Picky Viscount: A Modern Aristocracy Billionaire Romance (Endowed Book 3) Read online

  Letty fidgets with her sheet music and then closes the lid of the piano, her face twisted with guilt. “I’m so sorry about all that, Liv. I truly thought Ken had gone to work.” She glances at the grandfather clock dominating the wall. “As a matter of fact, he’s supposed to be over with Seb.”

  “Forget it; it’s okay. It’s actually better we got this over with.”

  She pulls a face. “‘Over with’ are not the first words that spring to mind.”

  My knees are still shaky; they hardly feel capable of supporting my own weight so I sink gratefully down onto the nearest chair by the window. I’m swamped with emotion—regret, loss, and a budding curiosity. I feel dirty, exposed, and somehow superfluous, a nuisance friend of his younger sister’s. The difference to two years ago is complete. I deserve everything.

  Looking on the bright side, the rude shock will help me move on. Because that’s the only option. I closed that door two years ago when I chose Peter over him. The wrong choice, maybe, but one I have to live with.

  I run my fingers over a faded patch on the padded arms of the chair. “I should have faced up to him sooner. I kept putting it off.”

  Letty takes the identical chair facing me. We sit in silence for a while.

  “Loosed out of hell,” Letty says, gazing out the window.

  “What?”

  “That’s what he looked like. Ken.”

  “Yes.” I’m wringing my hands in my lap. “I don’t blame him. What an awful thing to happen to his racehorse. Tell me more, Letty.”

  “God, I’ll cut his balls off, whoever did this. What kind of sicko do you have to be? Sill’d be better off dead, you know? I’m keeping watch tomorrow night. We’re taking turns. I’m going to sing to him. Lullabies. He likes Greensleeves.” She starts humming.

  “Can I go with you? Not to sing, but to keep you company.”

  Her face brightens. “Yes, I’d love that.”

  4

  KEN

  MY HEART FEELS STRANGELY HEAVY as I stomp my way down to the stables. It was pitiful to see Liv like that—her spark gone, her body language begging “please don’t attack me.” Two years ago, she’d have been all over me, driving me mad.

  But what the hell did I expect? I don’t know what that bastard Peter did to her, but he changed her. One minute in the man’s company and I’d be slitting my wrists, too. So why oh why did I let him snatch my girlfriend from under my nose?

  I’d slipped up, thinking she was operating on the same timescale as I was. Because I was prepared to wait. I had plans. Plans to go away alone with her for that first night, with no siblings or parents or friends hanging on—never easy with the outgoing Liv. I was adamant that our first time be in a beautiful location—a secluded hilltop residence overlooking the sea. And I knew the perfect place outside Adelburgh.

  That was my dream: Only us in the house and for miles around. We’d wake up in the morning and gaze over the unobscured view of the sea, watch the gulls sweep down to the shore, then turn to each other and do it all again.

  I wanted. I wanted. I wanted. I still want. My cock swells with the idea of storming straight back the way I came, telling Letty to clear off, slamming the door, locking it, and cornering Liv. I’d bend her over that piano and pull down her jeans. No waiting whatsoever.

  What are the chances she’d be into that?

  As I’m figuring out the probability, Alex meets me at the stable door.

  “Did I see...?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I kick at a straw bale lying by my foot.

  “Right.” His gaze drops to his watch. “Why aren’t you over in at Seb’s?”

  “I earned the afternoon off. Same question.”

  He grins. “I just took it off.”

  Alex gets a hard-on whenever we defy Seb. There has always been a battle of supremacy between my two older brothers—the charming Alex, holding the title of duke and living here in Belgrave Castle, and Seb, the illegitimate oldest son who runs everything and resides on the south end of the estate in his mansion with his birth mother and her family. Alex is the sociable, fun guy, Seb the conscientious slave driver, and everyone else in our ecosystem—family, dependents, staff, tenants—are caught between the poles.

  Me, I’m the joker. No one expects much from a third son, do they? And I’m all out of jokes these days.

  I push on through the door to Sill. I’ve informed all jockeys who’ve ever ridden him, his two trainers, the grooms, the walkers, the kids who help out—anyone who might come and talk to the poor horse and offer a scrap of comfort. It’s all I can do at this stage. And it might not even be helping. Who knows what a horse is thinking when he’s in pain?

  “Hey, want to do something?” Alex asks. “Weather’s fine. We could take the chopper out.”

  I know he’s just saying this to cheer me up and doesn’t actually believe for a moment that I’d leave Sill. “Not today, old chap.”

  Alex clucks sympathetically. “How’s he doing?”

  I stroke from the top of Sill’s head down to the tip of his nose. His fur is damp instead of silky, his breath still pretty foul. “Vet said fifty-fifty this morning, but I can forget about racing him again.”

  Alex claps my shoulder. “If I ever get my hands on those blackguards…”

  “On that note, I could do with your help.”

  He spreads his arms. “Say the word.”

  “Well, someone in your circle must have come across a situation like this before. Kidnappings? Anything like that? I mean, where do I even begin in finding the perpetrators?”

  Alex huffs out a breath. “With money, usually.”

  “Let’s assume I have unlimited funds. Now what?”

  My brother cocks an eyebrow. “Ken, I hate to be the—”

  “Just tell me, blast it. I don’t need lectures, Alex.”

  “Okay, okay. Calm down. Look, for the record, I already mentioned it to Marty, straight after it happened. He said you’d need a forensic detective to come look into it, but he cautioned that pet poisoning is all too common and one likely cause is simply an irate neighbor with a bone to pick. Anyone out to get you, Ken?”

  I shrug. “I’m in the racing business. It’s easy to pick up enemies. But I couldn’t isolate one as being worse than the others, no.”

  Alex hums thoughtfully. “The police may have got onto the case had Sill died, but the fact that he’s still alive takes the heat off, I’m afraid. I did try to pull strings.” He shorts me an apologetic look.

  “How sick does the poor horse have to be?”

  “That’s another point. If someone is out to prevent Sill from running, that’s one thing. But if the perpetrator is out to hurt you—by killing him—then he, or she, or they, may come back again to finish the job because they may not be satisfied.”

  I nod at the sense he’s making.

  “But if you do pick up any leads, let me know. Marty will help. Unofficially, mind you. He’s foreign service and his brief says nothing about British racehorses. But between you and me, he’s bored out of his tree.”

  “My theory is it’s a mafia that wants to control British horse racing. Is that enough excitement for your friend?”

  “That might do it.”

  The skin at the back of my neck skin is prickling. I swing around and look back at the castle. I can just about make out two figures in the living room window. Liv and Letty. Yeah, I hope Liv’s enjoying watching me. Because soon I’m going to enjoy watching her.

  And it won’t be from a distance.

  5

  LIV

  AS PLANNED YESTERDAY, I go with Letty to Sill’s stable at ten. Her shift is for six hours when Alex will take over. I really admire how the Belgrave siblings all rally around whenever one or other of them is in need. If I were to have siblings, I would want them to be like these.

  We’re sitting on two wooden stools outside Sill’s stall. Sill is asleep in the corner, his huge, black chest rising and falling in a rapid pattern; not wildly, bu
t still a tad on the fast side.

  After a long pause in our chatter, Letty asks, “How did you leave things with Peter?”

  I force my mind back to my ex-husband. “Oh, he’s in London, attending lectures like nothing happened. He’s hooked up with someone else from the history society. That came through the grapevine last week.”

  “Oh,” she says sympathetically, unscrewing the thermos flask of coffee. “And the divorce settlement? Was that complicated? You know,” she grins. “Just in case I ever need it myself.”

  “Luckily we had prenups. We’re both worth almost the same. It was relatively easy in the end. Daddy knows an excellent divorce lawyer. Anyway, it was never about money. At least I can say that.”

  “I suppose.” Letty tugs a blanket around her shoulders as she sips her coffee. “But what happened actually, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Oh, it started so subtly, already on the honeymoon.” I pause, reluctant to go on, but Letty deserves to know what she herself avoided. And I need to get this off my chest to somebody. I couldn’t tell my parents. “I know this is going to sound trite, but on the first day of our honeymoon, he kind of joked that my wedding dress looked a little sluttish.”

  “A little sluttish?” Letty blinks at me. “Kind of joked?”

  “Yes, it was a sun-dress. We got married on a beach in Mauritius away from everyone—his idea.”

  “Then what?”

  I laugh bitterly. “Well, after the initial shock of it, I thought we’d do the let’s-figure-this-out thing, you know, as good wives do. I informed him that he’d hurt my feelings. But then he said, ‘Oh no, I didn’t mean it that way, Livvie.’ He called me Livvie and I didn’t like it. Anyway, he gives me this really big hug, telling me his parents always told him he needed to work on his tact. ‘What I really meant to say was the dress looked sexy.’ And he goes on and on like that, for ages. But I had a difficult time twisting his first thing to mean the second thing, know what I mean?”

  “I hear you.”

  “But he hugged me and spoke all eloquently until I caved in and went along with the lie. I truly convinced myself he was right and that I was completely overreacting, being a silly, sensitive bride, and probably a spoiled brat to boot. I mean, I couldn’t give up so soon, could I? I didn’t know at the time that this would be the first of a whole chain of insults and cover-ups. I was driven to distraction.”

  I tug my blanket around my shoulders, as the memories creep back. “In the end, he didn’t even bother covering up. He’d just tell me I was far too sensitive and childish and that I should be more like his mother, whom he presented as some kind of iron lady.” I sigh. “Which is actually true. She is. And she’s awful. Luckily neither he nor I have any sisters he could compare me to, as I’m sure he’d have had a field day doing that as well.”

  “You couldn’t win, Liv,” Letty concludes. “There was always something off about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.”

  “Whereas I fell for his charm.”

  “Not to get all inquisitional about it, and a girl’s allowed change her mind—God knows I do it all the time—but you did seem rather happy with Ken before you went back to London.”

  I sigh. “Yes, but everything changed. Daddy had just been diagnosed, you see, and it was shocking. Stage three, suddenly with no future to look forward to. It was devastating.”

  “Yes, I know how close you are.”

  “I shouldn’t whine. You’ve lost your father.”

  Letty flaps her hand impatiently. “And you’ve still got yours, so of course you want to do anything you can to make his time left in this world as happy as possible. I know what you must have been going through. You needed something, someone, steady in your life. Steady, like Peter. In the back of your mind you wanted to make a decision your dad would be happy with. You didn’t want to make any rash mistakes. Am I right?”

  I nod. “I was in second week of term, feeling wobbly about everything—my career, my future. The happy summer with all of you here seemed so far away. I mean, I did think of Ken—of course I did, we had such a fun time together. But it was Peter who caught me standing outside the arts library after I heard the news, shivering in the drizzle, and it was Peter who offered me his umbrella and his handkerchief. It was Peter who said all the right things and invited me with him for a warm meal when I didn’t have the energy to even order a takeaway, let alone cook real food.”

  My voice drops to a low murmur. “It was Peter who made love to me by the fire after getting me tipsy on an excellent Cabernet he’d been saving, and it was Peter who told me he’d accompany me home the next day and to hell with studying. It was everything I needed to hear at that fragile moment, Letty. He does a great knight-in-shining-armor act.”

  Letty smiles sympathetically. “Most men do, when given the opportunity.”

  “And then, when he’d more or less invited himself to my home, you should have seen the way he ran rings around my parents, saying all the right things. Compared to the irreverent display Ken had put on just weeks before, Peter seemed like a godsend, especially to Daddy. Peter knew how to talk the farming talk—just like Seb—although to this day I don’t know how. Peter’s not a farmer. Anyway, he knew all the right things to say. He promised to find the best oncologists in the world, flying them in from wherever. Nothing was too much trouble.

  “That night, after stealing into my bedroom, he convinced me we should get married while Daddy was still alive.” I sigh again. “What with my parents so happy for the first time since the diagnosis, it seemed like a good idea. Mrs. Henry never liked him though. I should have maybe listened to her.”

  “And all this after… two weeks?” Letty presses.

  “Well, I’d known of him for years, of course, so it didn’t seem so terribly sudden. All eligible men of consequence are on Daddy’s radar, you know. He showed up when I needed him. It felt like fate. And that’s a powerful thing, you know?”

  Letty nods. “And did he get the oncologists?”

  “Well, I’m sure it was his intention, but apparently, it was complicated enough just getting appointments with these people—and Peter had to go to conferences because he was giving papers, and then he had exams or something, so it all got delayed, and I just gave up and asked your good old Uncle Will to come and take a look. He got the ball rolling with some competent oncologists in London.”

  “That swine,” Letty mutters. “Peter, I mean.”

  “Yes. It was like now that he’d secured me, he didn’t really need Daddy to be alive at all.” I clasp my hand to my mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “It’s fine. I’m not shocked, Liv,” Letty says, “or surprised, for that matter.”

  Encouraged by her words, I continue. “The more I poked holes in the veneer of his character, the nastier he seemed to get. He’d accuse me of being such a great actress. ‘You know how to get what you want, don’t you?’ —stuff like that ... And then all of a sudden, he started going on about Ken, claiming that I’d never gotten over him, that I still harbored feelings for him.”

  “And did you?” Letty asks.

  “Well, the more Peter bullied me, yes, of course, the more fondly I cherished the good times. I went on for ages, appeasing, cowering, worrying. Until I woke up one day and asked myself why I was taking all this? Nobody seemed happy with the arrangement, least of all him.

  “And who knows when it might have got physical. I just never felt I was good enough for him. There was always this cold anger simmering beneath it all and I guess he needed someone to take it out on. I’m utterly convinced that the only reason he let me go is because he’d found a juicier victim to harass—someone more brittle than I am. Oh, I’m really bitching now, aren’t I?”

  “It’s okay.” Letty leans over and pats my shoulder. “This is why I’m never going to find a man. My advanced warning system goes berserk when I come up against this bullshit. And that happens more and more often as my dating circle gets bigger,
and richer, and fatter, and balder.”

  I grin. “Your problem is you’re surrounded by three amazing brothers. I mean, how high are your standards?”

  “Oh, they can be assholes, all of them. Even Ken.” Letty chuckles. “Even though he’s my favorite.”

  I let out a long sigh. I’ll always remember the heady, sunny-boy days with Ken, but he’s angry as hell now. I could smell his anger the minute he stormed in the room. Anger… and something else, too.

  But I’m done with angry men. Trying to reason with them is like flogging a dead horse, and that’s the last thing any of us around here wants.

  6

  KEN

  AS I LEAVE WORK LATE, after catching up on a whole steaming shit-pile of tasks, Alex asks me to accompany him to the Fernborough Arms. Letty’s in charge of tending Sill until 4 a.m. so that’s fine by me. I could certainly do with a pint and Alex hasn’t been drinking locally since he met his wife Hayley three years ago, so this is long overdue.

  We walk together to the cozy, stone-faced, thatched-roofed pub three kilometers from Seb’s mansion, arguing all the way as to whose turn it is to get the first round in. He wins.

  I assume we’re going to take our usual table in the corner by the lounge area, but Alex beckons me to the table in the darkest alcove of the place, not our usual spot.

  I walk over, surprised. “We don’t sit here.”

  “We do now. Sit down, Ken.”

  It’s then that I notice the other man at the table. With his sharp dark blazer, sharp crew cut, and sharp whatever-color eyes set in an angular face, he looks woefully out of place among the bucolic types that otherwise frequent this bar. I feel I’m being coolly assessed as I sit down and slide a pint over Alex’s way.

  The man stretches a hand towards me. “Martin Spelling.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. He’s been a joke between me and Letty for so long that I had pictured him as a cartoon.