God, he’d made a mess of this, as usual.
Theo would be furious, and his mother would have his head—after she’d had a fit of the vapors and required smelling salts to recover.
If this got out, his family might not want anything to do with him ever again.
His gut roiled unpleasantly. Bile rose up the back of his throat. He couldn’t lose his brother. He didn’twantto lose his mother, but he could survive it. Losing Theo was not an option.
“Nicholas, it’s all right.” Sophie’s voice was softer now, and she took him by the arm and led him back to the bed. She must’ve straightened the blankets while he was panicking because they were no longer rumpled. “Sit down.”
He sat, and she smoothed her hands over his shoulders. She left enough of a space that her proximity wouldn’tmuddle his brain and perched on the edge of the bed, her legs now hidden by the skirt.
“What’s happening?” The question was gentle, but he got the feeling he wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of answering it. “Why did you panic?” There was a long pause, and then she added, “And who did you ruin? Because if I have competition, I’m going to be angry.”
He scoffed. As if anyone could compete with her. “Don’t worry, it was just Kate. There is no competition.”
She flinched away from him and scooted sideways, widening the gap between them until it felt like a vast chasm—even if it was really more like two or three feet. “Kate?”
Spinning toward her, he was horrified to find her eyes shimmering with tears, her hand over her mouth. Belatedly, he realized how his comment had sounded.
“No, it wasn’t like that. Let me explain. Nothing ever happened between Kate and me. Well, nothing untoward, anyway.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” she snapped.
He looked around the room, frantically searching for either an explanation that he could get out in a matter of seconds so she would stop looking so hurt or a bottle of brandy that he could glug down and drown his problems in.
“I’ll explain,” he promised, reaching for his shoes. “Just give me a moment.”
He pulled on one shoe and tied the laces, then repeated the process with the other. If she suddenly kicked him out of her bedchamber, he didn’t want to find himself without his clothes in the corridor. That would be a surefire way to create a scandal.
That done, there was nothing else for it but to start talking. He angled himself toward her and drew in a deep breath before the words spilled out in a messy deluge of unfiltered truth.
“I never touched Kate inappropriately. I’ve never beeninterested in her that way. When I say I ruined her, I swear, we didn’t do anything like what you and I did. I haven’t laid a finger on her except in friendship, and I never will. Just listen. I promise it will make sense soon.”
She stared at him for a long minute and then nodded. “I’m listening.”
He exhaled roughly, his limbs going weak with relief. “It’s a long story. The part about Kate takes a while to get to.”
Her bright eyes seemed to see right into him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Thank God for that. If she’d been more impetuous, she might have stormed out the moment he mentioned another woman, let alone her best friend.
“You have to promise never to repeat this to anyone.” He hesitated, then amended the statement. “Actually, you can discuss it with Kate. She already knows.”
She drew a cross over her heart. “You have my word.”
“All right.” He gathered his whirling thoughts and tried to force them into some kind of order. “The first thing you need to know is that Theo and I are twins.”
She cocked her head. “But I thought he was a year older than you.”
“That was a lie spread by my parents. They’d seen how families could be torn apart arguing over inheritances, so when we were born, they retired from society for several years and pretended that I was younger. They had good intentions. They wanted to ensure that the family stayed together. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize something important.”
A shadow passed over Sophie’s face, and she studied him so closely that he wondered if she had an inclination of what was coming.
“We were identical,” he confirmed. “It didn’t become completely obvious until we were already toddlers. It wasclear that we resembled each other as babies, but all babies look similar to a certain extent.”
“I always thought there was a striking likeness between you,” Sophie said, apparently unable to take her eyes from him. “But your features are more rugged, and you dress more elegantly, whereas he’s more refined in the face and more somber in his attire.”
Nicholas shook his head. “We only look different because he keeps his hair short and his face clean-shaven, whereas I don’t. If we had matching hair and clothing, there would be very little way to distinguish us.”
