The Other Daughter (11 page)

Was this a test? The glass was slippery in Rachel's hands. Or maybe it was her hands that were slippery. She played for time. “Original sin?”

Mr. Montfort downed half his drink, his expression abstracted. “No sin is original, no matter what the Bright Young Things may hope. We're all merely playing to a theme.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him. “How unambitious of you.”

His attention recalled to her, Mr. Montfort's lips lifted in an unexpected smile. He saluted her with his cocktail glass. “You have put me in my place.”

Rachel sat gingerly on the white sofa. “It's my training as a nursery governess. You are nothing compared to Albertine, Amelie, and Anne-Marie.”

“I am reduced to my proper place, among the infantry.” The cushions creaked as Mr. Montfort joined her, his long legs seeming to take up half the space in the room. “It's not a bad analogy, though. You won't go wrong if you think of the set to which I am about to introduce you as members of a nursery party. They enjoy making mud pies and can generally be soothed by sucking on a bottle. They are also,” he added, “impossibly young. You'll be on the geriatric side, but I imagine we can smooth that over.”

“I shall endeavor to keep my old bones from creaking too audibly,” said Rachel.

“You seem to keep the gray at bay.” Mr. Montfort leaned forward, curling a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

The gesture was entirely natural, unstudied, but Rachel froze all the same.

Mr. Montfort looked down at her, close to her, but not touching. “We're cousins, remember?”

She could feel the deep murmur of his voice straight through to her bones.

Nervously, Rachel moved back, tucking the same strand of hair back behind her ear. “I'd thought we were distant cousins.”

“As in opposite ends of the couch?” The mocking note was back. Mr. Montfort leaned back, against the far cushion. “Is that distant enough to suit you?”

Rachel felt, obscurely, annoyed at both herself and him. At herself, for the loss of a closeness she knew was only illusory, and at him for putting her in this position in the first place.

“Yes, thank you,” she said primly.

In his most obnoxious society drawl, Mr. Montfort said, “You have been in France all this time, after all. The last time I saw you … you were a mere ankle biter with skinny legs and big bows on your braids. Just think of my astonishment at seeing you all grown up!”

“And think of my astonishment,” retorted Rachel, “at seeing you so sadly reduced to writing sensational pieces for the papers!”

Mr. Montfort grinned at her. “Now, now, play nicely. You ought to be grateful for my miserable column; it's the reason you're here.”

Rachel crossed her legs at the ankle. “A business venture.”

“Precisely.” He watched her from beneath lowered lids. “If we're to pull this off, you ought to call me Simon. If you can do so without doing violence to your principles.”

“I believe I can manage.” What a fool she was. It was all playacting. That touch on her cheek had been nothing more, just part of the game. Cousinly closeness. “I'm hardly so Victorian as that.”

Mr. Montfort—Simon—retrieved a torn piece of newspaper from beneath his jacket and set it down in front of Rachel. He had folded it so that the caption was hidden. “Do you recognize him?”

The man in the picture wore riding kit, his face blurry beneath the overhang of his helmet, the features rendered even more anonymous by the strap under his chin. There was a champagne bottle in one hand; the other held the bridle of a horse. A woman, a fashionable one, with a fur wrap so large it appeared to be eating her chin, simpered from the side of the picture.

Rachel shook her head. “No. Should I?”

Simon cast her a look of mingled amusement and reproach. “You ought. This is your brother, Viscount Summerton. Better known as Jicksy.”

She had a brother? It shouldn't have come as such a shock, but it did. She'd known her father had another daughter, a daughter in silk and pearls, a daughter with an honorific before her name. But she'd never stopped to think that there might be others.

Rachel's hand tightened in her lap, to stop herself from grabbing for the paper. “Half-brother.”

“As you will.” Mr. Montfort—Simon—shook out the paper, so that she could see the full picture, with the caption beneath. “He's currently up at Oxford. In theory, at any event. He spends more time in London than at Christ Church. He makes excellent copy. He can usually be found smashing motor cars against telegraph poles and pinching policemen's helmets. Often at the same time.”

This was what her father had left them for. “He sounds a paragon.”

“He's a clich
é
,” said Simon dismissively. “His exploits wouldn't raise nearly as many eyebrows if Ardmore didn't have such a reputation as a pillar of virtue.”

The irony of that wasn't lost on Rachel. She cleared her throat, saying, with difficulty, “Why Jicksy? That can't possibly be his real name.”

“Something dating back to the nursery, no doubt. You'll have to get used to it. It's all part of the argot. Someone,” said Simon lazily, “ought to compile a dictionary. Mayfair to English, Commoners, for the Instruction Of.”

Was the change of subject for Rachel's benefit, to give her time to compose herself? Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Does my sister have a nickname, too?”

“No.” Simon tossed the paper to one side.

Rachel might have let it go at that, but the image of the
Tatler
clipping haunted her still, her father's other daughter, poised and groomed on his arm. “What ought I know about Lady Olivia?”

Simon took a long swig of his drink. “Lady Olivia recently announced her engagement to a rising young Tory MP. He's only a baronet's son, but they say he'll go far. Everyone agrees that it will be the wedding of the year—if they ever set a date.”

“How lovely for them.” Happily ever afters all around. It shouldn't have hurt, but it did. Rachel asked fiercely, “Are there others? Other children?”

“Only one. That I know of.”

It took Rachel a moment for the penny to drop. “Me?”

Simon raised his glass to her. “Who else?”

Who else, indeed? Rachel took a tentative sip of her own drink, sweet on the surface, but with a burn beneath. For all she knew, her father might have a dozen bastards tucked away in the countryside, littered around little hamlets like Netherwell. What made her think she was unique? Just her own muddled memories of warm arms around her, tucking her battered stuffed rabbit in next to her in bed, lips brushing her hair.

She blinked away sudden, unexpected tears. “I'm sorry, you were saying something?”

“Just sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Simon gave her a long assessing look. “We don't have to go through with this, you know.”

“And waste all this?” Rachel gave her pleated skirt a shake. “No. I'm ready. Really, I am.” She was painfully aware of just how unconvincing she sounded. “Well? Do we have a plan?”

“We?” Simon didn't stint on the sarcasm, but he didn't, as Rachel half expected, try to argue her out of it. “Assuming that Jicksy doesn't drink himself into an early grave before the third of August, the earl and countess will be rolling out the red carpet, laying in the champagne, and hauling half of London out to Caffers for the official celebration of Jicksy's twenty-first. An heir,” he added, “is an heir, is an heir, no matter how much of a wastrel he might be. And the countess does like putting on a good show for the tenantry.”

Rachel shifted on the couch, the cushions too soft, too deep. “What has that to do with me?”

Simon's eyes were very black and very blank. “If we're to pull this off, we need to secure you an invitation to Jicksy's twenty-first.”

“The third of August is two months away,” Rachel protested. “Don't tell me you want to be lumbered with me for that long.”

“Little enough time to establish your bona fides.” Simon twisted his glass, studying the effect of the light on the liquid. “It is a large enough event that a Miss Vera Merton might slip by. Provided you make the right friends between now and then.”

Rachel smelled a rat, although she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was something in the fixed way Simon was regarding his glass.

Or maybe it was just that every fiber of her being revolted against the idea of joining in the celebrations for her father's son by another woman. All hail the legitimate heir!

Rachel set her own glass down on the table with a decided clink. “But—”

Simon kept going as though she'd never spoken, raising his voice to be heard over her. “There is every chance we'll stumble across your brother, sooner rather than later—he runs with the fast and the fashionable. Although it might be more apt to say that he staggers along with the fast and the fashionable.”

Rachel's stomach was twisting itself into knots. She didn't give a damn about her brother, except as a means to an end. “Is that the plan, then? Do I make friends with—with Jicksy, in the hopes of an invitation to his twenty-first?”

“Make friends. How sweetly you put it. No. Leaving aside the slight matter of incest—” Simon raised his voice to be heard over her exclamation of disgust. “—as I was saying, leaving aside the matter of incest, your brother doesn't consort with nice women, and the sort of women with whom he does consort would never be invited home.”

“The fast and the fashionable?”

“There's fast and there's fast. We need to establish you as one of the latter. Fast enough to be interesting, respectable enough to be received. It isn't your brother's affections you need to win.” Simon took a long swig of his own drink, draining the glass as though it were water, not gin and goodness only knew what. “It's your sister's. Jicksy's friends aren't received at Caffers. Lady Olivia's are.”

Of course. Lady Olivia. The favored child. Rachel could see her, demure in smudged newsprint, as dainty as a Dresden shepherdess on her father's arm.

Rachel took a quick shot of her drink, just managing not to choke on it. “Is Lady Olivia one of the fast and fashionable, then?”

“No,” said Simon succinctly. “Lady Olivia is all that is good and pure,
sans peur et sans reproche
.”

Rachel felt a wave of irrational dislike. “In that case, how—”

“
But
,” said Simon, raising his voice over Rachel's, “she does have a cousin who is. Fast and fashionable, that is. Cecelia Heatherington-Vaughn. Cece is the brightest of the Bright Young Things. No party is complete without her, no bacchanal sufficiently bacchanalian. We can't get you to Olivia, but we can get you to Cece.”

This was all beginning to seem increasingly tenuous. “If Cece is so wild, why would the virtuous Olivia pay her any mind?”

“For all her many sins—and they are impressive in scope—Cece is still received. Her mother, Lady Fanny, is one of those awe-inspiring society matrons whom no one likes to cross. Cece will provide the introduction to Lady Olivia. Befriend Lady Olivia … and the doors of Carrisford Court will be open to you.”

“That easy?” said Rachel sarcastically.

“If it seems easy, you've already had too much of this.” Simon rose gracefully from the sofa, taking his own empty glass with him. “You'll need a stunt.”

“A what?”

“A stunt,” said Simon, with painful patience. “Something to catch Cece's attention. And the attention of my readers.”

She'd nearly forgotten about his column. Rachel set her drink down on the glass table. “Stunts weren't part of the agreement.”

“This entire masquerade is a stunt,” Simon said bluntly. He emptied the dregs in the shaker into his glass. “But not one we can use to catch the attention of Cece and her jaded little friends. You might try dancing topless on a table—”

“Really, Simon—”

“How naturally you squawk my name!” Simon held up a hand. “Smooth your ruffled feathers, darling. It's already been done. No one would look twice.”

Rachel wasn't sure whether she was meant to be reassured or insulted.

“Would you like me to learn to juggle?” she asked tartly.

“Too crude.” Simon discarded both glass and shaker at the bar. “You don't by any chance play the ukulele?”

“My education has been sadly lacking.” Rachel half rose, but Simon gestured her back into her seat.

“Don't worry. We'll remedy that.” Neatly, Simon scooped his hat off the table by the door, setting it jauntily on his head. “Think on it. I'll call for you at nine.”

Rachel blinked, trying to regain control of the conversation. “Tomorrow?”

“Tonight.” Her evil genius didn't wait for her to rise. He let himself out, pausing only to issue one last instruction. “Wear something decadent.”

 

SEVEN

It was nearer ten than nine when Simon rang the bell of the flat.

Rachel grabbed up the beaded bag that went with her gown and stalked to the door, ready with a series of choice comments about punctuality, the virtues thereof.

But the Simon in the doorway was a different Simon from the one who had sprawled on the white couch four hours ago. He wore his evening dress as one born to it. Nothing off the peg for Simon Montfort. His wardrobe bore the indefinable hallmark of a West End tailor, the pants and jacket perfectly tailored to his long frame. His cuff links were mother-of-pearl, as glittering and enigmatic as his eyes.

For a moment, Rachel felt as that long ago beggar maid must, when King Cophetua came along and swept her up willy-nilly: oppressed by the vast gulf between them and painfully aware of her own inadequacies.

Oh, for heaven's sake. However well tailored, it was just a suit. She might be a by-blow, but he was a gossip columnist, singing other people's secrets for his supper. King Cophetua didn't come into it.