been acting as his codebreaker and opener of the doors to all the secrets England’s enemies were trying to pass on to the French? He wasn’t going to be able to carry on his work if he could allow himself to become this inattentive to all that was going on around him in a room.
‘Yes,’ he drawled, turning from the mirror to give his sister back the kind of sarcastic smile she’d expect. ‘It did all rather escalate.’ Had escalated beyond anything a feather-brained creature like she could imagine. Jane’s life revolved around fashion and status and gossip. And she assumed he was as shallow as she.
He’d taken pains to make sure of it. Although recently, he’d been starting to feel the muscles in his face creating smiles that held far more disdain than amusement. And when he checked those smiles in a mirror, more often than not he appeared cynical. Jaded. The way Jane looked all the time.
‘I only wonder,’ she said, ‘that you took notice of such a dowdy in the first place.’
‘It had the effect of annoying His Grace,’ he pointed out, as though that had been his sole intent on approaching his friend’s sister. And Jane, being the kind of person she was, assumed that was what he’d meant.
‘You are a wretch,’ she said with a maliciously approving smile, rapping him lightly on the wrist for good measure. ‘I had wondered why you came, knowing how you must feel about the Cuckoo.’ She darted a look of loathing in the direction of their half-brother.
He followed the direction of her gaze. Their half-brother was looking straight back at them, his beetling brows drawn down into a scowl with which Nick was all too familiar. A scowl which sent his mind flying right back to the first time they’d encountered each other, as boys. In their father’s study, here at Theakstone Court. And the shock he’d experienced upon hearing that the surly, swarthy oaf who’d looked, dressed, and smelled like a farm labourer was going to inherit the house and the title that Nick had been encouraged to believe was his by right. And what was more, that Nick was no longer even going to live here, but in a smaller, distant estate that he’d never even heard of before.
Nick turned his head away, set his glass down on the mantelpiece and raised both his hands to his cravat. Demonstrating, should anyone else be taking note, that he cared more for his own appearance than he did for his half-brother’s opinion. It was an attitude he’d adopted very early on, in order to conceal his devastating pain at being cast off like an old shoe. Oliver might be the first born and the rightful heir, and nowadays also one of the wealthiest men in England, but Nick was never going to let him forget that, once, Nick had seen him standing hat in hand, shuffling his feet in their scuffed boots.
After adjusting the set of his already perfectly arranged neckcloth, Nick returned his gaze to the scowling Duke, raising his quizzing glass as he ran a disparaging eye over the bulky frame in its sombre clothing, before allowing his lips to twist in just the hint of a disdainful grimace, before switching his attention back to his sister.
Who’d so bitterly referred to the Duke as a cuckoo.
But then that was how it had seemed, to start with. As though the moment he’d come to Theakstone Court, Nick and his sisters, along with their mother, had been tossed out of their cosy nest.
The truth was, however, that even though they’d all resented the boy whose appearance had made their father look at them all differently, the analogy fell down under scrutiny. Because no matter where Oliver Norrington had spent the first eleven years of his life, there was no disputing the fact that he was the legitimate first born. And that Nick would remain second best for ever. No matter what he did.
‘Should I,’ said Nick, quirking an eyebrow at his sister’s reflection, ‘ask why you are here, then?’
She gave a little shrug. ‘Anyone who is anyone has been invited. It is the event of the Season. Even the Wortley-Fortescues are posting back from Paris to attend.’
Yes, so they were. He turned to his sister slowly, giving his mind the leisure to ponder that fact before having to come up with the kind of spiteful witticism she would expect.
The Duke had put it about that he had invited so many of the great and good of the land to Theakstone Court because he wanted to introduce his bride to society from his own home, rather than pitching her into the hothouse that was London. Yet, what better excuse could there be for getting all the members of a network together? They could exchange the latest information they’d gathered over a hand of whist, or while out riding in the park, to whoever intended to take it to their paymasters in France. That must have been what Miss Carmichael had meant by her comment about him having the same reason for coming here as she did. She clearly thought he’d come to Theakstone Court on the trail of those responsible for her brother’s death.
And he’d said nothing to disabuse her of that opinion. Because he wanted her to think he was at least as clever as she. Yet only now did he regard the way the room was already thronging with all the noblest and most influential members of society left in England with suspicion. For many of them, as his sister had just pointed out, had already taken advantage of Bonaparte’s defeat and crossed the Channel to see Paris. Or Brussels. Or any other of the cities that had been impossible to visit while Europe had been at war. And once the celebrations for the Duke’s nuptials were done, many more of them would take to ships and flock to the Continent. And only a very few people, who knew that information was being passed to the French, would think anything other than that the fashionable were determined to keep up with the latest trend.
‘I cannot deny that it has also given me a great deal of pleasure to install my own children in the nursery where we all used to play,’ his sister added, with a flash of malice. The sister who’d correctly deduced why he was here.
Because she knew him. She knew that he could, and frequently did, act from petty motives. Over the years, he’d gone from doing his utmost to prove to his father that he was the better son, to creating the biggest scandals he could simply to get the old devil to notice he still existed.
‘Mary did the same. We thought we should make a point, you know.’
‘And what point would that be,’ he said, ‘precisely?’ That they were still pouting over the fact that their father had been unjust and unkind? ‘She was only a babe when we left. She can surely recall nothing of this house, or what it was like to live here.’ He’d only been approaching his sixth birthday himself. Though some things were impossible to forget. Like this room. He let his eyes wander over the nymphs frolicking about the frieze below the elaborate plaster adorning the ceiling. All that yellow. Like sunshine, Mother had always said, although today it put him in mind of lemons and the bitter taste they left in the mouth.
‘We still have more right to be here than...than anyone else.’ She shot a look of sheer loathing at Miss Underwood, who was hanging on to the Duke’s arm and gazing up at him with a worshipful expression. He couldn’t quite believe that any woman could look at any man with quite so much open adoration, let alone a man like the Duke.
‘Especially that by-blow of his.’
‘His what?’ He whipped round to look at her.
‘Oh, didn’t you know? Our perfect brother has blotted his copybook. And rather than making any attempt to be discreet, he has brought the fruit of his misdeeds into his house and is forcing that stupid girl to acknowledge it. And she is making a mull of things, from what I hear. The schoolroom is in total chaos, at any rate, since there is no governess in residence.’
She’d said it at the top of her voice. As though hoping anyone within earshot would hear. Because she was furious. And no wonder. It was bad enough to have
