Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2)

by Sara Ramsey

  “Promise you’ll transport me to the Caribbean, then. Australia is too far away for my delicate constitution.”

  He appeared to give this serious consideration. She had to stop herself from giggling — she wasn’t fresh from the schoolroom, and she knew she couldn’t seem too impressed by him.

  “No, I shan’t have you transported,” he finally said, as though giving her a reprieve. “How else am I to entertain myself while I am in Devonshire? Lucretia was on the verge of allowing Sir Percival Pickett to give a reading of his poetry when I escaped tonight.” He shuddered, as dramatic as any gesture she’d made. “Have you ever heard his poetry? It cannot be borne. I must make my bed with you, I fear.”

  It was the sort of flirtatious double entendre she’d heard in London many times. But alone, and without the advantage of champagne in her veins, Octavia squirmed.

  Octavia never squirmed.

  “No bedmaking, my lord,” she said lightly. “Not until I’ve ruined Lucy.”

  “You are determined to pursue a life of crime, aren’t you?”

  “I’m no worse than you are.”

  “No?” He arched an eyebrow. “I am an upstanding citizen.”

  “An upstanding citizen who has become a devoted accomplice to my criminal actions, and for no better reason than because you are bored. It is so like an idle second son to get caught up in such nonsense.”

  A shadow passed over his face. “I am particularly skilled at nonsense. I consider it a second son’s birthright.”

  She regretted her words immediately. Rafe didn’t seem the type to be satisfied with a life of leisure. So she tittered, the kind of laugh men usually took at face value, the one she produced without thinking. “A skill for nonsense is precisely what I need at the moment. Shall we go to the abbey?”

  He eyed her again, as though he wanted to say something else. But after a long silence, he nodded. “I’ve wanted nothing more, in my entire life, than to break into a house where I am already a guest. I should thank you again for giving me this opportunity.”

  She laughed, this time in earnest. “Do not thank me yet. Let’s see whether we can find a way into the house before we celebrate.”

  He gave her his arm. They walked through the woods together, mostly in silence. His lamp gave enough light to illuminate their path. As they walked, her anticipation grew. For the first time in four years, she felt like she might have actually found a way to pay Lucy back.

  But when they reached the hedges where the forest gave way to Maidenstone’s vast ornamental gardens, she paused. Revenge was one thing. But it felt odd standing there, preparing to break into the house she loved more than anything as though she was a common thief.

  “Is my lady ready for battle?” Rafe asked.

  He would know what going into battle felt like. She felt small and stupid for even thinking to compare what they were about to do to the horrors he must have seen on the Peninsula.

  Still, she felt dizzy. She wanted to do this — wanted to do it badly, if it meant that she could destroy Lucy’s chances.

  But the formal gardens looked the same as they’d looked when she was younger. The legion of gardeners kept every shrub trimmed and every bed ruthlessly weeded. If time slipped away, and if this were dusk on another night, she and Lucy might have been returning to the house after a long ramble through Maidenstone Wood and an early supper with Julian in his hunting lodge.

  The three of them had spent many nights together in that last year before Ava and Lucy’s debut, when the girls were allowed to attend private parties in the neighborhood and so joined Julian and his friends — with a maid to protect their reputations — for simple suppers or card games. Octavia hadn’t know, then, that it was the beginning of the end. She hadn’t known that her schoolgirl flirtation with Lord Chapman would turn, a year later, into an illicit kiss, sending Julian to his grave and Ava to her ruin.

  Five years earlier, she had been seventeen, standing at the edge of the gardens and dreaming of the perfect life that awaited her.

  She and Lucy had spent hours upon hours in the gardens during that last summer before their debuts. Lucy had turned eighteen in January and might have debuted then, but their grandfather had insisted that Lucy wait for Ava’s birthday in September before embarking on a London Season the following year. Lucy hadn’t seemed to mind. She was shy enough as it was, and claimed she wouldn’t have enjoyed the balls and soirees without Ava next to her. And Ava loved her grandfather well enough to stay, even though they could have gone to London when Ava was still seventeen.

  So they had spent one final summer in Devonshire, dreaming of the future. They had both known, or guessed, that it was the last summer they would have together. After their debuts, at least one of them would likely marry and move into her own house.

  Left unspoken was that it would likely be Ava who married first.

  But on one of those late summer evenings, walking back from Julian’s hunting lodge, Lucy’s silence had turned brooding.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Ava had said.

  Walking side by side, Lucy’s bonnet was large enough to block Ava’s view of her face. But the angle told her that Lucy’s gaze was downcast, matching the slight slump to her usually-perfect shoulders.

  “It’s nothing,” Lucy said.

  Ava had had three glasses of champagne with Julian and Lord Chapman. She had discovered champagne that summer, and the lingering effervescence added too much mirth to her laugh. “It’s not nothing, cousin. What troubles you?”

  Lucy mumbled something inaudible.

  “What did you say?” Ava asked, touching Lucy’s arm.

  Lucy shook her off. “It’s nothing,” she repeated.

  Ava grabbed her and forced her to turn, like they were small children again rather than well-bred ladies. “You’ve grown more quiet by the day this summer. Don’t pretend like you haven’t — I know you too well. Is something amiss?”

  In the twilight, Ava couldn’t say for sure, but Lucy’s dark eyes looked perilously close to tears. “I don’t want to go to London.”

  Ava laughed again. “It’s ages before we’ll go to London. January, at the very earliest, and then only if Grandfather agrees to let us go in advance to buy new wardrobes.”

  Lucy turned away. “Forget it. I said it’s nothing.”

  “I am sorry I laughed,” Ava said, hoping she sounded contrite. “I understand if you don’t want to go.”

  But she didn’t understand. She couldn’t come close to understanding, not at seventeen, with champagne and the lingering warmth of men’s laughter in her blood. Ava wanted all of that, as often as she could have it.

  She had let Lucy walk away, not knowing, at the time, that they would never discuss it again — that Ava would never learn the real reason for Lucy’s reluctance, or what that might mean for their friendship.

  Was that moment, in this same garden, the beginning of the end for them?

  Now, five years later, Ava stood again in the thin strip of grass between the forest and the flowered paths, with a new future ahead of her. She was Madame Octavia now, and she’d had more than enough of champagne and men’s laughter — albeit not in the way she’d expected, at seventeen, when she had assumed that marriage would come with it.

  What future did she want now?

  And was there any way at all that she could have it?

  Rafe cleared his throat. “Are you suddenly wishing I would go to the devil?”

  She returned, fully, to the present, and this new evening, with this new companion. She smiled up at him. “Apologies, my lord — I was wool-gathering.”

  “It happens to the best of us,” he said. “But focusing before the final charge into battle serves one better than daydreaming.”

  Octavia laughed. “Sage advice, I’m sure. In truth, it seems I should give you a favor from my person and send you off into battle like the knights of old rather than going with you. You’re far more experienced than I.”

 
“A favor from your person?” he repeated, his eyebrows arching dramatically.

  She swatted his hand. “You know that means a handkerchief. Perhaps a garter, if I were feeling particularly naughty.”

  “If there is a time for naughtiness, it would be now. You are embarking on a life of criminal activity. Giving me your garter might be exactly the right way to put yourself in the proper frame of mind.”

  His voice had turned flirtatious. She willed herself to ignore it. “A shame, then, that I borrowed a dress from my maid. Madame Octavia would die before giving you a favor made of homespun instead of silk.”

  Rafe glanced down at her. Something in his eyes said he wouldn’t mind homespun if Madame Octavia came with it.

  She shivered.

  “Shall we storm the parapets, Octavia?”

  She heard an odd note in his voice as he said her name. She shivered again.

  He turned away, almost as though he knew he’d revealed too much. In London, he excelled at seeming relaxed, debauched, and possibly slightly depraved. But now, she began to wonder. There was a different energy to him tonight as he surveyed the landscape between them and the house. There was a purpose to his gaze, one too strong for him to entirely hide it behind an easy smile and a clever quip. The arm he had offered her was steady, somehow protective even though her hand rested lightly upon it. And when he spoke, his tone was still teasing — but there was steel behind it.

  Which man was real, and which man was an act?

  “Before we storm the parapets,” she said, “I would like to know your plan.”

  He glanced at her again. “This is your adventure. You are in command.”

  She liked the sound of that. But the thought of what she might command him to do — and the barest trace of illicit desire humming in her blood — suddenly made her blush.

  If she were really a courtesan, she might have acted on that instinct. But she wasn’t — especially not here, on the edge of Maidenstone’s gardens, staring at the house that she was desperate to win back, with a man she wasn’t sure she could trust.

  Octavia took a breath. “Then it’s time to break in to Maidenstone, my lord.”

  Chapter Eight

  “This is nonsense,” Rafe murmured fifteen minutes later as Octavia slipped through the door he’d unlocked from the inside the portrait gallery.

  They had successfully gained entrance to Maidenstone Abbey. It wasn’t difficult, although they could easily be caught if their luck turned. He had strolled into the drawing room through the French doors on the elevated terrace and walked through the last remnants of the after-dinner gathering like he had been there all along.

  Lucy kept country hours, and the party was already mostly dispersed — he would need to be careful not to be locked out of the drawing room on future nights. The few remaining men lingered sullenly over their brandy as though they had already given up the fight.

  The field of suitors was too crowded for their liking. He’d heard some grumbling that evening — the suitors were not having an easy go of it. Lucretia should have done well that night — she was far prettier than any man who would marry a stranger for a chance at a house had any right to expect. But she had kept her eyes downcast and hadn’t encouraged any of them.

  That left Callista, the American cousin who had unexpectedly arrived that afternoon. She had been in the foyer of Maidenstone Abbey when Rafe and his siblings had driven over from Salcombe, in the middle of an argument with Lucretia and not caring at all that a duke and his entourage were standing behind her. Even before he saw her face, Rafe knew Callista was a lady to be reckoned with. She stood with her hands on her hips, wearing a divided riding skirt and boots, hair tumbled down her back, as though she’d just endured a forced march and was ready to tear Lucretia limb from limb.

  Thorington oddly, seemed entirely enchanted with her. He claimed it was for Anthony’s sake — that he wanted Anthony to marry her. But Thorington had spent the evening glowering at anyone who went near Callista — not that many of them did, since she looked capable of skewering them herself.

  Octavia would have trounced the other girls soundly if she had been invited.

  When Rafe unlocked the door to the portrait gallery and Octavia sauntered in with total nonchalance, he pictured how she would look if she entered the drawing room like that. The women would be unspeakably rude to her — and perhaps some of the men would, too, although they hadn’t avoided the parties she had hosted as Somerville’s mistress. But she would command the room as though she owned it — as though she had already won Maidenstone Abbey.

  Which is why he declared that this was nonsense. It was nonsense that Octavia was here, with him, alone, breaking into a house she had lived most of her life in, and attempting to ruin a party that she could have ruled over.

  It was nonsense to think that he could help her while also using her for his own ends. Nonsense to think that he could use her to learn Somerville’s secrets without feeling guilt.

  And it was nonsense to think that he could do it without wanting her. As she stood, fearless, in the doorway of the portrait gallery, he didn’t want to think of skulking through dusty attics.

  He wanted to imagine that fearlessness in his bed. And he wanted to consider whether, maybe, her fearlessness could overcome all the ways in which love could end badly.

  That, he knew, was the most nonsensical idea of all.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  He had muttered it under his breath without thinking. “This is nonsense,” he said again.

  She shook her head decisively. “This isn’t nonsense. It’s a sound plan executed against a deserving foe. The only nonsense I can think of is that we will have difficulty searching the attics without light. Perhaps we should have come during the day despite the risk of being caught.”

  The attics would be prohibitively dark at night. But if they had come during the day, someone would almost certainly have seen Octavia as she entered the house. “If you’re caught with me, you might have to marry me,” he said. “Can’t risk that, can we?”

  “Pish. If anything, your reputation will suffer more than mine if we are caught together. I’m ruined beyond repair.” Her voice was cheerful, caught up in the excitement of adventure. “But we won’t be caught. There will be no marrying each other, never fear.”

  He laughed, but he couldn’t quite explain why some small part of him was oddly disappointed by her pronouncement. It was true, though — no one would expect him to do the honorable thing and marry Somerville’s former mistress if he compromised her. A mistress couldn’t be compromised, not like an innocent.

  He reminded himself that this was a temporary arrangement. They would only be partners for as long as it took to ruin Lucretia’s party — and for as long as it took him to unearth whatever secrets he could find that would hurt Somerville. Once that was done, they would part ways.

  And Octavia would likely hate him once she realized that his aim was to destroy Somerville. So, really, it was for the best that she was so focused on her own plans. The more distance there was between them — the more this was a business arrangement, rather than anything more satisfying — the easier it would be to walk away from her at the end of it.

  He ushered her into the room and closed the door behind her. The door was almost entirely glass, one of a pair in the long gallery that opened out into the gardens, and he was careful to lock it behind them. He didn’t know how diligent the footmen would be about checking the locks, and he didn’t want to leave traces of their passage. They might need to come this way again another night. He didn’t want anyone looking for them.

  “Shall I light a candle?” Octavia asked.

  “I don’t know if there are candles here,” Rafe said, looking around for a table or other likely location for a candle and tinderbox.

  She held up her reticule. “I’d be little use as leader of this expedition if I didn’t bring supplies.”

  “How resourceful. You will be pr
omoted to field marshal in no time at all.”

  “Let’s not count our chickens, my lord. It is too soon to consider whether we’ll be mentioned favorably in the dispatches.” She knelt in front of him, sparing no mind for her borrowed skirts, and emptied her reticule on the floor. She had a tinderbox in her hand a moment later.

  “Allow me,” he said, reaching for the box.

  “Julian said I could make sparks faster than anyone,” she said, ignoring his offer as she struck the flint and showered sparks onto the tinder nestled in the box. The tinder glowed moments later, and she lit a candle before damping the tinder and closing the box. Then she looked up at him with a grin. “I don’t think he meant it as a compliment. He didn’t like it when I bested him.”

  Rafe knelt beside her, taking another candle from the pile of goods she had dumped from her reticule. He’d left his lamp at the edge of the woods, where they could retrieve it later for the walk back; they couldn’t risk using it to cross the gardens. He tipped his wick into her flame, waiting for it to catch. When their light doubled, he sat back on his heels. “Whether he meant it as a compliment or not, he was right. If you can set up a tent as efficiently as you can make a fire, you’d be well-regarded on the Peninsula.”

  Octavia shuddered, an exaggerated motion that made Rafe want to laugh. But she had already made him laugh, too much, and he needed to focus on the task at hand. He tried to remind himself of that as the candlelight caught her eyes and gave them a glow that he could have pretended, momentarily, was for him. “Madame Octavia is made for townhouses, not tents,” she declared.

  It was odd that she called herself “Madame Octavia.” What was she reminding herself of by saying that? In this domain, she was a Briarley — or should have been.

  She gave him her candle and stuffed her other belongings back into her reticule. He saw the flash of a pair of opera glasses and the gleam of something that might have been a knife, but the rest of it disappeared before he could make out what else she had brought with her. Then she took her candle back, and the sudden firming of her mouth told him that she had put aside whatever memories she might have had of her brother, or of her family, or of some other time at Maidenstone. “This is the only war I want to make at the moment, my lord. The Peninsula will have to wait for my services. Shall we proceed to the attics?”