Like No Other Lover Read online

  So when the rest of the ton had dropped Cynthia with teeth-jarring finality, unsurprisingly, Violet had invited her to her family’s home in Sussex for a fortnight’s house party.

  Cynthia was certain the invitation represented two parts friendship and two parts mischief, but she was in no position to care, and had every intention of making the most of it.

  Her instinct for gaiety instantly located the table in the pub containing Everseas: two dazzlingly handsome men, one of them, Colin, infamous and newly wed—so newly the broadsheets were still agog about it—the other, judging from the way he was listing a bit in his seat, well into in his cups. A sleek black-haired woman—Colin Eversea’s wife?—smiled at a slim girl who paused by the Everseas’ empty plates and tankards and gathered them up in that deft many-armed way barmaids seem to possess. The girl conspicuously did not smile in return.

  And then Cynthia watched the girl slip behind the bar, where an older man gave her braid a tweak and handed her a broom once her hands were empty again. He earned a smile. And his smile was the same size and shape and brightness as hers. Father and daughter. Cynthia turned her head away, suddenly feeling immersed in families. It was like a language she’d never learned, for she had no family at all.

  “The Hawthornes,” Violet told her, seeing the direction of her gaze. “Ned and his daughter Polly. The Hawthorne family has owned the Pig & Thistle for nigh on centuries now.” She pretended she hadn’t seen the Everseas, and ignored the ironic hand lifted in greeting by Colin and slapped down by his brother.

  Violet steered Cynthia away from the implied delights of Everseas to a much less promising table. At this sat three men: two older men, between them a chessboard with black and ivory pieces neatly rowed, and a younger man—large, dark, dour, bespectacled.

  Ah, yes, of course. Violet’s older brother. Mr. Miles Redmond.

  He’s…something to do with insects, Cynthia recalled vaguely.

  Miles watched his sister inexorably approach with Miss Brightly, and was motionless again.

  He’d never seen Cynthia again after that night, and naturally had never said a thing about what he overheard. But that season she was ever a feature of gleeful ton gossip, always in the ceaseless ambient conversation in clubs and salons: he heard of reckless, predawn phaeton races, the triumphant winner earning all of Miss Brightly’s waltzes at Lady Murcheston’s seasonal do; about the volumes of terrible poetry written on the subject of her complexion and her eyes; and oh, the wagers—whimsical and desperate and inflammatory wagers that allegedly caused men to come to blows—recorded in the betting books at White’s concerning who would finally win her hand.

  In short, many, many men had foundered on the iceberg of Miss Cynthia Brightly’s heart.

  And she encouraged all of it, or so it was whispered, half in censure, half in awe.

  He’d been drinking at White’s the day he’d learned of her engagement to the Earl of Courtland’s enormously wealthy heir. Nearly two years ago now. And though the news had nothing at all to do with him, it had knelled peculiarly. He’d gone still, puzzled and heavy.

  And then, ever the gentleman, ever quick to do the right and gracious thing, Miles had joined everyone in drinking to Courtland’s good fortune. He’d continued drinking all night long, in an attempt to fill that peculiar resounding emptiness, but ever pragmatic, had given up before they needed to carry him out of White’s.

  Violet and Miss Brightly were upon them now. He saw his sister drop a familiar hand on Miss Brightly’s wrist. He stared at Violet’s hand. He still couldn’t seem to resume thinking clearly, and normally thoughts poured through him the way his blood did: ceaselessly.

  Though it seemed he could stand: his breeding was tugging him to his feet. They all stood: he and Mr. Cooke and Mr. Culpepper.

  He didn’t yet look directly at Miss Brightly. He did manage to send a speaking look at his intractable sister.

  “I can’t lie to you when you look at me like that, Miles,” Violet had once complained. “It’s like looking at my own conscience.”

  He’d laughed. He had a good laugh, and his siblings liked to make him do it.

  But he was very nearly the only person on the planet who could make Violet rue something. His father indulged her, and she loved and feared him; Lyon had spoiled her, and she had worshipped him; Jonathan goaded her, her mother despaired of her. Miles was the one who watched over her.

  Watching over the things he cared about was his particular talent.

  The mischief in Violet’s eyes faltered a bit.

  Ah, that was better.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said prettily and a trifle less spiritedly than she might have before Miles fixed her with a disciplinary stare. “I should like to introduce you to my dear friend, Miss Cynthia Brightly.”

  Miles refrained from snorting at the “dear.”

  The admiration on the faces of the two old chess foes was unabashed and touching. They were fond of Violet—they’d known her since she was a baby, and loved hearing of her exploits—but Miss Brightly was new. They gazed at her with wordless delight for a moment before offering a pair of courtly bows and polite greetings to both young ladies.

  Miles thought dryly: beauty confers a sort of royalty; it commands reflexive obeisance; it inspires awe and resentment and obsequiousness all at once. Everyone wants a role at its court, regardless of how we feel about its bearer. But she isn’t a true beauty, he told himself. Her eyes were too large, her lips too full. Her face not an oval.

  Unfortunately, analysis failed to vanquish whatever was happening to his body.

  Because it was required of him, he, too, finally bowed over Miss Brightly’s hand.

  When he was upright again it struck him again how odd it was that he didn’t so much see as feel her: like a brush against the short hairs at the back of his neck, like a hot breath in his ear, as a low hum in his solar plexus, as a knot in his throat. His skin felt singed.

  They regarded each other. She betrayed almost no recognition. But he felt it, almost as though it spun from her to wind him in a cocoon: that indefinable thing known as charm.

  He understood at once he was the deliberate object of it. He was a man, but he was hardly a fool. If Cynthia Brightly was in Sussex, in Pennyroyal Green, in the country, without a husband or a fiancé…

  Something untimely must have happened in London.

  His realization must have done something cynical to his eyes, for something uncertain subtly shadowed hers.

  He reminded himself that he genuinely did not like her. The realization restored his breathing and senses to something resembling normal. And he was a Redmond, after all: his manners were as fine as cognac, as instinctive as breathing. He would say something innocuous and polite now.

  “I must leave,” he said, and turned and did just that.

  Four mouths dropped into O’s behind him.

  Miles was just as surprised as everyone else. He felt a peculiar sense of vertigo, as though he’d given a push on a pendulum and it had swung instead right at him and knocked him flat.

  But he never paused as he deliberately wended his way through the drinkers and diners at the Pig & Thistle. He passed his youngest brother, Jonathon, who had lingered near the bar. Jonathon had said something to Polly Hawthorne to make her giggle, which was a good sound, as Polly Hawthorne, like nearly every women in Pennyroyal Green between the ages of seventeen and eighty, had been in love with Colin Eversea and was taking the matter of his marriage rather personally. She was at an age where everything was taken rather personally. She’d taken to sending dark, wounded looks at Colin Eversea’s wife, Miles had noticed.

  Apparently, Polly wasn’t pulling Jonathan’s ale fast enough to suit him, because he was patting the bar with an impatient hand. And then he turned, and something he saw in Miles’s face made him raise his brows comically high in a question.

  Why? Miles asked, with a curt gesture of his chin at Miss Brightly as he took his greatcoat from the pe
g near the door.

  He hesitated when he saw her cape hanging there. It was an ordinary cape—gray wool, clearly not new—but it seemed imbued with a peculiar charisma.

  He stared at it. He frowned darkly.

  Jonathan, being a man, understood the gist of Miles’s question. He accepted his ale from Polly and rose it to her in thanks, then took a long noisy draught before answering Miles’. He lowered his voice to do it. “Can’t say for certain why she’s here—Violet don’t know, either, and I escorted the two of them here from London—but I heard there was a duel. ’Twas kept very quiet, as it was the Earl of Courtland’s heir she was engaged to, after all. All I know is the engagement was broken and she seems untouchable in London—heard everyone’s dropped her, but no one seems to know quite why, and I reckon it’s ungentlemanly to discuss it. I certainly haven’t asked. I like her. She’s lively enough company,” he added carelessly. “I warrant Violet lured her here to cause mischief and to have a go at the rich eligible bloods at the party. Have a care, old man! Miss Brightly’s come for you,” he said, cheerfully ghoulish.

  Jonathan mimed a fishhook with his forefinger, inserted it in his mouth, tugged it up and bugged his eyes out.

  And at this Miles flung the pub door open, let it swing shut to the sound of his brother’s laughter, and plunged into the familiar rolling, soft dark of the Sussex downs.

  He was suddenly nostalgic for the somehow more comfortable dangers of a Brazilian jungle.

  Chapter 2

  When he reached home, Miles handed his hat and walking stick to one of his mother’s expensively liveried footman, and as he stood there over the chessboard-patterned marble, he paused to imagine something: all of the moods and circumstances under which his ancestors must have come through that door—foxed from a night at the Pig & Thistle, giddy or guilty from an assignation, triumphant from battle, perhaps grieving after a funeral held at the town’s little church, or newly married and filled with lust or trepidation. One ancestor had allegedly come home and put a pistol to his head.

  This occurred to him because for the first time in his life he had no idea what he was feeling. Mysteries were his lifeblood and nearly an affront: he routinely quietly, ruthlessly, methodically unraveled them.

  But he’d never before been a mystery to himself.

  He eyed the stairs. He could swiftly take them, instruct his valet to pack a light trunk, and then bolt for London—where he kept rooms—before the rest of the houseguests arrived in the morning. He took two swift decisive steps toward the stairs when the prospect of the imminent arrival of Lady Middlebough slowed him. Lush and brunette, married and bored, discreetly enough connected to learn of his repertoire of skills and the formidable appetite with which he applied them, sophisticated enough to signal her intent to him all but wordlessly at a recent ball, clever enough to secure an invitation to this house party from his mother—the very promise of her held him motionless for an instant. She was precisely the sort of woman he enjoyed.

  He hesitated, and his hand slowly, involuntarily, curled, as if in anticipation of wrapping it around Lady Middlebough’s soft white thigh.

  This reverie proved to be a grave mistake. It gave his mother, Fanchette Redmond, an opportunity to sweep into the foyer and intercept him with this horrifying bit of news:

  “Your father would like to have a conversation with you, Miles, dear.”

  He froze. The reverie popped like a soap bubble.

  His mother put up her cheek for his kiss, and her son unfroze long enough to dutifully plant one on her soft lilac-scented cheek. And then Fanchette Redmond surprised Miles by kissing him on both cheeks, as though apologizing for the fact that he would have to speak to his father.

  Because Miles baffled his father.

  Whereas many bored wealthy young men dabbled in the natural sciences, to his father’s utter bemusement, Miles had set out to become an entomologist. “Insects and whatnot,” is how Isaiah Redmond referred to his life’s work. And Miles knew full well that if he hadn’t gone on a long journey involving dangers, privations, fevers, people who allegedly ate other people, and affectionate women who wore nothing for clothing above their waists all day, his father would have thought him less of a man than he ought to be.

  And before Lyon disappeared, this hadn’t mattered in the least.

  His father had steadfastly refused to present the idea of funding Mile’s next, grander expedition to his formidable investment group, the Mercury Club, for this very reason. But Miles had never once failed to accomplish something he’d set out to do. He’d begun shamelessly rooting out every possible funding source, even resorting to enchanting old Culpepper and Cooke with the idea. Still it was all taking rather longer than he preferred, and desperation—just a hint—encroached.

  “He’ll be up to greet you in the library in a moment,” his mother added.

  Leaving him to wait was very like Isaiah Redmond, too.

  “One other thing, dear. As you know, we’ve a number of guests arriving, but your father and I have been called away to deal with some business on my side of the family, and I fear we must leave first thing in the morning. It involves a will, you see, and money and property, and your father absolutely insists upon seeing to it straight away, as you can imagine. I’ve arranged the seating and the meals and the entertainments and the like. You need only ensure the guests enjoy themselves until we return.”

  Miles was speechless. Why, why, why did he suddenly feel as though it would be infinitely preferable to be the guest of hungry cannibals than host of this house party? He had nothing at all against people, per se. He had beautiful manners and a command of every kind of conversation.

  “Of course, Mother,” he said calmly. Fooling his mother not at all.

  She gave him a pat, not doubtful at all that he would do his duty—unlike, in the end, Lyon, who had allegedly been brought low by love and subsequently vanished.

  While Miles awaited his father in his father’s study, Cynthia and Jonathan and Violet returned from the Pig & Thistle. Cynthia now stood in the center of the room she’d been assigned, taking the measure of it.

  It had been so passionately cleaned and polished that every piece of furniture—the walnut dressing table and matching mirror above it, the wardrobe where Violet’s obliging abigail had tenderly hung Cynthia’s gowns, the tall posts of a bed that could fit three of her across and six of her down—seemed to have its own halo. But no carved acorns or vines decorated the hearth. No friezes enhanced the walls. The legs of the dressing table and bed and chair were unturned rectangles. The carpet possessed no discernible pedigree.

  Quite a contrast to the furniture she’d seen downstairs: gilded, delicate, haughty refugees from the French revolution, no doubt purchased cheaply from fleeing aristocrats by an opportunistic Redmond (was there any other kind?) at some point during the last century. The carpets, she knew, were Savonnerie and Aubusson: thick and soft as pelts, colors rich despite their advanced age, fringe luxuriant.

  In other words, Mrs. Isaiah Redmond was making an eloquent point by assigning Miss Brightly this room.

  Cynthia smiled as though an entire ballroom of guests was watching her at this very moment. If one thing could truthfully be said about her, it was that she was equal to a challenge.

  She was startled when one of the curtains began to shimmy; the window was open. And though this room was doubtless one of the smaller ones in the house, it still seemed to take a quarter of an hour just to cross to the window to close it.

  Before she did, she hesitated. Then parted the curtains wider to look out.

  Millions of stars crowded the Sussex sky, and below it and beyond it was a vast soft dark punctuated by the woolly dark shadows of trees. For a dizzying moment she was a little girl again, shivering between her parents atop a cart in the dead of night grinding over a rutted road to a new home in Little Roxford, leaving behind the noise and crowds of their rooms atop the Jones family in Battersea in London—such a lot of rambunctious
boys the Jones’s had. And when London at last gave way to the endless skies and endless dark and ringing silence of countryside, she’d looked up to see a shooting star arcing across the sky.

  It had struck Cynthia as odd that an event so startling, so unnervingly beautiful, should also be silent. It was something the entire world could see all at once but would miss if they blinked. And she’d thought at the time a funny thing to call it—a shooting star. It didn’t so much shoot as bolt. As though it had seen an opportunity to escape its place in the firmament and taken it.

  Then again, perhaps it had been ejected by its fellow stars, she thought dryly.

  She knew a thing or two about bolting from firmaments. And about ejections.

  A minute twitch of motion caught her eye: a little spider was shifting in its web in the corner of the window.

  Cynthia reared backed in alarm.

  The spider reared back in alarm.

  Cynthia leaned forward to slide the window closed and then dropped the curtains abruptly. It had been years since she slept in a room where a spider would be allowed to build a home. Since Battersea, and the room above the Jones’s.

  She rubbed the fine hairs on the back of her neck, where a bit of fear pricked.

  When she was younger, after her parents had gone, she often woke in terror from a dream of falling, falling, falling through an impenetrable blackness. Just like that star. Once awake, she would knot the sheets around her fists as if to anchor herself to the bed, and turn her face into her pillow to stifle her gasps so the vicar and his wife wouldn’t hear them. It wasn’t so much the fear of striking the ground, which is what she’d always halfhoped would happen in the dream. That, at least, would have been an ending—albeit, granted, not of the happy variety. It was the nothingness; it was the not knowing; it was the possibility of flailing alone for eternity.