiling at construction work reminded her of him. Balls and waltzes reminded her of her wish to enjoy those things with him. Everything reminded her of Phillip.
She thought of writing to him, for she knew from Emilia that he resided at Aston House. Words would not come to her. And so she thought if she could just capture him in a drawing on a sheet of paper, then she could remove him from her head and her heart.
It was meant to be thrown away. But it was too perfect, too sensational. Nigel Haven, her publisher, refused her pleas to withdraw it after she had second thoughts. Instead, he doubled her wages so as to keep her at the
London Weekly
rather than lose her to a rival publication.
And so Phillip’s likeness, portraying the evil Lord Hartshorne holding captive the nation’s beloved fictional sleuth, Darcy Darlington, was printed up and distributed all over England. When she held the printed issue in her hands, she understood exactly what her motive had been.
Like smoke rising from a fire, visible from a distance, she sent out the signal that she still burned for him.
She did not know what she wanted from him, other than an explanation for some vexing questions. Why had he left? Why had he not returned? Had he even loved her at all?
She had yet to receive the answers she needed.
As she entered the ballroom of Lord and Lady Finchleigh, her first public appearance since the drawing’s debut, she would have had to be blind and deaf not to notice the sidelong glances, raised eyebrows, and whispers. She had searched for answers. Instead, she gave the ton far too many questions to ponder: aloud, in hushed whispers, and in heated conversations. She provided the gamblers new topics for a wager.
“What have I done?” Angela whispered to herself as much as to her aunt.
“You have created a sensation. Now is not the time to lose your courage, dear.”
It took only a moment to find Devon and Emilia. Would her heart ever stop lurching every time she saw Devon? Since he was married to Lady Palmerston’s niece, Emilia, Angela saw him often. She had no doubt that she would be able to distinguish the twins up close, but from across a ballroom, it was so easy for her heart to skip a beat before her head acknowledged the difference.
“We were just discussing your latest illustration,” Emilia said, smiling slyly, once Angela and Lady Palmerston joined them. Angela and Emilia were quite friendly—but not too close, for Angela kept many secrets from her, simply because she couldn’t bring herself to discuss them. Phillip, for example.
“People have taken to calling me the Evil Lord,” Devon added, with a hint of amusement.
“I’m sorry, Devon. I had thought that people would be able to realize that it wasn’t you. I drew the broken nose . . .” Angela let her voice trail off before she said more. She had already said too much.
“It’s the perfect likeness of my twin,” Devon said. It was such a simple statement with great implications. He and his wife exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. They may be ignorant of the details, but her past relationship with Phillip was no longer a secret to them, if it ever was. She wondered what Phillip might have told them. She dared not ask.
“It’s best for your reputation if the ton thinks it is Devon,” Lady Palmerston stated wisely.
Emilia and Lady Palmerston fell into a discussion about Lady Rutherford’s ridiculous hairstyle for the evening. Angela found herself standing off to the side with Devon.
“Do you think he saw it?” She couldn’t help but ask. It was an innocent enough question, and she was dying to know.
“Doubtful. He never reads the papers. But perhaps he has developed the habit. I haven’t heard from him in months, since he went to Aston House. We’re not very close.”
“I know,” Angela said truthfully, because Phillip had told her. “I am sorry that people are giving you trouble about it. I hadn’t thought it through and—”
“I’ve spent my whole life being mistaken for my twin. I’m quite used to it.”
“I know.”
“I know, too, Angela.”
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked evasively, having a very good idea as to his answer.
“He came to me, asking for money. He mentioned a fiancée in an abbey. I suspected that was you, when you arrived in London shortly thereafter. Your drawing confirmed it. I didn’t think it was my place to broach the topic.”
“You have discovered my secret,” Angela confessed, feeling like some weight was lifted from her.
“You have my word that it will stay a secret,” Devon replied. Angela thanked him, for it was only polite, but a horrifying thought occurred to her. What if Phillip, in his stubborn refusal to read a newspaper, never saw her call for him? What if she had thrown away her reputation for nothing?
“Unless,” Devon continued, “you’d like me to enlighten him about the fact that one does not generally abandon their betrothed, which he seems to have done.”
“If he can’t figure that out for himself, then he does not deserve to have me.”
Being seen in amiable conversation with Devon and Emilia seemed to give the other guests more to talk about rather than less. It apparently seemed to ward off a few people from joining their conversation. Except for one man.
Lord Lucas Frost, once the cause of her downfall, now stood beside her. He had courted her, undeterred by her reticence to receive his attentions, since they first reencountered each other in town a few weeks earlier.
She had stood frozen with shock once she saw him weaving his way through the crowd with the obvious intention of speaking to her at the Carrington ball two weeks ago.
“Angela, my darling,” Lucas had said, clasping her hand in his. “Is that really you after all this time?” And then he treated her to the same smile that had once made her forget her own name and that had made the world seem like a brighter, more perfect place.
I am Miss Angela Sullivan, loved and left, not once but twice,
she thought to herself. The smile she returned to him was bittersweet; she was pleased to discover that Lucas and his smile no longer affected her as he had when she was a mere girl of seventeen. And yet there was sadness there, for the loss of that girl she had been.
“Hello, Lord Frost,” Angela said.
“Let’s not forget our old familiarity,” he murmured, as he lifted her palm to his lips. After pressing a kiss there, he said, “Call me Lucas. Just like old times.”
“Hmmph,” her aunt muttered from her place at Angela’s side.
“May I present my aunt and chaperone, Lady Palmerston?”
“Pleased to meet you, madame.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Lady Palmerston replied smoothly, ignoring Angela’s choked sound of shock and something like laughter. “But I do extend my condolences for your late wife and child.”
“Thank you,” Lucas replied graciously, ignoring her previous insult. He returned his attention to Angela. “A waltz?”
It would be rude to decline, she told herself. He offered his hand to her, and Angela looked at it for a moment before accepting. She saw her old hopes and dreams of being this man’s wife. She saw a second chance.
And beneath the fine leather gloves were hands that had caressed and touched her intimately. They had not been the only pair of hands to do so. And given the choice, it was Phillip’s hands her body craved to feel again.
But there was no choice.
Just one man, offering a waltz, and maybe more.
She accepted Lucas’s hand, and they embarked on their first waltz together. His glacial blue eyes gazed down on her. He was different now—older, of course. His features had lost their softness and had become sharper. He looked like a man now, one who had loved and lost.
“You are just as beautiful as I remembered,” Lucas had said. Angela simply smiled in return. It would not do to say what she really thought: that she wished his eyes were brown, his nose a little crooked, his hair darker, that he was taller, and stronger, and . . . well, a different man entirely.
That encounter with Lucas had occurred two weeks ago. Her thoughts as she waltzed with him now were the same. But now she was angrier. She had cried out for Phillip, and still, he had not come. And Lucas was always around now, acting as if their past had not occurred and throwing her into severe bouts of confusion. She couldn’t forget that this was the man who had nearly destroyed her and her family. This was the man who had inadvertently caused the death of her father. Yet she also could not forget that she had loved him once.
Phillip, with his absence, was throwing her into the arms of a man that she wasn’t sure she wanted. Lucas called upon her regularly. He sent her flowers. He waltzed with her twice at every ball. Lucas once dared to ask after her family, and she could see the guilt and pain in his eyes when she answered, “I don’t know how they are faring.” After that, they did not speak at all of their past. They spoke of how they enjoyed London, and Lucas described his estate, Bradley Park, at great length.
Lucas Frost’s intentions were clear.
He meant to make an honest woman of her at last. But would marriage to him right all those wrongs from so many years ago?
“You are distracted tonight,” Lucas said, exerting a gentle pressure upon her palm to remind her to pay attention to him while they waltzed.
“My apologies,” she replied.
“If you are worried about my thoughts regarding the object of your recent illustration, I can assure you, it matters not to me.”
“How gracious of you to say so,” she said, hoping to conceal the annoyance she felt. He thought she cared for his good opinion, and in this moment she realized she did not. Had a small part of her hoped, all along, that Lucas would realize it was Phillip and leave her alone? Maybe.
“But perhaps you might confide in me as to which twin you have portrayed,” Lucas suggested with a smile. “I confess I am curious.”
“Hmmm,” Angela murmured thoughtfully. She was mad as hell at Phillip. He had hurt her horribly. But she had loved him truly, purely, and deeply. She would not degrade that by letting it be common gossip or using it as a convenient way to push Lucas and his affections away from her. And that was how she knew for certain that she loved Phillip still.
Even though she was mad as hell. Lord save him from her wrath if he ever did return.
“I fear your silence reveals everything,” Lucas said.
“Does it confirm your worst suspicions?”
“To me, you are still the innocent, romantic girl you were at seventeen. I cannot see you any other way.”
In other words, he was blind to the woman she had become.
“And what of you, Lucas? Are you still the man I knew?”
“No,” he said sadly. “And I so wish I was. If we were together now, Angela, perhaps . . .”
The waltz concluded before he could voice the remainder of his thought. But she knew what he meant all the same. If they were together again, married at last, they could pretend the intervening years had never happened and be who they once were years ago.
Lucas certainly offered a second chance.
Or was it her last chance at marriage, a family, and something like love?
 
A FEW DAYS LATER ...
 
Phillip looked at the address on the sheet of paper in his hand and then up at the town house before him:
Number Four, Berkeley Square.
His courage and determination started to fade. He knew this address. He knew this house.

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