“I’ve heard that if someone attacks you with a knife, and you have no other option, you should grab the blade.”
She opened her left hand, palm facing up. “See that?”
The lad’s eyes went wide as his gaze followed the long, red scar bisecting her palm. “You did it?”
“I’m alive.”
“It had to hurt.”
“Like the devil.”
Sir Bacon gave a single bark, drawing Hortense’s attention across the room. There, in the doorway, stood Clare, his gaze locked upon her open palm. Clearly, he’d heard that last bit. His eyes lifted and met hers. Her lungs refused to move or do anything useful, like breathe.
“Oh, Jamie, you’re arrived,” called out Mariana. “I’d begun to despair of you. But, Nick, why didn’t Bartlett announce him? Has he been hitting the gin again?”
“I told Bartlett not to bother,” said Clare. “It’s only me.”
From her place at the table, Hortense watched him become swallowed into the embrace of his family as Nick stepped forward to shake hands, followed by an embrace from Mariana. Geoffrey and Lavinia rushed forward to greet their uncle, who bowed to his niece and shook hands with his nephew. Sir Bacon soon joined in the greetings, circling the grouping round and round, tail wagging, barks flying.
Only she hung back. She’d been startled to see him, but then this was Nick’s house. It was his prerogative to invite whomever he pleased, even his brother.
A flare of annoyance blossomed inside her. Was it too much to ask that she be free of the man for one evening?
So, too, was it vexatious that he somehow managed to become more handsome with each additional meeting. Viewing the brothers side by side, their similarities were all too apparent—tall, dark, handsome—but the differences foregrounded themselves, too. Clare, while arrogant and commanding, lacked the hard edge of Nick. It was something deep within Clare’s eyes that she’d noticed, but hadn’t been able to articulate, until this afternoon. It was a melancholy. One that had likely begun in his youth, given what she now understood about his upbringing. Then there had been Mollie Rafferty, and now there was a boy. His son.Rafe.
And, tomorrow, they would attempt to strike a deal with Flick Doyle for the boy.
She quelled the nerves that threatened to jangle out of her veins whenever the thought inevitably circled back around. It was the sun around which much of her mind revolved this evening. Clare and Doyle, in a room, together. It was one matter to bring Doyle a little brass horse to pay her tax, as she had last night, but another entirely to bring him Clare. Clare was no inconsequential trinket.
Again, his eye caught hers, and she couldn’t look away. Her heart banged out three hard thumps. Though they surely shared little in common, she couldn’t shake away the feeling that she and this aristocrat understood each other on an elemental level. Bloody confounding, that.
“I take it you are acquainted with Miss Marchand, Jamie?” said Mariana, mischief in her eyes.
He took half a beat too long to acknowledge Mariana’s question. “Um, yes.” He offered a stiff bow in Hortense’s direction. “Miss Marchand.”
“Lord Clare,” she returned.
The moment stretched long. Long enough that Nick cleared his throat. “Does anyone mind if we commence with supper? I am famished.”
Mariana rang a bell and instructed a servant that they were ready to dine. The doors to the dining room swung inward, and everyone began to move in that direction, including Sir Bacon who pranced jauntily forward, taking the lead as if he might demand a seat at the table. Mayhap that was the custom in Lady Fortescue’s household. Nothing about the private lives of aristocrats surprised Hortense.
Candles were lit about the room, but not the grand chandelier overhead. While many aristocrats had their children take their meals in the nursery, not Nick and Mariana. When Geoffrey was home from Westminster School, he sat at the table with his parents, as did Lavinia.
Every Monday, Hortense soaked in the meal and company, but, tonight, course after course passed with her hardly noticing. Conversation moved around her, and she even took part in it, but she couldn’t have told anyone later what they’d discussed. Her attention, if not her direct vision, was concentrated entirely upon Clare. Observing him. Taking in his mannerisms.
She understood what she was doing. She was studying him like a mark.
And what did she find?
His eyes lit up when Geoffrey and Lavinia asked questions of him. He adored his nephew and niece. So, too, did he have the same reaction to Mariana. With Nick, he was more guarded, which showed he knew his brother. She’d so long regarded Nick as not only a mentor to her, but as an older brother, that it was a bit surprising seeing him as younger brother. Most men naturally deferred to Nick’s sharpness and intelligence. Not Clare. To him, Nick would always be the little brother.
It was a question that Nick asked of Clare that pulled her back into the conversation.
“So, brother,” began Nick, “now that you’re out and about again, will you take up your seat in the House of Lords?” The question could be viewed as offhand were it not for the intensity of Nick’s gaze.
Clare settled his fork on his plate. “I cannot imagine I would have any initiatives worth pursuing.”
“I’ll happily provide a list,” Mariana said. “There’s no shortage, I can assure you.”
