Second Epilogue

The King's Quarrel

That Same Evening

Apollo winced as Balthazar's wife—Victoria—who was playing against Ares, threw a dart that narrowly missed the pub window, which was a good six feet away from the bullseye.

At the next board, two giggling friends of Eva were playing doubles against two young men whose names he could not remember.

It had stunned Apollo how many people had come all the way from London to attend his sister and brother-in-law's celebration.

He knew that Io had not made that many acquaintances, nor had Masterson, who spoke as little in company as Apollo did.

He could only assume that most of the guests who'd come to the wedding hoped to bask in his brother Zeus's reflected glory.

They were bound for disappointment as Zeus was even less inclined to engage in frivolous socialization these days than he usually was.

Zeus was the only Hale—well, other than Io, who was with her new husband—who hadn't accompanied the group to the King's Quarrel after the festivities

Instead, his oldest brother had retired to his study with his august, starchy peer—in every sense of the word—the Duke of Axbridge. The two dukes had refused politely, but firmly, Ares's invitation to join the rest of them at the King's Quarrel.

Apollo had noticed that his oldest brother had been even quieter and more reserved since his own betrothal had ended. The shadows in his pale blue eyes hinted at pain that none of them would have suspected. Had he really loved Edith Barrymore? Or was there some other reason for his obvious unhappiness?

"I don't understand," Jamie, Balthazar's stepson, broke into Apollo's thoughts and he looked up from his half-empty pint.

Those in their group not playing darts sat around several tables that had been pushed together.

"What don't you understand, son?" Bal asked, wincing when his wife threw her last dart, yet again missing the board and almost spearing an unsuspecting pub patron in the back of the head.

Ares, her opponent, threw back his head and laughed.

Really, Apollo thought, his twin could celebrate a win regardless of the merit required. Anyone could see that Victoria had all the skills of a kitten when it came to the game.

Hopefully, Bal would avenge his wife's honor.

"It is just…" Jamie broke off. "Well, Aunt Io and Uncle Corbin kept talking about three-twenty, as if that meant today. But today is twenty-three."

Eva, who'd been chatting quietly about something with Miss Barclay, suddenly chimed in. "Maybe here it is, Jamie, but in America, it is the other way around."

"That makes no sense," Jamie insisted.

Apollo only half listened to his little sister try to explain why the calendar was different—a thankless task, in his opinion, as the American method was ridiculous. He studied Miss Susan Barclay beneath his lashes.

The woman had been Edith Barrymore's dogsbody for most of the time Apollo had known her. Only for the past two months had she been free of the harridan.

While her huge blue eyes had lost some of the haunted expression they'd always held, she now put him in mind of a garment that had been packed tightly and cruelly into a box that was too small and would only slowly return to its normal size. Even when it did, there would always be creases and marks to indicate the harsh handling it had once received.

Objectively, Miss Barclay was pretty. But there was something repellant about the fear that rolled off her—even now. She was damaged, maybe even irreparably broken by her time under her cousin's brutal yoke.

Apollo knew a few things about fear.

And he knew about how easily things broke, too.

A hand clamped on his shoulder and shook him and Apollo looked up into his own face.

"Are you asleep, twin?" Ares teased.

"Are you finished thrashing a person who has never thrown a dart in her life?" he countered.

Undaunted by his scathing look, Ares grinned. "Is that a challenge?"

***

Susan Barclay sipped her shandy and tried to stay invisible. But Lady Evadne—or Eva as she tried to make Suki call her—would not let her. Although the younger woman was well-intentioned, Suki was grateful when Lord Balthazar interrupted their conversation, which was about how she should accept an entire wardrobe from Eva, her new employer.

"May I borrow my sister from you, Miss Barclay?" the huge lord asked with a gentle smile, his face so handsome that it made her blush just to look at him.

"Of course, my lord," Suki murmured.

"We will resume this conversation later," Lady Eva warned with a look of mock severity.

Suki smiled and nodded, exhaling a breath of relief when she was alone. A quick glance around the table showed that only Lord Apollo still sat at the table, and he was consumed by his own thoughts and not paying her any mind.

The brooding lord had livened up briefly while he'd beaten his twin at the dartboard earlier, but he'd been silent since returning to the table, although he, too, had given her a kind, if vague, smile.

All the Hales were lovely to her.

But only because they did not know who—or what, rather—she was.

Or at least not all of them.

Only the duke knew her horrible secret. Edith had made sure of that before she'd left London, furious when Suki had refused to go with her.

"Stay if you like," Edith had said, frost on her words. "But do not think I will leave you here without telling Hastings the truth about you." Fury had twisted Edith's beautiful face when she'd mentioned the name of the man who'd made it impossible for Edith to remain in London.

Suki knew that Edith loved living in England. She'd especially loved the prestige of being betrothed to not just the handsomest man in England, but probably the wealthiest. And kindest.

And Edith had lost him.

Suki could not help but celebrate that fact.

Edith had jerked her cold gaze back to Suki, as if she'd heard her thoughts. "I will tell Hastings the truth about you and you will soon find yourself back on the streets, earning your money the way you were before I rescued you. And if you think Lady Eva will protect you…" Edith had laughed cruelly. "You are even stupider than I have always thought. Hastings will not want a creature such as you to come anywhere near his beloved little sister." Her lips twisted as she spat the last three words, confirming what Suki had long suspected: Edith was jealous of the affection growing between the duke and Lady Eva, the most affectionate of the Hale offspring.

For more than three years Suki had watched as Edith—who possessed beauty, wealth, prestigious connections, and a fiancé whom every woman in New York City and London envied—had poisoned the very air around her. Nothing was ever good enough, no person ever perfect enough, or even adequate, for Edith Barrymore.

The Duke of Hastings had not seen his fiancée's true reaction to the news that he had a family he had never met and that he wanted them all to accompany him to England.

Back then Edith had been too clever to show Hastings what she had really felt about his new siblings—raw fury—but Suki had not only witnessed Edith's wild-eyed rage, she had borne the brunt of it.

She had borne all Edith's ill will for far too long.

While it might be foolish, Suki had decided to take the opportunity to say one thing to her cousin before she had walked out of her lushly appointed chambers at Hastings House for the last time two months ago.

"You are right that you rescued me, Edith. And I loved you for it. At first. But my love was never enough for you. Nobody's love is—not even a man like His Grace—and now you are alone. Just like I was. I pray that whoever rescues you does so with more kindness."

And then she had left her cousin with her mouth hanging open, holding her head high for the first time since that snowy December morning three years ago.

And here she was, living among kind, loving people. Under false pretenses.

Suki sipped her drink, relishing the lemony tang in the beer, and glanced around at the Hale siblings, her mind on one who was not there.

Edith had been wrong about one thing, at least. His Grace had not banished Suki from his home or family when he'd found out about her past.

He had called her to his study once Edith had left in a cloud of recrimination. As always, he'd risen when she entered and bade her to sit, not keeping her standing as Edith always had.

"You must know why you are here," he had said, not unkindly, but not with his usual warmth, either.

"Yes, Your Grace. Edith has told you about my past."

"Is what she said true?"

"I—I don't know, Your Grace. What did she say?" Suki had hoped beyond foolishness that maybe Edith had reconsidered at the last moment.

"That she found you working in a brothel."

What had remained of her hope had died then as she'd met his steady unreadable gaze.

But for once she had not cowered. "It is true."

Something flickered in his icy eyes. Disappointment? Disgust? Suki didn't know what and it was there and gone too quickly to identify.

"I have already packed my things and can leave directly," she'd said, ignoring the bone-grinding weariness that swept through her as she got to her feet.

Naturally, the duke stood when she did. "Please, Miss Barclay—a few more minutes of your time, if you would."

She sighed, wavering.

"Please. Sit," he said, his voice almost gentle.

And so Suki had sat.

"I am not throwing you from my house, ma'am."

She had blinked.

"Everyone deserves a second chance, Miss Barclay. I have known you for three years—since you began working for Miss Barrymore—and your behavior has been exemplary. You are welcome to stay in my employ as a companion to my sister, who has begged me to persuade you." His riveting eyes lost some of their reserve. "I am sure you are aware of Eva's persuasive abilities."

"I am, Your Grace. And I gratefully accept. As long as, well, as long as staying does not offend your sense of decency?"

"No, Miss Barclay. It does not."

And so here Suki was, free of her cousin's control and living in the house of Edith's former fiancé, the Duke of Hastings.

A man Suki had been secretly in love with from almost the first moment she had met him.

It was heaven to live under his roof—especially without Edith constantly shaming her in his presence.

But it was hell to know that Suki could never, ever have him.

***

"You seem… anxious, Eva?" Balthazar said as he pulled the darts from the board and handed them to her.

Eva took her mark and threw all three darts before answering her brother's question. "I am a little restless, I suppose."

"Because the Season ended so abruptly?"

"Partly," Eva admitted.

"I'm sure you could have stayed—Zeus would have made arrangements for you."

"He already offered but I wanted to come back here with him. He is hurting, Bal, even though he doesn't show it. And I also wanted to come here for Susan's sake."

"Taking her as your companion was very kind, Eva." Bal's gaze slid to the table where Susan sat alone, staring at the pub around her as if it were the most magical place she had ever been. Eva had noticed that the other woman looked at every place that way now that she was out from under the iron fist of her cousin.

"I want her to accept some clothing from me—just a few things—but she refuses, Bal."

He shrugged and turned to the dartboard. "Perhaps all she has left is her pride, Eva."

Eva considered that.

Pride. The deadliest of the seven sins.

A different face popped up in her mind's eye when she thought of pride—that of the Duke of Axbridge, a man who was rapidly becoming one of Zeus's closest friends.

Axbridge's face should be in the dictionary under the definition of pride.

Perhaps Eva would put a drawing of Axbridge in the lexicon of cant that she was compiling. She could use his proud image to define some common, vulgar term—something that would horrify and infuriate him when her dictionary was finally published.

Indeed, she could make up an awful definition just to plague him. An Axbridge: a haughty, disagreeable individual that people went out of their way to avoid.

Eva snorted.

Yes, she could call that sort of person an Axbridge and perhaps the term would make its way into common usage. Years from now she might be at a party somewhere and overhear somebody say, so-and-so is such an Axbridge!

Eva grinned to herself.

But of course she would do no such a thing.

Because—no matter how beyond the pale Axbridge seemed to think she was—all her life Eva had always done the decent or proper thing. Unlike Io, Eva had no beliefs that were so important to her that she would risk everything and everyone's regard to fight for them.

While she dearly wanted to be like her sister, the truth was that Eva was a coward. Unlike Io, who spoke her mind freely regardless of what others thought, Eva was…wishy-washy.

Wishy-washy. An excellent term dating from the late seventeenth century.

And a perfect word to describe her. She wanted people to like her too much to risk offending anyone.

Even Axbridge, who looked at Eva as if she were an insubstantial piece of fluff, his dark eyes judging and dismissive whenever they landed on her.

Eva knew she was fortunate, that people tended to like her because she liked them. And she was aware that she was pretty, which meant that some things—like attention and praise—came easier to her. Perhaps all that adulation had spoiled her?

That was certainly what Axbridge seemed to believe.

Her face burned just thinking about the words she had overheard him speak at her own birthday ball! And before she'd even met the man. Cruel words that were forever emblazoned in her mind.

Eva had been standing beside the wall of potted palms that Victoria—then Mrs. Dryden—had cunningly arranged to divide one section of the massive ballroom from another. Although the plants had looked like a wall, they were no barrier to what was being said on the other side.

"That elder Hale sister is beautiful," an arrogant male had proclaimed, the sound of Eva's last name instantly garnering her attention.

"She's a diamond," another voice agreed. "Unfortunately, she looks like the sort who would eat a man after mating him."

The others had laughed, and Eva had frowned, opening her mouth to remind them that they were in her family's ballroom, and she could hear them.

But then hearing her own name had stopped her.

"The younger one is nothing like her—except a bit in looks," a new voice said.

"She is a real darling," said the first voice. "Genuine, fresh, and innocent. It is hard to credit they both came from that commune."

"I agree," said yet another, making her wonder just how many men were loitering. "I'm not ashamed to say I asked Hastings if I might call on her when they come to London. He told me that his sister was in no hurry to marry. He then said that it was his sister's choice who called on her and that I should apply directly to her."

Eva recognized the voice now—it was the Earl of Gaston, whom she'd just danced with. He'd come to her birthday ball with two of his friends and they'd dressed as the three musketeers.

"Poor Gaston!" somebody teased.

"Thwarted at the starting block!" another voice jeered.

"I will ask her!" Gaston said, sounding harried as his friends laughed and ribbed him.

"What say you about these sisters, Axbridge?" the first voice asked. "You've spent some time around Hastings, haven't you?"

The Duke of Axbridge.

Eva knew who he was, of course. Zeus had introduced her to him earlier. He was one of the few men who'd not bothered with a costume, as if such a thing was beneath his dignity.

He was a contemporary of. her brother's and notable for being a handsome, unmarried duke and therefore a marital catch. He'd also been the man who'd danced with Io a scandalous three times earlier that evening. Eva couldn't believe her sister's audacity sometimes.

"I know Hastings, although not well," Axbridge drawled in his cold, haughty voice.

"What is Lady Eva like?"

"Lovely to look at, as is her sister. Both are also petted and coddled and overindulged. Any man who took one of them to wife would need a disciplined hand, a will of iron, and many years of patience to undo the damage inflicted by their bohemian upbringing."

The men laughed.

"I say, Axbridge. That is rather… harsh," Gaston protested—although not with much force.

"It may be harsh, but that does not make it any less true," Axbridge replied coolly. "Neither of them is worth the bother, in my opinion."

"Here you go, Eva. I'm sorry it took such an age," Io said.

Eva jolted at the sound of her sister's voice and blindly reached out to take the proffered glass of lemonade, feeling dizzy.

Io frowned. "Is something wrong, Eva?"

Just then the men on the other side broke up and several of them came around the foliage.

Gaston, who must have heard Io, went pale when he saw Eva, and then scurried away.

The duke pinned Eva with a hard look that seemed to last a hundred years—although it couldn't have been more than a few seconds—his dark eyes almost black, his angular face aloof and cold.

And then he turned away, somehow managing to make even that seem dismissive and insulting.

They know that I heard them talk about me. And Axbridge, at least, is glad.

"Eva?" Io repeated, "Are you ill?"

"No. I am fine," she'd lied, sick at his words and scathing look.

"Was that Axbridge just then?" Io asked, sipping her drink and glancing around.

"Yes."

"I wonder what made him look at us so coldly," Io mused and then laughed. "Even more coldly than usual, I should say."

"You know him a little, don't you?" Eva had heard herself ask.

Io had snorted. "Know him? I wouldn't say that. I just danced with him three times." A shadow passed over her sister's beautiful hazel eyes and then she muttered, "I might just ask him again before the night is through. I wonder how he would like that," she said, speaking under her voice.

"What did you say?" Eva had asked.

"Oh, nothing. I said I just met him."

"Then why did you dance with him three times?"

Io eyelids had lowered and then she'd said, "Mostly to avoid dancing with any of these simpering fools. And also because we both share a dislike of society."

"And was he…kind to you?"

"Kind? Axbridge?" Io laughed. "Hardly. He has told me that if I were his sister, he would beat me and lock me in my chambers until I learned to behave properly."

As that was not such an unusual male response to Io, Eva had not been especially surprised.

But what had Eva done to have Axbridge judge her so harshly? She was polite, courteous, respectful, and ladylike.

"Doesn't it bother you that he is so…disapproving?" Eva had persisted.

"He's a peer of the realm—a duke, for pity's sake. He cannot help himself. Being disapproving of American upstarts is as natural to him as conquering the globe and riding to hounds." Io had chortled, but then frowned when Eva hadn't joined her. "What is it, darling? Please tell me you are not allowing these arrogant jackasses to get under your skin?"

"No…no, of course not," Eva had said.

But, for weeks, whenever she saw Axbridge—which wasn't just at functions but also at Hastings House as he and Zeus came to know each other—she had felt the same unease, no matter how she'd chastised herself. Not everyone will like you, Eva. The same way you do not like everyone.

True, but she didn't loathe anyone. Not even Edith. Well, at least she hadn't until the woman had gone after Apollo that day.

Eva had been startled when Axbridge had come to partake in Io and Corbin's celebration. She'd been even more flummoxed to see her sister laughing and chatting with the haughty duke earlier that day—as if they were dear friends. But then, Eva reasoned, Io would find such a stern, implacable man amusing considering that her new husband was nearly as severe and proper as Axbridge, although not even half so arrogant.

"Eva?"

She looked up at Bal's voice and realized she'd frozen, a dart in her hand.

"Is aught amiss, Eva?" he asked, concern evident on his handsome face.

She forced a smile and made it convincing. "Nothing at all," she said with a grin, and then turned to the board.

And if Eva imagined Axbridge's handsome, sneering face instead of a bullseye, who did it hurt?

The End