Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1) (23 page)

He was an idiot.

Anthony still hadn’t looked at them. The boy’s attention was entirely focused on Lady Maidenstone. He had gone to her straightaway after dinner. If this night played out like all the others, he would stay there until she retired.

Thorington’s gaze passed over the other men like a dark angel, judging them all in an instant. Callista had been seated between Sir Percival and Lord Webster at dinner — two of the least eligible men at the party, which must have been Lucretia’s doing. But the other men weren’t prizes either.

He’d grant they were all decent enough. None of them would ever beat a woman, or seek to embarrass her. They were all discreet and civil — solid citizens of the empire, with no scandals or secrets attached to their houses. Or they were boys, exuberant but trainable.

They were, in short, safe.

Safe unless they married Callista. She would probably shoot the unlucky winner of her hand within a fortnight of marriage, just to keep the boredom at bay.

Thorington grinned at the thought.

Then he remembered that he was an idiot.

It didn’t matter that she’d shown no sign of moving her hand from his arm. It didn’t matter that their kiss the previous night had so haunted his dreams — enough that he might have tried his hand at poetry over it, if his black heart could create sonnets instead of schemes.

He couldn’t have her.

But he wasn’t going to let her go until he was sure she was safe — from others and from her own activities.

The man who had created this debacle strode up to them. “Thorington,” Ferguson said coolly. “A moment of your time, if you can free Miss Briarley from your clutches.”

Ferguson’s jaw was tense. Thorington thought of loosening it with his fist. Instead, he smiled — the smile that had too many teeth and too much of an edge to be viewed with anything other than alarm. “I am occupied. We can exchange niceties in the morning.”

Ferguson was not alarmed. “The morning doesn’t suit,” he said. “Accompany me into the hall for a spell.”

Thorington knew every tactic in Ferguson’s arsenal. The pause, the assessing stare, the direct order — all were perfectly timed to spike Thorington’s rage.

Thorington smiled instead. “Of course. I’m not mad enough to cause a scene.”

The rumors of Ferguson’s insanity, which had swirled around him in the first months after he’d returned to London to claim the dukedom the previous year, had all but subsided. But the flash of annoyance in his blue eyes was enough to tell Thorington he’d scored a hit.

Callista didn’t let go of his arm. If he were a weaker man, he might have let himself believe that she wanted him, rather than guessing that she’d taken offense at Ferguson’s proprietary treatment. “I’m mad enough to cause a scene,” she said. “What’s the meaning of interrupting us, cousin?”

Her voice was dry as she made reference to their relationship. Ferguson smiled. “Your grandfather would have liked your spirit. But don’t trouble yourself — I mean to protect you.”

Callista’s fingers curled over Thorington’s arm, as though she involuntarily made a fist. If Thorington were slightly more evil, he would have let Callista do the damage he was sure she itched to do. She could probably break Ferguson’s nose if she were so inclined.

But they were drawing the attention of those around them. The three of them together were a powder keg. For once in his life, Thorington chose to defuse it rather than ignite it.

“Let us go to the hall, where we can converse more comfortably,” he said. “Miss Briarley can come with us, if she wishes.”

They walked into the hall as though they were all close friends, though none of them were happy with it. Ferguson seemed to know, for once, that he’d overstepped in ordering Callista to stay in the drawing room.

Ferguson stopped them in the hallway, near the grand staircase that led to the ground floor. “We’ll be comfortable enough here,” he said. “I’m sorry there is no chair for you, Miss Briarley, but this will only take a moment.”

“I would offer you whisky in the library, but it’s not my house yet,” Callista said.

Ferguson’s smile this time was real, not the goading grin he’d given her earlier. “I’m charmed, Miss Briarley. But allow me to warn your would-be suitor that he is not doing you any favors in your quest to win Maidenstone.”

Her fingers were still on his arm, but Thorington felt them twitch — as though she debated whether to cut him loose immediately, or whether to annoy her cousin by holding onto him. “Thorington is not my suitor,” she said. “But I’ve found him very helpful in my quest.”

Thorington didn’t like the statement, but he didn’t dispute it.

Ferguson, however, arched a brow. “You have him wrapped around your finger, cousin. I can’t walk more than fifty feet, it seems, without finding him trailing after you like a sheepdog.”

“I prefer guard dog,” Thorington said, cool as ever. “She would have been ruined by someone far more unsuitable than me were it not for my protection.”

If this was a duel, it was the oddest duel that had been fought at Maidenstone Abbey. In this battle the weapons were words, leaving bruises beneath the skin. “I’m sure I am capable of protecting my family,” Ferguson said, adjusting the cuffs of his shirtsleeves beneath his jacket. “And there is no one more unsuitable here than you. If you recall, I made the guest list — and you, friend, were not on it.”

Thorington bowed. “An omission I’m sure you meant to correct.”

Callista finally dropped her hand from his arm. “Don’t tell me you had the audacity to come here uninvited?”

“I received an invitation. It just wasn’t from Ferguson.”

“Indeed,” Ferguson said. “I only invited those who were unlikely to harm my cousins.”

“Thorington hasn’t harmed me,” Callista said. “If you must know, we are negotiating for an alliance, but not between each other.”

Ferguson considered this, then shook his head. “If you mean Lord Anthony, you should reconsider. The boy is too wet behind the ears, and too enamored with pretty young widows besides. Although I understand Thorington might want him to find an heiress to refresh his coffers.”

Thorington shrugged off the implication. “It’s not for my coffers. But I won’t deny I’d like to see my brother settled, and settled well.”

“I’ve heard the rumors about your finances,” Ferguson said. His voice was silky now — a diplomat planting doubts, not a warrior going directly for the body blow. “I’ll grant my sources are more effective than most, but by September I’d wager everyone in England will have heard them.”

“You know better than to think a handful of losses at hazard would have any effect on me,” Thorington drawled. “I am possibly the richest man in England.”

“Possibly,” Ferguson agreed. “But not probably. Not anymore. It’s little wonder you’ve tried to win my cousin over to your family.”

Callista had listened to all of this without saying a word. Thorington stole a glance at her. She seemed contemplative. Her dark eyes watched him, not Ferguson — as though she could judge Thorington on his own merits, rather than rumors.

He met her gaze and held it. Though pools of light from the wall sconces interrupted the shadows, it was hard to see exactly what she was thinking.

He desperately wished to know what she was thinking.

And that’s when he knew he was really, truly a blithering idiot. When had he ever cared what someone else thought?

“Is this true?” she asked.

“That I’m possibly the richest man in England?”

She laughed. “I’m possibly the Queen of Spain. Your phrasing is not lost on me, sirrah.”

The tension in the pit of his stomach unwound itself just a little. “Careful, my dear,” he said. “I still owe you a rap across the knuckles for that.”

She offered him her hand. “Do your worst. I assure you it won’t be the first time I’ve had my knuckles rapped for speaking out of turn.”

It was still too bloody dark to see exactly what was playing out in her eyes. But her voice, all laughter and warmth, brought sunshine to the dim hallway.

He thought of taking her hand. Of pulling her into his arms so he could see her better. Or, if he couldn’t see her, he’d pull her closer, then closer still, until he could feel her — feel whether she was really more interested in him than his fortune.

More interested in him than in winning Maidenstone.

Idiot
.

He was still aware of their audience. And he was aware that he couldn’t do the things he dreamed of with her. So he brushed a kiss against her knuckles instead.

Ferguson cleared his throat.

Thorington turned to him. “Is there anything else you wish to discuss? Or shall we return to the illustrious guests you’ve assembled here for our pleasure?”

Ferguson had his quizzing glass out again. Not that the man could see any better with it in the dark than he could with his own eyes. But Thorington knew his affectations — Thorington, after all, was a master at similar misdirection. Either Ferguson wanted to throw them off balance with his regard — or he was so thrown off balance himself that he needed to buy a moment to regroup.

Finally, Ferguson dropped the glass. “There is no accounting for taste,” he said sadly. “A shame, really. Miss Briarley, I wish you much happiness in your poverty.”

The air changed — and it wasn’t just the sudden gust of wind up the stairs, as though the door in the entryway below had been opened to the storm. Callista turned to Ferguson. “And what, precisely, do you mean by that?”

“I cannot abide the possibility of being linked to Thorington by marriage,” Ferguson said. “The man is too meddlesome for my tastes.”

“Coming from you, that seems rather rich,” Callista said. “As though this house party wasn’t an attempt to meddle in all our lives.”

Downstairs, the front door slammed shut, though not even that could interrupt Ferguson’s posturing. “I prefer to say I’m helping,” Ferguson said loftily. “But you won’t find favor with me if you marry him. And trust me when I say that his finances are too tenuous for you to place faith in his ability to care for you.”

Thorington saw red then. Usually, when his rage came, it was black and cold, something that could be channeled into a cutting retort rather than a left hook to the nose. Never a burning red.

But he was very tempted to punch Ferguson in the face.

Instead, he yawned. “This conversation grows tedious. You sound like a matchmaking mama, Ferguson. Never thought I’d see the day.”

He would have liked to see the look on Ferguson’s face — the man had gone from rake to reputable citizen in less than a year, and few men handled reminders of their settled status well. But a movement at the top of the stairs distracted him.

A woman climbed the last steps. Two footmen scurried behind her, one with a lamp and the other with three portmanteaux and a hatbox gripped precariously in his hands. She was backlit, and the torch added a burnished glow to her wet brown hair — and an improper level of transparency to her damp evening dress.

“Where is Lucretia?” she demanded when she reached them.

They all stared at her.

“Well?” she prompted, impatient.

Her voice was a rich, cultured drawl, the type Thorington had heard in the most exclusive reaches of Mayfair. And it was nothing like Callista’s. But while the accent was high-flying, the tone — as though she wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone — gave her away.

“Miss Octavia Briarley?” Thorington guessed.

She ignored him. “Tell me where my cousin is so I may have her head on a platter.”

Ferguson stepped in front of her. “Welcome to Maidenstone Abbey, Miss Briarley.”

She looked him up and down. “I believe I know where I am. May I borrow a sword?”

Ferguson laughed. “Charming. Lucretia is in the drawing room. Allow me to escort you — I would not want to miss this.”

Octavia swept past Ferguson without taking the arm he offered. Her march, as she sauntered away, seemed made to conquer armies.

Thorington and Ferguson watched her for too long. Callista punched Thorington in the arm. “Take me back to the drawing room at once,” she said.

He offered her his arm again, but his head was reeling.

Ferguson wouldn’t give Maidenstone to Callista if she married Thorington. And this last conversation made it clear he wouldn’t give it to Anthony, either — not that Anthony would follow through on Thorington’s orders anyway. And Octavia’s arrival only made it worse. She would have Ferguson completely won over within the day.

It suddenly seemed inevitable that Octavia would steal Maidenstone out from under them. Anthony could still find another heiress, if they hurried to do it before Thorington’s financial ruin became well known. But Callista would be left with nothing. He couldn’t let that happen to her, plans be damned.

If he was unsure before, the evidence before him now confirmed it — he was undoubtedly a blithering idiot.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She was going to lose Maidenstone.

Callie scowled as she made her way through the main receiving areas to the Tudor wing beyond. Octavia had arrived barely two hours earlier, and the last Briarley cousin had already put the party completely under her spell.

Octavia likely would have won days earlier if she had arrived on time. Callie still didn’t know why Octavia wanted Lucretia’s head on a platter — they hadn’t had the loudly public confrontation that Octavia had seemed to want when she had arrived. But Callie could guess. The blood had drained from Lucretia’s face when she’d looked up to see Octavia in the room. Octavia had, in a carrying voice, apologized for not arriving earlier — it seemed that her invitation had been lost.

And then she hadn’t done anything obvious to punish Lucretia. Instead, she had taken over the party, overwhelming it with perfect brazenness — and giving the guests the first new development to talk about in a week, which would make them all love her even more. Sure, several of the women cut her. And sure, several of the men looked too stunned by her to seem likely to offer for her.

But Octavia, for all her sins, knew how to command a room. Callie, for the first time, wished she’d learned those skills herself.