The Spare (3 page)

James glanced at McNaught. "A spinster, Sebastian, of advancing age with no male relatives looking out for her welfare and no dragon-eyed mama guarding her virtue. In short, a woman who will keep me entertained while we are here in the midst of all this frozen… vegetation. What is it? You look like someone's kicked your favorite hound." His face fell. "Don't tell me you fancy her, too. I saw her first, damn it all." Sebastian stared at the windowed wall through which he could see the wild splash of red hair coming free of its pins. He didn't care how pretty she was or how lovely her smile. She was his best hope, likely his only hope, of discovering who killed his brother. He meant to have what was in her head, no matter the cost to him or to her. "As long as I get what I want from her, she's all yours, James."

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January 5

Olivia smiled because her role was to be pleasant at all times, to be at all times agreeable. She must pretend she did not feel the least bit awkward about being back at Pennhyll where three days had vanished from her life. A legion of emotions contributed to her disquiet, starting the moment she walked into the Great Hall; the fear of those lost days tangled up with the anticipation of meeting Captain Alexander. Whatever her anxieties about Pennhyll, she was done avoiding the past, done with living as if nothing terrible had happened to her. Something terrible had happened, and she was done with the pretense. She accepted the invitation because she wanted those days back. After a year without remembering, she'd come to believe Pennhyll was the only place she could recover those days.

For the moment at least, no one here took much notice of her. They seemed content with her role as the spare. She was herself well-used to a house crowded with guests and even more used to near invisibility. Old enough now to be a chaperone and with the distinct advantage of being neither rich enough nor young enough to threaten the prospects of younger, better-situated ladies. She was the second-best umbrella, the one no one wants until the other can't be found. As befitted her status, she sat on a stool equidistant to fireplace and door; the very outskirts of the gathering but at the ready in case of need.

Snow had forced their luncheon indoors so that instead of a walk to the lake and a meal served in the crisp January air, they cowered inside, glad to be out of the sudden damp. Four of their number fell into the category of parent or guardian. The rest were younger. Five gentlemen and six young ladies, if she counted herself, all but Miss Diana Royce were from nearby, and thus well-known to Olivia. Since they knew her, they paid her little attention. Twice touched by tragedy, she occupied a peculiar position in society. By birth and long family history, she belonged to the gentry, no one denied that, but no one of her class wanted to befriend her. The taint of death and scandal clung too close.

To a man, the fathers held their Madeira and broke rank only if some feminine request demanded the semblance of attention. Mothers watched their charges with hawk-eyed stares that swept the room for signs of attachment, suitable or otherwise. Young ladies sat by each other with the bachelor gentlemen hovering near. One of the ladies played the harp well enough to be ignored. It would be another hour at least before she could excuse herself to wander the castle, hoping something would spark a memory.

All the setting lacked was their host. No one had met him, no one but Lord Fitzalan, who knew the earl before he was an earl, and his sister, who had met him once some years before. Lord Fitzalan, unmarried himself, numbered among the young gentlemen. For a nobleman, Fitzalan seemed sensible. High-spirited, a bit vain of his appearance, though not without cause, and not a dilettante. So far as she could tell, he was the only man here with more than an ounce of brain in his head.

"Do come sit, Fitzalan." Miss Royce, the viscount's half-sister, reclining goddesslike on a chaise, lifted herself on one elbow. "I miss your company here." How, Olivia wondered, did a nineteen-year-old girl acquire such ennui? The crowd around her shifted as Miss Royce patted the chaise. Her chestnut hair and dark, up-tilted eyes just slightly uneven made Olivia imagine her pining for an Italianate sun, one hand reaching lazily for another glass of wine or yet another sun-sweetened grape. What must London be like if girls Diana's age learned enough of men and their natures to find them so tediously dull?

Fitzalan sat on the edge of his sister's chaise. "I am here, Diana, your abject slave."

"If that were true, you would have bought me that phaeton I wanted. Mama said it would flatter me exceedingly."

"You cannot drive a phaeton in Far Caister."

"I can if I am in Town. I would be so fetching a figure in a phaeton drawn by horses to match my eyes. What do you think?" Diana touched her brother's arm while her gaze swept the admiring men, all of whom rang in with enthusiastic agreement. Miss Royce must have a phaeton. And horses to match her eyes. Who could disagree? They'd none of them ever met a girl like Miss Royce, a natural flirt with the sort of brilliance one acquired only from a London Season and a Bond Street seamstress.

"Until I met Captain Alexander, now the earl," Diana said, "I thought my brother the handsomest man alive." She pointed to the portrait in pride of place above the mantel. Miss Royce did have fine eyes. "But, dear James, you're simply not."

"If I changed my mind about the phaeton?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Well, dearest James, since I know you are not sincere, I must say the same."

Fitzalan mimicked despair, and Diana giggled when he rolled off the chaise and pretended to lie dead at her feet. A few fathers or elder brothers looked over but, determining the cause of the commotion, returned to a heated discussion weighing the benefits of double lambing against risking the health of the ewes. The viscount turned onto his side and, propping his head up with one arm, peered past the crowd surrounding the chaise. "What think you, Miss Willow?"

Olivia, alarmed to find herself addressed, adopted her best flustered-by-his-attention expression. A woman's loss of aplomb upon a handsome man's notice rarely, if ever, caused offense. She liked to think she'd perfected an attitude of dizzy intensity. "My Lord, I've no experience of such matters."

"But your opinion means the world." Fitzalan laughed so that his teeth showed. "The very universe. Who is more handsome, me or the captain?"

Now here was a fine predicament. If she chose Tiern-Cope, she'd insult Lord Fitzalan and vice versa. Drat the man. She wrung her hands. "Pray, my Lord, do not rely on my opinion in anything to do with fashion."

"Let us say this once that we shall."

"I am sure Miss Royce would look exceedingly well in a phaeton the color of her eyes." There existed a perilously fine line between the meekness she wanted to project and outright satire. From the tilt of Fitzalan's head, she'd just crossed it.

"My dear Miss Willow." Fitzalan grinned. "My dear, charming, lovely, exquisite Miss Willow. For all that our gentlemen's pride will be trampled like so much dirt beneath your feet, I hope you will not disagree with my sister. She would be utterly cast down to discover you do not share her opinion of our host."

Olivia let her eyes go still. Why did the only man here with any intelligence have to single her out? She did not want to be noticed. Second-best-umbrella status suited her just fine. The Far Caister girls might not have Diana's polish, but several, Miss Cage in particular, laid claim to some measure of beauty. Why didn't he banter with Miss Cage? "To be sure, I have yet to meet a gentleman who isn't handsome or a lady who isn't beautiful."

Fitzalan sat up. "What a useful opinion to have."

"But," said Miss Cage, the green-eyed brunette Olivia thought most likely to give Diana some competition, "what of Captain Alexander? The earl?" Miss Cage hadn't been five minutes in the company of Miss Royce before she, too, possessed the same air of boredom. The world bored her. The very breath in her lungs bored her. Julia Cage always had been a quick study, with an ear for music and language.

"Well," Olivia said, "it's my opinion all men look handsome in a uniform." She'd discovered during her stint as a governess that men liked to be admired. If they did not feel obliged to flirt, all the better. Disinterested interest suited a woman of her status. She'd never attracted much notice for any reason but her hair. Long ago, she'd realized the color put off most men. Red was simply not the fashion for a lady of any age. Men who weren't put off by her awful copper curls didn't want her—Miss Olivia Willow—they wanted what they imagined her hair signified. Thus, though she might seethe inside, impatient, annoyed or even on the edge of laughter, she'd learned to reflect a calm and dainty mendacity. Men soon met only the disappointment of their perceptions.

The viscount frowned, looking at her from under half-lowered lashes. "Yes, yes. But, Miss Willow, what of the good captain?"

She let out a breath and did her best to appear addlebrained by his notice of her. She supposed it was at least a little true. Lord Fitzalan was, indeed, well-favored, with exquisite manners and, despite his rank in life, not at all a terrifying man. "He's sure to be very handsome. The young ladies find him quite the beau, I'm sure. So dashing. A hero of the waves." She leaned forward, eyes wide and disingenuous. "I've followed his career, my Lord. He cannot help but be handsome, I am sure."

"The fashion, then, is for naval men."

"I'm sure I don't know, my Lord."

He jumped to his feet and strode, hands clasped behind his back, to the fireplace where he stared at the portrait for fully half a minute. The other men, seeing his attention no longer on his sister, closed in on Diana. With that, Olivia ceased to be the center of attention. Relieved, she left her stool and walked to a sidetable on which there sat a stack of drawing paper. Attract as little notice as possible, that was her motto. Second-best umbrella and all that.

She
was
nervous about meeting the captain. The earl. Lord Tiern-Cope. Would he appear tonight? She flipped through the sheets, the results of a morning the young ladies spent taking likenesses of each other, of the gentlemen or of a view from nature. Her head throbbed along the scar hidden by her hair, a point of blossoming pain, a familiar sensation but sharper now than usual, and constant since her arrival at Pennhyll. Andrew used to love reading his brother's letters, always with a titillating pause while he skipped over or rephrased some passage not suitable for a lady to hear without redaction. He was here. Captain Alexander at Pennhyll.

"Miss Willow."

The voice came soft and unexpectedly, and she nearly jumped out of her skin because she'd let her thoughts stray to the new earl and lost track of her surroundings. "Lord Fitzalan."

His eyes flashed the color of flint. "Forgive me if I startled you."

"I don't know what's got into me." The intensity of his regard unsettled her. Please, let him not be one of those men who thought a woman with red hair must be at the mercy of her passions. She put down the papers and let her eyes go blank. "Have you ever been absolutely convinced someone is about to leap at you from the shadows?" She felt she'd missed her mark, something she did not often do. To be convincingly vapid, a woman needed not just empty eyes, but a breathless voice.

He grinned. "Every time I walk a London street at night."

"For that you may have some excuse." Fitzalan studied her and, too late, she realized she'd spoken more frankly than prudence required. When dealing with the nobility, it paid never to forget one's place, however familiar they deigned to be. Never presume too much.

"And your excuse?" he asked.

"A nervous constitution." She fluttered her hand just above her chest so the viscount would imagine she felt her nerves just now. "A failure of my sex, I suppose."

Fitzalan gave her the sort of look a man expecting eggs for breakfast might give a bowl of cold porridge. Leaning against the table, he took up the sheaf of drawings, shuffling through them until he found hers, a sketch of a plate of grapes. In the conviction that no one would actually study her effort, she'd added a rather comical face in the shadow of one of the grapes. "These look good enough to eat."

"Ah, but just behind is your sister's most admirable portrait." Olivia brought out Diana's drawing and set it atop her own. "She took your likeness quite well." She tittered. "Miss Royce is an accomplished young lady. You must be so very proud of her."

"I do hope," he said softly, switching hers back to the top, "that around me you will not pretend you are an empty-headed twit."

She widened her eyes in hurt insult. "I've never thought of myself as a clever woman, but I'm sure I'm not empty headed. Most assuredly, I am not a bluestocking. No, indeed, my Lord. I never read a thing, unless I am certain my soul will be improved." The lie came off her tongue with guilty ease. "I can't imagine what you mean to imply."

He touched the shadow with its lolling tongue and devil horns. "I think you can."

Blast. He smiled, slowly, and she could not help thinking it wasn't fair for an already handsome man to be twice as handsome just because he smiled.

"Can't you, Miss Willow?"

She sighed. "I am undone."

"Not yet," he murmured. Before she could make sense of the remark, he grinned at her. "Fear not, I promise to keep your secret." He examined Diana's sketch. "My nose isn't that long. Nor my eyes so small. And my chin is far more manly."

"Fishing for compliments, my Lord?"

"Shamelessly." He lifted his eyes. "Am I having any luck?"

"There are more than enough young ladies here who, I daresay, would be more than happy to tell you they find you exceedingly handsome."

"Do you agree with them?"

"As indeed you are."

"Oh, much better, Miss Willow. As to the likeness of our brave and doughty captain hanging there above the mantel, I want your opinion." He put down the sheaf of papers. "And mind you, nothing less than unadulterated truth. I've not my sister's scruples about opinions unshared."