Not that Dominic cared, of course. The seduction he planned for her when he first caught sight of her on the terrace hadn’t included taking advantage of a broken heart.
“Why are you telling me this?” he finally asked carefully. He didn’t want to reveal too much. “You’ve never made me privy to your schemes or plots. Why now?”
Cole ignored his question. “Yes, Katherine’s future is at stake, but so is mine. The money her inheritance would have brought into the family was sorely needed.” His face clouded. “As was a particular piece of property in her possession.”
Now all Dominic’s attention was focused on his brother. He hadn’t realized the family was in financial trouble. He certainly wasn’t. The thought made him smile.
“Can’t manage your estate, eh?” he asked with a wicked arch of his eyebrow.
Fire flashed in his brother’s eyes and Dominic readied himself for the appearance of Colden’s famous temper. The one he had inherited from his father. Instead, Cole clenched a fist on the desk and ground out, “I admit I made some bad investments. But our father”—the cruel gleam reappeared—“or should I say, my father, did the bulk of the damage himself.”
Dominic winced inwardly. Cole had always taken a great deal of pleasure in reminding Dominic of his status. By-blow. A bastard. A Mallory in name alone. After fifteen years, Dominic supposed he should have been used to it.
He rose to his feet. This conversation wasn’t getting him anywhere. “Well, that’s too bad for you, Colden. I hope you find a way to amend the damage to your purse and your life. But I think I made a mistake coming here today. I’ll go.”
With a nod for his brother, he turned to leave, but before he could, Cole’s voice stopped him.
“Dominic, I want you to marry her.”
Dominic nearly tripped on his sudden stop. Shock rippled through him as he turned back to face Colden. His brother hadn’t risen from the desk, nor did his face reveal anything, but tensions increased as he awaited Dominic’s answer.
Which Dominic was too shocked to render.
“Who? Katherine?”
He let out a bark of laughter at such a foolish idea, though in the very depths of his soul the thought gave him a brief, but powerful, pause. After all, being married to Katherine would assure her presence in his bed, at least until he tired of her.
But no. It wasn’t worth it. All the marriages he’d been witness to were ugly affairs that only lead to unhappiness for all parties involved. Marrying a woman who thought herself in love with his brother could only spell further disaster.
“Why in God’s name would you think I’d do that for you of all people?” he asked.
Cole’s smile was thin. “I’d be a fool to have missed the way you looked at her earlier this evening.” He rose to his feet with a cold laugh of his own. “But then, you’ve always been partial to my women, haven’t you?”
The urge to hit his brother had shadowed Dominic his entire life. He’d even given in to it a few times, but now he was old enough to know a brawl wasn’t going to improve anything. It wasn’t worth the temporary pleasure.
He shook his head with a disgusted snort. “I don’t have to listen to this. Enjoy your bankruptcy.”
Again he turned to leave, and again his brother’s voice stopped him. “You can have Lansing Square.”
For a moment, Dominic stopped breathing. He couldn’t inhale because his heart had leapt into his throat. With all his strength, he gripped the doorjamb and put on the face he used while playing cards. Unreadable. Hard.
Slowly, controlling every breath, every motion, he turned. “Excuse me?”
Cole’s expression remained impassive. “You heard me. I’m offering you a deal. Do you wish to negotiate?”
Dominic considered it, or tried to pretend he was, but his mind kept repeating the same refrain over and over. Lansing Square. His. The past revealed to him without having to ask permission anymore. The place responsible for his very existence in his possession. Only his.
But was it worth marriage, even to an alluring stranger?
He took the chair across from his brother for a second time and leaned back with what he hoped resembled boredom.
“This woman might not even be Sarah,” he insisted, determined to steer the conversation slowly.
Cole clenched his fists in frustration. “The man who found her is the same one who discovered the proof of our mother’s disgusting affair. You know, the one that produced you?” His brother glared at him. “I have no reason to doubt his thoroughness or truthfulness.”
Dominic cocked his head. His brother’s dig about his parentage rolled off his back this time because deep in Cole’s eyes he saw a wild desperation. A need for his help.
It was a beautiful thing.
“Perhaps you believe this man because you already knew the truth. Perhaps you knew Sarah was alive before anyone brought the news to you tonight.”
His brother’s eyes widened and his cheeks paled. For a long moment, he seemed to struggle with an explanation or denial. Finally, he folded his arms.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you. Do you wish to negotiate for Lansing Square or not? I won’t ask you again.”
Dominic stared. Cole had all but admitted he had some knowledge of Sarah’s existence before the scene tonight. That meant he had been playing a part in a cruel fraud against Katherine and her guardians for weeks…perhaps longer. Sudden, powerful anger flowed through his veins, and for once it wasn’t the righteous indignation about his own treatment that spurned it.
It was the flash of pain he’d seen in Katherine’s eyes.
He shook those wild thoughts away. Cole’s lies weren’t his concern. Katherine’s hurt certainly wasn’t. He didn’t even know the woman.
“What are your terms?” he asked with little joy.
Colden’s eyes narrowed with triumph. “You will marry Katherine as soon as possible. Within the week if we can manage to convince her. That will mitigate the damage this scandal will do to the Mallory name.”
“And to her,” Dominic said in a flat voice.
Not that he believed for a moment his selfish brother really cared about Katherine’s comfort one way or the other, especially if he knew about Sarah. Katherine may have been drawn in by Cole’s act, but years of bitter experience made Dominic all the wiser. Cole looked out for Cole. God help anyone in his way.
“Yes, yes.” Cole waved his hand as if to dismiss Katherine completely.
“And the terms?” Dominic asked. “Because I know this arrangement isn’t as simple as you wish to make it sound. If it were only a matter of arranging for a new marriage, I would be the last person you turned to for help.”
Colden arched an eyebrow as if he were a tiny bit impressed by the way his brother saw through his act. “There are a few stipulations,” he admitted. “I want her money to come to the family. I want her dowry and whatever inheritance you, as her husband, will have control over. But most of all, I want that bit of property I mentioned earlier.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed at the unexpected request. “You want me to take Katherine as my wife and then steal from her?”
It wasn’t that he was some heroic figure, but there were unspoken lines a man didn’t cross. Stealing from one’s own wife was one of them.
“Why?” he asked.
Cole shifted uncomfortably. “The truth is I wagered away her property in a card game a few weeks ago. Since I was to be her husband, I had the deed turned over to the gentleman already. You can imagine the trouble it would bring me if that fact were to come to be public knowledge.”
Dominic’s eyes widened in shock. His brother’s lies were layered so thickly on top of one another he was unsure where each began and ended. “You ass. How could you take what was hers? How could you expect me to?”
Cole’s eyes grew wilder and some of his practiced, manipulative control fell. “It isn’t as if she’ll need the money or the estate. I’m well aware of just how much you’ve brought yourself up
in the world. Perhaps you traded on my father’s name because no one knew the truth, but whatever you did, you are living more than comfortably.”
Dominic slammed a palm down on the desk. “I never traded on the Mallory name. I never wanted to.”
His brother shrugged. “The point is that she’ll never miss what she’s lost. But I need it.”
Suddenly everything became very clear to Dominic. Sickeningly clear. “That’s why you were marrying her, isn’t it? Her inheritance.”
The room was silent for a long moment while Cole considered that. “Yes, partly. And of course, you must have noticed how beautiful she is. It’s a pity, really. I would have enjoyed having her.”
Though he hadn’t yet agreed to take his brother’s place as Katherine’s husband, Colden’s vulgar admission caused a rush of protective rage to course through Dominic.
“Does she know the real reason behind your suit?” he asked with ice on each word.
Cole let out an ugly laugh. “No! Of course not. Do you really think I’m that stupid? Thanks to the help of her countrified guardians, I was able to turn myself into the spitting image of what she looked to find. You see, they were to be given a special stipend if they were able to marry her before her twenty-first birthday. After she threw off so many suitors, they were a bit desperate themselves.”
Dominic snorted in disgust.
“Once she saw me as the prince she had been searching for, she took what I offered eagerly enough.” Cole leaned closer. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll not breathe a word of my true motives, either. Katherine trusts me, and if this plan is to work she’ll need to go on trusting me.”
A bitter taste filled Dominic’s mouth. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of both Cole’s lies and his venom. He felt sorry for Katherine.
As much as he longed to walk out of the office with nothing but a well-placed punch for his brother, he managed to rein in his fury and choke out, “And what will I get out of this? Because I had no wish to marry. Not now, not ever. I’ll be giving up a great deal if I take your fiancée for my own.”
Cole arched an eyebrow as if his brother were an idiot. “As I said, you’ll get Lansing Square.”
“A rather lopsided deal, won’t you admit?”
Actually, it was far from lopsided. Cole didn’t know what really hid in Lansing Square.
His brother laughed harshly. “Don’t be an idiot, Dominic. Not only is the property worth a great deal, but you have been after me to allow you access to it for years. I know owning that land, being master of that house, would make you feel legitimate. Society may not know you’re a by-blow, but you know. And it eats at you.”
“Thanks to you,” Dominic muttered.
“Thanks to our mother,” Cole shot back with heat. “But regardless of who is to blame, don’t think your indifference to my offer fools me. You want Lansing Square. Now the question is how much? Because if you don’t do this, if you don’t take my very generous offer, you’ll never so much as see a glimpse of the estate, let alone set a toe over its borders.”
Dominic blinked, because for a moment he looked at his brother and saw his father’s face. Harrison Mallory always used threats, too.
He glared. “You won’t allow me access at all unless I marry Katherine in your stead?”
Cole nodded, a smug smile just below the surface. “And I will sell Lansing Square. It’s not wrapped up in entail, I am within my rights to do so. There are plenty of interested parties who’d like to buy it.”
Dominic pursed his lips. “I already told you I’d buy it from you. For twice what it is worth.”
“No, I won’t sell it to you. In fact, I’ll sell it to the gentleman who wishes to tear it down. He’ll slash and burn the estate and whatever it is inside that you want so desperately.” With a grin, his brother leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “So what will it be? All? Or nothing.”
Dominic stared at his brother with bitter hatred churning inside him. How he wished he could laugh in Cole’s face and leave him to scandal and bankruptcy. But two things kept him from doing so. One was the need to take what Cole offered.
And whether he ever admitted it out loud or not, the other was the look on Katherine’s face when he shut the office door earlier in the evening. The pain in her eyes had been a pain he’d felt himself so many times. Loss.
But marriage? It wasn’t something he ever considered. Not with his bastard secret and firsthand knowledge of how ugly and twisted a match could become. His own mother had been trapped in a loveless union with a man she despised. And on one drunken night, she had admitted she wished to be free. That she once had dreams of being with the man who sired Dominic. But those dreams were taken by the prison of a wedding ring. That was the only thing she ever said to him about his real father, but it was enough.
He had vowed never to find himself in such a trap. In London he was free to come and go as he pleased. His mistresses knew better than to lay any claim on his heart. If they tried, he settled with them immediately and cut them free.
In his own element, he could have as many debauched nights in the hells as suited him. He answered to no one. He was responsible for no one. If his heart changed, no one was hurt. Not the woman in his bed. Not him.
The idea of giving that carefree existence up was sobering. But the idea of finding the truth he sought about his past was just as tantalizing.
What was a wife anyway? Katherine hadn’t chosen him, there was no love to be lost between them. As long as he was open with his desire to remain free of emotional entanglements and allowed her some small level of the same freedom, she wouldn’t be hurt. Until he bored of her, she would be his for the taking in his bed. He certainly felt a strong draw to take her there already. Stronger than he’d felt toward a woman in a long time.
The advantages to his brother’s twisted bargain seemed to far outweigh the disadvantages.
“I suppose the terms of the deal are satisfactory,” he muttered with a shrug. “But will Katherine go along?”
Cole nodded. “I’ll speak to her tonight. By the time I’m finished, she’ll believe she’s doing this for the best of everyone involved. It’s easy enough to play on what she wants and needs.”
Nausea churned Dominic’s stomach. Colden, the master manipulator. He had no doubt his brother would guilt Katherine into accepting the new arrangement. But that wasn’t how Dominic wanted to begin a life with this woman. If their marriage was to be built on deceptions, at least he wanted them to be his own.
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “Katherine is mine now, I don’t want you manipulating her any longer. I’ll handle this in my own way. And I won’t talk to her until tomorrow. She’s had enough shock for one day.”
With a shrug, his brother rose to his feet. “Very well. But I warn you, Dominic, she may look like a fragile dove, but Katherine is more of a fighter than you realize. You’ll have to keep a short leash on her.”
“Actually, Colden, from the first moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she wasn’t fragile.” Dominic opened the door and gave his brother one last glare. “And if she’s a fighter, then perhaps she’s more my match than she ever would have been yours.”
With that, he slammed the door behind him and stalked away. But the farther he got from his brother, the more his own words rang in his ears. A fighter he could understand.
But the idea of a perfect match terrified him.
Chapter 3
K atherine pulled the fur-lined shawl closer to her shoulders before she leaned against the low terrace wall to look at the winter scene below. The rolling hills and trees were covered with a blanket of snow and the air was still and peaceful.
She would have enjoyed the image if it wasn’t so completely opposite to her own tormented emotions. She was pulled from all sides as she tried to adjust to last night’s news. How could Cole’s wife be alive? And what did it mean for her?
Despite her protestations to the contrary, Katherin
e knew there was some truth to the overly dramatic statements her guardians made. When word of this shocking turn of events became public knowledge, she would be hurt socially. Perhaps even ruined.
“It’s so cold,” Julia Mallory proclaimed, pulling the terrace door shut behind her. As she buttoned her long woolen coat she said, “No matter how frigid the weather, you’re always out here. Why?”
Katherine kept her eyes ahead and continued to stare across the expanse of white stretching out before her as far as she could see.
“It helps me think.” She sighed as she turned to face Julia with a weak smile. “It clears my head.”
Julia’s eyes softened as she reached out to touch Katherine’s forearm. “You have much to think about. I’m so sorry. I was looking forward to having you as my sister.”
“As was I.”
Katherine saw the tears that glimmered in Julia’s eyes. Exactly like the ones that pricked her own. She’d been an only child. Julia had been her one glimpse of what having an older sister would have been like. Now she was going to lose that, too. It wasn’t fair.
With a shake of her head, Julia turned away. “This woman claiming to be Sarah will arrive tomorrow, I suppose.”
Katherine shrugged. “Colden seems to believe without a doubt that it is her. Part of me hopes it’s just wishful thinking.” She sighed. “But if it is true, I have to be happy for him, even if Sarah’s return does alter my future irrevocably. He loved her so much.”
To her surprise, Julia turned to her with a start, her brown eyes wide. “We-Well, they did have an…interesting relationship, I suppose. But I wouldn’t say…” She shook her head. “Never mind. It isn’t my brother I’m worried about, it’s you.”
Katherine drew away. Though she and Julia had grown close during the past few months, she was surprised Cole’s sister would be more concerned about her than her own brother. He was family, after all.
“What will you do, Katherine?” she asked quietly.
Swallowing hard, Katherine contemplated the question. She’d been pondering it all night. “I’m not sure. The general consensus seems to be that I’m ruined. Ruined!” She raised her hands in a mockery of Stephan’s theatrical proclamation, but couldn’t seem to maintain the falsely jovial mask. Her arms fell with a sigh.
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