Love Wasn’t Built in a Day (The Venturesome Ladies of Little Valentine #8)

Prologue

Bad Foundations

Gideon threw the last shirt into his valise and closed the lid with a snap.

Excitement, anticipation, and a somewhat sour curdle of anxiety knotted his guts and had done since he’d woken at dawn.

Yet he’d burnt his boats, bridges, and anything else that might have tempted him to change his mind.

It was too long ago to turn back now. If only he could get out of London before—A peremptory knock at the door to his rooms suggested that had been a forlorn hope.

He froze, wondering if he could pretend he wasn’t in, a cowardly impulse, but one that would save him a good deal of aggravation.”

“Open the bloody door, Deon. I know you’re in there.”

With his worst fears confirmed, Gideon muttered an oath under his breath and strode to the door, yanking it open to reveal his older brother.

The Viscount Rivington looked every bit as disreputable and dissipated as Gideon imagined he would, for there was no way he’d got up at this hour of the morning to see him off.

In the first place, Gideon had tried very hard to keep the news from his elder brother.

In the second, Damian only ever saw this hour of the morning because he’d not yet been to bed.

“What?” Gideon asked with no preamble.

“Lord, ain’t that a fine way to greet your own flesh and blood,” Damian drawled, leaning nonchalantly against the doorjamb and regarding Gideon as though he were a different and altogether incomprehensible species. He might as well be, Gideon thought bitterly.

“If you want money, I’ve got none,” Gideon said, deciding to get that out of the way before the subject could be broached.

“Well, I have, so you’re out on that count,” his brother said, pushing past him and walking into the admittedly rather spartan set of rooms Gideon kept over his office. “Good Lord, Deon, how can you stand to live like this?”

Damian’s lip curled with distaste as he looked about and Gideon repressed a surge of embarrassment, seeing the rooms through his brother’s jaded eyes.

The largest item of furniture that dominated the room was his desk, positioned beneath the window, scattered with plans and the drawing tools he had yet to pack.

On either side, the walls were lined with shelves, these crowded with books: Vitruvius, Palladio, pattern books and ledgers.

The only item of soft furnishing was a battered old armchair.

A couple of mismatched chairs arranged beside a small table could just about hold two plates if one was careful.

Everything was neat and in its place, but there was nothing elegant, nothing that suggested its owner was a gentleman from an aristocratic family, which was just how Gideon preferred it.

“I own everything in this room, and I own the room. It’s mine, not borrowed, not bought on tic. Mine.” He heard the defiance behind the words and felt suddenly gauche and awkward standing before his oh, so elegant sibling.

They were alike in build and colouring, certainly enough to be obviously brothers, and Damian’s eyes were grey like his, but far colder. Yet there was something in his gaze as he regarded Gideon now. Pity? Gideon bristled, all the old antagonistic feelings rising to the surface.

He needn’t have worried, for it was there and gone in a moment.

“Good for you,” Damian replied, his tone scathing. “Not so good for me is the little rumour I heard last night. A little bird tells me you are working—”

“I’m an architect, Damian, that’s what I do—work. It’s respectable enough for a younger son.”

Damian snorted, his disgust apparent. “Barely. But I hear you are working for a Mr King. Mr King is a criminal, Deon.”

“Was,” Gideon replied, though he knew this made no odds to most people.

It had been a risk accepting the commission instead of continuing to work for his patron, but he was tired of subsisting on the crumbs from other, more successful men’s tables.

No one else would give him the chance to design and build such a marvellous structure.

If he succeeded, everything would change.

“He’s respectable now, and I’m going to build him the finest hotel anyone has ever seen. You and your friends won’t be able to afford it,” he added, which was petty but satisfying. True too, if all went to plan.

“I don’t give a God damn if what you build rivals the Royal Pavilion. It’s one thing working for a man of the same class as us, Gideon, but you are working for a common fellow. Can you imagine what people are saying about you?”

“What do you care what people say, about me or you?” Gideon demanded, finding this rather amusing considering the dreadful stories that circulated about his brother.

“It’s embarrassing,” Damian pressed indignantly.

Gideon couldn’t help it. He laughed. When he thought of all the occasions his brother had ruined his chances by doing something so utterly beyond the pale any respectable client dropped him like a hot coal, well—it was funny in a dreadful sort of way.

Damian’s lip quirked a little. For all his wicked ways, he did have a sense of humour. “Well, I suppose I deserve that,” he remarked.

“No, you deserve to be horsewhipped, but as no one has the nerve to do the job—”

“Including you,” Damian pointed out.

Gideon shrugged. “I tried, at least.”

Damian smiled. It was not a nice smile, and Gideon felt a shiver of apprehension. His brother was too unpredictable, too much like—well, he’d not think of that.

“If that’s all, I need to finish packing,” Gideon said, frowning as Damian moved to his desk and picked up a drawing with long, elegant fingers. Damian waved a dismissive hand.

“I’m not stopping you.”

Sighing, Gideon moved about the room, collecting the last of his things.

“I see Hollywell House has put up its fees again.”

Gideon looked up as Damian held the bill, he had yet to pay and waved it in the air, his expression unreadable.

“Give me that,” Gideon said, crossing the room and snatching it from Damian’s fingers.

“You are a lamentable fool, Deon.”

“So, I’m told,” Gideon replied coldly. “What else would you have me do? It’s not like you’ll pay it.”

“Find somewhere cheaper, a place that won’t bleed you dry,” Damian said, his voice low and harsh.

Gideon snorted. “What, so I can give the extra money to you instead?”

“Dammit, Gideon! I know I’m not exactly a shining example of humanity, but—”

“Don’t!” Gideon held up a hand, and something in the tone of his voice must have communicated itself to Damian because for once in his life he repressed the impulse to start a fight.

“Fine. Do as you please, you always have. Just try not to embarrass me any more than you must,” Damian said coldly, striding to the door.

“And the same to you!” Gideon yelled back as the door slammed, cutting off his words.

He let out a breath and stared despairingly down at the bill in his hand. Damian was right about one thing: he was a fool.