The Wicked Heir (Spare Heirs #3)(26)

Fallon didn’t say a word. There were no words. He was asking his friend to give up his freedom to save a lady’s reputation and the future of the Spare Heirs. It was a heavy price to pay and one that couldn’t be coated in sugar to make it more palatable.

“Absolutely not! You know what that would mean for me…for her!”

“I do. But is marriage a worse fate than allowing her to face this scandal alone? You have the ability to fix this situation. I can see that the repairs are made quickly, but the talk of it… Brice, you know as well as I how long that will linger.”

He hesitated, clearly wanting to argue…then slumped back, decision made and fate sealed. “I suppose it was blasted honorable of me, carrying Lady Victoria out of that fire like I did,” Brice finally conceded with a sigh. “It appears that, in the end, I won’t be as unsuitable as my family has always believed. All right: I’ll marry the girl, for her sake and the Spares’.”

Ayton clapped a hand on Brice’s shoulder. “Whiskey?”

“A damned leg shackle. Yes, I’ll take a whiskey, Ayton. And I’ll have yours as well.”

Fallon eyed his friend with more than a small amount of sympathy for a moment before standing and murmuring, “Thank you.”

With the final words on the subject spoken, Fallon left the men to drown themselves in spirits and moved toward the door. He had a wedding to orchestrate with Lady Victoria’s father. It had been some time since he’d paid a visit to Lord Knottsby. It seemed today was the day to call in an old favor.





Five


Back in the safety of his black carriage that resembled every other carriage on the streets of London, Reginald pulled the diary from his pocket and tapped his fingers on the cover as he stared out the window into the icy winter evening.

“Quite respectable these days,” he mused as the Fairlyn home disappeared from view. The lord of the house, Knottsby, had built a good name in society since they last met. A lordly name, a lordly home… Even the shrubbery in his garden had been pruned just so.

“After everything he stole from me,” Reginald said, his grip on the small diary tightening.

Life for Knottsby was about to suffer a devastating blow. He would do well to enjoy his lordly reputation today, for soon it would be gone.

St. James would attempt to stop events from happening, of course. That man must always place his nose where it didn’t belong. St. James had a need to control everyone and everything around him, was willing to do anything for the sake of protecting the innocent and his precious Spares. He always had. They lined his pockets, after all. But he wouldn’t be able to keep these plans from happening.

“Go mad from trying, St. James.” With a grin, he descended from the carriage and started up the steps to his accommodations, anxious to read yet another entry in Lady Isabelle’s private journal.

Isabelle Fairlyn’s Diary

February 1817

I read Sir Tristan de Lyones’s story from Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” again last night. The pages of my copy are well worn with curling corners, creases, and dots of tea from years of enjoyment. I wish I could recount the number of times I’ve read the story, as I’m certain it would be an impressive number, but all I know is the truth I’m always left with on the last page of Tristan’s tale. I want to know a love like the one he had for Isolde, and someday I shall.

With that in mind, my qualifications for my future husband are as follows:

1. Blond hair

2. Polished appearance and keen sense of fashion

3. Drive a festive red phaeton or ride a powerful steed

4. Be a skilled dance partner

5. Admire flowers and other beauty in the world

6. Friendly smile with even teeth

7. Honorable and upstanding in society

Gentlemen who embody every ideal listed above and are therefore under consideration for marriage:

1. Mr. Kelton Brice

—Isabelle

? ? ?

Spring 1817

Isabelle loved her sister. And that was what made today so terribly difficult.

She wasn’t certain how long she’d been standing in her bedchamber with her arms wrapped around herself as she shook. The large brass key to her door pressed jagged lines into the palm of her hand, but she made no move to ease the pain. She’d been betrayed.

“Isabelle Fairlyn, open your door this instant!” her mother shouted from the hall.

“No,” she whispered to the empty room.

“If you don’t, I will find the housekeeper and allow myself entry!”

“Do what you must,” Isabelle replied, though she didn’t believe she could be heard through the paneled door that separated them.

Two years ago, she’d asked her cousin Sue to paint vines and flowers on the walls of her bedchamber. She’d always thought them cheerful: their various shades of pink and purple, sweeping around her, full of life and the expectation of blooming in the sun. She preferred the idea of living in a garden rather than within the four walls of a house. Gardens were happy. No one argued in a garden. In a home, however…

“Isabelle!” her mother bellowed, punctuating her thoughts on home life rather well.

Now the garden walls closed in and choked her with thoughts of how wrong she’d been. She’d always believed in the good in everyone and everything around her—until now.