A Suitable Replacement (4 page)

Max opened his mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with himself when a shot rang out and the man in front of him fell back with a cry, clutching at his arm, blood seeping through his fingers. The knife pressed to Max's throat faltered, and he used the chance to jerk back against his would-be assailant, sending him tumbling. Max whipped around and came up swinging, catching the little bastard dead on the nose. Blood poured from his nostrils and his knife went skittering, and he was off running with his partner before Max could get a second swing.

He stared after them, annoyed the bastards had gotten away with his purse and watch. And his pistol. "Damn it all!"

"Are you all right?"

"What?" Max whipped around—and lowered his guard slightly. "I'm fine. A few scrapes and knocks. I'm more annoyed they made off with my belongings and destroyed my spectacles. I assume the pistol shot was you?" Moore nodded. "Thank you."

Moore just continued to scowl at him. "What are you doing out here?"

"I was trying to chase after a particular idiot in order to apologize for careless words. He has a frustrating penchant for blowing in and out of rooms, and never giving anyone a word of warning or a chance to speak a word of their own. It makes him damned vexing."

Something like a smile teased briefly at Moore's mouth before it was lost to his scowl again. "You should have more care around here—"

"I'm well aware of which streets require caution," Max snapped.

Moore huffed. "Come on, those wounds need tending, and I do not want to wait around for someone else to cause us trouble." He took Max by the wrist and led him off, moving silently along the street, making Max all the more acutely aware of the sharp rap of his own footsteps.

"How do you do that?" he asked irritably.

"Do what?"

"Walk so silently! It's damned frustrating."

"You find the most peculiar things frustrating," Moore replied. "Are you truly so offended that I do not make unnecessary noise when I walk?"

"You don't make
any
noise. That should not be possible."

Moore rolled his eyes. "You're an idiot." He came to a stop, and Max realized belatedly they were on Dogwood Row—and from the way he pulled out a key to unlock the door to a small townhouse, they were at Moore's residence.

The townhouse proved to be one of those converted to several apartments. Moore had a pair of rooms on the second floor, the front room overlooking the street and a bedroom that looked over a rather pitiful garden in the back.

"Sit down," Moore said, shoving him down into a faded chair of navy and burgundy stripes. He walked off before Max could reply.

Having nothing else to do, Max stood up and prowled the room, taking in everything that was there and, more notably, not there. A painting of a ghostly woman walking down a shadowy staircase hung above the mantle. Beneath the painting was a wooden box, the top painted with hyacinth, a tarnished silver lock keeping it firmly closed.

The carpet and sofa were as faded as the chair, all of the furniture clearly secondhand and quite old. He was fairly certain it had been the fashion when his parents were still alive, but already on its way out even then.

Beyond the box there were no personal affects—no portraits, tokens, or even books. Perhaps Moore kept everything of import in the bedroom. Returning to the box, Max picked it up and gave it a careful shake. Something rattled about inside, something hard, heavy, and small. He turned the box every which way to more thoroughly examine it. It was old; the maker's stamp was for a company that had gone out of business when he was a boy. He wondered if it could still be opened properly, or if the tarnish had ruined any chance of that.

He froze as the door opened again, and set the box down when Moore scowled. "I should have known you would neither remain in your seat nor bother to leave anything alone. You're exactly like your sister."

"Not exactly," Max replied. "She would have already flitted off to your bedroom to poke around there, and she would have rigged the door to warn of your return in time to sneak out of it again."

Moore's expression looked pained, but he said nothing as he set down the tea tray he carried, then the small box he held under one arm. "Sit. Down." He left again without waiting for Max to reply.

Max obeyed only because a cup of tea sounded like a marvelous idea. Resuming his seat, he poured two cups of tea and added a small amount of cream and sugar to his own. His hands were still scraped raw, but thankfully there was minimal blood. Most of it was on his damned clothes, which were ruined beyond repair anyway.

He took a sip of tea, letting his mind wander, hating the exhaustion that washed over him in the aftermath of the altercation. A door creaked, and he watched Moore stride toward him carrying a bowl and pitcher, rags draped over one shoulder. "You do know you're
injured
, don't you?"

"I have done far worse injury to myself in lab experiments," Max said with a shrug. "I was going to have my driver take me home to clean up and change."

"Ah," Moore replied, face shuttering, and Max realized how his words must have sounded.

"Now I think upon it, however, I am not convinced there is anyone on the premises suited to addressing my scrapes. I've also no idea where to find a reputable doctor. If you can suitably treat them, I would be grateful."

Moore shrugged but set everything down on the floor as he knelt by Max. He pulled off Max's shoes and stocks, unbuttoned the ends of his breeches and rolled them up out of the way, and critically eyed the wounds. "You could have done much worse."

"I
have
done much worse, as I said," Max replied. "I mixed some chemicals wrong once, finishing up a school project, and the glass went everywhere. I spent three hours picking the pieces out. Dumb luck alone kept it from most of my face." He reached up to touch the faint scar on his left cheek.

"You really are just like your sister," Moore said. He wiped at Max's knee with a warm, wet cloth, glancing up at Max through his lashes. It was—well, distracting, to say the least. The man was good looking; Max had never denied that, even when Moore had stormed into his home making demands. Did he have to
excel
at it, however?

Honestly, Max wanted to meet the man his sister had run off with when she had already been practically married to Moore, who seemed exactly the sort of loud, reckless, blunt, and infuriatingly attractive figure—

No. No, no, no. He was not
attracted
to Moore. An aesthetic appreciation, certainly; a dead person would not be able to resist admiring those highwayman looks. But Moore had been engaged to his sister, and Max was not going to put forth the notion that Moore replace one twin with another.

Bloody hell, he had just wanted to return home, set up his new home, write up papers, and attend Mavin's wedding. On top of all his other problems, now he must find time to obtain new spectacles. Damn it, he just wanted to be left alone to work in his laboratory. It should be a simple matter to compile a list of candidates, but every step of the—

"Damn and blast!" Max snarled.

Moore drew back, dropping the cloth he held into the red-stained water in the bowl. "What? I'm sorry."

"No! Not you, my apologies. I just realized that I left my portfolio behind. By now someone has likely run off with it,
damn it.
Could this day get any more frustrating?" Max rubbed his temples with his fingers, then dropped his hands and reached into his jacket. He sighed as he realized his headache powder had been another casualty of the muggers. "I do not suppose I could impose upon you for any headache medicine you might have?"

"Of course," Moore said quietly, and rose smoothly to his feet, slipping soundlessly from the room.

Max sighed and leaned back in his seat, wishing his mind would settle down to a bearable tumult. He was
not
going to be attracted to Moore. It would not do him a bit of good anyway, because Moore did not like him, and why would he want anything at all to do with the twin brother of the woman who had left him mere weeks before their wedding? Without even a word of farewell.

If he was Moore he would not like him either.

He looked up at the sound of the door creaking again. "It really is infuriating I can never hear you coming or going. Do you just enjoy scaring people to death?"

"It's habit; I don't even notice I do it anymore," Moore said. He handed over a small glass jar filled with powder, then knelt again to resume tending Max's knees. He was quiet for a couple of minutes, and when he finally spoke his voice was soft, hesitant. "When I was young, I was—people did not like me much, and my caretaker preferred me out of sight and mind. She put me in the cheapest school she could find, and the children there were … well, I went through three schools before I finally left that hell behind altogether. The few places I worked were no better for a long time. Nobody wanted anything to do with a dirty, filthy traitor, and I was always large for my age." He shrugged as he finished Max's knee. His hand was rough when he captured Max's and wiped it clean before rubbing a mint-scented ointment into the scrapes. It tingled and stung for a moment before the sensation faded off. "I learned how to be quiet."

Max did not reply, not certain what to say in the face of such a personal tale—not something he had expected to hear. It made him feel all the worse for his own careless words. "I—you say I am much like my sister, and many think we are, because she is bold and I am blunt, but they are very different things. My blunt ways have gotten me into plenty of trouble, but most of the altercations in which I have been involved were due to Mavin."

Moore surprised him with a laugh. It was warm, deep, unfurling something hot in Max's gut. No, no, no. He would not go there, he wouldn't. If nothing else, he should recall that experience dictated that people were always invariably disappointed when they finally realized just how unalike the brother was from the sister. "I do not believe you. Both of you possess a temper, and neither of you is very good at judging what you say until you've said it. You're both too smart, and think you can bend the world to your will, and beautiful enough to distract until you do get your way."

He should not be so pleased that Moore thought him beautiful, though he was far more pleased to be called smart, rather than a lunatic who chased fanciful notions. And he could hardly deny the temper, though Moore had no ground to stand upon there. Max was not inclined to point that out, for the moment, anyway. "Thank you for the help, especially after the way I keep saying all the wrong things. I know you want to leave the matter alone, but my sister deserves a beating for her behavior. I would like to right the wrong as best I can, if you'll let me, Mr. Moore."

Sighing, Moore said, "Kelcey. If you are so determined upon this mad venture of yours, you may as well call me Kelcey."

Max smiled. "I must insist you call me Max, then, and thank you. I promise, Kelcey, I shall see that you make it happily to the altar."

Shaking his head, Kelcey gathered up the supplies he had used to treat Max's injuries and piled them on the empty tea tray. "We shall see." He rose to his full height and turned to go.

Hastily setting his tea cup aside, Max stood and caught his sleeve. "You should come with me tonight."

"What?" Kelcey stared at him, brow pinched. "Where?"

"Uh—" Max winced. "I'm not certain yet. I was given three invitations tonight." He dug them out of his jacket and pressed them into Kelcey's hands. "You've probably a better notion than I about which to attend. Make your selection, sir. You say I can't help because we are strangers. Well, this should help us get to know one another, and you can begin to tell me all I need to know to fulfill my contractual obligations."

"I don't think—"

"No refusing!" Max said. "I've given you all the logical reasons you should come, and not attending is completely
illogical.
"

Kelcey sighed and shook his head. "Logic and society seldom have anything to do with each other, but if it will hasten your dropping of this madcap notion, my persistent lord, then so be it." He looked through the invitations, selected one and thrust it back at Max, dropping the remaining on the table next to the tea. "I'll go down and have someone fetch your carriage to take you home to freshen up."

"Just send the carriage to bring me clothes. We can go from here to the jeweler's and the wine shop."

Rolling his eyes, Kelcey replied, "Yes, my lord." He slipped away before Max could get a retort out.

Max resumed his seat and retrieved his tea, smiling over the brim of it for no reason he could name—or wanted to name, anyway.

Chapter Three

"The Chestertons do not like me," Kelcey said.

"You picked the invitation," Max replied.

Kelcey made a face. "The other two options hate me. Dislike seemed the preferable option."

Max shrugged. "Well, the Chestertons cannot afford to offend me, so I think all will be well."

"Why is that?"

"Lord Chesterton found himself in a … let us say an awkward situation about a decade ago, shortly after my parents died. My sister could have reneged on the arrangement made with our father, but she upheld the bargain and they remain in our debt—and will be for quite some years yet."

Kelcey's brows rose. "They must do whatever you say or else they will come to harm at your hand? I did not take you and your sister for that particular brand of bastard."

"It—I'm not a bastard! We aren't hanging anything over their heads. They simply have a bad habit of getting into awkward situations, and our family has long gotten them out of those situations, so they dare not risk angering the only family still willing to help them when they invariably do something stupid. It's complicated."

"So I am gathering," Kelcey said, mouth tipping up at one corner.

Max made a face, staring out the carriage, watching people walk by, annoyed they would be waiting in the carriage another twenty minutes at least before they finally were able to disembark. He was sorely tempted to get out and walk, but he had no desire to hasten being smothered by heat and the press of bodies in an oversaturated ballroom. If not for his obligations to Kelcey, he would gladly maintain his practice of avoiding such things. Obligations. Who was he fooling? If it were anyone else, even a contract would not persuade him.