Copyright © 2018 by Eliot Grayson
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Dedication
For M.B. and M.R., again.
Seriously, you guys need to stop being so awesome,
or you’ll end up with more books dedicated to you than you even want.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
The moors spread out on either side of him like an unrolled parchment. A particularly crumbly unrolled parchment, filled with the details of religious practices in ancient Pythia, perhaps. Although Pythia had at least been known for its fig wine and moonlit dances among the olive groves. Owen frowned. He was probably being rather too kind to Trewebury and its environs. If anyone could produce a single drop of fig wine within a hundred miles, he’d eat his unfashionably low-crowned hat.
And as for moonlit dances — Owen sniggered at the thought of his staid father, belly straining against his brown-striped waistcoat, cavorting in the moonlight. It would take a deal of fig wine to bring that about.
The moors had very little to recommend them, too, in any light. They had a certain bleak grandeur, Owen supposed, but mostly they had drizzle, and low, prickly bushes that caught at one’s ankles, and the occasional surly sheep.
And Owen. He was there, seemingly for always, and seemingly always alone.
He could forget that, though, once he reached the cliffs that bounded the moors to the west. The glory of the ocean, spread out before him, seemed temptingly close despite the hundred feet of cliff-face that stood between him and it. Gulls swooped and wheeled, their calls echoing the shrill and terrifying cries of Mirreith, their patron goddess. And Owen’s, due to the sigil she placed on his body while he was still in the womb. At least he had their company — the gulls and the goddess. Although the latter had been marked by her absence since troubling to claim him some decades before; Owen would have welcomed some sign of what her plan for him might be, even if that came in the form of a portentous seagull.
He watched for a little while, but the gulls did nothing but circle, occasionally diving down to examine some presumably delicious bit of slimy ocean detritus on the shore below. If the goddess meant him to take some meaning from that, he lacked the intelligence to discern it.
With a sigh, Owen turned back, away from the setting sun and toward home, where his parents would soon expect him for dinner. He tramped across the moors as often as he could escape on his own from his family’s dull and respectable home, for there was simply nowhere else to go. Trewebury was more than a mere village; it was the local market town and busy enough in the mornings when tradesmen and farmers plied their services and wares in the central square and along the several streets that led into it. But it was entirely devoid of anything that could excite a young fellow of two-and-twenty with no interest in the girls who flocked to the market with their baskets.
Not that Owen would excite them, either. Trewebury was small enough that everyone knew of the goddess-touched in their midst. He wished, most passionately some days, that he could hide what he was. The town’s young women either giggled at the very thought of him, or — often worse — thought to treat him as one of their own, an impulse he knew had its root in kindness, but one that left him feeling less of a man but not nearly a woman, either. He tried not to think of what the town’s young men thought of him; if they thought of him at all, Owen suspected it was in terms he would not find flattering.
The sun sank deeper into the heavy bank of fog closing in from the sea, and the moor before him lost all its remaining color. One stray shaft of light still highlighted the top of a granite tor about a mile distant, the gently rolling swells of grass surrounding it only the gloomier and more featureless by contrast. It didn’t matter. He knew this stretch of moor as well as he knew his own bedchamber.
Owen set a course just to the right of the tor, planning to scramble down a bit of hillside and meet the path that led around the foot, rather than circling to it across flatter ground. Just as he reached the top of the slope, the sound of hoofbeats startled him out of his reverie, and he jumped, slipped, and with a cry, went tumbling down.
There was the scrape of gravel on his palms, and the slide of scree beneath his flailing legs; the ground and the sky whirled in a sickening dance, and then he landed flat on his back with a crunch, his head swimming. He blinked, and flinched as a few more bits of gravel pattered down.
When he blinked again, a dark, rather wavery shape blotted out what was left of the light. A giant frowning hat? That couldn’t possibly be right. Owen tried to push himself up onto his elbows, only to be gently but firmly pushed back down again.
“Don’t try to move,” said a deep rasp of a voice. “You’ve most likely struck your head on something on the way down.”
The shape removed its hat and resolved into a broad-shouldered gentleman, his face still too blurry to make out in detail — except for the outline of his expression. Of course. It was the man’s face that was frowning. That made a great deal more sense.
Owen tried to laugh, felt very sick, and rolled to the side, retching and barely able to see, and then not seeing at all.
“For the last time, mother, I don’t remember precisely why I fell!” Owen’s voice sounded weak and querulous even to himself; small wonder that his mother had forbidden him to rise from bed. “I was on my way home. I must have been, for I set out an hour before and couldn’t possibly have still been only a mile from home. I must have slipped, that’s all.”
Mrs. Honeyfield turned away from the fireplace, where she had been venting her frustrations by prodding a poker at the remains of the coals as a knight of old might have wielded a broadsword. Watery early-afternoon sunshine pouring through the bedchamber’s one tall window showed the ancient scuffs in the oak flooring that no quantity of polish could ever quite eradicate; it illuminated the whole landscape of Owen’s circumscribed life, his books neatly on the cheap desk, the washstand with its chipped ewer, the frayed blue dressing gown on a hook by the bed. And most of all, his mother’s round face, usually calm but lined today with worry.
“And you wouldn’t have been able to slip and fall if you hadn’t been clambering about on the rocks,” she said, “as your father and I have told you a thousand times not to do, if we’ve told you once…”
Long practiced in filtering out his mother’s scolding, well-deserved as it often was, Owen closed his eyes and drifted through what he could remember of his accident. It wasn’t much; he’d told her the truth when he said he recalled little more than a painful blank. Since it had been three days already and his head had mostly cleared, he was hardly likely to remember more. The memory ached, though, like a sore tooth that he could neither pull nor ignore. He had fallen, and then, after that, he had a strange impression of safety and
warmth, although that seemed the wrong reaction to a concussion.
“…and if not for Mr. Drake and his brother, you might have died!” she finished in a crescendo of righteous indignation. She had recaptured Owen’s attention with her mention of the Drakes, two brothers who had taken up residence in a manor a mile outside of Trewebury only a few days before Owen’s accident. They were the talk of the whole town, not that it had done the inhabitants much good. The gentlemen hadn’t yet deigned to appear anywhere they could be gawked at. Probably, come to think of it, for that precise reason.
They had brought him home with great care, according to his mother, gallantly carrying him all the way so that he wouldn’t be jostled on horseback. She had been maddeningly vague as to their personal attributes, merely, and infuriatingly, telling him that they were all that young gentlemen should be, to be sure. He was quite wild to get a look for himself, and he knew they had called to ask after him. Not just one potentially handsome gentleman, but two! What if they lost interest before he could even catch a glimpse of them? It would be a tragedy.
“I’m well enough now to see them, don’t you think?” Owen asked plaintively.
“Not until you’re well enough to take your meals downstairs,” she said with crushing firmness.
Which he was, if only she and father would stop fussing over him. At least he wanted to be. What he really wanted was more details of his apparent rescue, the extraordinarily romantic — Owen would not describe it that way to his parents for all the gold in the world — part of the story in which a handsome gentleman bore Owen’s swooning form across the moors, muscular arms flexing, long powerful legs eating up the distance easily…he veered quickly away from that line of thought. He had recovered quite enough for certain parts of his body to show their interest, and only the hem of a nightshirt and a light blanket covered his lower half.
His mother chose that moment to turn back from the small items on his bureau that she had begun to rearrange and dust with rather more force than necessary, and Owen shifted guiltily and adjusted the coverlet.
His irritation with himself came out in a brusque, “Would you please stop thumping things about?”
She set her hands on her hips and glared at him. “If you can’t bear the noise of a little neatening-up, then you’re not well enough to receive callers. Besides,” she said with that little quirk to her lips that always meant Owen was about to lose an argument, “you’re as pale as a sea-wraith and not nearly as like to lure a man to his doom, if you catch my meaning.”
Owen glared in his turn. “I’m not so very bad, I thank you. And anyhow, pale and interesting is a — something gentlemen might find appealing, isn’t it? Cousin Julia’s friend, that young lady she met at the assembly, do you remember her? She’s always swanning about with her fan and her smelling-salts, and she has men falling over themselves to court her.”
“Miss Bowman is the heiress to a large fortune.”
“But mother —”
“And,” she went on ruthlessly, “your freckles are twice as visible when you don’t have any color in your face.”
Well. Owen really had no answer to that, and he subsided against his pillows, entirely defeated. He did freckle terribly, no matter what sort of hat he wore, and a sea of dark spots stark against a sickly pallor was not the image he wanted to present to the Drakes.
“You’re lovely, my dear,” his mother said, in a softer tone. “Freckles and all. But you need your rest, for now. Dr. Fellowes said you were to stay in bed quietly for a full week, and I’ll keep you there if I have to sit on you.”
“Fine. But I think the quietly part needs a bit of work on your part, Mama. Ow,” he said, as she flicked him on the nose, and then “Mother,” when she followed that up with a kiss to his forehead. He had quite outgrown that sort of thing. Though at that gentle touch, he sank deeper into the mattress, suddenly very cozy and sleepy in a way only one’s mother could induce.
“Oh, get on with you,” she said, sounding as fond as anything. “I’ll bring you some tea in a while.”
Owen dreamed of a faceless man with broad shoulders and capable hands, carrying him through the twilight and murmuring comforting nonsense as Owen’s face rested against his chest.
Chapter Two
Had their drawing-room always been so shabby? Owen supposed it must have been, but it was comfortably so, when filled only with his own family and their equally comfortable neighbors. With two such tall, worldly, and well-turned-out gentlemen standing in it, it seemed small and poky. Not the sort of setting someone like Miss Bowman would wish to greet her callers in, with old-fashioned china ornaments on the mantel and jars full of withered flowers resting on doilies occupying several small tables — though perhaps it would do for Owen and his freckles.
The doctor’s mandated week of rest having passed, his mother had allowed that Owen could meet and thank his rescuers, who had been dropping in singly or together every day since to ask after him. Owen had waited, heart pounding as he shifted from foot to foot, as they ran the gauntlet of the household’s one maid and her insistence on finding a place in the cramped hall for every hat and walking-stick before guests could be allowed to pass. But now both Drakes had entered the room, and were even now taking their turns to bow to the smiling Mrs. Honeyfield. She greeted them both with a pleasant effusiveness, making it seem that they did her a great honor by visiting, while being in no way obsequious.
Owen wished he had half her aplomb. Instead, he stood rather awkwardly just behind her, the space between settees not allowing both Owen, and his mother’s voluminous skirts, to occupy it side by side.
“The pleasure is entirely ours, ma’am,” said the taller of the two brothers, the one his mother had said was Arthur, the eldest. The low, serious tone sent a shiver down Owen’s spine, for no reason he could quite discern.
Arthur Drake’s appearance matched his voice: strongly masculine and somewhat forbidding. Deep, dark brown eyes, a long, straight nose, and a chiseled jaw gave his visage a harshness only slightly belied by fuller lips than one would expect in such a face, and by mahogany hair worn a little longer than was currently fashionable.
Owen had to admit to some disappointment in the elder Drake. If he only changed his cleanly tailored suit for a billowing shirt and breeches, he could have stepped straight out from that new romance Owen had borrowed from his cousin, Withering Sights, whose sneering, shaggy-maned hero had spent hundreds of pages gnashing his teeth and shouting at everyone. That would appeal to someone, Julia perhaps, but Owen had always longed for a more traditional hero: noble, smiling, charming and bright.
And here, like the answer to his prayers, was the other Mr. Drake, Thomas. He was all of that, and more, for he was quite real, and even now clasping Mrs. Honeyfield’s hand in both of his own, while gazing at her with as much apparently sincere admiration as if she were a princess. He had a marked resemblance to his brother, but his eyes were a brilliant blue, and his features, while similar in shape, were all softer and more refined. Even his hair, while also dark, had strands of golden brown interspersed, and had clearly been cut by an expert.
“Mrs. Honeyfield,” he said, his voice as light and smooth as the spring sunshine slanting through the window. “Thank you for inviting us. And for allowing us to finally meet your son properly.”
Owen bristled a little at that. He knew Mr. Drake was only being courteous, since Owen lived unmarried with his parents, but he was of age. And being goddess-touched might have destined him to be another man’s, to belong to him much as a bride would, but it did not make him some simpering fool to be kept on a shelf by those who had more knowledge of the world. Most young ladies didn’t even tolerate being treated like that, and neither would he, dammit.
He stepped forward, as much as he could around his mother’s gown, anyway. Good goddess, it was humiliating to encounter these gentlemen first unconscious on the dirt, and then quite literally behind his mother’s skirts.
“More to the point, the doctor did not allow me to meet you. Good afternoon, Mr. Drake,” Owen said. He nodded to the younger. “And to you also, Mr. Drake.”
Owen’s heart thudded away, and he sounded a little breathless, but at least he had spoken. Mr. Arthur Drake raised an eyebrow at him, and then he bowed, just deeply enough to be polite without appearing as if he were saluting a lady.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Honeyfield,” he said in that deep, slightly husky voice.
“Indeed it is!” put in Mr. Thomas Drake. “Although I hope you’ll allow us to call you Owen, since we’re neighbors and I hope will be great friends. And I must be Tom, because when I hear Mr. Drake, I expect Arthur to answer. You can be stuffy for the both of us, Artie,” he tossed over his shoulder with a grin, and then turned back to Owen with a wink.
Owen couldn’t help but smile in return; the mischief on Mr. Drake’s — Tom’s — face was too infectious. And really, Mr. Arthur Drake’s glare at Tom, presumably for the use of Artie, was rather comical, especially as it so well bore out his brother’s accusation of stuffiness.
“Of course you may, Tom,” Owen said. “I hope we will be great friends too. As long as you intend to stay in the neighborhood, of course?”
“Yes indeed,” Mrs. Honeyfield said. “Please do tell us you mean to make a permanent home here?”
“Tom prefers town life,” Mr. Drake said, a little pointedly, “but I intend to remain.”
“I preferred town life. But now I begin to think the country has charms I never imagined.” Tom looked Owen directly in the eyes as he said it, and Owen, blushing, began to think he liked the country rather more than he had before as well.
Mr. Drake frowned at them both, and he gave Tom a look Owen couldn’t quite decipher. He did know that it was disapproving, although of what, precisely, was unclear. Of Owen, most likely. Well. Mr. Drake could take his disapproval of Owen’s barely genteel station in life, his freckles, and anything else, and shove it.
The Replacement Husband Page 1