Page 2 of A Hint of Scandal (The Mismatched Lovers #2)

M ax didn’t bother to knock on Julian’s study door, but opened it quietly and slipped inside. He needn’t have worried about being quiet, though, as Julian, wearing a deep red banyan and a turban covering his thinning hair, was seated at his desk, his back to the roaring fire. Not asleep after all.

He looked up as his younger brother entered the room, and his face, where illness had blurred the planes of youth and made his skin hang in pouches beneath his eyes and chin, suffused in a genuine smile that lit eyes as dark as Max’s own. But apart from the similarity of their eyes, it would have been difficult for a stranger to recognize the two as siblings. Julian, although not yet fifty, had the appearance of a man twenty years his senior, with a body grown bloated with the dropsy caused by his inefficient heart. Whereas Max, despite having been invalided out of the army after a serious wound, still had the military bearing of a soldier and the physique of an athlete. As well as all his own hair. The eighteen year gap between them had never been wider.

Outside, the December rain rattled against the windowpanes. Inside, the study was warm and cozy to the point of being stuffy.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Max said, dropping into the empty chair on this side of the desk.

Julian coughed discreetly into his handkerchief. “Always good to see you, Max. I feel I haven’t seen enough of you since you returned from Portugal. If I had a little more energy, it would be different, I swear.”

Max leaned back in his seat, stretching out his long, boot-clad legs. “You’re looking tired, brother, so I’ll get to the point. Mama and Maria ambushed me in the parlor just now. I’m sure you know what about.”

Julian showed no contrition and nor did he object to Max’s assessment of him. “You’re right. It’s late in the day, and I am tired, and I do indeed know what you’re referring to. It was my idea.”

“I suspected as much. You’ve been plotting with Mama again.”

Another cough into the handkerchief and a clearing of his throat. “Not so much plotting, Maxim. Merely acting in your best interests. As I’ve always done.”

Max frowned. “I don’t know why everyone thinks they know what my best interests are. I find it a little amusing that you all profess to be able to organize my life better than I can myself.” But he wasn’t angry.

Julian smiled again, also not angry, an act which served to make him appear altogether younger and more approachable. All four of Max’s nieces and nephews stood in awe of their father due to his inability to have much to do with them and his somewhat frightening appearance. He usually resembled their forbidding grandfather, not their father, but right now he was suddenly Max’s beloved older brother once more. “We are all older and wiser than you are. That’s why.” His chuckle degenerated into a coughing fit.

Max waited. The congestion of the heart Julian suffered from frequently left him gasping for breath. If he tried, Max could just about remember his own father being the same, although that was a long time ago now. “I fail to see how advancing age equates with increased wisdom. Some of the oldest army officers I knew were less wise than the rank and file under their command.” This last was tinged with bitterness. If his commanding officer hadn’t ordered the much too late cavalry charge at Vimeiro, he might still be a part of his regiment, with two sound arms.

Julian chuckled again, with caution this time. Coughing fits took it out of him so he tried hard to avoid provoking them. “Touché, brother. But you need to look at this from my point of view. I’ve always felt guilt over our father having put that damned codicil in his will about your inheritance. I don’t want to go to my grave knowing you didn’t get what you were entitled to. Humor a dying man and do as we all want you to do. Lavington House was brought into the family by our grandmother. It would have gone to Papa’s younger brother had he not died as a youth. Not for nothing were you named after him. Papa always wanted it to go to you.”

Max sighed. “Then why did he not leave it to me, caveat free?”

Julian shrugged. “I have no idea. He didn’t even tell me he’d done it. The first I heard of it was at the will reading, as you know. I tried to settle it on you then and there, but Old Hawksworth said our father had suspected I might try to do that and the will’s conditions prohibited it. And of course, you were only sixteen then.”

Max shook his head. “I know all of that. I’d like to know why he thought I was such a problem that I had to be forced into marriage by the age of thirty.”

Julian leaned forward over the desk, his face thrown into shadow. “I can’t help it, you know. If I could, I would have reversed it. But I can’t. And it behooves me to inform you that if you don’t marry by your next birthday, which is now barely four months off, you’ll lose everything.”

Max bit his lip. “What makes you think I haven’t lost everything already?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself, quickly followed by anger at allowing his tongue to run away with itself.

Julian’s gaze went to where Max’s right arm hung in its sling. “You mean that?” His eyes moved to meet Max’s, his tone suddenly turned bitter. “You think losing the use of your arm is the end of everything for you? Is that it?”

Max stayed silent, fuming.

“Granted,” Julian said, keeping his voice level, “you are maimed indeed, and it appears to be permanent. You can no longer continue in the army that you’d hoped to make your life. The only option for you would be a desk job, and you turned that offer down. For you it was in the field, or nothing. I understand that. You were always that way as a boy. Ready to leap up and take action at every possible turn of events. It’s little wonder the army, the Dragoons, suited you so well.” He shook his head. “Nor that our father thought you needed taming.”

Max pressed his lips together, already anticipating what was coming next and wishing his own words unsaid.

Julian coughed again and spat. “But the rest of you is unaffected. You have two legs and one good arm that works. You have a strong and youthful body. A healthy body save for that one arm. If you find a young lady to marry when you go to London with Maria and Mama, you’ll have children of your own and see them grow to adulthood, see them marry in their turn, become a grandfather. Die when you’ve been made old and gray by the passage of time, not illness.”

He coughed again, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. “But I won’t see this year out, little brother. If I’m lucky, I might see Arabella married, but I’ll never see her children. Little Freddie will inherit the earldom, but I won’t be there to guide him. Rupert will grow up to follow in your footsteps into the army, or perhaps go into the church, but I’ll never see that happen.” He sighed. “You have not lost everything, Maxim. Remember that.”

“I’m sorry,” Max said. “I didn’t think.”

Julian rubbed a hand across his chin. “Well, it’s high time that you did do some thinking. On this, to start with. I will leave two sons, but they’re both still in the schoolroom. Who’s to say either of them will live to become men, hard as that is for me to consider? Or if they do, that either of them will marry and have sons? What then of Bratton Park and the title, if all they produce is girls? I need you to marry, Max. You are third in line to the earldom, and if anything should happen to Freddie and Rupert, you will have the title.”

“I do know all of that,” Max said, avoiding telling Julian that the last thing he wanted was the responsibility of the earldom. “It’s just that I have an aversion to doing as I’m told by others.”

The laugh that emitted from his brother’s throat set him wheezing for breath for several minutes. When he finally recovered he fixed Max with an amused gaze. “And you think I’ve never noticed that? Good heavens, boy, I’d guess that’s precisely why our father added that caveat to your inheritance. He knew you for the stubborn fool you are.”

“Not so much of the fool, thank you. I’ll own to being stubborn any day, but not a fool.”

“Then marry and take your inheritance and let me die a happy man.”

“You’re not dying yet.”

Julian pursed his lips. “Not yet, maybe, but one day soon. Very soon. And I’ll be glad of the rest from this failing body that exhausts me every day when what I want to do is get up and run through the woods here as I did as a boy. Believe me, Max, I shall not be sad to leave this world and find my rest. Although I’ll be sad for the family I have to leave behind. I wish I could have lived long enough to set Freddie and Rupert on the right path. You must promise me you’ll guide them well once I’m gone.”

Max shifted in his seat. This talk of dying had unnerved him. Julian had always been here, his rock, his admired older brother, who’d been almost like a father to him since their father died. Who, with the kindly, gentle Maria, had brought him up and set him on his path to what he’d seen as his life’s goal. A goal that had vanished in the puff of smoke of a musket ball. “You’re not allowed to die,” was all he could think of to say.

Julian shook his head as though exasperated. “I’m afraid you have no say in that. But if you can agree that I cannot avoid what fate has in store for me, will you grant a dying man a wish?”

This was so unfair of Julian. How could he refuse? Max fidgeted under the directness of his brother’s stare. If he agreed, though, was that not tantamount to admitting his brother’s life was ending? Something he’d been denying ever since he’d returned from Portugal. Something Maria was also denying, perhaps his mother, too.

“Well,” Julian said. “Will you?”

Max licked his lips, wary of commitment. “I will try.”

Julian laughed, this time managing not to cough. “How typical of you to add your own caveat. You’re more like Father than you think. No. That’s not good enough for me. You have to say you will.” His eyes sharpened. “And who knows but that you won’t meet the woman of your dreams and fall in love? Now. Give me your promise and make a dying man happy.”

Max frowned. “I will give you my promise if you in turn promise to stop talking about dying.”

“I can do that. Now, promise you will grant me my wish.”

“I promise.”

“Good. You know what that wish is. I shall think of you in Town attending all the balls and soirées and routs and picnics. They’re only a memory to me now, but I hold them dear in my heart because that is where I met Maria, twenty years ago.”

“I daresay they’ve changed a bit since then.”

“They’ll still abound with hopeful mamas intent on securing a match for their daughters. I’m sure one of them will suit you well enough.”

“That’s almost what Mama said. I’m not sure I can marry a woman for financial gain, and definitely not one who is a fool, which most young society ladies appear to be.”

Julian gave a rueful smile. They must both be thinking of his headstrong daughter who, truth be told, fitted all too neatly into that description. The girl was as empty-headed as a chicken, no matter how much her mother had tried to drum education into her. And common sense. She was not a good measure of what society young ladies might be.

Max returned the smile. “Although, as I have no desire to spend longer than I need in that melting pot of madmen and harpy-like women known as the Season, I shall in all probability affiance myself with alacrity to the first woman I meet who is neither a fool nor a shameless flirt.”

Julian shrugged his bony shoulders. “Possibly an admirable sentiment, although I can’t quite be sure, but don’t forget; time is ticking past. Love isn’t everything, although for me, it was. I could not have chosen a better wife than Maria.”

Max refrained from comment on this. Julian had fallen in love with Maria the first time he’d seen her, something he’d confided to the ten-year-old Max, even though she was a widow in her early thirties. But Max was certain falling in love lay beyond his capabilities. However, the sooner he found someone to marry, the sooner he could be away from London.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll do my best to find myself a wife so you can bestow my inheritance upon me. If that’s what will please you.”

Julian smiled. “Thank you. Now, perhaps you would be so good as to call Rumbold and Blewett to me, as I think I’d like to lie down for a while before my dinner is brought up to me.”