Chapter 1
Chapter One
Widower Mason Brandt, the twenty-nine-year-old Earl of Westville, was sitting with his feet propped up on an ottoman, a brandy in one hand and the Racing Calendar in the other, when the woman he’d avoided for weeks burst into his study.
Miss Augusta Hunt, his late wife’s sister. God help him.
The twenty-two-year-old female was supposed to be fifteen miles away at his family seat in Woolsey, reading to his mother about Moroccan cuisine from one of her prized travel tomes.
She should not be here in his study, breathing hard from a race up the stairs, with her eyes emerald-bright, her lovely bosom at his eye level, and her lush lips tempting him into—
Belatedly he rose. “Good evening, Augusta.” Don’t think about her mouth. Or her bosom. Or what you ache to do to both. She’s Esther’s sister, for God’s sake! “What wild adventure brings you into the wicked city?”
If he’d hoped to garner a blush from the woman, it didn’t work. Her cheeks remained pale as lilies. “Forgive me for barging in, but the matter is most urgent. Do you know where Lionel might be staying in Town? Your butler said he’s not here.”
That sounded ominous. After Esther’s death of an ague year before last, her orphaned siblings Augusta and Lionel, who’d already been living with them, had become solely his responsibility. And he took his responsibilities seriously.
“I haven’t seen him or heard from him,” Mason said.
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Her face showed her distress. “Do you still have connections at The London Monitor?”
He blinked, caught off guard by the change in subject. “Why?”
“Lionel told me this morning he was spending the night in town with you, but our butler mentioned seeing him go off with two friends. So, I searched his desk and found these.” With a flourish, she tossed three papers onto the ottoman.
He picked up the first, an old newspaper clipping about a prank played on a prominent apothecary. Some imbecile had invited two-hundred tradesmen to be at the apothecary’s house by a particular hour to offer their wares. Mass chaos had ensued when they’d all come.
With his curiosity now thoroughly roused, Mason read the next—a draft for an announcement, full of edits:
On April 1st, at ten a.m., Mrs. Bowman, a well-known famous descendant of the artist Rembrandt, will be pleased delighted to entertain the public with a free showing of her valuable collection of her ancestor’s the artist’s paintings, hitherto unseen by anyone outside of her family, to take place at 47 Park Lane. Tea will be served.
Mason glanced uneasily at Augusta. “Who, pray tell, is Mrs. Bowman?”
“A prominent barrister’s widow with a daughter whom Lionel fancies.” Augusta paced the room, clearly in high dudgeon over . . . whatever this was.
Trying not to notice how fetching she looked in her traveling costume, he forced his attention to the draft. “Does this Mrs. Bowman really have a collection of ‘hitherto unseen’ Rembrandts?”
“Are you daft?” She halted to eye him askance. “Of course there are no Rembrandts. That’s precisely the point.”
“Of what?” Normally he could follow Augusta’s wandering train of thought, but he’d had a bit too much brandy for that tonight.
“Of why he’s angry at Mrs. Bowman. He wants to marry her youngest daughter, Pamela, and—”
“Marry!” This wasn’t the usual sort of thing one encountered with the seventeen-year-old Lionel. “But he’s not even out of Eton.”
“I’m well aware. So is Mrs. Bowman. That’s why she’s forbidden him to see Pamela. She feared his intentions weren’t honorable. And being Lionel, he’s all up in arms about the insult to his honor, calling her the ‘Bowman Banshee.’”
“Insult to his honor! A lad his age hasn’t got any honor to insult. What is he thinking—to call the woman out?”
“Very amusing. No. He’s thinking of doing something much worse, if I’ve deduced his thought process correctly.” Augusta gestured to the last paper. “Look at the bill of sale.”
A bill of sale? A chill ran down his spine. He stared at a receipt from a few days ago for an announcement to be printed in The London Monitor on April 1st. Tomorrow morning.
Damn it to hell. “Surely Lionel isn’t fool enough to—”
“Perpetrate an epic hoax to strike back at the ‘Bowman Banshee’?” she snapped.
“Apparently, he is. Dratted idiot.” She returned to pacing his study, her beautiful eyes glittering and her perfect brow drawn in a frown.
“Lord only knows where he and his scurrilous friends are tonight. But so help me, when I get my hands on him, I shall throttle him senseless!”
“Not if I get to him first.” Bloody stupid young rascal.
“Now you’re concerned?” She halted in front of him to cross her arms over her breasts … er … bosom. “I wrote you two weeks ago, asking that you visit Orton Hall during Lionel’s school holidays to take him in hand, but you never even bothered to answer my letter.”
He blinked at her. “I’ve … um … been busy.”
She gestured to the racing calendar. “I can see how ‘busy’ you’ve been.”
He bit back an oath. He could hardly admit he hadn’t wanted to go home if it meant seeing her, being with her ... wanting her.
Sadly, marriage to her was out of the question.
Wedding one’s deceased wife’s sister might not be illegal in England, but it was still taboo.
It would tarnish their reputations and create an enormous scandal.
He couldn’t put that weight on her when she could still marry some fellow who wasn’t her relation.
Besides, she’d never shown any romantic interest in him beyond the tender smiles and curious glances every young woman gave respectable gentlemen. So, regardless of his desire for her, he had to go on being the affable relation he should be. Not the husband and lover he wanted to be.
“So,” she asked, “are you still friends with the owner of The London Monitor?”
That prodded him from his brandy-soaked woolgathering. “Charles Godwin. Yes.” He headed into the hall where he ordered the waiting footman to call for his coach.
She was right on his heels. “Can you prevent them from printing the announcement?”
The worry in her voice sent an answering worry through him. This was very, very bad. If it ever got out that Lionel had been involved in such a monumental prank . . .
As he strode for the stairs with her dogging his steps, Mason glanced at his pocket watch. “The paper has probably already gone to press. But I might prevail upon Godwin to hold it up. As long as I shoulder the cost.”
A shocked gasp escaped her. “Oh, Mason, no! That sounds terribly expensive.”
“No more than I deserve for neglecting my duties.” For desiring my late wife’s sister.
She paused to cast him an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have blamed you. I’m just so worried—”
“I know.”
“And I was peeved that you stayed away so long. I—we—missed you.”
Trying not to read too much into that admission—or the soft look in her pretty eyes as she’d said it—he gestured for her to go ahead of him. Her auburn curls shook as she rushed downstairs with her skirts lifted just enough to give him a glimpse of her trim ankles in their white stockings.
God help him.
“We’ve caught it in time, I expect,” he said to keep his mind off that tantalizing sight. “If we can replace the sheet containing the announcement, we’ll be fine.”
But that wouldn’t solve the problem of Lionel.
“Doesn’t setting type for even a single sheet take time?” she asked. “Though I suppose they could just . . .”
He didn’t hear the rest, too caught up in memories of his own schoolboy antics. None had been on this scale, but they’d earned him a few canings. Unfortunately, that had only made him cagier about his rebellions, until—
“If we remove the announcement,” he said, “Lionel will merely try it again, with another newspaper. Instead, we must give him a taste of his own medicine.”
“How?”
“By subjecting him to more profound consequences.” An idea was forming. “I’ll change his announcement enough to look as if there’d been errors in the type. I’ll put in a slightly different name, and, more importantly, an address I can control.”
They’d reached the foyer now, and she faced him, looking perplexed. “I see how that deprives him of his revenge on Mrs. Bowman. But that will only teach him that the press makes mistakes. Assuming he even sees the misprinted—”
“Oh, he’ll see it,” he said, then paused to call for his gloves, greatcoat, and hat.
“Trust me, he and his friends will buy a newspaper first thing to view the effects of their handiwork. Or, if they don’t, they’ll go to Mrs. Bowman’s, notice that no one is there to view their spurious exhibition, and then get a paper to figure out what went awry. ”
She pursed her lips. “And then what?”
“If Lionel has a conscience, he’ll at least try to find out how badly his hoax mucked up the life of some innocent man or woman.”
“I suppose Lionel’s conscience would be pricked if he went to the misprinted address and witnessed you fending off angry people. But I don’t think—”
“My plan involves more than that. By the time I’m done with Lionel, he’ll have learned a lesson he’ll never forget.”
He owed Esther that much. His late wife might have been a frivolous female whom he’d married in too much haste, but she’d done her best by him and she’d adored her siblings. It hadn’t been her fault that his feelings for her and hers for him had cooled later in their marriage.
Or that after she’d died, he’d grown enamored of her sister. It was simple proximity, that’s all. Nothing more.
As he donned his coat and clapped his hat on, Augusta eyed him uncertainly. “So, what is your plan?”
“No time to explain.” He headed out the door. “Just return to Orton Hall, and leave this to me.”
“Absolutely not.” Augusta hurried outside after him. “I intend to be with you tomorrow wherever you end up confronting Lionel.”
“You know you can’t stay here tonight. You have no chaperone.”
She thrust out her chin. “I brought my maid. And a bag in case I had to stay a day or two. I’m not leaving.”
“Augusta—”
“I mean it!” She swept past him to block his way down the steps. “You’re not going to pack me off like some truculent child while you risk your money, reputation, and heaven knows what else for my fool of a brother!”
“And what about your reputation?” He stared her down. “Your future could be seriously damaged if anyone sees you involved in this.”
“I’m already involved. Lionel is my brother.” Her tone turned sarcastic. “I can hardly escape the connection now.”
“I still say it would be better for you to be off—”
“In the country, out of your hair? That’s why this happened in the first place. Because you don’t want us around.” Her gaze dropped to where he was drawing on his gloves. “I suppose I understand why. We must remind you painfully of my sister.”
“It has nothing to do with Esther. I told you, I’ve just been—”
“Busy,” she said archly. “Right.”
He sighed. “But this did happen because of my neglect of Lionel. That’s why you ought to let me shift this burden from your shoulders, sweetheart.”
The endearment slipped out before he could prevent it, and her eyes shot to his, glimmering with some unreadable emotion.
“I don’t mean to give you another burden.
I merely need someone to share it with me.
” As if realizing how that could be taken, she added hastily, “Besides, Lionel is the only family I have left. I have to be there when you talk to him. Please, Mason.”
The words hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. In the past six years, she’d lost most of her family. Yet she’d never asked him for anything except his help with her brother, a request he’d ignored to his detriment.
She was right—she did have a stake in this. And for his neglect he deserved to suffer the penance of having her with him. It would be a fitting one, since just the scent of her, sharp and fruity as oranges in the night air, made his blood barrel through his veins.
His carriage pulled up in front, reminding him that the matter required haste.
“You can’t go with me to the newspaper office; that is sure to provoke comment.
” When she opened her mouth as if to protest, he added, “But I’ll send a message to Mother that you and Lionel are in town, safe with me, and you can stay here tonight.
Then, in the morning, you may come with me. ”
“Oh, thank you, Mason!” The smile that broke over her face and lit up her eyes spiked fire through him. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as when she squeezed his arm, making his every sense careen drunkenly.
For a moment, he exulted at the thought of having her to himself for a few hours, no matter what the reason. Or the cost.
Then he cursed his insanity. He was a besotted idiot, aching for the forbidden. And he would beat his desire into submission if it took him all night. Because he refused to let some ill-conceived prank of Lionel’s provoke him into an unwise affair.
He refused to become anyone’s April Fool.