Wicked Becomes You Read online

  “Disgraced her, did I?” He was curious despite himself.

  “I don’t know how else to describe such behavior in public!”

  In public, no less. That did not sound impressive so much as stupid. How typical of Gerard to believe it of him. “Yes, well, the lung power,” Alex said with a shrug. “Foolish of me to underestimate her. She said she was a contralto, but to be honest with you, I think her range goes higher. Perhaps she’d lacked the proper . . . tutelage.”

  Gerard made a scornful noise. “Is that meant to shock me?”

  “No. If my aim was to entertain people, I’d have gone into the theater.”

  No doubt Gerard’s glare made his soft, wheezing opposition in the Lords cower and tremble. Once or twice, in their childhood, it had made Alex tremble, too. Then Alex had mastered it himself. In his experience, it also worked well on foreign trade boards and corporate men desperate for investment. Paired with a smile, women fell before it like dominos—although, alas, he’d never tried it on a showgirl. They generally preferred coins to smiles, whereas Alex used money to buy goods; he did not buy people.

  At any rate, the glare was useful. It also strained the eyes. “You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm,” he said mildly.

  Gerard reached up to rub his brow. “Tell me this. Do you really think I waste my breath out of priggishness?”

  The silence wanted an answer. Christ. Did they have to do this every time he came home? “No,” Alex said. “I think you waste it out of stubbornness.” Had it fallen to his family, Alex would have joined the church. The world was changing; grain from the Americas, meats and wools from the Continent, had sliced into the profitability of English agriculture. But the Ramseys still fared very well, and no son of Lord Weston, his father had often informed him, would dirty his hands in trade. In other words: the Ramseys would cling to the past and ignore the present so long as they could afford it.

  Even as a boy, Alex had found this philosophy absurd. He’d spent his entire childhood buried in the country—for his own good, they’d said; for the sake of his health. He’d had no intention of hiding from the world as a man.

  “You may call it whatever you like,” Gerard said. “Stubbornness or stupid optimism, I don’t even know. But I am certain of one thing: you keep leading this bohemian lifestyle, you’re bound to pay for it one day. Cross the wrong man and you’ll have a bullet in your brain. And in the meantime, it’s damned embarrassing for us.”

  Alex rubbed his eyes. Dry as sand. Perhaps, in the first years out of Oxford, he’d derived an idle amusement in scandalizing stuffed shirts—but even then, he’d done it only by happy accident, never as a deliberate goal. “The bit about the showgirl is rubbish,” he said. “I don’t misbehave in public, Gerry. It’s bad for business.”

  Gerard snorted. “Oh, indeed, God save the profit margin. And even if it’s rubbish, what of it? Do you think it matters, now, whether these stories are true or not? The way you live, who can tell? Who’s even bothered to wonder? Either way, it’s we who pay the price!”

  Alex nodded and reached inside his jacket.

  “Yes? A nod? Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

  Alex laid the bank draft atop the desk.

  Gerard leaned forward to examine the draft, then looked up, scowling. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “You need money, don’t you?”

  “According to whom?”

  Alex sat back and kicked out his legs, crossing them comfortably at the ankle. “The trade winds.” He glanced around the room. He’d been gone for seven months, first in the United States and then in Peru and Argentina. In that time, his sister-in-law had redecorated. The bust of some dead Roman now glared blankly from one corner. An entire wall had been consumed by an oil of some eighteenth-century massacre, replete with gleaming swords, anguished grimaces, and riderless horses, wild-eyed. “New painting,” he remarked.

  A pause. “Yes,” Gerry said gruffly. “Picked it up from auction. I expect you don’t like it.”

  “No, it’s quite impressive.”

  “I know what you prefer.”

  “So you do. Children’s scribbles, I believe you’ve called it.”

  Gerry tried out a smile. “Well, you have to admit it, Alex. Very little talent required.”

  Alex shrugged. What modern art required was an imagination drawn to possibilities, rather than braced by smug presumptions. Certainly the work of Gaugin did nothing to flatter a British imperialist’s vision of his role in the world. “But I meant it,” he said. “The painting is striking. I particularly admire the discreet pools of blood. Came cheaply, I assume?”

  Gerard’s jaw firmed. “I can well afford the purchase, but clearly you think otherwise. I’ll thank you to tell me who’s maligning my name.”

  “Your sisters. You mustn’t blame them. It was a natural assumption, upon learning that you’d sold the Cornwall estate to Rollo Barrington.”

  Gerry slowly lowered his hand. “Oh.”

  Alex waited, but that seemed to be the extent of Gerry’s reaction, which in itself seemed significant. His brother so rarely declined an opportunity to hear his own voice. Requirement of a nobleman, that healthy self-regard. “Interesting man, Barrington,” he said casually. “Never met, but I’ve seen him in passing. Heard a good deal as well. He’s making quite the reputation with these purchases of English land. Curious thing, though: nobody can say where he gets the money for it.”

  Silence.

  “What puzzles me,” Alex said, “is why you didn’t come to me first.”

  His brother flushed. “Because I don’t require your help.”

  He laughed softly. If Gerry were dying of thirst and spotted Alex two feet from a well, he still would not think he required his younger brother’s help. It simply would never occur to him that Alex might be able to provide it. “Right. So you sold it for, what . . . a lark?”

  “That estate was an albatross round my neck, and well you know it. Rent rolls falling for five years straight. There was barely a household left to me by the end.”

  “True.” But since when had Gerard cared for financial wisdom? He was a creaking anachronism who spent his free time in musty gentlemen’s clubs, raging against the nation’s decline into capitalist barbarism. His only comfort, he often opined, was that most of England’s soil still rested in civilized hands. That he had sold a good deal of this sacrosanct substance suggested a variety of possibilities, but nothing so rational as a sound economic decision.

  Gerard was growing redder. “What do you lot care, anyway? The twins never spent a night there. And God knows I’ve never heard you speak fondly of the place.”

  “No, I’ve no particular love of Heverley End.” It had been little more than a prison to Alex as a child—the echoing house to which he’d been banished for months on end when his lungs had grown contrary. “But you must admit, the decision seems peculiar. Moreover, Bel and Caro had to learn of it from the gossips. If you wish to discuss awkwardness, I imagine that gave the showgirl a run for her money.”

  Gerard looked back to his half-finished speech, his stubby fingers linking together atop the page, then separating again and clenching into fists. He pulled them abruptly into his lap, out of Alex’s sight, like secrets to be hidden.

  The gesture raised some unpleasant feeling that Alex did not want to examine. If Gerry required his pity, he did not want to know the cause. Unlike his siblings, he did not enjoy worrying. It was a pointless exercise by which nothing was gained. “Tell me the problem,” he said flatly. “I’ll fix it.” This, after all, was the reason he’d come when he should have been halfway around the world, attending to his own business.

  “Listen to me: you will let it alone.”

  “If only I could. Alas, I’ve promised the twins to buy back the land.” And he was determined not to have made this trip for nothing.

  His brother gazed stonily up toward the painting.

  Alex took a breath, leashing his impatience.
“Barrington stands to make quite a profit by selling to me,” he said evenly. “My last bid was double what he paid you. Yet he proves remarkably difficult to contact. Four letters I’ve sent now, and I’ve still to receive a reply. I was hoping you might facilitate our acquaintance.”

  “Alex.” Gerard looked into his eyes. “I said, let it alone.”

  What the hell was going on here? “Perhaps I will,” he said with a shrug. “Lazy by nature, you know.” At his brother’s snort, he gave up a lopsided smile. “Only give me a reason for it, Ger.”

  Gerard’s snort flattened into a sneer—that same damned sneer inherited by every firstborn brat Alex had ever had the misfortune to meet. “It seems I must remind you of a very basic fact,” he said through his teeth. “I do not explain myself to you—”

  “Thank God for that,” said Alex. “I’ve little enough time as it is.”

  Gerry’s palm slammed onto the desktop. “Amusing,” he bit out. “You are very amusing, Alex, never doubt it. A veritable family clown. But much as it pains you, I am the head of this family. The land is mine to dispose of. You may remind the twins of that, if you please. And you may interfere in my business the same day you hand me the reins of your little business.” He gave a nasty little laugh, sounding, for a moment, exactly like the schoolyard bully he’d once been. “God knows, that would be rich. Bilking Chinamen of their tea. Wheedling teak from coolies in India! Christ, but you do the family proud.”

  Alex inclined his head. “No prouder than you do in the Lords. Fine show, shaking your fists at the Boers for daring to take land that you’d prefer to steal yourself.” He rose. “Shall I find lodgings, then?”

  Gerry eyed him, clearly struggling to remember the less autocratic obligations of the head of the family. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said finally, gruffly. “You’re always welcome to stay here.”

  It was a marked sign of Alex’s fatigue that he almost found this statement touching. “And it would look rather awkward for you if I didn’t,” he said dryly. Well, he’d take a week to poke around in Gerry’s files, see what he could uncover. The mystery would irritate him now until he solved it.

  His brother tried out an unsuccessful smile. Or perhaps he had a moment’s pain from indigestion. The twist of his mouth supported either hypothesis. “How long are we blessed with your company?”

  “Not long.” Never long. Anywhere. Be restful, and rest will come: so spake the doctor in Buenos Aires. Very easy advice to give, a nice play on words, and as medical advice, useless. Alex took a breath. “I’ve a few showgirls waiting on the Continent, in fact.” An acquaintance in Gibraltar had mentioned that Barrington favored springtime in Paris. He glanced toward the clock. “Luncheon is still at half past?”

  “Yes, but not today, of course.” Gerard rose. “Or do you intend to miss the wedding? If you’re in town, you might as well come.”

  It took a moment to recover his smile. “Ah, yes. My brilliant timing.” He’d known mystics in India who’d predicted destinies based on the pull of the moon on the tide. Had his ship only met with an opposing current or a fractious wind, he would not be here. A mere hour’s delay into port this morning, and he still would have been in Southampton, free to miss this auspicious event.

  Gwen noticed nothing on her walk down the aisle, so absorbed was she in negotiating the flagstones in her spindly, pinching heels. The altar seemed to leap up out of nowhere. Uncle Henry abandoned her with no ceremony, which rattled her; she’d expected a kiss on the cheek or, at the least, the press of his hand on her arm. Thomas was smiling at her and taking her hand, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe; the corset had tightened further and was about to finish her off. And then she saw her brother’s ring shining on Thomas’s finger, her betrothal gift to him.

  The breath returned to her lungs. Of course she wanted this. Who would not want this? Everybody liked him. He was handsome and well-born and always joking. He was the nicest man she knew.

  She stepped forward. The minister began to speak.

  Gwen tried to attend, but an itch started in her nose. How maddening! If she wrinkled her nose it would go, maybe—but she didn’t dare.

  The itch intensified.

  Thomas glanced away toward the audience, and she took that as permission to do so as well. Do not wrinkle. Do not. What a profusion of flowers Elma had ordered! Roses over the chancel, orchids dangling from the rafters, lilies overflowing the baptismal font—good heavens, no wonder she wanted to sneeze! London’s bushes must have been stripped bare. It was a pity that people proved so ferociously single-minded about flowers; sprigs of pine and honeysuckle would have looked just as lovely, but of course nobody would have been impressed, since tree boughs came for free.

  She turned her attention back to Richard’s ring, staring so hard at it that it began to blur. I will not sneeze, she thought, and risked puffing a small bit of air out through her nostrils. It didn’t help. What a monstrous collection; no garden in nature would ever contain such an overpowering combination of scents.

  The minister droned onward. She forced herself to think of something, anything but the itch. Thomas’s hair was such a handsome, true black. She hoped it would overpower her own contribution. While her hair was acceptably close to auburn, Richard and her mother had looked like torches on fire. She did not want her children to accrue nicknames like “Carrot-top.”

  Oh, stars above. If she sneezed, Aunt Elma would never forgive her.

  Why did Thomas keep looking off to the side?

  Gwen followed his glance again. Candlelight flickered over jeweled hat pins, skipping in flashes and gleams across the shifting rainbow of satins. She had the vague impression of smiles, of tears being dabbed discreetly. Warmth flushed through her, and the urge to sneeze subsided. All these dear, dear people! They had come today to rejoice for her. How she loved them for it!

  She glanced back to Thomas. He looked very solemn now. But his hand turned under her palm so their fingers could thread together.

  She found herself blinking back tears. She would be so good to him, better even than he dreamed. He could have anything he liked; she would not withhold a penny, no matter what her solicitors had advised.

  “Do you, Thomas John Whyllson Arundell, take Gwendolyn Elizabeth Maudsley—”

  A door closed at the back of the church. Thomas’s glance flickered away again.

  “—to protect her and cherish her—”

  His face went white. She darted a glance toward the back of the church but saw nothing.

  “—as long as you both shall live?”

  He opened his mouth.

  His mouth closed.

  But he hadn’t spoken. Had he?

  Surely she hadn’t . . . missed it somehow?

  She peered at his lips. They twitched and compressed, forming a flat, hard seal. His fingers began to slip free.

  She tightened her grip and looked an urgent question at him.

  His eyes slid away.

  At Thomas’s elbow, Mr. Shrimpton, the best man, was now frowning. Her heart quickened. The oddity of this pause was not in her imagination, then.

  The minister cleared his throat. “Sir?”

  A faint wheeze whistled through Thomas’s nose.

  Heavens above. The flowers. Of course! They must have been affecting him, too.

  She sent a pleading glance to the minister. Give him a chance to breathe, she willed him.

  The minister, ignoring her, sent a puzzled look toward the best man.

  Mr. Shrimpton’s shoulders squared. He stepped forward, shoes squeaking in the pin-drop silence, to lean near Thomas’s ear.

  He spoke too softly for Gwen to hear, but Thomas closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his throat working in an effort to swallow. Oh, the poor man! How awful for him! Would he faint?

  A whisper rose from the audience. Her heartbeat escalating, Gwen directed a bright smile toward the crowd. It’s all fine, she thought. Should she say it aloud? Really, it’s nothing. Only the flowers
.

  An abortive movement yanked her attention back to Thomas. His shoulders jerked, and she almost laughed from relief. Goodness, he was only gathering himself to speak, overcoming a brief bout of allergies. What an amusing story this would be to tell at dinner parties! We were both battling a sneeze, you see . . .

  Then she realized the source of his movement: the best man had planted his fist in Thomas’s back.

  This isn’t happening.

  Over Thomas’s shoulder, Henry Shrimpton flashed her a panicked, horrified look. “Say it,” he whispered to Thomas.

  I am dreaming.

  “Sir,” said the minister.

  I will wake now.

  “Speak,” Mr. Shrimpton hissed.

  Thomas made a choking noise.

  “Nicest girl in town,” someone murmured, and something cold welled up in the pit of Gwen’s stomach. A million times she had heard herself described so, but never in a voice full of pity.

  She looked out to the crowd, but it was impossible to find the source of the remark. All of a sudden, a great many other people were whispering, too, their soft remarks and speculative rustling blending into a mounting hum.

  Good heavens. Gwen swallowed. She recognized this noise in her bones—had encountered it in her nightmares—but she’d never thought to hear it in truth. Not this time. Not when the groom had actually shown up!

  She glanced back to Thomas. “Sir,” she whispered. “They—they think that you’re—”

  But her throat closed. A chill danced over her spine. She could not finish that statement. She could not put it into words. Surely he must know what they thought!

  He gave her a desperate, pop-eyed look. She could not interpret it. She shook her head—helplessly, frantically.

  His bloodshot eyes rolled again toward the crowd.