And Then Comes Marriage (9 page)

Cas, of course, couldn’t care less, except to dally briefly and move on.

When Poll realized that sheltered Mrs. Talbot had never heard a single word of gossip or otherwise about the Worthingtons, he knew at that moment that he would never introduce her to his family and, most especially, would not introduce her to Cas.

Now he regretted that impulse. He should have told her—warned her—that his predatory brother would be circling her!

It must end. Now. If a bit of Worthington blood must be spilled to make it end, so be it.

This time it would be Cas who bled.

*   *   *

Poll strode through Worthington House, too furious to pause as usual to enjoy the marvelous mess that was his family home.

He found Cas sitting in their attic study, pouring himself a brandy and contemplating the afternoon city through the large-paned, leaky window that made their haven a challenging spot to linger come January.

Cas turned his head when he entered, and grinned. “Had a good time at Mrs. Blythe’s, did you?”

For lack of any more deadly projectiles, Poll stripped off his coat and threw it at his brother. “You
poacher
!”

Cas drew back, his expression confused. “What? Poach? I did not! Dilly was all yours!”

Poll stood over him, fists clenched. He’d never hated his twin before. His more-than-brother, his other piece—at the moment, he’d like to tear that piece away and toss it from that grimy, smeared window and watch it fall to the street below!

Cas tossed the balled-up coat aside and peered at him a little worriedly. “Poll, you don’t look well at all. Have a brandy.” He held out the decanter, still uncapped.

Poll struck it from his hand. The crystal smashed on the floor, sending brandy splashing over both their boots.

Cas was on his feet in a flash. Not one to let something like that slide, not his brother. Good. Nothing would satisfy Poll more right now than to thrash Cas within an inch of his life. But first, a confession!

“You couldn’t bear it, could you? You couldn’t bear that I’d found a good woman, a widow who is a million times finer than your usual jades! You thought you’d slide in, tricking her, making her think you were me, and … and.…”

Poll couldn’t say it. Cas had been in her house.

Cas had been in her arms!

It would not do to merely thrash Cas. Poll deeply and sincerely wanted him dead.

Cas held up a hand to halt his brother’s threatening advance. “Wait … wait, Poll. Are you speaking of Mira—of Mrs. Talbot?”

Poll growled. “Of course I’m speaking of Miranda! I’ve been courting her for weeks, as you well know!”

“You have?” Cas’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh hell.” He put a hand to his face, rubbing at his cheeks.

Cas didn’t want to think it. He didn’t want to know it.

However, it was terribly, horribly possible.

I suppose you’ve had time to perfect your
Tempest
! Very good!

She’d been speaking to Poll, not him.

I wanted to see you.

Cas didn’t know why it had not occurred to him before. Why would a woman, even a free and sexually available widow, take a man home within moments of meeting him? When did a woman require no preamble, no dancing or flowers or pretty conversation?

All the things Poll was so very good at.

Cas took a step backwards, away from his brother. Guilt washed over him. He’d been so casual, so reckless.

He thought of lovely, honest Mira—who belonged to Poll.

I like you,
she’d whispered to him as she sheltered in his arms.
Now I think I like you even more.

Him, not Poll. “You courted her for how long?”

“Since the beginning of last month.”

“Nearly four weeks. Four weeks before I first encountered her.”

“Yes! You saw what I had and you wanted it for yourself!”

Cas shook his head. “No. Poll, no. It was a mistake. She confused us … as people so often do. She must have followed me into the alley, thinking I was you.” He explained his flying leap of rescue and that he had escorted the lady home.

Poll halted in his fury. “That’s—but how could you let her think you were me?”

Cas shrugged. “It honestly didn’t occur to me. She was pretty and bold and I thought she was just another widow with a taste for adventure.”

Poll stared at him in sudden horror. “Yesterday?”

Cas looked up sharply. “Yes. I told you, she followed me into the alley. We nearly blew her up!”

It was Poll’s turn to rub at his face. “I went to Miranda’s last evening, before I attended the party. She … she was different, more open, more…” The remembered delight made his throat close now. “She almost kissed me, at last.”

Cas’s expression cleared. “Then I was first,” he stated calmly.

“What?”

Cas folded his arms. “I was first to kiss her, so it is you who should step down.”

Cas knew he wasn’t making much sense. Yet as quickly as he realized what he’d inadvertently done, he decided he just didn’t bloody care.

Mira was his and he was going to keep her.

Poll stared at his brother as if he were a stranger. “You … you can’t! You know now—I am courting her! She is mine. You can’t keep seeing her!”

Cas shrugged. “I don’t know that she is yours. I don’t know what would have happened if you had saved her yesterday instead of me,” he pointed out. “You might have missed her meaning, you might have decided to wait a little longer.” He lifted his chin. “But I didn’t hesitate. I took her home and I kissed her first. She is mine.”

“Yours! You stole her!”

Cas held up his hands in defense. “I didn’t know—I swear I didn’t!”

“I’m sure!” Poll scoffed. “You just happened to trip and fall onto her lips, I suppose. Have to watch out for those troubling carpets and all.”

He saw anger flash in Cas’s eyes. Good. Bastard.

Cas unfolded his arms and straightened. “It was you who couldn’t get the merry widow to sign on the dotted line!”

Poll flinched. “I was building her up,” he retorted. “Of course, now you’ve ruined all that work—”

“Done you a favor, you mean! I was the proud recipient of her first kiss,” Cas taunted. “That will make a woman lean toward gratitude.”

Poll frowned. “Her first? Ever?”

Cas grimaced. “Yes, poor thing. That husband of hers was too bound up to do more than peck her on the cheek!”

The fact that Mira had enjoyed his brother’s attentions did not actually help. A red fog flirted with the edge of his vision. Poll’s fists clenched. Then they eased and his eyes narrowed. “Ha. She has better taste than to settle for a bounder like you.”

Cas snorted. “I’m a bounder? When every woman you get involved with ends up thinking you’ll love her forever, only to see the back of you by month’s end!”

Poll snarled. “That’s right, they’re begging me to stay. Yours are begging you to leave, or they would be if you ever stuck around long enough!”

Cas’s face darkened. “Mrs. Talbot wasn’t begging me to leave. She practically dragged me home yesterday!”

Again, Poll flinched. “She thought you were me! And you neglected to tell her differently!” Poll turned away, running his hands through his hair. The image of Miranda, lolling on the settee, her arms outstretched for him—

Not him. Cas.

For the first time since they were lads and figured out that they were stronger together, he rounded on his brother and swung his fist.

The fight didn’t last long. They were too equally matched. Poll was a little faster. Cas was a tad more vicious. In a short time, they were tangled on the floor, each with the other in a stranglehold.

Cas felt his vision going a bit fizzy and tapped out. “Pax!” he wheezed.

Poll released him and rolled away. Standing, he brushed off his trousers. “I’m glad you see it my way, Cas.”

“I said ‘Pax,’ not ‘Uncle.’” Cas ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “While I was trouncing you, I had an idea.”

Poll eyed him warily. “I’m listening … for now.”

“We let her choose.”

Poll wrinkled his brow. “If you think she’ll choose you after one mistaken kiss—”

Cas shrugged carefully. It wouldn’t do to let Poll know how important this was to him. He could barely admit it to himself! “So we confess all. We lay our suits before her and beg her to let us both court her.” Cas wasn’t terribly concerned that Poll would last long. His passions waxed and waned as quickly as the moon itself.

Poll frowned. “She might throw us out.”

Cas smiled slightly. “Scared she’ll choose me right off?”

Poll narrowed his eyes. Women professed their love to Cas on a weekly basis. “No. Let it be something harder. A challenge.” He lifted his chin. “The one she agrees to marry.”

It wasn’t fair, for Poll knew from his weeks of actual conversation with Miranda that she considered marriage in the same way another might consider a wolf trap—as in, something she would gnaw off a limb to escape!

Poll kept the triumph from his face as Cas nodded. Of course, Miranda wasn’t going to accept any proposals at all, but this way Poll knew that Cas wouldn’t win while he, Poll, was working on a way to cut his brother out.

Cas’s interest didn’t last long. Miranda would be no different for Cas—not the way she was different for Poll.

Poll nodded. “I’ll take mornings, then. I’ve always been an earlier riser than you.”

Cas agreed. “I shall take the afternoons.”

“Evenings for me, then.” Poll smiled. It wasn’t a brotherly smile.

Cas snorted. “Hardly. I’ll take evens.”

It was how they had divided the world since they were five. It was just another game, after all. One that Poll intended to win.

Poll bowed his head slightly. “I’ll take odds.” That meant tonight, actually.

Cas folded his arms. “Not that I shall need more than one.”

“Ha,” Poll said sourly. “The usual wager?”

In answer, Cas reached into his weskit pocket and withdrew a shilling. He held it up and tossed it onto the table, where it spun, ringing in the silent attic.

Poll matched it with a coin of his own. “‘The game’s afoot.’”

Cas snorted. “
King Henry the Fifth.
Act Three, Scene One.”

Poll didn’t respond. He was already thinking of Miranda and the evening to come.

Perhaps if they had been raised in a normal household, by ordinary people who didn’t believe that the theater was real and life was but a stage—in other words, if they weren’t Worthingtons—they might have realized that there was something wrong with such a wager.

Unfortunately, to a matched pair of Worthingtons, such an outrageous venture was just another bit of midsummer madness!

Chapter Eight

Poll slammed the door on his way out of the attic study. His jaw set, he trotted down the stairs, nimbly sidestepping the decades’ worth of accumulated flotsam on the way. In his simmering anger, he didn’t notice down the cluttered hallway in a book-lined cave carved out of the hoard, his baby sister’s large alarmed eyes peering at him from the darkness.

As Poll continued on, Attie wrapped her arms about her bony knees and shivered. Cas and Poll never argued, never even disagreed.

Ever.

Mrs. Gideon Talbot, of Breton Square.

Attie peered down the bottomless divide that had suddenly appeared in her family and scowled. This Miranda woman had best watch herself. If this villainous vixen thought she was going to harm the Worthingtons, she had best think again!

First thing tomorrow, it would be time for reconnaissance. And, if necessary, a spot of sabotage—or even eradication!

*   *   *

Mr. Seymour called on Miranda that afternoon. Torn from her giddy musings on her early-morning embrace with Mr. Worthington, Miranda had to force herself to smooth her hair and step sedately into the parlor to attend his call.

The poor man seemed a pale and insipid creature after the virile Mr. Worthington. It wasn’t his fault that he was not a more memorable fellow, after all.

Miranda smiled sincerely, if a bit exasperatedly, at him when he presented her with his usual bouquet of roses.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have!” He really shouldn’t have. She’d mentioned more than once that she preferred other blooms, but sweet Mr. Seymour seemed to think that roses were the best of flowers. How could one argue with someone who believed one deserved the best?

She gave the blooms to Tildy to put in a vase. She would keep them here in the parlor, for that was where Mr. Seymour would be, and he did seem to enjoy roses so much. She kept the sprightly, more common flowers Mr. Worthington brought her in her bedchamber, for she enjoyed seeing them upon opening her eyes in the morning.

When they’d seated themselves, Mr. Seymour smoothed his unexceptional dark hair and fixed her with his unexceptional blue eyes. He was not a handsome man, although Miranda would be at a lost to explain why he was not attractive. He was of adequate height. He was neither fat nor thin. He had all the required symmetry of features and no specific unfortunate characteristic.