Vanity (54 page)

“They might not have to guess if you continue to shout it from the rooftops,” Rupert rebuked, but without force. His eyes moved over the gaily dressed throng, searching for his brother. Unconsciously, he curled his finger with the signet ring into his palm.

“Do you think he’ll come?”

“Yes,” he said. “And you’re not behaving like an experienced conspirator, Octavia. Anyone looking at you would guess immediately that you had some secret.”

“Oh, I can’t help it,” she said. “I
am
excited. After all these years of suffering because of …” Her voice died as her eyes followed Rupert’s.

The man known as the Earl of Wyndham strolled onto the terrace. He stood for a minute surveying the crowd through his glass as if deciding whom to grace with his greeting; then he let the glass fall and sauntered over to a group of ladies standing at the edge of the terrace.

He was dressed in emerald-green silk and wore two beauty patches, one on each cheekbone. The angelic golden curls were hidden beneath his wig, but his face was as beautiful, his features as regular as ever, hardly marred by the slight downturn of his mouth and the icy expression in the narrowed slate-gray eyes as his gaze fell upon Octavia.

Deliberately, she curtsied to him, and as deliberately he turned away.

“Me thinks the gentleman still nurses his wounded pride,” she murmured.

“Keep out of his way, Octavia. One doesn’t humiliate Philip Wyndham with impunity.” Rupert’s voice was crisp, and Octavia knew she’d been given a most direct command. It was not one she had any inclination to disobey. The thought of another tête-â-tête with Rupert’s brother made her skin crawl.

“When will you speak to him?”

“No time like the present,” he drawled with a cool smile. “Go and talk to Letitia.”

“Yes, my lord.” Octavia offered a mock curtsy. “Your word is my command.”

“When hell freezes over,” he commented, and walked away from her, crossing the terrace, pausing to exchange greetings but always moving purposefully toward his twin.

Octavia watched. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help herself. She knew she was supposed to stay with Letitia, to warn her of what was about to happen, so that when the story broke, Letitia would not be taken unawares and would have some support. It was hardly the fault of Philip’s wife that she was about to be dispossessed of a title and estate.

Rupert had reached his brother. The two men were exchanging bows. Octavia could hear nothing, and could divine nothing from their expressions.

She searched Philip’s face for a twin’s resemblance to Rupert … or Cullum, as she must learn to call him. It was in the eyes, in the shape of the mouth, and now she understood what had disturbed her about Philip—that sense of familiarity gone awry.

The two men had grown together in the same womb, had fought their way into the world within a few minutes of each other. The same blood ran in their veins, and yet they were as unlike as two men could possibly be.

With an effort she dragged herself away from the drama about to be enacted and went to play her part with Letitia.

Philip regarded Rupert Warwick with a chilly stare. “You’ve returned to town, I see.”

Rupert nodded, smiling. He moved his right hand to the froth of lace at his neck and deliberately adjusted the position of a diamond pin. The delicate signet ring sparkled in the sunlight.

Philip’s eyes snapped into focus, and for a second naked shock and fear stood out on his face as the blood drained slowly from his cheeks. His hand fluttered to his waistcoat and then fell to his side.

His ring, joined with that other. It could mean only one thing, and now everything fell into place.

“You?”
he whispered.
“Cullum!”

It could mean only one thing, and yet his voice was disbelieving as he looked at the brother he’d believed dead these last eighteen years. But as he looked at him, he knew in his blood that Cullum stood before him now.

“Yes, Philip,” Rupert said quietly. The moment was everything he had known it would be. With the grim satisfaction of a man who’s waited long for his vengeance, he watched his brother’s face, watched the struggle for control played out in the slate-gray eyes, watched the moment when cold calculation took over from shock and desperation. He watched his brother’s eyes narrow and sharpen as they had done that long-ago afternoon at Beachy Head, the instant before he’d put out his foot and tripped Gervase.

“This is hardly the place for a joyous reunion,” Philip said with an ironic smile. “Shall we adjourn to the garden?”

“By all means.” Rupert turned and walked to the far end of the terrace, where three shallow stone steps led down into a shrubbery. His back prickled as his brother followed him, and it was only with a great effort that he managed not to look over his shoulder.

“That whore you call wife did her work well,” Philip said. “Where did you find her? She’s a little more delicate than one usually finds in the stews.”

Rupert spun on his heel, and Philip took an involuntary step back at the power of the contemptuous rage in the icy gray eyes.

“You refer to Octavia in such terms again, brother, and
I will cut out your tongue.” His voice was cold and deadly as venom.

Philip touched his lips and there was fear on his face. The fear Rupert recognized from their boyhood, when, goaded beyond endurance, beyond fear of punishment, young Cullum had finally attacked his twin with his own greater physical strength.

Rupert waited for a minute, allowing his words to set-de in the hot, stagnant air. There was no other sound, not even the buzz of a bee or the faintest chirp of bird song.

Then he said, “If you choose to contest my claim—”

“Choose to?” Philip spat. “Who do you think you are? Of course I’ll contest it. I’ll challenge you in every court in the land. If you think I’ll give up everything for you, Cullum, you are moon mad. You think you can leap into my life and simply walk off with the title, with the manor, with Wyndham House. By God, man, you’re even more stupid than I thought you.”

Rupert raised his hand and slapped his brother with his open palm. “No more insults, Philip,” he said gently. “I’d had a lifetime’s worth from you before I was twelve. There’ll be no more.”

Philip stepped back, his hand touching the raised mark on his face, his eyes wide with shock. “You dare to strike me!” he whispered.

“Now I do,” his twin said with a casual shrug. “But only in response to unendurable provocation, my dear brother. You have nothing to fear from me if you put a bridle on your tongue.”

Philip hissed through his teeth, and something small and silver appeared in his hand. He lunged, his face a rictus of fear and loathing.

The knife cut upward in a movement that would have ripped Rupert’s guts from his belly had he not leaped sideways, deflecting the point on one of the silver buttons of his coat. The knife slashed through his shirt and grazed his ribs as he spun again on the balls of his feet. His hand went to the hilt of his sword, but Philip was on him again, his
mouth contorted, his eyes frenzied with the madness of one who faced the unfaceable.

Too late, Rupert remembered how his brother had loved playing with knives. How, lighter on his feet than his sturdier twin, he had danced rings around Cullum, playing … always playing … but there’d been a dangerous edge of reality to the game, and Cullum had always in the end retired from the fray, mortified by his own inability to match his twin in this vicious, deadly ballet.

But now this was no game. The blade tore through Rupert’s sleeve. He grabbed for his brother’s wrist, but Philip danced backward with the graceful agility that had been his mark throughout his life. Rupert had his sword half out of the sheath when he dodged the plunging knife yet again.

And his foot caught in a root.

He fell to one knee, shielding his face with his arm, as the mask that was his brother’s face blazed above him, the point of the knife glittered, pointed at his throat. He flung his arm sideways against Philip’s wrist, but the angle was wrong, and he had not sufficient force to throw the weapon off course.

Philip was beyond reason. His hatred and purpose were all-consuming. He had no thought for consequences, only for the fact that out of the blue his world was in jeopardy. And no one and nothing could be permitted to destroy the edifice he had so painstakingly constructed.

Rupert looked into his twin’s eyes and he looked into his own death. For what seemed an eternity, he gazed mesmerized into the dark pools reflecting a twisted soul.

The twisted side of his own soul?

And then his mind tore itself free, and he flung himself sideways the instant before Philip, with a strange sighing sound, fell forward, pinning his brother’s turned shoulder. The knife slipped from his grasp.

“Dear God in heaven.” Octavia’s voice broke the astonishing quiet. “Letitia!”

Philip’s wife stood above her husband, her fine emerald
eyes filled with loathing. She stared wordlessly at the large stone in her hand.

Rupert eased his brother off him and got to his feet. He bowed to Letitia. “You have my undying gratitude, ma’am.”

Letitia looked down at her husband. “When your wife told me what was happening … I … I knew he would try to kill you. I know him, you see.”

“I thought I did,” Rupert said ruefully. “I didn’t believe he would lose control. It was never his way. He always chose his own time and place to make trouble and would never risk being implicated himself. I believed I could out-think his every move this time.”

Philip groaned, stirred. Slowly, he pushed himself onto his knees, shaking his head like a hurt and bewildered animal. He struggled to his feet and looked at his wife, at the stone in her hand. Gingerly, he touched the swelling on the back of his head and stared at her in utter incredulity.

“I’m leaving you,” she said in a flat voice devoid of all expression. “I’m going to Wyndham Manor to collect Susannah, and then I’m going back to my father. And if he won’t take me, then I’ll find some way of managing on my own.”

“You tried to kill me,” Philip said, the same bewildered disbelief in his eyes. “Pathetic little worm, you tried to kill me.”

“Worms turn,” Letitia said in the same flat voice. “I don’t care what you do, Philip. I don’t care what you tell people. You can divorce me, in fact I wish you would. But you’ll not keep my child from me.”

She opened her hand and the stone fell to the ground. Then she turned and walked away, her back straight, her head up, and for the first time, the dumpy little figure with the ostrich plumes in her overlarge coiffure had an air of quiet dignity.

Octavia bent and picked up the knife. Its blade of tempered steel was thin enough to slide between a man’s ribs leaving barely a puncture mark. It was an assassin’s weapon.

“I have it in mind to make my announcement on the
terrace,” Rupert said evenly, smoothing down his coat, adjusting the disordered lace at his neck. “Do you care to accompany me, Philip, and lend your congratulations to the rest? Or do you prefer to challenge my claim? The latter course will provide society with a much better story. I dare swear they’ll find such a course of events infinitely more entertaining than the joyful reunion of long-lost brothers.”

“You’ll not win,” Philip spat at him, but there was uncertainty in his eyes.

“Oh, yes, I will. The lawyers have already acknowledged me. Old Doctor Mayberry has welcomed me like the prodigal son. He has an intimate knowledge of the body of Cullum Wyndham.” Rupert’s smile was serene. “Oh, yes, Philip. I can prove my identity beyond question, and if you contest it, you’ll look a fool. And we know you’re not that.” The mockery in his smile taunted his brother. “Ger-vase’s murderer, certainly, but no fool,” he added softly.

“Damn you, Cullum. I should have drowned you myself.” Philip turned on his heel and pushed his way through the bushes, away from the terrace.

Octavia shivered. “If Letitia hadn’t … I was two minutes behind her, I would have been too late …” She gazed up at him, the full horror of what might have been only now sinking in.

“I would never have believed she was capable—” She shook her head in astonishment.

“There’s always the last straw,” Rupert said.

“We must look after her … and the child.”

“Of course.”

He reached for her, and she came into his arms with another convulsive little shiver. “Is it really over, my love?”

“Bar the shouting,” he said, stroking the back of her neck. “And a loose end or two with Digby and Lacross … and, more important, a visit to the bishop with a special license.”

“What’ll we tell Papa?”

“The truth?” He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yes, perhaps that would be simplest. He’ll find it no stranger than anything else these last months.”

She leaned into him. “I feel very peculiar, as if I’ve been swimming against a tidal wave and suddenly I’ve been dropped into a mill pond.”

“Do you think you could settle for the quiet life, sweeting?” He smiled down at her.

She shook her head. “No. Could you?”

“No.”

He stroked her cheek with a slender ringer. “We’ll just have to create another earthquake to produce a tidal wave.”

“There’s one way we could be certain to make the earth move,” she suggested mischievously. “On that bench over there.”

Rupert glanced over his shoulder at the stone bench. “Discreetly?” he queried.

“You like taking risks,” she reminded him with a grin. “And besides, my skirts are so voluminous, they could conceal a multitude of sins.”

She took his hand. “Shall we try it? Before you go and drop your bombshell on the terrace?”

“Start as we mean to go on?”

“Or continue as we’ve already started, my lord Wyndham.”

He laughed softly, sitting on the bench, drawing her down astride his lap, one hand deftly unfastening his britches. She raised her skirts and settled them in a rich taffeta puff around them. The sound of voices came from the terrace, the strains of a violin from the musicians entertaining Their Majesties’ guests.

“Shall we make a baby?” Octavia whispered as he slid deep within her.