Wicked Little Game

by Christine Wells

  After half an hour of pummeling, Finch admitted defeat. “It’s not the body we ’ave to work on, sir.” He tapped his head. “It’s up ’ere.” He glanced at Vane shrewdly. Those little black eyes never missed a thing. “Take a few days to rest. Sort out whatever your problem is. Then come back and we’ll begin again.”

  Vane scowled as he sat up and put on his shirt. “There’s no problem. Can we just get on with the next stage—”

  Finch nodded, as if Vane had confirmed rather than denied the accusation. “Aye, it’s a woman and don’t I know it. Like poison, they are. You can’t get fit again till you’ve worked ’em outer your system.”

  The little man wiped his hands on a towel as Vane bade him good afternoon. “You’d better give her a good poke afore you come back, sir, or ye’ll be no use to me at all.”

  When Vane finally arrived home that evening, he found his brothers waiting for him.

  All of them.

  Vane frowned, irritated at the intrusion. He knew why they’d come—to interfere in matters that didn’t concern them. Greg, he’d expected, but not this convocation. Given that Finch’s parting recommendation was clearly ineligible, Vane hadn’t shaken the edginess or the tension or the burgeoning need to hit someone. He eyed Nick, the biggest and most infuriating of the four siblings who lounged around his library, and thought, You’ll do.

  Nick’s blue eyes held brilliant lights that danced wickedly as he pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning on. “The king is dead,” he murmured. “Long live the king.”

  The lazy words made Vane’s hackles rise but he resisted the bait. His gaze flickered over the assemblage. “Ah. I take it you had my note.”

  “Old King Cole was a merry old soul—”

  “For God’s sake, Nick,” Vane said. He glanced around at his brothers. “Come to wish me happy, have you?”

  “It’s true, then?” Greg’s brows knitted together. “You are marrying Lady Sarah Cole? But—”

  Vane cut off his indiscreet protest. “Wish me happy, Greg,” he repeated, his voice soft with menace.

  Greg didn’t heed the note of warning. “But such haste! Couldn’t you have waited? It’s so sudden, and the connection with Brinsley Cole is one I cannot like—”

  Vane’s fists clenched, his bruised knuckles protesting the movement. Pity. He’d hoped it would be Nick. He stepped toward Greg but Nick’s hand gripped his shoulder. That firm, restraining pressure reminded Vane that he never, ever lost his temper, particularly not with his brothers.

  “Be damned to that,” Nick was saying. “Vane should do as he pleases. He’s earned the right.”

  “Yes, do curb your lamentable tendency to speak your mind, Greg,” said Christian. He crossed to the drinks tray and took out the stopper from the brandy decanter. “Cole shot himself, I hear.” He poured a glass and handed it to Vane. He was quite as tall as Vane, but leaner and more streamlined, his features more refined.

  Vane took the glass, ignoring his brother’s presumption in acting the host.

  “Rather a difficult thing to do, accidentally shooting yourself, isn’t it?” said Christian.

  Nick snorted. “I heard a rumor that someone walked right into his parlor, offed him, and got clean away. Now, that wouldn’t surprise me. I could list half a dozen people who would have done the deed and an even greater number who would have lined up to shake the murderer’s hand.”

  Greg said, “I didn’t know you ran with that crowd.”

  “I don’t. But one hears things.”

  Vane studied Nick. Not for the first time, he wondered what his brother had been up to since he’d sold out of the army. Vane usually kept a close eye on all of his family, but Nick eluded his attempts at reining him in. He remained somewhat of an enigma, despite his free and easy manner. He accepted an allowance from the estate, but yielded not the slightest control over his life in return.

  With all of Vane’s responsibilities, he should have been glad not to have to manage his brother. Yet, something about Nick these days disturbed him. A sort of cold recklessness underlying the carefree demeanor that had not been present before Waterloo. As if Nick cared nothing at all whether he lived or died and was determined to tempt Fate at every opportunity. It was unsettling when one remembered Nick’s joie de vivre as a youth.

  “So.” Vane traced the rim of his brandy balloon with his finger. “You have come, en masse, to dissuade me from this match? You expect me to withdraw my suit even though Lady Sarah has accepted me?”

  “No, damn you,” said Christian. “We’ve come en masse to see whether you’ve taken leave of your senses.”

  “I haven’t,” said Freddie, the youngest of them, raising his glass. “I came because Greg said I had to. I don’t want to be here.”

  “Shut up, Freddie.” Christian’s nostrils flared as he turned to Vane. “Are you entangled with the woman? Is this marriage your wish or has it been thrust upon you?”

  Vane regarded Christian evenly. This was no more than what everyone would say. In a controlled voice, he replied, “I have never wanted anything more in my life. Take care, brother. I’m likely to resent any more aspersions cast on my future wife.”

  Light broke over Nick’s face. He gave a short bark of a laugh. “By God, you’re in love with her!”

  Vane said nothing. The truth was that after all that had occurred, he didn’t know whether he loved Sarah, or even if he ever had.

  “She has certainly bewitched him if he’s prepared to be embroiled in that mess,” said Christian coolly.

  “If he loves her, he should marry her, shouldn’t he?” put in Freddie. “Stands to reason.”

  Nick sent him a pitying glance, tinged with easy affection. “You’ll soon learn differently, cub.”

  “Lady Sarah’s blood’s as good as anyone’s. It’s the connection with Cole I’m concerned about.”

  “Since when did you become guardian of the family honor, Christian?” Vane’s tone was filmed with ice.

  “Since you started thinking with your cock! Damn it, Vane, you’ve always been the steady one. There are dozens of innocent, lovely, eligible girls lining up for your favor and you’ve ignored ’em for years. Now, you’re suddenly getting shackled to the recent widow—the very recent widow—of a man who was probably murdered in cold blood. And in a hole-in-the-corner fashion that doesn’t do you or your bride any credit. What are we supposed to think?”

  Vane and Christian stood toe-to-toe now. Vane spoke through his teeth. “You still haven’t given me a good reason why I should give a damn what you think, Christian.”

  For a fraught moment, Christian stared into Vane’s face, searching for answers to this unexpected conundrum their dependable eldest brother had dropped in their laps. Then his shoulders relaxed a little. “We’re your brothers, Vane,” he said quietly. “Don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”

  “No.”

  “I see.” Christian’s eyes glittered, hard as diamonds in the candlelight. “I’d like to be private with Vane, you lot. Out.”

  When the other men had filed out, Christian turned to Vane. “You do know this unseemly haste creates problems for the succession.”

  A strange pain stabbed Vane’s chest. “It doesn’t.”

  “Yes, of course it does! If there’s a babe within the next nine or ten months, who’s to say it isn’t Cole’s? Good God, think of the speculation that would cause. How could any of us stand by and let a brat with Cole’s blood succeed you?”

  As Sarah had said, a child from either marriage was highly unlikely, but Vane refused to discuss the matter with his brother. If Christian knew Sarah was barren, that would make him even more opposed to the marriage.

  Vane exhaled through his nostrils, struggling to keep a rein on his temper. “Listen to me, Christian. This wedding will go ahead next Thursday, no matter what you say. Do you really wish to continue this conversation? Because more in this vein will almost certainly create a breach between us.”

  Chr
istian’s fury hardened his features, but shock flared in his eyes. Vane hadn’t meant it to come down to a choice between his family and Sarah. If he’d had time to think—but they’d ambushed him and now he’d uttered hasty words that could never be unspoken.

  “As long as we know where your loyalty lies.”

  “It must be with my wife. You know it must.” Vane ran a hand through his hair. “Of course, you’re right. There will be talk. But the alternative . . . I have wronged her and I must make it right.” He held up a hand to arrest Christian’s argument. “I know you’re thinking it was entrapment but believe me, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.” He paused, setting his jaw. “I want her, Christian. I always have.”

  “Then you do love her.”

  Vane simply bowed his head.

  There was a silence. Then Christian spoke. “In that case, there’s no more to be said. I trust you’ll accept my apologies for misreading the situation, Vane. I suppose I must wish you happy.” He paused at the door. “I just wish to God I thought you would be.”

  When the door closed behind Christian, Vane threw himself into a chair and laid his head back against the leather upholstery. He stared at the plasterwork on the ceiling and wondered if he’d misled his brother about his feelings for Sarah.

  Did he love her?

  The truth was, he didn’t know anymore. All these years, he’d never named this hopeless passion love, though if pressed he might have called it that. His desire for her was stronger than ever, that much was certain.

  But love . . . Could you love someone without knowing them at all? The Sarah he’d seen in the past week was not the same woman he’d worshipped all those years. He’d thought there was some softness in her, joy and passion and kindness. He thought he’d glimpsed it again when she came to him that night.

  Had he fooled himself? Sarah’s subsequent demand for payment, and later, her accusations of coercion and lies had tainted his memory until he couldn’t be sure whether his perceptions of that night had been the product of wishful thinking rather than reality. Her insistence that their marriage be chaste seemed unnecessarily, almost deliberately cruel. He hadn’t seen that side of her before. He didn’t like it.

  He wouldn’t tolerate it when they were wed.

  Twelve

  VANE stood at the rapidly filling grave of his rival and wished they could bury all of the trouble the bastard had caused with him. But there was the matter of that ten thousand pounds, the needless guilt that stood like a bulwark between him and Sarah, and doubtless, there were others whose lives Cole had ruined in his relentless quest for easy money.

  One of those people had been desperate enough to kill.

  Vane didn’t know yet whether that ought to concern him, whether Sarah might also be in danger from this unknown assassin. It seemed unlikely, but one could never be too careful. If she was in danger, the sooner she entered his protection the better.

  Not many had attended the funeral. The graveside service had been perfunctory; the eulogy mercifully short. He suspected Peter Cole had written the latter. There was a true civil servant’s knack of discreet gaps and smoothing over the ugliness that pervaded his deceased brother’s existence.

  Rot in hell, Vane said silently to the spirit of Brinsley Cole, and turned away.

  As he did, he realized he was the last of the mourners left standing there, looking for all the world as if he was inconsolable at the scoundrel’s passing. Vane’s lips twisted. The universe had a sharp sense of irony sometimes.

  As he walked toward the yard where his carriage waited, he passed by a high, dense yew hedge and heard voices raised a little as if in argument. As he came out the other side, he glimpsed a gentleman and a slatternly looking woman, whose cheap bonnet imperfectly concealed a mass of dirty blond hair.

  A moment passed before he realized he knew the man. It was Peter Cole.

  The woman laughed. A low, hoarse laugh that held no mirth at all. Vane left before either of them sensed his presence and headed for his carriage.

  SARAH didn’t attend the funeral. The ladies of her family never went to funerals other than occasions of state. In this instance, she was content to follow the convention.

  She didn’t relish all the curious looks and pointed questions, although she’d be certain to receive her fair share of those in the course of the lavish wake her mother had arranged. Sarah knew what her mother intended by this: to announce to all that Sarah was free and thereby prepare the way for her remarriage.

  Truly, the gathering seemed more in the nature of a celebration than a measure of respect for the departed. The countess had sent out black-edged cards to her acquaintances, announcing her son-in-law’s demise. A steady procession of carriages brought the sympathetic and the curious to feast on a lavish spread of delicacies, to gossip, and almost as an afterthought, to pay their respects. Sarah steeled herself to meet them all with her usual cool calm.

  Underneath, her pulse fluttered wildly and a feverish horror burned low in her stomach, though her cheeks remained pale as befitted a recently bereaved widow. Her hands, encased in black gloves, were as cold as ice.

  The Home Office had done a sterling job of concealing the manner of Brinsley’s death. He had shot himself by accident while cleaning a pistol. It seemed such an improbable story that she expected the truth to be exposed at any moment. The image of Mrs. Higgins pointing an accusing finger rose before her.

  She might not be guilty of the crime of murder but she was guilty, nonetheless.

  Guilty as sin.

  Vane was present at the wake, half a head taller than the crowd, but he wisely kept his distance from her rather than occasion any talk. Still, she could not be easy, and hoped no one noticed how often her eyes sought him in the teeming salon, how often their gazes met while silent strength passed from him to her.

  She ought not to lean on him this way. Yet she couldn’t stop. She was not herself today.

  Her heart squeezed as Brinsley’s sister greeted her with a sad, sympathetic smile. “Poor Brinsley,” she whispered. “Though I know what he was, I shall mourn him.”

  Sarah looked at her sister-in-law curiously. Did she really know Brinsley’s true character? It seemed unlikely that this soft, innocent woman would be acquainted with the depths to which her brother had sunk.

  Sarah murmured, “I, too, find it difficult to believe he is gone.”

  Jenny opened her reticule and took out a gold chain with something attached. “I brought you this.” She turned and stood shoulder to shoulder with Sarah, holding the object in her palm for her to see.

  It was an oval locket with a miniature of Brinsley painted on its surface. The likeness had obviously been taken before she and Brinsley met. He appeared as a young man of eighteen or nineteen, and his expression . . . The look in his eyes was innocent. Not that false mask of virtue he sometimes wore to wriggle out of trouble in later years, but true, shining purity. It was an artist’s trick, no doubt, to imbue such angelic features with a soulful air. Sarah stared at it for some time, conscious of a sweeping feeling of anger and regret for the man he might have been.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “There is a lock of his hair inside,” said Jenny, moving to show her.

  Sarah closed her hand over the locket, gently obstructing her sister-in-law’s access. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t bear to see that small part of him still fresh and new as the day it was snipped from his head. Not now.

  “Thank you,” she said again. “Are you certain you won’t keep it yourself?”

  “Oh, no,” said Jenny. “No, that wouldn’t be right. I’m sure he’d want me to give it to you.” She hesitated, darting a glance to where her brother stood conversing with Sarah’s mother a short distance away. “There are other items, some valuable ones, that my mother wished our brother to have. Peter forbade me to give them to Brinsley. He didn’t think Brinsley would value them as he ought—”

  “I daresay what Peter meant was that
Brinsley would pawn them and gamble away the proceeds,” agreed Sarah coolly.

  Jenny blushed, which told Sarah she’d hit on the truth. Her first impulse was to refuse the items, but then the thought of Tom flashed in her mind. She wouldn’t accept them for herself, but for Tom’s sake she couldn’t refuse. She hadn’t reconciled herself to using Vane’s money to keep Brinsley’s love child. Generous though Vane might be, he would understandably draw the line at that and it would be heinous of her to go behind his back.

  “Thank you. As long as you’re positive—”

  Jenny gave her arm a reassuring rub. “Of course I am. I tell you, these bits and pieces were Brinsley’s, and he should have had them when Mama died. If you call on me tomorrow, I will give them to you. And we can talk a little.”

  “I should like that.” Sarah bent her head, battling shame. What would Jenny say when she discovered Sarah was to marry Vane? She sighed. That news could certainly wait until tomorrow.

  Impulsively, Jenny kissed Sarah’s cheek. “I wish . . . I wish we had known each other better all these years.”

  “Yes.” It did seem a pity. She would have welcomed a friend in those dark times. Sarah tried to smile.

  Jenny moved away, only to have her place filled by another and another, until Sarah’s head spun with inane, meaningless words of condolence. She could count on one hand the people who truly mourned Brinsley’s loss. Most often, there was a look of heartfelt congratulation beneath the plati tudes. Mortifying to learn that so many guessed what trials her married life had brought.

  Rockfort was one whose distress at Brinsley’s passing seemed genuine. Her husband’s former boon companion took her hand in both of his. “Please accept my condolences, Lady Sarah. It is a sad day, indeed.”

  With a cold glare, Sarah twisted her hand a little and tugged it free. How could he have the effrontery to address her, after he’d tried to blackmail her father? It was down to Rockfort’s lack of morals and insatiable greed that she must marry Vane with such embarrassing haste.