The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister) Read online

  “Well, then,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’ll do it my way, and you try it yours—and we’ll see who wins out.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said flatly. “You can’t flirt with me. I’m going to be at war with you.”

  “No, you won’t,” he said politely. “Try going to war with an unwilling combatant. I don’t think even you can manage that.”

  “You don’t know what I can manage.”

  “No.” He gave her a broad grin, one that started sparks flying in her belly.

  And then he stood up and took her hand. This time, he bowed over it—bowed so low that his lips brushed the curve of her palm. She’d removed her gloves, and she felt the light kiss he brushed against her hand from head to toe.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m looking forward to finding out.”

  Chapter Four

  RAIN DOTTED THE WINDOWPANES of Robert’s upstairs study, dissolving the world outside into murky swirls. The two women on the street below appeared as receding blobs of fluttering skirts under dark umbrellas. Pale blue—that was Miss Charingford—and dark brown—that was the inimitable Miss Pursling. From above, nothing set Miss Pursling apart from any other umbrella on the street. If he hadn’t seen her gown just a few minutes ago, he’d not even have realized who it was.

  He felt as if he’d woken up, weak and confused, only to be told that he’d spent the last three weeks in bed with a fever—and that during his illness, Queen Victoria had abdicated the throne and run off with a lion-tamer from Birmingham. The world seemed an entirely different place. And yet there stood Miss Pursling, pausing to stand under an awning on the corner, turning to her friend and twirling her umbrella as if nothing had happened.

  As if she hadn’t just upended his every expectation.

  The door opened quietly behind him and footsteps approached. He didn’t need to look to see who was coming; the servants in this household were still too much in awe of him to approach without begging for permission. That left only one possibility—Mr. Oliver Marshall.

  “So,” Oliver said from behind him. “Was it as bad as you feared?”

  Robert drummed his fingers against the windowsill and pondered how to respond. “Two young ladies came to solicit a contribution for the Workers’… Oh, Devil take it. I can’t remember—oh yes. The Workers’ Hygiene Commission.”

  There were very few secrets that Robert kept from Oliver. He’d not mentioned Miss Pursling last night. For one, it hadn’t seemed important, and for another, if there was a secret there, it belonged to her, not him. This, though… This touched on one of the few secrets he had no choice but to keep from Oliver.

  “I see. They came to gawk at you.” There was a hint of humor in the other man’s voice, and he came to stand next to him. He peered out the window too, frowning when he saw nothing of interest.

  “No, actually.” Across the way, Miss Pursling and her friend passed under the awning, heads tilted toward one another, shoulders touching. The rain spilled off the metal overhang that shielded them, splashing to the ground in dirty waves of dishwater. Oliver thought they were only here to talk to the residents of town about the prospect of voting reform. Miss Pursling had threatened to reveal the truth about Robert’s other activities here, and that was substantially more annoying than gawking. On the other hand…

  Robert turned to the man standing beside him. “Oliver,” he said, “how did you ever come to the conclusion that I was a worthwhile human being?”

  Oliver took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “What makes you think I did?”

  “I’m being serious. Until I met you, nobody who looked at me saw an actual person. Just a duke’s son.” Nobody since Oliver had seen an actual person, either. They’d seen a vote in the House of Lords, a fortune inherited from his grandfather. They’d seen the possibilities he represented.

  Miss Pursling disappeared around the corner, and Robert shook his head. She was a problem—and a pleasure—to be dealt with on some other occasion.

  Oliver gave his spectacles one last swipe and then looked over at him. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps it was because I knew precisely how much it is worth to be a duke’s son. You weren’t the only one.”

  “But when I met you, I was a complete ass.”

  “True,” Oliver said.

  Their friendship—or whatever it was they shared—hadn’t come easily. When he’d first met Oliver, he’d made an enemy of him, encouraging the other boys to rile him up. Not as if Oliver had needed much encouragement on that score.

  One day, Oliver had told him—quietly, matter-of-factly—that they were brothers. And Robert’s entire world had turned upside down.

  “Why all this introspection?” Oliver asked. “It was simple. We fought; brothers often do. We took a little time to get to know one another. Then…” A shrug.

  “Your memory is terrible. We didn’t ‘take a little time to get to know one another,’” Robert said. “I egged the other boys on, encouraging them to pick on you. And even once we declared peace, I had the devil of a time coming to terms with what you told me.”

  He’d spent months pondering the inevitable, awful arithmetic—one that subtracted nine months from his brother’s age and came up with a date two months after Robert’s parents’ had married. His mind kept trying to manufacture some perfectly good reason why his father had sired a son out of wedlock and then abandoned him with no financial support. Robert built elaborate explanations based on messages that went astray, lies that were told, servants who happened to go on leave…

  “I only stopped making excuses for my father’s behavior because I asked him what happened.”

  I don’t care what she says, his father had growled. She wanted it. They always do.

  This reflexive denial of a crime he’d not been accused of had made everything painfully clear. Robert had found Oliver directly after the holidays.

  I’m not my father, he’d said, his voice shaking. I’m not my father, no matter what anyone says.

  And Oliver had simply grinned at him. I know that, he’d replied cheekily. I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out.

  I know you’re not your father. Over the years, those words had meant more to him than any of the flattery that so often came his way. A don at Cambridge had looked him in the eyes, and said, “My God, you’re the spitting image of him.” When he reached his majority, men slapped him on the back and told him how much he looked like the old Duke of Clermont. Every time they complimented him on his heritage, he heard his father’s plaintive lament. She wanted it. They always do.

  Robert was taller than his brother by two inches. He was the elder by three months. And—the only thing that really counted—he was the legitimate child, the one who’d inherited a dukedom from his father and a vast fortune by way of his mother. Nobody would have blinked if he had put his brother in his place—somewhere far, far behind him.

  Which was why Robert never would. I won the first toss, therefore I win everything from here on out did not make a satisfying battle cry. Especially when he’d only won that first round because his father had cheated.

  Since that day, every reminder of his privilege—of his father’s wealth, his father’s station—had rankled. It reminded him of the moment when he’d discovered what it meant that his father was a duke. It meant that nobody questioned him, no matter how wrong his actions were. It meant that he would not be held to account for his crimes, no matter who paid the price. It meant that if Robert followed in his father’s footsteps, nobody would blink an eye.

  Men, after all, had their needs. And women wanted it. They always did.

  In all his life, only one person had ever looked at him and said, “You don’t have to be your father.”

  One, and… Robert’s gaze slid out the window once more. One and a half.

  Because Miss Pursling had just walked into his home, given him that handbill, and told him that he’d written it. It had taken all of his power not to
glow with pride and ask her what she thought. Was it persuasive? Did you like it?

  Instead, he simply wrinkled his nose. “Our father was an ass.”

  Oliver grimaced. “Your father,” he said sharply. “The Duke of Clermont didn’t raise me. He didn’t take me fishing. He’s my sire, not my father. He was never my father.”

  By that standard, Robert had been raised by teaspoons and blades of grass.

  “I wasn’t speaking as a matter of history,” Robert said stiffly. “Just biology.”

  Oliver shook his head. “Family isn’t a matter of history. Or biology,” he said softly. “It’s a matter of choice. And don’t look so grim. You know what I meant. Just because I refuse to let that man be my father doesn’t mean you can’t be my brother.”

  “If only everything were that easy.” Robert put his hands in his pockets and looked away. “I had a message from my mother this morning.”

  “Ah.” Oliver reached over and touched his shoulder. “Indeed.”

  “I know,” Robert said, with a hint of what he hoped came out as wry amusement. “And I saw her in London only two months past.”

  His brother glanced over at that—a swift look out of the corner of his eye, one that had rather too much pity in it. Robert waved him away.

  “Don’t,” he muttered brusquely. “She’s coming here.”

  Clermont, she had written. I will be taking rooms in Leicester’s Three Crowns Hotel for a space of time. As I believe you are in the vicinity, we shall dine together on the nineteenth of November.

  “She didn’t say why, and I can’t think what would draw her.” Robert carefully avoided looking at his brother. “If family is a matter of choice, she chose everyone other than me a long time ago. Why she’d bother with me now, when she’s never noticed me in the past…”

  “Maybe,” Oliver said, “maybe she wants…”

  “She doesn’t want,” Robert snapped. “She never does.”

  Oliver and Robert had known each other more than half their lives. They’d attended Eton together, followed by Cambridge. During that time, Oliver had been showered with constant letters from his family. He couldn’t have helped but notice that Robert received almost no correspondence from his parents.

  Oliver’s eyes moved up and to the right, as if he were choosing his next words carefully. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I already wrote back and told her I’d be gone on that date—that I’d promised to accompany Sebastian up.”

  “Ah,” Oliver said blankly.

  “And then I wrote to Sebastian and begged him to come,” Robert admitted. “Whatever she wants can’t be of much importance. Besides, the three of us haven’t been in one spot together for almost a year. If the Brothers Sinister in all our villainy isn’t enough to drive her away…”

  Oliver smiled. “They only called us that at Eton because we’re all left-handed. I’m practically respectable these days. You’re a duke. And Sebastian is…” He frowned. “Well thought of, among intelligent people. Some of them.”

  Robert laughed. “A valiant attempt, but it won’t wash. My mother thinks that your existence is a personal insult. She is certain that Sebastian is an apostate—and ever since he flirted with her last year, a lecher.”

  Oliver sputtered. “He what?”

  “I asked him to save me at a gathering. He did.” Robert shook his head. “His way.”

  Oliver winced.

  “He didn’t mean anything by it,” Robert said. “But it all comes down to the same thing. If she insists on seeing me despite the change in date and the presence of two people she hates, the situation is dire.”

  At one time, Robert might have lost himself in a daydream, one in which his mother fled to his side in tears, desperate for his help. He’d save her through a combination of wit and good sense. And she would tearfully apologize for having avoided him.

  In his youth, when he’d imagined her heartfelt regrets, he’d always told her not to cry.

  “Don’t worry,” he’d imagined himself saying. “We have years left ahead of us.”

  He hadn’t run out of time, but hopes could be dashed only so many times before one gave up out of weariness. It had been more than a decade since he let himself dream of a world in which his mother gave a single solitary damn about him, and he wasn’t about to start up again now. As unlikely as it seemed, she probably had business in Leicester—business that would take her away before he arrived. They’d both be happier if they didn’t try.

  “And what will you do,” Oliver said, “if the situation is dire?”

  Robert shook his head. “I’ll do what I’ve always done. Whatever I must, Oliver. Whatever I must.”

  THE QUESTION OF WHAT TO DO ABOUT MISS PURSLING naturally waited until Robert saw her again. That happened three days later, at the Charingford residence where Robert and Oliver had been invited for dinner.

  He’d thought about her in those intervening days, of course. Something about her caught his fancy. Her quick wit, her intrepid style—they appealed to him. He woke one night from a dream in which she was gratifyingly brazen.

  But nighttime fantasies rarely translated into reality. He doubted that she intended to bring him pleasure of any sort. In reality, he suspected that he was about to be subjected to a barrage of amateur sleuthing. Bad disguises, ham-handed questions, attempts to go through his rubbish in search of clues… Miss Pursling was undoubtedly the sort of hotheaded young lady who would throw herself into the chase with abandon.

  So he wasn’t surprised to see her at the dinner. She’d already made herself comfortable when he arrived, but it was only a matter of time until she sought him out. He watched her out of the corner of his eye before they sat down to the meal, waiting for her to listen in on his conversation.

  Instead, she ignored him.

  She ignored him so well that just before they were called in for the meal, he found himself angling to overhear her discussion with three other young ladies. He was sure that she’d be asking about him.

  She wasn’t.

  She scarcely spoke at all. And when she did, her voice was so quiet that he had to strain to overhear her words.

  He remembered a sensual lilt to her speech, a martial light that had brightened her features, rendering her pretty. Now, there was no hint of that.

  She wore a high-necked gown of stiff brown, adorned only with a plain, military braid along her cuffs and neckline. Her spectacles must have been hidden away in the plain bag she wore at her wrist. She kept her distance from him, and she didn’t say anything clever. She scarcely said anything at all.

  He had almost pointed her out to Oliver as a wit; when they sat down to dine, she was seated just down the table from his brother. She engaged Oliver in no conversation. She didn’t even raise her eyes from her dinner plate, except to glance occasionally at the level of watered wine in her glass. She did murmur something to Oliver once—but as he responded by passing her the saltcellar, Robert suspected it was entirely innocuous.

  This woman had threatened to prove him responsible for the handbills? Unbelievable.

  Oliver directed a few inquiries at her over the course of the meal. In response, she mumbled something unintelligible in the direction of her meat. Gradually, his brother gave up his attempts at conversation.

  All trace of the woman he had seen had vanished, leaving behind a shadow with perfect posture and no conversation. She was right. Everyone would wonder if he flirted with her. He wouldn’t even know how to manage it. One couldn’t flirt with a lump.

  Still, after the gentlemen rejoined the ladies, he did his duty—pausing to talk to everyone present, learning their names, asking after their health. He would have done it no matter what—no point being a duke if you couldn’t use your station to make people smile—but this time he had an added incentive. He made his circuitous way about the room, winding inevitably to her. She was seated on a chair at the side of the room, gazing out at the other speakers. If she looked at any particula
r person overlong, he couldn’t detect it.

  “Miss Pursling. How good to see you again.”

  She looked up, but not at him. Instead, she looked just beyond his shoulder. “Your Grace,” she said.

  Her voice was quiet, but it was still as he remembered it, a low, husky velvet. At least he hadn’t imagined that.

  “May I sit next to you for a spell?”

  She still didn’t look at him. She glanced down at the carpet and then, with a twitch of her hand, indicated a chair to her side. Robert lowered himself into it and waited for her to speak.

  After a full minute ticked by in silence, Robert realized she wasn’t going to say anything.

  He leaned back in the chair. “I see how it’s going to be. Leave all the work of moving the conversation along to Robert—he’s a duke, so he must be good at it.”

  “Oh, no.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t assume you had any particular talent in that direction.”

  It was the first hint that she’d given that there was anything to her but an excess of shyness. He’d begun to actually doubt his own memory. Surely this woman hadn’t come to his house and attempted blackmail. Had she?

  “Tell me,” he persisted, “how does one get Minnie from Wilhelmina? Minnie makes me think of miniature—and nothing about you seems diminutive.”

  She examined her gloves closely. “It comes from the third syllable, Your Grace.”

  Back to being a cipher once more. Had he imagined the conversation? Maybe he was going mad.

  “What’s wrong with the first syllable?” he tried. “Or the second?”

  She glanced up. For the first time all evening, she looked in his eyes. He would have sworn there would have to be some kind of spark in her—some indication of the intelligence that had blazed at their last meeting. But if eyes were windows to the soul, hers had been bricked up to avoid taxation. He could see nothing in them at all.