More or Less a Temptress

by Anna Bradley

  Isla was a brave little thing, but even she was faltering under Lord Huntington’s intense stare. “Lord Huntington, I—”

  “It’s all right, Isla. Go sit down.” Lachlan gave her a gentle push in the direction of the settee, and this time she didn’t argue, but crossed the room and sank down onto it.

  Lachlan drew a deep breath, and faced Lord Huntington. For good or ill, this was it. They’d come all the way from Scotland for this moment. “Isla is your half-sister, my lord, and Ciaran your half-brother. The four of us share a mother.”

  “Half-brother and sister?” Lord Huntington drew his wife to his side, and held her tightly against him. He was shaking his head, but he seemed to be trying to make sense of Lachlan’s words rather than denying them. “I’d heard rumors, of course…whispers about siblings in Scotland, but I never truly believed it.” He turned to Lachlan. “If this is your brother and sister, then aren’t you my half-brother, too?”

  “No, I’m…” God, he wanted this moment over with, but as badly as he wished it done, Lachlan was finding it far more difficult than he’d expected to say what had to be said.

  He’d never been a man of many words, but these words, these confessions…

  I’m not Niall Ramsey’s son. For twenty-eight years I’ve believed I was a Ramsey, but I’m not, and I never was.

  He was an Englishman, with an English father, and not just any English father. No, he was the legitimate son of the Marquess of Huntington. The son of a man he’d never met, and couldn’t imagine, and younger brother to the man who was standing before him now.

  The moment had come. For the first time Lachlan wondered if it would be as hard for him to say these words aloud as it would be for Lord Huntington to hear them. What must it be like for him, to be one moment dancing a carefree quadrille with his wife, and in the next to find himself a brother to three strangers?

  He cleared his throat. “I’m your younger brother. Not your half-brother, Lord Huntington. Just…your brother.”

  Lady Huntington gasped, but Lord Huntington only repeated faintly, “My brother?”

  He was gaping at Lachlan in shock, unable to utter another word, and Lachlan’s chest tightened. That baffled, lost look on Huntington’s face…was that how he’d looked, the day he’d found out everything he’d believed to be true about himself and his family was nothing but a mountain of lies?

  “I should have written, but I didn’t know about you until a few weeks ago, when my mother…” Lachlan cleared his throat. “That is, our mother, confessed the truth, just before she died. I’ve brought letters that prove…” Lachlan trailed off, his throat closing. Prove what? That they’d all been victims of a lie that had dragged out over decades?

  A deafening silence fell over the room, and they might have sat there for hours, all of them staring stupidly at each other, if the old lady sitting beside Hyacinth Somerset hadn’t broken the silence with a sudden, sharp outburst. “But this is outrageous! Brothers don’t simply fall down from the sky, Mr. Ramsey, and drop without warning into the middle of a London ballroom!”

  Ciaran’s lips quirked, and he turned to offer her ladyship a mocking bow. “We came from Scotland, ma’am, by way of the Great North Road. The sky had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m the younger son, with no claim to the Huntington title, or the fortune or properties. Isla’s the youngest, our only sister, daughter to our mother and Niall Ramsey. Ciaran…” Lachlan swallowed the bitterness in his throat. “Ciaran’s birth wasn’t as tidy as Isla’s, but our mother and Niall Ramsey did marry, as I’ve said. We’ll leave it there.”

  No one in the room could possibly mistake his meaning, and another tense silence fell over them all. Even the old lady sitting next to Hyacinth Somerset didn’t say a word, though she did take a healthy sniff from her smelling bottle.

  The moment stretched on until Lachlan turned to Lady Huntington with an awkward bow. “I suppose this means you’re my sister-in-law, Lady Huntington.”

  “Indeed it does.” Ciaran bowed to Lady Huntington. “And Miss Hyacinth our sister-in-law of a sort, too. A large, happy family, and all of us overjoyed to be so, I’m sure. Pity, though, that business about Lachlan killing me.” He turned to Hyacinth Somerset with a wicked grin. “I daresay you agree with me, Miss Somerset, when I say it’s a deuced awkward thing, accusing your brother-in-law of murder.”

  Chapter Four

  If Lord Huntington was about to throw the Ramseys onto their arses in the street, he’d better call his burliest footmen to do the job, because Ciaran wasn’t likely to go quietly.

  Lachlan, who was sprawled in a deep leather chair in his new brother’s study, had opened his mouth to offer this advice when Lord Huntington turned abruptly away from the window, and fixed Lachlan with an intense hazel gaze that was at once both alien, and disturbingly familiar.

  Lachlan recognized that gaze. He’d seen it hundreds of times before, staring out at him from his mirror. He and his new brother didn’t look much alike, though. Not really. They were both large men, but Lord Huntington was fairer, his features smoother and more refined, and he looked like what he was—a marquess. He had a sort of easy aristocratic elegance that would forever elude a rough devil like Lachlan.

  The eyes, though, the shifting shades of brown and green, each color fighting for supremacy—there was no mistaking the eyes.

  They were their mother’s eyes.

  “What was she like?”

  Lachlan jerked in surprise at the question. He’d been prepared for a flood of words to spew from his lordship’s lips—words like leave, and never return—but not this.

  Lord Huntington stood in front of the window, his hands braced on the sill behind him, waiting. He didn’t clarify who “she” was, and Lachlan didn’t ask him to. There was no need.

  “She was…complicated.” Even as he chose that word with care, Lachlan wasn’t sure it was the truth. Maybe their mother had been simple enough, and it was only his feelings for her that were complicated. “You have no memory of her?”

  “Hazy images, but not much else. I was very young when she left. I do remember she smelled sweet, like flowers. Or perhaps it was citrus. I couldn’t say for certain.”

  “Orange blossoms.” A faint smile curved Lachlan’s mouth.

  “Was that it?”

  “Yes. Sweet, but with a tart edge to it. It suited her.”

  “I’ll have to trust your opinion on that.” Lord Huntington drew away from the window and wandered to the middle of the room, but once he was there, he seemed not to know what to do with himself, and he turned back to Lachlan. “I don’t remember her voice, or much else about her, but I remember that scent.” He paused, then, “The first year after she left, when I still believed she’d come home, I waited for her, every moment of every day. At night, I used to dream she’d come into my bedchamber, and tuck my blankets around me, but a dream was all it ever was. She never came.”

  “No.” That one word wasn’t enough, but neither would a thousand words be enough, so Lachlan kept quiet.

  “I used to wish for siblings, too—brothers, or perhaps a younger sister or two. But my—our—father died when I was eight, and after that, well…” Lord Huntington shrugged. “There wasn’t much point in wishing anymore. My childhood was a lonely one. It’s odd now to discover that all those years I spent longing for siblings I had three of them, living just a few hundred miles north. I don’t know…forgive me, Mr. Ramsey, but I don’t know how to feel about that.”

  Lachlan tensed. For the past two days he, Ciaran and Isla had been staying in Grosvenor Square, at Lord and Lady Huntington’s invitation. They’d been treated with careful courtesy during that time, but this…this wasn’t distant politeness.

  This was something else.

  An apology, maybe, or an explanation.

  A dismissal.

  Whatever it was, Lor
d Huntington spoke like a man who’d made a decision. Either he’d accept the Ramseys into his family, or he’d tell them to leave, and never return. Lachlan had already made up his mind to accept whatever decision his lordship made, but it was difficult to sit here and wait while another man decided his family’s fate.

  After a long silence, Lord Huntington cleared his throat. “The papers you brought—the letters exchanged between our parents, the miniature of our mother, the timing of your birth...I believe you’re telling me the truth, Mr. Ramsey. But then, I would have believed it if you’d arrived here with a story and nothing else. Your sister’s face is all the proof I need.”

  Without realizing he did it, Lachlan rose to his feet.

  “I know the value of family, Mr. Ramsey, likely because I didn’t have much of one growing up. I don’t pretend it isn’t damned odd for me to have ready-made brothers and a sister arrive on my doorstep like the morning post, but I’ve spoken to Lady Huntington, and we’ve agreed to acknowledge you all as our family.”

  Lachlan stood there stupidly, shock rendering him silent. It wasn’t until Lord Huntington spoke that Lachlan understood he’d expected to be sent away, and warned to stay away. That this man would accept them into his home—into his family—with so little hesitation, when the friends they’d known their entire lives had tossed them aside without a backward glance, seemed nothing short of miraculous.

  He stared at Lord Huntington—no, at his brother, and couldn’t say a word.

  Lord Huntington offered him a tentative smile. “Shall I call you Lord Lachlan now? It’s your rightful title, as the second son of a marquess.”

  At last, Lachlan found his tongue. “Call me what you like, but I doubt I’ll answer to Lord Lachlan.”

  Lord Huntington chuckled. “Perhaps just Lachlan then, at least for now, and you must call me Finn, as a brother would. I’m afraid I’ll make an indifferent brother, however. I haven’t the vaguest notion how to go about it.”

  One corner of Lachlan’s lip quirked. “Mostly it’s just brawling. At least, Ciaran and I spend more time bloodying each other’s noses than anything else.”

  “Yes, I gathered that.” Finn’s voice was dry. “I’d like to have a word with you about that incident the other night, with Hyacinth.”

  Lachlan hid his grimace. He’d known the issue of Hyacinth Somerset’s hysterical outburst would come up again. He wasn’t looking forward to this, but the sooner they had it out, the sooner he could forget her entirely.

  Finn waved Lachlan to a chair in front of the fire, and then crossed to a sideboard with a neat row of crystal decanters arranged across the top. “Hyacinth’s…well, she’s unusual.”

  Unusual. That was one word for it—a generous one, in Lachlan’s opinion.

  “My wife’s parents died when Hyacinth was only fifteen years of age. The loss was sudden and tragic, and Hyacinth, being the youngest of the five sisters, had the hardest time of it. Lady Huntington tells me Hyacinth was painfully shy even before their deaths, but it grew worse afterwards. I’m afraid it grows more so every year.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” It was, and Lachlan felt a twinge of pity for Miss Somerset, but he’d just as soon stay clear of the girl before she succumbed to another hysterical fit, and accused him of something worse than murder.

  Finn handed Lachlan a glass of Scotch, then settled into the chair across from him. “Yes, it is. I’ve never known a lady who suffers with such crippling anxiety as Hyacinth does. The ton gossips about her, about her timidity, which of course only makes it worse.”

  Lachlan took an uneasy swallow of his whiskey. He wasn’t sure why Finn was telling him this, but he’d likely need more whiskey before it was over.

  “I was stunned speechless when Hyacinth agreed to a season,” Finn went on. “I never dared hope she’d venture into society, but it’s the very thing she needs. There’s a great deal more to Hyacinth than meets the eye—that is, one need only look at her face to see her sweetness, but she possesses a strength she’s wholly unaware of.”

  Lachlan turned his glass in his hands. No doubt, the girl was sweet enough, but if she did have reserves of strength, she did a damn good job of hiding it.

  “Unfortunately, my wife, Lady Dare and Lady Chase are far too overprotective of Hyacinth. They fuss over her for the most affectionate reasons, but they underestimate her, and Hyacinth doubts herself. I’ve spoken to Lady Huntington about it, but she insists Hyacinth is delicate, and her health is fragile. There’s not a damn thing wrong with Hyacinth’s health, or with Hyacinth herself, but I can’t blame my wife for her concern. We never see our own family as clearly as others see them, do we?”

  Lachlan thought of his mother, of all the secrets she’d kept—secrets he’d never guessed at. “No, we don’t.”

  “Because of that incident at the ball, and the scandal that’s sure to follow, her sisters and grandmother want to put an immediate end to Hyacinth’s season. They intend to pack her off to Brighton for a restorative holiday.”

  Privately Lachlan thought it was just as well if Miss Somerset did go off to Brighton. Even without the scandal, odds were she wouldn’t have made it through her season. “And you don’t want her to go?”

  Finn tossed the rest of his whiskey back. “No. I want her to see out her season, if only to prove to herself she can. What kind of life will she have if she runs away every time there’s some sort of unpleasantness?”

  That question cut closer to the bone than Lachlan liked, and he flinched away from the sharp prick of his conscience. “Order her to finish her season, then.”

  “That won’t do. It will only make her miserable if I force her into it, and I don’t wish to upset my wife, either, especially given her delicate condition. No, Hyacinth has to choose it herself.” Finn leaned back in his chair, his empty glass dangling from his fingers, his eyes on Lachlan. “I did have one idea.”

  Ah. Here it was. “Which is?”

  “What if our sister were to debut with her? It would be much easier for Hyacinth if she had a friend by her side, and Miss Ramsey—Isla—seems a sturdy, resolute sort of young lady. If Isla has a season, we may be able to persuade Hyacinth to join her.”

  Lachlan drained his whiskey to smother the immediate refusal that rushed to his lips. “Isla can’t debut. All of London thinks her brother’s a murderer.”

  Finn shrugged. “There are ways around that.”

  Lachlan gave an incredulous laugh. “Ways around a murder accusation?”

  “A false murder accusation. I don’t pretend it will be easy, but you forget I’m a marquess. We’re permitted a certain amount of latitude with the ton. Isla is vivacious and beautiful, and she’s a Huntington now, and a lady of fortune—”

  “Not by English standards, she isn’t.”

  Finn looked surprised. “What, do you suppose I won’t dower her?”

  “Dower her?” Lachlan stared at him in astonishment.

  “She’s my sister, Lachlan, just as she is yours. Of course, I’ll settle money on her—on all of you, though we needn’t discuss that now. But you sound as if you don’t like the idea of Isla having a season.”

  “It’s not that. I just…I never thought of it.”

  He’d never dreamed of it, more like. Never dared to.

  Since they’d left Scotland, Isla didn’t smile anymore. It had broken her heart when her dearest friends had turned their backs on her, and Lachlan hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to help her. He could only watch while it happened, a bitter, helpless fury writhing in his chest.

  But a season, and all it entailed—balls and gowns, dancing, perhaps a suitor, and even a marriage—he’d do whatever it took give Isla this chance to gain back everything she’d lost, even if it meant putting up with Hyacinth Somerset.

  “I know how to manage the ton, Lachlan. I’ve been doing it all my life. You may trust me when
I say we’ll find a way around the scandal.”

  “I do.” As much as I trust anyone. “As long as she’s not scorned by the ton, I don’t object to Isla having a debut.”

  “Excellent. Is there anything else I should know, before we send the young ladies off to wreak havoc on the hearts of every gentleman in London?”

  There is.

  A secret, buried deep—so deep it would stay buried unless Lachlan chose to drag it into the light.

  If he’d ever owed the truth to anyone, he owed it to Finn, who’d brought them into his family without question, as if they belonged here.

  Who’d treated him like a brother did.

  The truth crept to the tip of his tongue, and he wanted to speak it into words, and be free of the burden of a secret he should never have vowed to keep, but as it hovered on the edge of his lips, his mother’s warning rushed into his head.

  The past must stay in the past…Isla and Ciaran will suffer…promise me, Lachlan.

  “No, nothing.”

  And with those words, it wasn’t his mother’s secret any longer.

  It was his now, and the lie tasted like ashes in his mouth.

  * * * *

  “Good afternoon, Miss Hyacinth! Have you come for your punishment?”

  It was an unusually clear day for London in January, and Hyacinth had ventured into the gardens hoping for a quiet ramble to calm her nerves before the dreaded confrontation with Lachlan Ramsey, but she whirled at the sound of her name, and saw Isla and Ciaran Ramsey wandering toward her along one of the gravel pathways.

  Ciaran snatched his hat off and waved it over his head, beckoning to her. “Come walk with us!”

  Hyacinth blinked in surprise at the warm greeting, given that just two nights ago she’d falsely accused their brother of murder, but she made her way down the pathway, and caught up to them at the fountain in the center, where the walkways converged.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Hyacinth. See, Isla? I told you she’d come. One can’t hide from family forever, no matter how much they might wish to.”