by Maya Rodale
John felt the old urge to be deferential, to begin and end every sentence with “my lord.” It was how he’d been brought up. How he’d been trained, like a dog. But something had changed in this past year, when he’d acted as if he’d been the viscount. John couldn’t shake the proud and assured posture or the confidence he’d gained from every instance when he’d been welcomed, and every round of cards that he’d won.
John elected to say nothing. Instead, he kept his expression inscrutable—though he couldn’t resist a glance at the clock. A quarter past the hour. Prudence would be waiting, and he had promised.
Then the real Castleton spoke, and John shifted his attention back to him.
“You can just imagine my surprise when I return from abroad, only to have learned that someone has been traveling round the countryside, impersonating me.”
Dudley. His name, a curse.
“I also learned that I, or you, rather, have been fleecing my fellow peers of their fortunes.”
At that, John scoffed.
“I did not cheat,” John said in such a manner to suggest that it was beneath him as a gentleman, a man of honor, and a man of intellect. “I was invited to play, I did so with skill, and I fairly won. I’d almost go so far as to congratulate you on your newfound reputation for cards.”
“So you admit to impersonating me, the rightful Castleton?”
“I said I would almost,” John remarked. He held Lord Castleton’s gaze as if he’d been his equal. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“I’ve also heard that you’ve been assaulting women and brawling, leaving one man bruised, bloodied, and with a broken nose.” John’s eyes narrowed and chest tightened. He wanted to deny the charge of assaulting a woman, but he could not admit aloud to impersonating his lordship. “I’ve been told that he was then ruthlessly shoved out of the inn on a cold, rainy night. What a lack of Christian charity,” the viscount continued.
Definitely Dudley. Dim-witted Dudley must have seen that notice in the paper and figured it out. Then he must have called upon Castleton the minute he’d set foot on English soil. John had to hand it to the scoundrel as far as revenge went.
“Most nights in England are cold and rainy. It’s hardly remarkable. I trust you haven’t forgotten that whilst you were away.”
“Do you deny these charges?”
John simply looked at the viscount, conveying with his glance alone that it was beneath him to be questioned like this. The real Lord Castleton smiled.
“Your impression is excellent. Your manner of speaking, the way you carry yourself, the way you look. I’m not surprised you were able to pull off the fraud.”
The word fraud hung in the air like a hangman’s noose swaying in the breeze. John could be brought up on charges of fraud. Castleton seemed to be interested in questioning him first, like a cat toying with a mouse. John wouldn’t be surprised if he was in Newgate before midnight.
He wouldn’t give a damn if it hadn’t been for Prudence.
John glanced at the clock again, the minutes ticking by. Would she be waiting anxiously in the drawing room? Would she retire for the evening, sad and disappointed?
Or would she go to the ball alone? His breath caught. Dudley would be there. She would be there. He might not be there. And if she went unaccompanied, would she be announced as Miss Payton—or Lady Castleton? The exposure and subsequent embarrassment would be devastating to her.
He had to stop her.
He had to explain.
He could not explain.
Castleton leaned back in his chair, comfortable and content to let this interview carry on for as long as required to obtain the answers he sought. John’s throat tightened “I’ve heard you also have a Lady Castleton of your own,” the viscount said. This made John impatient, angry. He couldn’t say anything without compromising Prudence. God, what if she had gone to the ball and introduced herself as Lady Castleton? She’d be a laughingstock. A sweat broke out on his brow. He had to get to her.
“Ah, speaking of Lady Castleton . . .” John’s head jerked in the direction of the woman who had entered, for he had become accustomed to thinking of Prudence thusly and half expected it to be her.
But it was a dark-haired woman with alabaster skin, and she looked curiously from one man to the other.
“I’ll just be a moment, dear,” Castleton said. As if sensing the tension in the room, she murmured her apologies and stepped out, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Then the viscount turned his attentions back to John, who wrenched his attentions away from the clock.
“You do look familiar,” Castleton remarked.
“I could say the same,” John replied, slightly testy.
Indeed, the resemblance was uncanny. Both possessed the same dark hair, the same bone structure, the same build. Their eyes were different, but otherwise they could pass as brothers. Hanging over the mantel, the portrait of the late viscount did nothing to dispel the possibility that the three were related.
“Brandy?” Castleton offered as he poured himself a glass from the crystal decanter on his desk.
“Is it poisoned?” John questioned.
The viscount cracked a smile and said, “No.”
“Then yes, thank you.” John didn’t want the drink, but something happened when two men drank together—it bonded them. At this point, John’s reign as Castleton was well and truly over. His only hope lay in ensuring the man didn’t press charges. He thought of the engine, the money in the bank he’d saved, his mother and sister, and he thought of Prudence. There was a rich future awaiting him, though he could lose it all in an instant.
Could it be taken from him? John hadn’t made much study of the law when running from it.
Castleton took a sip of his brandy and said, “Care to tell me why you did it?”
“Well, you weren’t using it,” John quipped.
“Waste not, want not, right?”
“My thoughts exactly,” John murmured. Castleton paused, regarding John thoughtfully.
“Why do we look so bloody alike that you got away with this for months? Everyone knows everyone. I went to school with half of the fellows that you gambled with. Our families have known each other for generations.”
“My mother spent some time at Castlemore,” John said gravely, allowing Castleton to put two and two together. It was a gamble, telling him this. Whilst it might play on a familiar connection, it also exposed his father as the sort of lord who cheated on his lady wife for a romp with the housemaids. And above all, John had no proof. His mother hadn’t told him who his father was. He just knew that looking at Lord Castleton was like looking in a mirror. Especially tonight, when John was dressed in a gentleman’s evening clothes.
Castleton narrowed his eyes and said, “I think I remember you.” John didn’t have time for a jaunt down memory lane, especially when no good could come of it. He had to get out of here. Prudence and that ball awaited. “Are we brothers?”
“I don’t know,” John said honestly. “It’s possible.”
“And you’ve spent the years since masquerading as me.”
John wasn’t about to tell him how desperate he’d been the first night this charade had begun. The world didn’t give him a bloody chance, so he’d taken one. He didn’t think this born-and-bred aristocrat would understand or sympathize. Instead, he said flippantly, “It passed the time.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I suppose that depends on you,” John said evenly. Tightly. Impatiently. He glanced at the clock again. Prudence would think he’d abandoned her. She would think that heroes never came through. That fragile happiness she’d fought so hard for would be lost.
He was nobody’s hero. He was a fraud.
The only thing that mattered was his word, his promise, to Prudence.
“I’ll be honest, I have no wish to deal with this,” Castleton said, sighing mightily. “I’ve just traveled halfway around the world and made all sort
s of promises about England to my lady wife. And now her entry into society will be compromised because of these rumors. She was nervous enough already.”
“My sincere apologies to your wife,” John said. He meant it; Prudence had let him know how tricky and dangerous society could be. Given the way Castleton nodded, he knew the man understood.
“You keep looking at the clock,” Castleton remarked. “Is there somewhere you must be? Or are you calculating how much time you have before the authorities arrive?”
“There is a woman,” John said, and his voice betrayed too much emotion. “A lovely, vulnerable woman who is depending on me.”
“Ah, romance,” Castleton remarked dryly. If he was about to display a soft heart or a capacity for cruelty, John knew not. When he heard the arrival of Bow Street Runners, John didn’t wait any longer. Taking advantage of Lord Castleton’s momentary distraction, John made a run for it.
He’d been on the run for a while now. . . .
Chapter 22
Six months earlier
Nottingham
THE FIRST TIME John styled himself as Lord Castleton, it was born of the desperation that can only come of a black, wet, and cold February night.
The freezing rain was relentless; it soaked straight through his clothes, leaving his skin damp and chilling him to his bones. Nevertheless he stood outside that village inn, letting the weather do its worst, as he looked through the windows at everyone gathered around a roaring fire.
Nearly every room at the inn—from the parlor to the dormer windows on the top floor—was lit with the warm glow of candles. He imagined steaming hot baths, dry beds with warm blankets, and wealthy lords and ladies blissfully unaware that anyone would be out of doors in weather such as this.
John would give anything for a hot bath that might thaw him out and bring him back to life. He’d give anything for a warm, hearty meal. Maybe even a pint, if God really wanted to show him some favor. For the past few days he had subsisted on old bread, tepid water, and whatever he’d hunted or foraged along the way from Blackhaven Manor to this village. He’d gotten by on odd jobs for the past few months, but lately the work had dried up.
He’d give anything for a bed, too, where he might stretch out his weary legs and allow his body to relax. Hell, he’d even take the floor, as long as there was a roof over it. After all, he was used to that.
John patted his pockets, not knowing why he even bothered. They were as empty as they were yesterday, and the day before that, and all the days previous.
His wanting for warmth and food was so great that, despite logic, reason, and past experience, he felt along the lining of his coat, lest a stray coin or two had slipped through a hole in his pocket. No such luck.
Runaway footmen didn’t tend to travel with much blunt.
Penniless runaway footmen with the law on their tail couldn’t avail themselves of the comforts of a village inn either. If he could just get to London, or Manchester, or even America, his humble beginnings wouldn’t matter and he’d have a chance to make something of himself.
But first he had to endure this night, and this cold, driving rain, and the dim awareness of being frozen from the inside out. Even his bones felt cold, and he’d swear he could feel ice in his veins.
John stood there, hands shoved in his pockets, muttering a string of words so foul they’d make a sailor blush. He bloody well swore at God for his damned bad luck.
God damn that bastard Burbrooke for assaulting his innocent sister. That pompous prick didn’t deserve to breathe the same air, let alone touch her. Claim her, as if he owned her. John choked on a gulp of icy air.
But he did own her, didn’t he? All the servants were reliant upon him and his father for wages and letters of reference should they attempt to leave and find work elsewhere. Lord Burbrooke was a stingy bastard, with both wages and favorable letters of reference.
It was a certain kind of purgatory in that house, a far cry from Castlemore Court, where life had been fine, FINE, until John had started to look a little too similar to the young lord and master. It was an uncomfortable thing for the family to look at the face of the viscount’s bastard son over the breakfast table, where he served them. Lady Castleton had taken issue. So had the young lord. John—and his mother and sister—were asked to leave.
They found stations at Blackhaven Manor with Lord Burbrooke and his family. It was not a happy household, to say the least. From the lord and master, to the butler, to the scullery maid, everyone was miserable and mean.
When Lord Burbrooke learned what had happened—and that his heir had been beaten to within an inch of his life—he called in the magistrate, leaving John no choice but to depart immediately, without references, or wages, or a place to go. John should have been glad he was out, but knowing his mother and sister remained without him to defend them tempered any exhilaration he might feel at his freedom.
His mum and sister would have to stay on at Blackhaven Manor as housemaids, marked for trouble because of what John had done. Unless there was a way he could get them out. He had to get them out. Somehow, someway, he’d figure out how to earn enough money that they could be safe and live together as a family again.
Or were they too lowborn to deserve even that?
But it burned, God, it burned to know they were there without protection. The world had few opportunities to offer a footman too smart for his own good, and too easy with his fists.
The burning, at least, kept him warm. Made his hands bunch into fists, which kept his fingers from freezing completely. But he was still cold, and still angry.
Bloody way of the world where some men were born lucky and some weren’t and that was that. John was smarter than most of the idiotic peers he’d had to serve, thanks to books carefully pilfered from the library, read by stolen candlelight, and returned. He took knowledge however he could get it—eavesdropping on conversations about influential people, current events, or foreign countries, because all the lords and ladies thought that his livery made him deaf and dumb. He read old newspapers before they were used to line trunks or start fires.
But who had all the money? Who had the power?
Who was the one standing in the rain, penniless and dreaming of a fucking meat pie as the greatest luxury in all of God’s creation?
Just because his lowborn mother worked and was unwed when she gave birth to him. He probably had the blood of the viscount in his veins—but it hardly counted.
So life wasn’t fair. Grossly, massively unfair.
The question was: what was he going to do about it?
Skulk about in the rain until morning? Fueling his anger until it consumed him alive? The sensible thing to do would be to find a stable where he could bunk for the night in a vermin-ridden pile of straw and make his escape at first light.
The prospect did not enthrall.
Because what would he do tomorrow night, or the night after? This was England. There were many cold, wet nights in his future. It wasn’t that he needed a feather mattress. He was an intelligent man, not an animal, and a life of illicitly nesting in straw bales wasn’t something he was about to settle for.
The world might have little to offer him, but that didn’t mean he would be content with the scraps. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to seize more.
His eyes narrowed as he kept watching the window. A quartet of wealthy peers sat down at a table before the fire. Even from where he stood, John could see their faces, red and round from a life of excess. The innkeeper hovered, serving them brandy. The gents smoked, drank, and played cards without a care in the world.
As a footman, John had seen and served many peers; dukes, marquises, earls, were all frequent guests of both Lord Burbrooke and Lord Castleton. Upstairs, the fancy folks dined on the finest food, drank the finest wines and spirits, and had the most inane conversations. Downstairs, John had the rest of the staff in peals of laughter as he mimicked their manner of speech and the ridiculous things they said, all in the clipped, co
mmanding tones of an upper-class British accent.
John was willing to bet there was no room at the inn for the likes of him, but there was always space for the aristocracy.
No one knew him. He was a nobody. Nothing.
But what if he wasn’t?
Really—what if he wasn’t a nobody?
The anger turned to something else. A spark of possibility. What if he were a lord and peer of the realm? Or more importantly: what if everyone believed him to be?
In the cold, and the dark, and the wet, John Roark laughed.
Threw back his head and laughed. His hands out of his pockets, by his sides. This was the moment his luck was going to change—or he would land in jail. Either way, he’d have a roof over his head.
When he was done laughing, John squared his shoulders and walked across the road with determined strides. With every step he shed the trappings of his old self: the righteous fury of someone held down, the deferential attitude drilled into him since he was literally born into service, the knowledge that he didn’t have a farthing to his name and that it was a name that carried no weight and mattered to nobody.
To hell with his old self.
His boots thudded heavily on the wooden steps because he walked with a purpose, with determination, with the resolution that his every step was more important than anyone else’s.
The door crashed open, thudding into the wall, because a display of force often went a long way. John stepped across the threshold.
Warmth. Light. The mouthwatering aromas of food, the convivial atmosphere of warm people with full bellies, pints of ale, an assured place to sleep.
Instead of feeling wanting, John felt expectation.
He would have these things. He would have them tonight.
Everyone in the main room turned to look at the unfortunate sot who had been out on a night like this. Everyone included the innkeeper, a barmaid, an assortment of tradesmen and merchants, and a pack of dissolute peers seated at a table before the fire, card game in progress.
