The rage smoldered as Richard's hands clenched, unclenched. A knife to the gullet? Surely a possibility. Richard was a handsome young man, nearly Nicholas's size, big enough to look down on many of his peers. Richard said, "I am a man, more of a man than you will ever be. I am welcome in London. You are not. You do not belong here. Go back to your savage life. I heard you came from China. That is where you have lived, isn't it?'
Nicholas smiled and turned to look at another young man standing at Richard's elbow. "I recognize you. You are Lancelot, are you not?"
They could not have looked less like brothers. Unlike either Richard or Nicholas, this young man was slight, fair, and pale, the image of a delicate poet. Nicholas looked at his artist's hands, with their long fingers and beautiful shape. He wondered what his father had thought of this pretty son, who resembled his mother, Miranda, if Nicholas remembered aright.
Out of his pretty mouth came a petulant voice. "Everyone knows I am called Lance."
Nicholas drawled, "No knight then?"
"Make no jest with me, sir. It was paltry."
Nicholas raised a dark brow. "I? Certainly I wouldn't consider a jest with you. You are my family, after all."
"Only by bitter and unjust circumstance," Richard said. "We don't want you here. No one wants you here."
"How very strange," Nicholas said easily. "I am now the head of the Vail family, I am your eldest brother. You should welcome me, delight in my company, look to me for advice and counsel."
Lancelot made a rude noise.
"You are nothing more than a ne'er-do-well adventurer, sir, who should probably be in Newgate."
"An adventurer, hmmm. That has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" Nicholas smiled at both young men impartially, strangers, both of them, and they hated him, doubtless made to hate him by his father and their mother. They'd been innocent children once; he remembered them from their last visit to Wyverly Chase, just before his grandfather had died. He'd been an ancient twelve. He said slowly, "I remember there are three of you. Where is-what is his name?"
"Aubrey," Richard said, tight-lipped. "He studies at Oxford."
Oxford, Nicholas thought; it sounded alien, it felt alien. "Do give Aubrey my best," he said, nodding to Richard and Lancelot.
"I heard you were staying at Grillon's," Richard called after him. "A pity Father didn't leave you the town house."
Lancelot snickered.
Nicholas turned back. "To be honest with you, Wyverly Chase is more than enough. I am relieved that decrepit Georgian pile on Epson Square wasn't entailed to me. The repairs alone must cost you at least three nights' winnings at the gaming table, if you ever win, that is."
Lancelot said, "Father wouldn't have left you Wyverly Chase either if it hadn't been entailed. A pity now that it will molder into the ground."
"It moldered long before my arrival," Nicholas said.
Lancelot said, "And you will not be able to do anything about it. Everyone knows you're poor as a rooster catcher on the heath."
"I don't believe I am familiar with that term," Nicholas said.
"That's right, you are not a proper Englishman, are you?" Richard said, sneering. "It's a boy who handles the birds for cockfights, worthless little beggars with scarred hands from the birds biting them. We heard you sailed in from faraway China. We heard you even have several Chinaman servants."
Nicholas gave them both a schoolmaster's approving nod. "It is good that you listen. Myself, I recommend listening, I have always found it useful." As he turned to leave through the front door, held open by the same footman-all ears-he added, "Actually, I have always found listening more useful than talking. You might consider that."
Nicholas heard Lancelot huff out an angry breath. Richard's eyes were black with rage, his face flushed. Interesting how completely their father had bent their minds into hatred of him, Nicholas thought as he strode down the broad wide steps to the walkway. He remembered Richard had been a happy boy, and Lance a cherub, all pink and white and smiling, content to sit at his mother's feet whilst she played the harp. As for Aubrey, he'd been so small when Nicholas had last seen him-a little boy who loved nothing more than to hurl a bail and run up and down the long corridor, yelling at the top of his lungs. Nicholas remembered how he'd nearly gone tumbling down the front stairs. Nicholas had scooped him up just in time. He also remembered Miranda screaming at him, accusing him of trying to murder her son, and Aubrey between them, crying and afraid. His father, Nicholas re-called, had believed it, and taken a whip to him, cursed him, and called him a murdering little bastard. Nicholas's grandfather had been too ill to intervene, and he would have if he'd even been aware that his son and family had come to witness his death. Sweet hell, who knew why such memories burrowed into a man's brain?
There were at least two dozen carriages lining both sides of the street, both the drivers and the horses appearing to be asleep. It was a good long walk back to Grillon's Hotel. Not a single miscreant appeared in his path.
At the Sherbrooke breakfast table the following morning, a kipper poised on her fork, Rosalind asked Ryder, "Sir, who was that dark gentleman who wanted to dance with me last night? The young one with long hair black as All Hallows' Eve?"
Ryder was a fool to believe Nicholas Vail hadn't made an impression on her though she hadn't said a thing about him on their way home the previous evening. He said easily, "The young man is the Earl of Mountjoy, newly arrived on our shores, some say from faraway China."
"China," Rosalind said, stretching it out, as if savoring the feel of it on her tongue. "How vastly romantic that sounds."
Grayson Sherbrooke grunted with disgust. "You girls- you'd say that riding in a tumbrel to the guillotine, shoulders squared, sounded romantic."
Rosalind gave Grayson a big grin and made a chopping motion with her hand. "You obviously have no soul, Grayson."
4
Grayson waved that away. "Everyone is speculating about him. I heard he's in town to find himself an heiress. At least that means you're safe, Rosalind."
"Of course I'm safe. I'm in the same hole with the church mouse."
"Regardless," Ryder said, "he asked me if he could pay us a visit this morning."
Rosalind sat forward in her chair, the nutty bun in her hand forgotten, eyes sparkling. "What? He wants to visit me?"
"Or Aunt Sophie," Ryder said. "Who knows? Perhaps he was taken with Grayson, and wants to hear a good ghost story." Ryder frowned. "Perhaps it was a mistake to tell him you were my ward."
"But why, sir? Oh, I see. As part of the Sherbrooke family, ward or not, he must assume I'm exceedingly plump in the pocket." Rosalind wasn't about to tell Uncle Ryder or Grayson that she was more disappointed than warranted at this nasty bit of news.
"You're only discreetly plump," Ryder said.
Grayson said, "On the other hand, from what I have heard of the mysterious earl, he never acts until he knows exactly what he wants."
Rosalind said, "You mean he wants me even though I'm not an heiress? That's ridiculous, Grayson. Nobody would want me. Besides, he can't have me."
Grayson tapped his knife on the tablecloth. "I will be with you when he pays his visit this morning. We must know what he wants from you. If he's come to the mistaken conclusion you are an heiress, I will dispel that notion immediately."
Rosalind said, "He is very imposing."
"Yes," Ryder said, "he is. I sent a note to Horace Bingley- the Sherbrooke solicitor here in London-to tell us what he knows of the earl. We will see what he has to say about the young man's character."