A Suitable Replacement (5 page)

He fussed irritably with his cravat, wishing the bothersome things would fade out of fashion so he could stop feeling as though he were choking to death all the time.

"If you keep doing that you're going to have to retie it," Kelcey said.

"Beg pardon?" Max turned and stared at him, then registered what he had said. "Oh. It's not as though it was tied well to begin with, and I'd be much happier without it." He sighed. "If only that were an option."

Kelcey frowned, then moved abruptly to sit beside him, pulling his hands away.

"I beg—"

"Hold still."

Max held still, tried to think of complicated formulae and unpleasant memories of experiments going boom. But even recollections of pain and blood could not beat out the warm smell of Kelcey, the sweet-citrus cologne he wore, the deft movements of his fingers as he manipulated Max's neck cloth in a way that seemed entirely obscene. The slivers of light slipping into the carriage seemed to enjoy the sharp lines of Kelcey's face, adding an air of mystery to the dark, handsome, dangerous highwayman impression that Max's imagination refused to surrender.

Thinking of obscene touches did nothing whatsoever to help the situation.

"There," Kelcey said, and smiled briefly before returning to his own seat on the opposite bench.

Max reached up to lightly touch the rearranged folds of silk, jealous that Kelcey had so smoothly tied such fashionable, elegant knots while in a dark carriage prone to jerking forward at unexpected moments. And he'd seemed completely unaffected by their close proximity while he did it, which was … sadly typical. Everyone wanted Mavin. They had been born only a few minutes apart, and Max had never been anything but relieved that she was first born and set to inherit the title—she was a magnificent duchess—but it would be nice if someone was completely overcome by the sight of him the way they always were when Mav walked into the room.

But all the charm and charisma and vivaciousness had gone to her. He was good looking enough and smart and wealthy in his own right, but he had none of whatever it was that drew people to his sister. Someone who had been weeks from marrying his sister …

The books were very clear on the matter. The highwayman always stole away the bright, bold, daring passenger, not the sullen scientist. "Thank you. It will be refreshing to look stylish for once, not barely passible."

Kelcey laughed. "It's a cravat, not science." He winked. Max hoped the dark hid the flush that burned his cheeks. "I learned quickly to always dress exceedingly well. People treat you according to how you look. I might be the last remaining member of my traitorous family, but people seldom realize that until after they've been treating me like a gentleman for the past half hour." His mouth twisted, and he turned to gaze out his window rather than elaborate on how he was treated once the discovery was made.

"Surely that tapered off once …"

"No, they just wondered what exactly your sister had done that she 'was required to marry me'. You should be grateful you were not here at the beginning."

Clearly. Max was sorely tempted to pull out his pistol and make educated guesses as to who had been spreading narrow-minded opinions as to his sister and her motivations for marriage.

Kelcey startled him from his seething with another laugh. Max had not known it was possible to be hopelessly weak in the face of such a harmless sound, but he found it was easy to forget everything when Kelcey laughed. "You have the same look upon your face that she did. Stop worrying about what was said in the past and worry about the uproar you'll be fighting tonight."

"What uproar? No one is that excited about my return. They were all quite relieved to see me and my scandalous hypotheses go."

"You—" Kelcey shook his head. Outside, Max could hear footmen calling, and the distant murmur of a fete in full fervor. "You show up shortly after your sister vanishes, accompanied by me, and you do not think people will be aflutter with gossip as to where your sister has gone and why I am friends with the twin brother of my vanished fiancée?"

Max opened his mouth, then closed it, and realized with an inward wince that it was going to be an exceptionally long night. "I am going to kill her."

"I think you shall have to stand in line behind the crown—and me."

"Surely being her twin brother gives me preference?"

Kelcey shifted his gaze from the window to Max and flashed a grin that nearly made Max forget what they were discussing. "I think that means you've had plenty of opportunities and wasted all of them, and so now the task shall be left to others."

"I should probably feel awful we are discussing the murder of my sister."

Grin widening, Kelcey replied, "Let us be honest—she would manage to get the better of all of us."

Max rolled his eyes, but before he could reply, the carriage came to a jarring halt and the door swung open. Grabbing his hat, Max allowed the footman to help him out. He settled his hat on his head, eying the enormous white and rose townhouse before him as he waited for Kelcey to join him.

Inside, they handed over their hats and coats, and Max gave their cards to the servant announcing arrivals. "First goal:  champagne," he murmured as they stepped into the ballroom, almost painfully bright with flickering candlelight reflecting off a truly obscene amount of glittering crystal.

"Agreed." Kelcey moved forward to walk in front of Max, and he had to concede that it was damned nice to follow in the wake of someone who could so effortlessly clear a path.

Max nodded and murmured to those whose eye he accidentally caught, but he stayed his course until at last they were before the buffet tables. He retrieved a flute and downed it in one long swallow, then handed off the empty glass and grabbed a new one.

"I don't even care for champagne and that offended me," Kelcey said.

"The sooner I am drunk the sooner this becomes bearable, and I detest the wine the Chestertons always purchase. The champagne at least I can trust to be decent."

Kelcey smiled over the rim of his own glass. "The wine has never offended me, but so long as it's not whiskey I tend to think it drinkable."

"I would quite cheerfully kill for a glass of gin, but that tends not to be served in respectable homes."

Surprised flickered across Kelcey's face, followed by a slow, crooked grin that made Max want to punch him, but only because he was absolutely certain he was not allowed to kiss him.

He drained his latest glass of champagne and muffled a cough in the soft lace of his cuffs. Kelcey took his empty flute and set it on the table, then pulled out a flask and tipped the contents into the flute. Still grinning, he handed it back to Max. "Try that."

Max obediently took a sip, recognizing the juniper scent of gin before he even tasted it. "You carry a flask of gin."

"It's what I grew up on, and though I will not turn away a good glass of brandy …" He flashed another thought-stopping grin. "I still favor gin."

Max took another sip to hide the fact he could think of absolutely nothing to say. The bastard was proving too appealing by half. Why the hell had his sister flitted off with some insipid ambassador's son?

The moment he had the thought, he wanted to undo it, forget it, because it had forcibly reminded him he was only there to see who might be a matrimonial fit for Kelcey. Right, then. He had dithered and delayed long enough. Draining the last of the gin, he set the empty flute aside and gestured to the crush of people. "Much as I would love to spend my night drinking gin and ignoring everyone, we are here for you."

Kelcey's smile faded. "I keep telling you—"

"Do not be a ninny, sir. Mavin has already taken up that role in this affair."

"You must be the only man alive who can call her that and live to tell the tale."

Max smiled briefly. "She calls me 'good-for-nothing.' Now, enough dawdling. I do not even know your most basic requirements in a spouse."

"I don't have 'basic requirements'. Marriage isn't like shopping for a new coat or horse," Kelcey said, taking a healthy swallow from his flask before jamming it back inside his jacket. "Your sister approached me. We became friends. Six or so months after we met she proposed, said it should be a congenial and equitable arrangement. I agreed—accepted. I never had any notions."

Pushing at his spectacles, Max replied, "It may not be a shopping venture, but it still requires knowing what you want, or do not want, in someone you hope to spend the rest of your life with. It is not unreasonable to ask you to consider whether or not you want to sire children, or if there specific … intimacies for which you have a strong preference that must be shared by your companion. My aunt and uncle married as strangers and were later so miserable they were granted a divorce."

Kelcey's mouth flattened as he stared out over the ballroom. "I don't care. There's not a single thing I give a whit about. All I want—" His mouth snapped shut so hard it looked like it hurt. "I want you to drop this madcap scheme."

"I will not renege on a contract—"

"I don't give a bloody damn about the contract!" Kelcey snarled, hands balling into fists. He drew them up close to his body, then let his hands fall limply to his sides. "It was never—she was my friend. I don't need some scientifically perfect match, and I don't care about some bloody clause in a stupid contract. All I wanted was not—was not to be alone." His angry tone faded then to something stiff, as though they had gone right back to being strangers. "I think my coming tonight was a mistake. Thank you for all you've done, my lord. I beg that you leave the matter alone and let me trouble you no further."

He stepped forward and made to move around Max, but bollocks to that. Max grabbed his arm, looped his own through it, and dragged him out to the dance floor, pulling him into position just as the music began. Max felt more than saw the looks they were garnering, but he ignored them in favor of staring up at Kelcey, who was handsome and fierce, and it
wasn't fair
that he returned home after a three year absence only to find his sister eloped and himself saddled with giving her breathtaking fiancé away to someone else.

All he had wanted upon his return home was to focus on his experiments and win his bloody award after years of trying. Two days should not be enough time to leave him utterly confounded on the matter of what he wanted. He was a scientist, not a besotted, impulsive nitwit.

But it was bloody hard to remember that when he was dancing with a dashing highwayman, surrounded by whispers and warm with alcohol.

"You must have some opinion on the matter," he said eventually. "I know if I had to spend eternity with a spouse who was exactly like myself or my sister, I would kill one or both of us."

Kelcey smiled at that—it was weak, distracted, but a smile all the same. "Your sister has her charms."

"Yes, I’m aware," Max replied, trying not think of all the times she had used her charms—from sharp wits to ample breasts—to get whatever she wanted or needed. She was magnificent. She was impossible to best. No one had ever picked him when she was an option.

And he was painfully aware that Kelcey had only said that Mavin had her charms. He could have said 'you both have your charms.' He hadn't. Apparently he was smart and beautiful, but did not have charms enough to be worth enduring.

Whatever impulse to offer himself in exchange that had lingered, it vanished then. "So someone as lively as my sister. A woman, then. Any woman, or strictly those who can bear children?"

"I have no preference at all," Kelcey said. "No—you're correct. I do have one preference:  a disinclination to run away with someone else mere weeks before the wedding." The music came to an end, and Max made to draw away, but Kelcey held fast to his hand, leaving Max to choose between causing a fuss or dancing again.

"People are mercurial at best," he finally said as they settled into the rhythm of the new dance. "I could in no way make that guarantee. If there was one person I trusted not to act so, after myself, it would have been Mavin. Hence the clause that has put us here."

Kelcey's mouth tightened, eyes tight as he glanced away over the ballroom. "I have told you time and again this is unnecessary. If you have somewhere else you would rather be, my lord, then by all means depart."

"You have made it abundantly clear, sir, that you would prefer I absent myself," Max replied, matching his curt tone measure for measure. "I promise I shall leave you in peace once I have fulfilled my duty—"

"Oh, bugger it!" Kelcey snapped, and abruptly stopped, nearly colliding with the other pairs on the dance floor as he stalked off it, dragging Max with him—and out of the ballroom, down the hall until he found an empty room. Shoving Max inside, he closed the door behind them before striding to the center of it, so close to Max for a moment they were practically nose-to-nose. Max could not entirely remember how to breathe until Kelcey withdrew to a more seemly distance. "I met your sister in this very room. I'd come to the Chesterton home for the birthday celebration of their eldest daughter, as a guest of someone I'd met a few weeks previous. I had somehow mistakenly believed that he knew my history and did not mind. I proved to be mistaken when someone at the party informed him. He refused to have anything to do with me after that and it caused a scene. Lady Mavin came to my rescue and sent them all scattering, then dragged me here to give me some quiet and a chance to gather myself. She kept me company the rest of the night, and no one was willing to go against her. We became friends, though I never knew quite why she bothered with me.

"No one was more astonished than I when she posed the idea of marriage, but I was certainly not against the idea. You cannot recreate that with
science.
Lady Mavin has said several times that you're brilliant, the smartest man she knows, and I feel you have far better things to do with your time and mind than attempt to find me someone else to marry. It was never a necessity, we were never one of those ridiculous love-matches that riddle the gossip rags, and I do not need you to find me something I was never missing. I only wish she had remembered that I was her friend and told me what she was doing, instead of leaving me to worry and wonder. I beg you, my lord, leave off the matter."