by Thea Devine
The man was a goddamned saint.
What did he gain from plowing another man's furrow?
It was so clear: the differences between him and Kyger were like night and day. Kyger was the better man. The upright man. The pillar. The saint.
No wonder Jancie was drawn to him.
It wasn't wholly about sex.
h was a stunning thought. Everything was about sex. His brother's attempt to seduce Jancie . . . No, that was rivalry. That was to prove he could and would, because Lujan was such a whoring bastard.
The son of a bitch always had the upper hand just because he was so good. Good men should die. They made life impossible for the rest of humanity. No one could live up to the standards of a good man . . .
And besides, a good man could be corrupted, too, come to think of it. Maybe he'd been a good man before he'd gone to profligate London and discovered free, untrammeled, heedless, wanton fucking.
God, what was better than that?
Jancie.
Exactly. The reason he was out here riding his brains out instead of in bed fucking her.
Where the hell was the saint? Burning at the stake, he hoped— he wished.
Nowhere to be found for miles around.
Probably in the hayloft, screwing Jancie.
God almighty—could a man not even have his own wife without his brother getting in the middle of it?
He turned and headed back toward the house, taking the riding track that led to the stables.
And there he saw Kyger, hefting bales into the hayloft.
Where the hell was Jancie? Probably sitting in the wagon, admiring his strength, his power.
Shit.
He spurred his mount into a gallop. Faster, faster—Jancie was
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there, he was certain of it. And he was going to get to her before something happened between them.
Something happened: he felt something give, felt his body slipping to one side, and he fell onto the track—hard, gritty, jaw-crunching—while his horse raced frantically down to the stable.
******************
Flat out in bed again, every muscle aching, with severe bruising to his arms and back so it was too painful to move. Goddamn.
And it was Kyger who'd found him. Kyger who was alone, doing the work he had always done, the work he, Lujan, did not wish to dirty his hands doing . . . Always the righteous position. Always the credible brother. The ethical one. The praiseworthy one. Admired, valued, esteemed . . .
As opposed to him—discounted, discredited, and disdained . ..
And now this—over and above the stomach upset—it made him look like a weakling, a fool, especially beside Kyger, so tall, strapping, imposing.
Damn damn and damn—
And then Jancie, a shadow floating around the room, offering sympathy and compassion, her cool hands and even cooler words—meaningless, he couldn't comprehend her, he couldn't stand it. To be helpless again. At the mercy of piety and protection . , . and those cool, consoling hands .. .
What was happening here?
He needed to think ... his head hurt.
Kyger filled the room, pushing everyone and everything else out of the way. Pretending to be concerned. Pretending he even cared about his older brother.
Maybe he was pretending something else to hide what he was really feeling, what he'd always felt: that his feckless older brother was useless, erratic, volatile, unstable, and altogether in the way.
In the way of—what?
Kyger's long-held and deeply buried desire to be the master of Wavbury? It wasn't something his brother would ever admit, but Lujan had seen the way Kyger looked at him when he came back home drunk and spent his time at Waybury hung over, in bed, or chasing the maids, or coddling and cuddling up to Jancie for the past year.
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Kyger hated him. Hated that he was older, that he was to inherit, that he would get everything and Kyger would get nothing.
This accident was tailor-made for Kyger. Maybe he was hoping it would prove life-altering . . .
Or—
. . . No, no, no—don't let that thought even sneak into your mind. ..
It came anyway: .. . life-threatening? . . .
Lujan felt like all the air had been expunged from his body. And his head—it felt like a huge stone ball with a hammer pounding against it.
He had to be delirious to be thinking like this. He wanted to sleep. He wanted someone to just knock hirn unconscious so he could sleep.
He felt Jancie's hand on his shoulder. "Take this." Her soft, soft voice, her soft, compliant hands, her soft, succulent nether flesh—he wanted it, he wanted to be coherent enough, well enough, to want it. . .
He obediently drank the potion Jancie gave him. Somehow, in concert with that, she and Kyger left the room, left him to his thoughts, his delirium, his own devices .. .
Left together—always together—
He wasn't imagining it. Right now, they were together. Did they really want that badly to be together?
Enough to—hoping it would .. . ?
.. . and then Jancie would be free . ..
But then there was Jancie—so cool, so hot, so aloof, so involved, and yet not. Never another utterance of that word. The word that had sent him haring off to London.
Jancie. What about Jancie? She would be free . . . Did she? Want to be free of him? After all that succulent sex, all they had shared?
It was inconceivable to him. But—here he was again, beaten down, bedridden, and Jancie and Kyger were together some other where in the house.
He started drifting off into that shadowy world where everything was blurred, dark, moving, shifting, becoming something else. Jancie—was she in the room, testing him to see if he were oblivious enough for her to spend the night with Kyger?
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God, was he that jealous of Kyger? You never found Kyger flat on his back, ever—yet this was the second incident that laid him low.
No—wait: the third time . ..
The third... The first being the day he'd returned from London, after that stupid topple down the steps. On his back, woozy, stupefied . . .
Jancie beside him. In and out of Jancie.
What was happening here?
And who would be stupid enough to engineer these attacks on him and think he wouldn't be caught out?
Jancie? Sick to death of him after three weeks, now she was privy to what he was really like? Wishing she'd accepted Kyger?
But Kyger couldn't offer her what he could, and God help him, the sex couldn't be that spectacular, either.
Could it?
His head whirled. He wouldn't want to wager on anything today. Even that Jancie still. .. not that word—desired was better—him; she was too disengaged, and somewhat removed, in spite of her heat and all-enveloping sensuality in bed.
Did she have regrets? Did she wish now she'd married Hugo?
Hell and hounds—Hugo. He hadn't thought for two minutes about his father since he'd returned from London.
Where the hell was Hugo, and why wasn't he back at Waybury?
He could be anywhere, doing awful things to dishonor Mother— anything he wanted, out of sight of family and the constraints of his world.
Anything.
Out of sight, and thinking that no one would take his absence inro consideration? Still lusting after Jancie behind the scenes? Whoring and fucking over every woman in sight while he still had his eye on that ultimate prize? And plotting to remove his worthless older son from the picture?
God, he was delusional. This was beyond insanity—it had to be whatever drug he'd been given to soothe his headache. He couldn't be rational, thinking like this about his father and his brother.
And his wife.
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. . . This creeping mistrust—it was the drugs, whatever they'd given him, that was making everything fuzzy and threatening.
They weren't all again
st him, separately or together. No one was plotting his demise. No one was trying to kill him.
There wasn't any reason. They all had to see: he had willingly come back home, he was completely sober, he felt more satisfied in these early days of his hastily concocted marriage than he ever could have imagined; he intended to be faithful, and he was almost ready to become a staunch country gentleman with a half-dozen children hanging from his coattails.
All of this, because of Jancie. All of this, Jancie made him want, Jancie made him feel.
It could not be that no one had noticed.
And yet—he'd toppled down the steps, eaten something that near poisoned his system, taken a bad fall from his horse. His brother and wife were continually thrown together, and Hugo had gone missing somewhere in London, or, for all he knew, he was at the local inn, holing up and plotting and planning to take Jancie away through nefarious means.
. .. God, he was going crazy. If anyone could read his mind right now, with him thinking everyone was plotting against him . ..
He sounded like a lunatic, even in his own mind.
His head was pounding. The medication wasn't helping except to magnify every one of his vague apprehensions. They felt real, they felt as if danger was imminent and he could die . . .
... three seemingly innocent incidents ... so close together, too.
And three seemingly innocent explanations: a small rug on a slippery floor near a staircase, a spoiled piece of meat that somehow had been served to him, a loose cinch on his saddle . . .
. .. how—who? .. . Anyone in his family, if someone meant him harm. It was too easy to do . . . and while Kyger and Jancie did not have access to the town house, it wasn't inconceivable that someone there could be helping them, or that Hugo had planned that little incident on the stairs.
IF he believed—really—that someone wished him ill. . .
He was ill, broken by that fall. Everything broken, including his common sense, and his rational mind.
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He needed desperately to fall asleep. Sleep would heal everything. He felt as if he could sleep forever . ..
They want me to . . .
That insidious little voice inside his head just wouldn't let go.
Kyger would inherit, and Jancie could choose between the better Galliard men. So any of them could be orchestrating this, or two of them together.
It made so much sense.
They'd always wished he'd go away like a bad dream, his father and Kyger.
Only Olivia had had faith. And Jancie. Once. Enough to marry him. Enough to have the guts to say that word to him.
And what had he given her in return? Scorn, contempt, disrespect . ..
Not how Kyger would have treated her.
Or his father, who would have been so grateful that this nubile, fertile beautiful young woman—wanted—him that. . . . .. that. . .
He was drenched in sweat. The room was whirling. Jancie came to him. The daughter of the long-thought-dead partner .. . who had found Hugo somehow and made him feel indebted enough so that Jancie, in gratitude, was now the center of their lives. ..
Really—you thought I was grateful for all your father had done? Grateful to be his paid servant?
What? Wait—he reached out to touch that thought and it evaporated. Of course she was grateful—what else had she had? That stupid old man who was her father? Useless old bastard insinuating himself into their lives again.
There was nothing for him here, if that had been his thought. Nothing. It was all Olivia's, all Hugo's now, soon to be his unless—unless. . .
Grateful. . .
Not even that he'd married her—to keep her father satisfied, keep things the way they always had been . . . ?
Wait—wait—there was something there and he couldn't quite get hold of it . . .
Yes . . . yes—Jancie. What was it?
". . . grateful he came up alive . . ."
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Voices, standing over him. Familiar. The vicar? Last rites—? What? Grateful he was alive? Were they?
He tried to open his eyes. Fuzzy. Dizzy. Damn it all. .. they were all there, surrounding him, come together to finish what they had started.
"... he was much more feverish .. . better now ..."
Jancie's voice, something cold on his forehead. Another couple of inches and she could smother him.
He took a deep breath, planning his strategy . ..
Strategy—hadn't he been planning a strategy . . . was be losing his mind or his memory?
"... another day—" Kyger now, "... he'll be fine ..."
/'// be dead ...
". . . that's a relief then . . ."
Oh Jesus—he knew that voice.
Hugo. The conspirators all together now. The danger was real.
Hugo had come back.
Chapter Fifteen
Oh dear lord, Hugo was home, Lujan had had yet another accident, and now what was she going to do?
Jancie felt a moment of pure panic. With Hugo in the house, and Lujan suspiciously incapacitated, she would be constrained at every turn.
Owww. What are you thinking?
Oh, ever-practical Emily, roundly scolding her and rightly so. Her first concern should be for Lujan, who looked frail and diminished, lying there with his eyes closed and his senses whirling.
She wasn't yet ready to say this accident was suspicious—but it was certainly strange there had been three incidents following one upon the other in the three weeks since he'd returned from London.
She hated seeing him like this, but the vulnerable Lujan was infinitely preferable to the arrogant one. It made all her loving instincts come to the fore. When he was like this, he needed her, he leaned on her, and it could be that he loved her a little bit, too.
But none of that solved her dilemma: Hugo was in the house and it made everything that much more difficult.
She should just concentrate on Lujan. Make sure that no one
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could harm him further. Investigate that loose cinch—see if it was a careless mistake or if someone had meant for him to take a fall.
She probably should talk with him, and see what he was feeling about the accident, but he had been in no condition to talk at all for the past two days.
He kept chasing everyone out, barely taking any food unless it was hand-fed by Mrs. Ancrum, and not before she tasted it first.
How odd that was. He was so insistent. But then, he'd had that bout with something in his food last week.
Surely a coincidence?
What now?
She sat beside his bed that evening, waiting for him to awaken. Emily was curled up by his side, not unlike the way she had comforted Olivia, tnrowing softly.
He wasn't so awful, if Emily wanted to be by his side.
But that solved nothing for her. When he awakened, she would have to hide her devotion, her anxiety. Pretend everything was perfectly normal.
And she would have to find secret moments to pursue her search. Her dual search, now. The mystery of Gaunt was suddenly running in a parallel line in her mind.
Kyger came to the door. "How is he?"
"No change, still sleeping."
"Rank carelessness," he murmured. "But whose?"
She waved away the comment. "Don't—"
"No, I won't. Come downstairs, then. Let him sleep."
She didn't want to, but there was no reason for her to stay, and no reason to refuse either Hugo's company or Kyger's.
She rose reluctantly to follow Kyger out of the room, turning back to look at Emily
But Emily wasn't there.
She went out into the hallway. Kyger was halfway down the stairs.
And from somewhere far away, Jancie heard that hard crick-ling sound rolling down the hallway floor.
******************
Pretending again. Everyone in this house was pretending, and Lujan felt so constricted he didn't know what he was going to
do.
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Even Mrs. Ancrum, seated by his side and feeding him broth after she had taken her own healthy swallow of the steaming liquid, even she was pretending that this was something anyone would do on any given night, and not something she'd been ordered to do.
Humor him, Hugo had said, and she did, but he was starting to feel somewhat ridiculous—ten years old—at her babyish urging of him to eat.
God, enough of this.
He sat up abruptly. "Mrs. Ancrum."
"Sir."
"We're done here."
"Yes, sir."
She began cleaning up, piling everything neatly on her tray, folding napkins around the utensils she had used, and finally withdrawing without a further word.
There. That was better, more normal—he felt much more himself today. He felt a clarity in his thinking, and a sense of being in control that he hadn't felt in days.
The solution had come to him this morning, elegant and simple: he'd just go back to London, and he would never be alone in this house ever again ... or at least until he had unmasked his enemy
At this point, much as he hated to believe it, he had to count Jancie among those who might want to do him ill.
The only answer was to leave—now—no, after a bath and a shave. Go back to London and sort all of this out with a clear mind, clear head; go somewhere he could see it all objectively.
No drinking. No whores. No distractions so he could figure out why he was being attacked, why it was so critical that one of his family get him out of the way now.
It struck him, too, how Jancie seemed to be at the center of it. If she hadn't come to Waybury, if he hadn't married her, if she weren't Edmund Renbrook's daughter—
And why had he married her? The reasons seemed so specious now: so Kyger wouldn't have her; to keep her from marrying Hugo; and to stave off her father. All decisions borne of the passion of the moment, and now his uncontrollable passion for her.
His own fault. He had started the flirtation with her out of
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boredom, to add some edge and excitement to the endless days preceding Olivia's death.
In those days, he had wanted both to be the son Olivia thought he was, and to get away with seducing Jancie in his family's sight without the consequences.