The Spare Read Free Page B

scowled. "The spare."
    "Like you, in a manner of speaking."
    "God-awful hair." But he saw himself with his hands buried in curls free from pins and cascading over her shoulders.
    "There," James said, "you are much mistaken." His half-lidded glance swept the window. "Wonderful exuberance." Sebastian shot him a glance because he heard something in his friend's tone. "Wonderful." James's voice dropped a notch and turned into a whisper, a sound of endearments exchanged in a darkened room. "I do fancy her."
    McNaught cleared his throat. "My Lord." The potion inched downward.
    He could now see McNaught's fingertips, ending the illusion the glass had been floating in the air. "Oh, all right." He grasped the tumbler and tossed down the contents. Took it like a man, he did. Peppermint, he thought. Licorice. And a sharp aftertaste of some sort of patent remedy not quite strong enough to mask whatever ingredient gave off the faint smell of rotten eggs. Sulfur? Shuddering, he held out the empty glass. It vanished from sight. "The spare."
    "Yes. The spare."
    "Twenty-four years old." In all the times Sebastian had thought or read about his brother's death, the lone survivor of the tragedy had never been more than an abstraction to him. A name in the official records, without face or character, no existence outside her having been at Pennhyll. Now that he saw her, the reality jolted him. He remembered the pertinent details about her. "Never married. Daughter of Sir Roger Willow, deceased." Miss Olivia Willow, formerly a governess for Admiral Bunker, found near death at Pennhyll Castle with the bodies of Andrew, earl of Tiern-Cope, and his wife Guenevere. The earl and countess each dead of a bullet wound. In the coroner's opinion, they had died quickly. A crack shot, their murderer. Miss Willow, too, had been shot, but in her case, the bullet went a hair to the right and spared her the fate of Andrew and his wife. Unfortunately, she remembered nothing of the night in question. The conclusion of the inquiry was that Miss Willow had surprised the culprit during the commission of his crime and as a result sustained a nearly fatal injury. Only the alarm raised by household staff had saved her from death. No one doubted she would otherwise have been killed. The man responsible escaped into the night.
    James glanced at McNaught. "A spinster, Sebastian, of advancing age with no male relatives looking out for her welfare and no dragon-eyed mama guarding her virtue. In short, a woman who will keep me entertained while we are here in the midst of all this frozen… vegetation. What is it? You look like someone's kicked your favorite hound." His face fell. "Don't tell me you fancy her, too. I saw her first, damn it all." Sebastian stared at the windowed wall through which he could see the wild splash of red hair coming free of its pins. He didn't care how pretty she was or how lovely her smile. She was his best hope, likely his only hope, of discovering who killed his brother. He meant to have what was in her head, no matter the cost to him or to her. "As long as I get what I want from her, she's all yours, James."
Chapter Two
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    January 5
     
    Olivia smiled because her role was to be pleasant at all times, to be at all times agreeable. She must pretend she did not feel the least bit awkward about being back at Pennhyll where three days had vanished from her life. A legion of emotions contributed to her disquiet, starting the moment she walked into the Great Hall; the fear of those lost days tangled up with the anticipation of meeting Captain Alexander. Whatever her anxieties about Pennhyll, she was done avoiding the past, done with living as if nothing terrible had happened to her. Something terrible had happened, and she was done with the pretense. She accepted the invitation because she wanted those days back. After a year without remembering, she'd come to believe Pennhyll was the only place she could recover those days.
    For the moment