Lady Elinor Chester took a long, deep breath then walked sensually to the full-length mirror near her bedroom window to study herself with a critical eye for the first time in years.
She really did look quite good for a woman now almost twenty-six years of age. Her long, silky blond hair was piled on top of her head while little ringlets framed her face. Her light blue eyes were delicately outlined with almost invisible lashes, but of course Elinor was an expert in the art of concealing minor flaws. She lightly applied bits of kohl to her lashes to make them darker, and skillfully rubbed rouge on her cheeks and lips to give them color. To her chagrin, Elinor found herself prone to occasional blemishes of the skin so she sometimes brushed powder on her face to absorb the oil.
Nevertheless, she was quite lovely, everyone thought so, and attracting men had never been a problem for her. In fact, it had been almost effortless until just recently when she began to notice that many of the eligible men were getting married to other women. This in itself was starting to bother her, for she only just realized that she was getting old. Not old in the aging sense but old in the marrying sense, and she absolutely refused to die unwed. During the last several months she’d slowly come to the conclusion that she was very nearly on the shelf in terms of marriage, and when she coupled that with the fact that she was running out of money, she was left with few reasonable choices. Now, at least, she had a plan.
Elinor stared hard at her reflection. Critically, the only flaw she possessed was her figure. She’d been built like a boy, a tad too slender, having no curves to speak of, and worst of all, cursed with an inexcusably small bosom. Most men in her experience didn’t tend to care all that much, however, for she presented herself to the gentlemen in society with a sensuality that overcompensated for her somewhat unfeminine shape. Yes, Elinor Chester certainly knew how to please a man in bed and that in itself was worth thousands.
A slamming door from the landing below pulled her out of her thoughts as she realized Steven had returned home at last. She’d received a note from him yesterday informing her that he’d be arriving today before noon, and although it had been years since he’d stood on the grounds of their estate, she was ready, more than ready, to face her brother again.
“Elinor!” he bellowed from the entrance hall.
She sighed, rolling her eyes before lifting her skirts to walk with a purposeful stride to receive him. She knew without a doubt he’d be waiting for her in their late father’s study. It’s where he’d always felt important and superior.
“There you are, little sister.” He half-smiled for her benefit.
Elinor stopped short in the doorway and literally gaped at him, astonished by the change in the man. “I wouldn’t have recognized you, Steven,” she said with a touch of awe in her voice as she looked at each feature of his face. “You look so utterly different.”
His reddish-brown brows rose with indifference. “It’s been a long time since I stepped foot in this pig pit,” he replied with a disgusted chuckle. He sat heavily in a large winged chair, taking quick note of its dull gray leather, dry and cracking beneath his legs. “Don’t we have any nice furniture anymore, Elinor? Where the devil does the money go—”
“You’re one to talk, you swine of a brother,” she cut in with increasing agitation. “You run away from here to God knows where, spending what ever you like, then you return years later and wonder where the money is going? Why don’t you give me a little of what you and the great Gilbert Montague have stashed away?”
He only laughed harder at that, sinking further into the chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him and crossing one ankle over the other.
Elinor could feel her anger bubbling at the surface from his rather relaxed entry back into her life, but because her brother remained in control of the situation, and more importantly the money and the manuscript, she had no intention of ruffling his feathers. Not too much, anyway. Instead of saying what was on her mind, she smiled prettily at him and sat down on the matching settee across from him, drawing her small legs up underneath her dress.
“So, Steven, how long will you be with us this time?”
“We’re getting the manuscript back,” he fairly whispered as he gave her a sideways glance, his good humor now changing to a wry grin.
Her eyes narrowed. “We?”
“You didn’t think it was just yours, did you?”
Elinor stared at him, confused, saying nothing for a moment as she tried to ascertain the meaning of his words. Then suddenly the cloud lifted and shock took over as her eyes widened in horror.
“You can’t sell it,” she nearly choked out.
He snickered again, his tone abounding with ridicule.
Her stomach lurched but Elinor, ever restrained, refused to let her worries show.
“You’re only trying to make me angry,” she stated succinctly. “So typical of you.” In a tone dripping with caution, she reminded him, “But the manuscript is mine, Steven.”
He ignored her warning, looking now at his hands. “That manuscript belonged to Elizabeth. She’s dead.”
Elinor felt her bones grow cold. “That is the point, dear brother,” she spat. “It belongs to me now, and I want it back.”
“For what purpose?”
That simple question caught her completely off guard. Seething, she squeezed her hands together in her lap, eyeing her brother candidly, amazed that he hadn’t seemed to age a day in the last five years. Nor had he changed. He was as despicable as ever.
“What I want it for is not your concern.”
He chuckled again, though this time it appeared false, forced.
“It’s always my concern,” he remarked casually as he absentmindedly picked imaginary lint off his shirt. “With Gilbert in charge—”
“Gilbert can rot in hell,” she threw back at him, “and you damn well know it. That is my playing card, Steven.”
His gaze shot up to her again, his eyes black with a fury he refused to contain. “Now, now, that’s not proper language for a lady like yourself, dear sister,” he replied, his voice softly grave.
Her body felt instantly charged with an odd mixture of its own rage and a cold rush of fear, though she sat composed, thinking furiously. She shouldn’t have said that. It would do her no good at all if he walked out now. She would never see him—or her manuscript—again. And as appalling as it felt, she needed them both.
Drawing a long breath to help ease her agitation, she lowered her lashes quite submissively and brushed her palms down her gown, freeing it from wrinkles it didn’t have.
“If you must know, I believe the Earl of Demming is a collector of fine artifacts and essays—”
Her brother’s burst of genuine laughter cut her off. Feeling her cheeks burn, she asked, “What is so amusing?”
“Good God, Elinor, the man is ninety years old if he’s a day.”
Her lips thinned. “He’s only a tad over fifty, dear brother, and frankly that’s irrelevant.” She sat straighter on the settee and folded her hands in her lap. “He’s got unlimited wealth, and he needs a wife.”
Steven looked positively baffled in his continued amusement. “He doesn’t need a wife, and I doubt very much that he wants one, being, as it were, a man who, shall we say, hunts on the other side of the meadow.”
“I’m wondering how exactly you know that, Steven,” she remarked bluntly.
His eyelids thinned to slits. “Don’t toy with me.”
She ignored that. “The point is, he will marry me if I offer him the manuscript in exchange for vows. Then we will live comfortably for the rest of our lives.”
Frankly, Elinor couldn’t care less if Steven—and Gilbert for that matter—disappeared forever from her world. But she wanted the assurance of a good life, and this was a nearly certain way to get it. Appeasing her brother’s own desire for a rich and easy existence seemed a decent way to guarantee some cooperation at the very least.
Suddenly Steven drew his legs in and leaned toward her, hands clasped together as he rested his elbows on his knees.
“I don’t think you understand something, Elinor. The point actually is that you don’t know for a fact that the Earl of Demming will marry you, that anyone will marry you in exchange for a signed Shakespearean sonnet. Once again you’re thinking too far ahead.” He snorted, waving a hand in front of his face. “We don’t have the manuscript in our possession yet.”
Steven, in all his arrogance, forever knew how to counter an argument to bring her back to reality. She hated when he did that.
Sighing, Elinor acquiesced. “So what do you propose we do? Why are you here?”
He smiled again to reveal succinctly, “Our friend Gilbert has already begun a brilliant plan and this one is even better than the first.”
He paused after that, attempting to tantalize her with his silence. She wasn’t amused. He disgusted her.
“Oh, splendid, another great plan,” Elinor retorted most sarcastically. “I suppose he wants to murder the woman then abscond with all her flower money.”
Steven raised his brows in mock appreciation. “Very clever, Elinor. But actually, she’s quite wealthy in her own right. God knows why she plays with dirt.” He lowered his voice. “And apparently Will Raleigh has taken quite a fancy to her.”
Elinor stared at him, startled at the implication. “How do you know this?”
He smirked. “I know everything.”
She refused to counter that boast because she knew him well enough to understand that he’d already thought of a marvelous comeback. She refused to give him the satisfaction of making her feel stupid.
Suddenly it struck her that he hadn’t denied a desire for murder, and with that frightening thought, all other considerations vanished.
“She doesn’t know anything, and never will, Steven,” she warned in a deadly quiet voice, sitting forward on the settee and watching him carefully. “Get the manuscript back and leave her alone.”
He flattened his palm on his chest. “Goodness, such concern, Elinor.”
She positively hated him. “So what is the plan, dear brother?”
For the first time since his arrival, she noticed a rather grave look shadow his strong features.
“She sent a note to the theater yesterday, requesting a meeting Saturday afternoon to exchange the manuscript for the original letter I purchased from her solicitor. Gilbert, of course, agreed and selected his regular pub, The Jolly Knights for the exchange because it would…assure her that she would be safe in a public place.”
Elinor watched him, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You and Gilbert, you and Gilbert…”
He relaxed in his chair again. “As a team, he and I work far better than you and I ever did.”
She brushed over that as well. “So I don’t understand the need for violence. We get the manuscript back and she can go back to planting flowers none the wiser.”
For a moment or two he just glared at her. Then his lips turned down snidely as he slowly shook his head.
“You’re so goddamned stupid, Elinor.”
Immediately, she became incensed. “How dare you insult me,” she hissed, jaw set, fisting her hands at her sides to keep from lunging at him. “Getting the manuscript back from the evil man who murdered our sister was my idea—”
In the flash of an instant, he cut her off by springing from his chair and towering over her, planting his large palms flat on the chipping tea table between them.
“Plans change,” he murmured very softly, his face only inches from hers. “Ideas are often faulty. You of all people should know that the Duke of Trent would never simply give that manuscript away for a toss or two in bed, nor does he need the money he would gain by selling it. What he’ll offer instead, through the lovely Vivian Rael-Lamont, is a very grand forgery.” Quickly he stood up again, pulling down on his fine waistcoat as he leered at her with nothing short of contempt. “But he likes the woman, Elinor, and for her, he might pay.”
It only took seconds for her to come to full term with her brother’s intentions. “Nobody needs to die, Steven,” she said again quietly, as a calm river of dread for the woman, for all of them and what was at stake, began to course through her body.
His expression went flat as he clasped his hands behind his back. How very odd that at that moment, Elinor decided he looked quite like the gentleman he was born to be yet rarely revealed.
“Listen to me well, dear sister, for I’m only going to say this once.” He continued to look down at her, his voice low as it held a cautious note. “We are no longer playing by your rules. I am in charge from this moment on.”
She said nothing, but neither did she look away. He evidently took her silence as a form of agreement.
“If you stay out of this,” he continued, “we will end up with more money than you can comprehend.” He took a step toward her, his finger pointing at her for emphasis. “If you do as I say, this time next year you will be relaxing on the sunny coast of any country you choose with any man you desire.” Again, he grinned wryly, looking her up and down. “Or of course you can attempt to wed and bed the pretty Earl of Demming. I frankly don’t care. Just leave well enough alone and let Gilbert Montague do what he does best.”
With that, he stepped over her skirts and walked to the door of the study. Pausing, he turned and gave her a lovely, heartfelt smile. “It’s good to be home. Tell Wayne to take care of my horse, will you? I’m in desperate need of a nap.”
Elinor sat on the settee for a long time, staring vacantly at the cold, clean fireplace, all the while picking at the fraying fabric of the cushion with her nails until the aging feathers inside began to poke through.