“Tom,” Owen said, rather more warmly than he would have a moment before, “if you want to see a bit more of what the country has to offer, perhaps I could show you our orchard? It’s not expansive, but it’s all starting to blossom. I doubt there’s much of that in town.”
Tom’s smile held slightly too much smugness, but it charmed Owen all the same. How could it not? Tom was the model of a perfect, handsome gentleman, made to dazzle a country lad without much experience of the world. Owen knew it, but he was still incapable of resistance.
“There’s nothing I would like better,” Tom said.
Mrs. Honeyfield moved to the side a little to let Owen pass. “Then I’ll order tea, and you can have a cup when you come in the house. Mr. Drake, perhaps you’ll allow me to answer any questions you have about Trewebury and its environs, while the lads see the orchard?”
Mr. Drake could hardly do anything but agree, but Owen had to stifle a laugh at the ruddy color that rose into his tanned cheeks. The elder Drake couldn’t be more than thirty, surely — hardly old enough to be happy to discuss dry local history with the older generation while his not-much-younger brother waltzed off to the gardens to enjoy a light flirtation. At least, Owen hoped that was what they were going to do, and his whole body fizzed with excitement at the thought.
Tom held out his arm, Owen took it, and they escaped out the side door from the drawing-room. As soon as they were decently out of earshot — probably — Tom burst out into a full-bodied laugh.
“Gods above and below,” he said on a last chuckle, “poor Artie! His expression! I’ve hardly ever seen him so put in his place by anyone, and to have it done quite by accident by a lady who’s not—” He stopped, cleared his throat, and went on with: “By a lady who’s not someone he can just dismiss with one of his cutting remarks.”
Owen knew that wasn’t what Tom had been going to say, and his chest squeezed, a pang of loyalty and love for his unsophisticated but most wonderful mother nearly spoiling his enjoyment of the moment. Someone as bright and merry as Tom Drake couldn’t think cruelly of his hospitable and kindly mother. After all, Tom had not said what he had meant to say. Surely his better nature had easily asserted itself over whatever witty and harmless impertinence had first been on the tip of his tongue.
And anyway, the sun shone clear and brilliant out of a nearly cloudless sky, as blue as Tom’s eyes; a light breeze from the sea felt like a blessing from Owen’s patron goddess. No one could entertain doubts when he had a small garden, fragrant with early daffodils, spread out before him, and beyond that and a quaint garden gate, an orchard full of blossoming trees and lush spring grass to lose himself in along with the handsomest man he’d ever met.
Owen allowed himself to laugh too, though it came out sounding shaky and nervous. He surreptitiously wiped his free hand on the side of his trousers, and hoped the damp palm resting on Tom’s fine gray coat-sleeve wouldn’t leave a mark.
“He did look very severe,” Owen ventured. “But my mother meant only to show him every courtesy. She and my father are so very much obliged to you both for bringing me home last week.”
“And you?” Tom said. Owen glanced up through his lashes to find Tom’s gaze fixed on him intently. “Do you feel yourself much obliged?”
His teasing tone and the laughing glint in his eyes almost masked the indelicacy of the question, and Owen’s whole body drew as taut as a harp string ready to be plucked. Tom’s heat along his flank and thigh left the other side of his body, bathed in sunshine as it was, feeling cold by comparison; those gleaming eyes drew him in, and his smile held the promise of every sweet fantasy Owen had ever spun, alone at night in his bed.
“Of course I am. You almost certainly saved my life,” Owen said.
Tom pressed Owen’s arm against his side, leaning in just a little more. “I won’t presume on it, I give you my word. But it does please me, to know that you have no choice but to be kindly disposed toward me. Can you blame me for it?” His voice had dropped to a softness that had Owen nearly mesmerized.
“I—I don’t think I could blame you for anything.” Owen’s voice had gone rather high, and he flicked his tongue over his lower lip to moisten it. Tom’s gaze caught on Owen’s mouth, and his eyes went heavy and dark. “Although I don’t know why you would care what opinion I might have of you.”
“Don’t you?” Tom’s voice, weighted down with so much implied meaning, made Owen’s breath catch in his throat. Tom’s smile grew wider. “Well. Let’s see that orchard you promised me, and perhaps I’ll expand on the subject.”
Feeling as if he walked on the air, rather than on anything as mundane as dirt, Owen allowed himself to be led off to the orchard.
Chapter Three
The well-tended blaze crackling in the library fireplace should have soothed Arthur’s spirits, just as the brandy in his hand ought to have settled his nerves. He kicked irritably at a bit of cinder that had fallen near the edge of the hearth.
“What on earth’s the matter with you, Artie?” Tom asked, as he poured himself a brandy of his own and dropped into one of the wingback chairs placed at the perfect distance from the fire. The evening had turned cold, chasing away the sunlit perfection of the afternoon. After dinner, both brothers had chosen to retire to the library, where the heavy drapes kept out the early spring chill.
Arthur ground his teeth, but he took a long sip from his snifter rather than snap at Tom. No remonstrance, whether sharp or gentle, would ever prevail against Tom’s habit of shortening his name. He mightn’t have minded so much if his name lent itself to a less absurd-sounding diminutive.
“There’s nothing the matter,” he growled in a way that hardly bore the statement out.
Tom laughed and slid down into a comfortable slouch. “I only meant to tease you a little by absconding with young Owen,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re in such a lather about it.”
“I’m not in a lather! And certainly not about Ow—Honeyfield.”
“Why don’t you sit down and drink your brandy, then, instead of scowling into the fire and near biting my head off every time I speak?” Arthur glanced over at Tom, but he forcibly held in all the possible replies that immediately filled his mind. Tom knew damn well he’d tried Arthur’s patience more than usual, of late. He always chose to view Arthur’s disapproval of his vices, and impatience with his baiting, as a fault in Arthur, rather than a rational response to his own behavior. Arthur had learned long since that there was no leading Tom to admit his own responsibility.
After a few moments of silence, Tom said musingly, “He is rather more appealing than I’d thought at first. Innocence is generally quite dull, but his has a quality I find rather piquant.”
“And that quality would be his pretty face? Or perhaps the way he batted his eyelashes at you like a mooncalf?” Arthur kept his voice even with an effort. Watching Ow—Honeyfield, dammit, Honeyfield gaze dreamily at Tom out of those really remarkably lovely eyes shouldn’t have been quite so irritating. And yet Arthur couldn’t stop thinking about them. Not them, for the gods’ sakes. Honeyfield’s eyes were only a clear, unusual sea-green, that was all, shot through with deep blue and flecked with gold. It. His gaze at Tom. The son of an undistinguished country solicitor was unlikely to hold the attention of the scion of an ancient family with ample wealth even for its younger sons. If Honeyfield allowed himself to set his sights on Tom, disaster would follow.
Tom sat up a little and fixed Arthur with a look a bit more penetrating than made Arthur quite comfortable. “You can’t be thinking of courting him yourself,” he said, half laughing and half challenging.
“No. Of course not.” Arthur took another deep draught of brandy, letting the burn of it settle all the way to his toes before he felt he could conceal the quick burst of strong emotion the thought engendered. Even after a week, the sweet sensation of Honeyfield’s head resting on his shoulder as he bore his insensible body home across the moor hadn’t faded in
the least.
But his odd fixation had to be hidden at all costs. If Tom had the slightest inkling of it, it would only drive him to greater efforts in poor Honeyfield’s direction.
“I have no intention of marrying in the near future,” he said, and then added with as much disdain as he could muster, “and if I did, it would not be some little Trewebury country cousin. In any case, I’ll want an heir.”
“He’s blessed, though. He couldn’t give you an heir in the usual way, but the family line would continue, somehow or other.” Damn Tom for seeing right through his attempt at misdirection. Tom went on, “And all your endeavors would prosper in the meantime. Not such a bad trade.”
Arthur went to drink again, found his glass empty, and took the decanter from the table set between the two chairs. He took the opportunity of pouring to examine Tom’s face. It held a disquieting measure of mischief, and a hint of the malice he sometimes displayed to Arthur, but hid so well from the rest of the world.
Sometimes, Arthur had found, Tom would skirt around a subject endlessly when allowed, but when confronted directly would give in at once. “It sounds as if you’re trying to push me in Honeyfield’s direction, Tom. And I wonder why you would.”
Tom’s laugh sounded a little forced. “Quite the contrary, I assure you. The eldest Drake can do much better than that, I hope.”
“Well, then?” Arthur ignored the slight bitterness in Tom’s words, and stared him down unwaveringly, until the latter’s gaze broke.
“I’d just like to know how much opposition to expect from you, if I turn my attention his way.”
An unpleasant sensation, not quite like pain but close enough, slithered its way up Arthur’s spine. “If your attention, as you put it, isn’t honorable, then you can expect more than just opposition.”
That had come out rather more sharply than he’d hoped it would, and Tom looked up, eyes narrowed. Arthur gritted his teeth. He had given himself away, damn it all.
“And just who appointed you the guardian of our little country cousin’s virtue, Artie? Because you seem a trifle more interested in its preservation than I’d have thought our acquaintance warranted!”
“I don’t want a scandal,” Arthur said shortly. “Or should I say, another scandal.”
Tom flushed at that. “There was no scandal. It was nothing.”
“There was no scandal because I paid the family a small fortune not to create one. And because the gods were unaccountably kind to you, and the young lady didn’t increase. That does not make it nothing.”
“Oh, by all the gods, as if you’ve never had a dalliance or two!” Tom jumped out of his chair and paced once past the fireplace, and then back again to look at Arthur with a mix of defiance and fear that might have been comical, if Arthur hadn’t been so angry. “And it’s not dalliance I intend with Owen. I mean to court him seriously.”
Arthur felt like a cold bucket of water had been dumped over his head, and experienced quite the same lowering of spirits he would have had if it was. A seduction he could have stopped. A marriage? That, he had no standing to interfere with, no matter how poorly he knew it would end. Tom had been of age for years, and had his own small fortune, enough that he could support a spouse in comfort. One blessed by the goddess Mirreith would bring enough advantage to his husband that Arthur couldn’t really object to the match, especially since Honeyfield was well-bred enough to enter society. Country society, at least.
He shouldn’t object to the match, but he did. Vigorously. An image came to his mind of Owen blushing as Tom carried him off to a marriage bed, his graceful figure bending back over Tom’s arm just a little as Tom stole a kiss, and it left Arthur breathless with — with what, precisely, he didn’t know and didn’t want to examine. Owen was all wrong for Tom, or Tom all wrong for him — if Tom really could be right for anyone. Arthur was so caught up in his whirl of unpleasant imaginings that he hardly noticed he had named Owen in his thoughts after all, his determination to keep him at some mental distance utterly lost.
Arthur turned quickly away and sat in Tom’s vacated chair, hoping its tall sides would shade his face and hide his expression; he feared that expression was little short of savage.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you made that decision more than thirty seconds ago.” He sounded a little savage, too. Tom bit his lip and remained silent, and Arthur laughed without any mirth. “Court him, then. And I wish you all the happiness in the world.”
Tom rallied quickly to the counterattack, as he always did. “And you mean that, of course,” he said, sarcasm in every word.
Arthur sucked in a deep lungful of air, air that seemed to be in short supply. Perhaps the fire had used it all up. As he let it out, he forced himself to appear calm, even if he could not quite feel it. But he would. What interest could he possibly have in a countrified stripling with smooth, pale skin, delicate freckles scattered across his perfectly formed countenance like stars in a summer sky, and hair like burnished gold? None. None at all.
Finally, his will exerted control over his body. “I mean it. I think it unlikely that you will be happy, if you choose him, even if he chooses you in return.” As if there were any doubt of that. Tom could charm anyone, from the most skittish of ladies to a hissing cat. Arthur had no such talent.
“And why is that, precisely?” Tom’s eyes gleamed. He already knew precisely why, but he wanted to force Arthur to say it.
Arthur confined himself to the part of the truth he could bring himself to articulate. Tom would infer the rest. “Because no spouse, no marriage, will hold your interest for long.”
Tom took up the decanter and filled his brandy again, the clinking of glass against glass betraying the shaking of his hands. Eyes flashing with anger, he said, “And you think Owen deserves better, do you? Someone like you, perhaps? Too staid to stray?”
Arthur rose and set his own glass down on the table with a thump. He drew himself up to his full height, some two inches greater than Tom’s, and loomed over him, fists clenched with the effort not to seize Tom about the neck and shake him like a terrier with a rat. Tom stumbled back a step, his brandy spilling over his hand and dripping to the floor.
“Too staid?” Arthur hissed; it was that or shout. “Because a man who honors his promises is such a dull stick, in your eyes? Yes! I do think he deserves better than someone who’ll use him until his innocence loses its charm and then abandon him for the next pretty face that crosses his path. Do you take me for such a fool as to forget every past action of yours? Besides which, Owen’s hardly any prize.”
Those last words, untrue and spoken with such bitterness as they were, shocked Arthur out of his tirade. He forced himself to stop, his chest heaving, nearly blinded by rage. He wanted to break Tom’s nose perhaps more than he’d ever wanted anything.
Tom’s breath came hard and fast, too, and he bit his lip until it went white. “Sour grapes don’t suit you, brother,” he snarled. “Especially when it seems like he’s Owen and not Honeyfield after all.”
Damn and blast it all to hell. “Court him if you like, fuck him, marry him, and be damned to you both,” Arthur said. “But don’t look to me for congratulations when you do.”
With that, he turned on his heel and all but flew out of the library, letting the door bang against the wall behind him as he flung it open and strode through. He meant to go to his bedchamber, but at the last moment he veered off and entered his study. He had a decanter there as well, and perhaps Trewebury’s resident goddess would see fit to bless him with oblivion.
Chapter Four
The morning after the Drakes’ visit, Owen’s smallest actions took on a tinge of the sublime. The sun rose in a glory of pink and coral, shining beneficently just for him. He didn’t simply get out of bed and dress; he floated, his clothing seeming to settle around him like gossamer. Breakfast, with its homely porridge and bacon, was a little too prosaic to satisfy him, but it must be eaten all the same or his moth
er would kick up a fuss. He escaped out to the orchard as soon as she appeared satisfied with his appetite, and he breathed a great sigh of relief as soon as he was quite alone. He sank down into the sweet green grass beneath a spreading old apple tree in order to relive the romance of the day before, a project made easy by the soft, balmy air and the scent of apple blossoms and daffodils.
Tom! The name had never seemed a romantic one, being too short and too common, but now the thought of it brought a blush to Owen’s face and a smile, probably a rather stupid one, to his lips. He couldn’t bring himself to care. No one could see him anyway, and besides! Tom was perfect. Anyone could be expected to smile like a fool after the way Tom had behaved the day before.
His long, intense gazes, the way he’d kept Owen’s arm in his even when it might have been more practical for them to separate to walk past some obstacle or other, and the meaningful tones with which he’d imbued every word he said, all had combined to leave Owen in a state of overwhelmed, delighted confusion. No one could speak so if he didn’t feel something. Owen was sure of it. There had been no direct statements, and Owen would hardly have expected them so soon after meeting. But there had been more than enough to build a towering castle in the air, one in which Tom and Owen, madly in love, lived happily ever after.
As if his dreams had conjured their own reality, a tall figure in a stylish narrow-brimmed hat appeared just then at the end of the orchard, where a gap in the fence allowed sheep, and in this case handsome gentlemen, to sneak in without passing the house.
Owen’s cheeks heated to the point of pain, and his heartbeat tripled, vibrating all the way down to his fingertips. It wasn’t so much that Tom had come to see him again, as that Owen felt sure he couldn’t hide what he’d been thinking of. Sitting here, in the orchard, just where Tom had pressed his hand and told him how very, very glad he was that Arthur had chosen Trewebury for their country home? It was more than transparent. It was, in fact, a trifle desperate.
The Replacement Husband Page 2
