Johanna Lindsay - The Heir

"Well, who could forget that?" Mavis rejoined, tongue in cheek. "Especially when she appears so happy and—alive. But then it was such a silly rumor."

"Are you forgetting who started the rumor?" Jane said in Ophelia's defense.

"No, actually, I remember perfectly well who spitefully instigated its circulation again."

There it was at last, a direct insult to Ophelia. Mavis was thrilled that she'd finally had the nerve to do it. And it didn't go over Ophelia's head as she'd feared it might. The gorgeous blonde wasn't quite so gorgeous when her face was beet red with fury.

Edith gasped. Jane was too shocked for speech. Ophelia was sputtering, "Spiteful? You're ... calling . . .

me—!"

"Oh, yes, please do make a scene that will get you booted out of here for a second time," Mavis interrupted with a brilliant smile. "Then perhaps the rest of us can actually enjoy ourselves again."

Mavis turned to leave, aware that she'd completely severed her ties with this group, and proud of herself for finally doing so. But Edith and Jane, she had liked, at least when they weren't behaving like brainless twits around Ophelia, and so she paused long enough to tell them, "When are you two going to wake up and realize that she's no friend to you? She'd backstab you in a second if she thought it would get her something she wants, and have not a single regret for doing so."

Mavis sauntered away with a bounce in her step and a grin on her lips. She knew she might as well pack her bags, that some atrocious rumor would start about her that very day. She just didn't care anymore.

"Well, I never," Jane huffed, unable to think of anything more appropriate to say after that shocking speech of Mavis's.

"I never either," Edith agreed.

"I'm not surprised, myself," Ophelia said, recovering nicely, if boiling inside. "She's such a liar, after all. I've caught her at it, oh, at least five times before, but was kind enough not to point out that I knew she was lying. Poor dear, I wonder if she just can't help it. Some people can't, you know."

"Sit down, Archibald, we have a problem." The Scotsman took the seat across from Neville's desk in his sitting room and gave his nemesis a narrowed if skeptical look. He hadn't liked being summoned, as he saw it, hadn't had his breakfast yet, hadn't slept well last night, and the heat in this particular room had started him sweating the moment he entered it. More problems, he didn't need.

"We?" he questioned. "And how would we be having a problem when the only thing we share in common is the lad, and he's doing exactly what we asked o' him? A fine passel o' lassies ye hae gathered here, by the way, if I do say sae m'self. If I'd known ye had such an abundance o' beauties down here, I might hae come tae visit after m'dear wife passed on, and found me anither one m'self."

"Would that you had, then we might not be fighting over Duncan now," Neville grumbled.

"Who's fighting, eh? I could hae swore we were finally in agreement o'er the dividing o' heirs."

"Hardly a fitting solution, but not the point I wish to discuss either," Neville replied. "If you didn't notice last night, Duncan has done some inviting himself to this party, of one Sabrina Lambert, whom he proceeded to waste his time on the entire evening."

"The buxom wee lass? Nicely shaped, but no' exactly a beauty, sae dinna fash yerself o'er her, he'll pick a pretty one in the end."

Neville sighed and said in a weary tone, "I wish you wouldn't harp so much on superficial beauty. A pretty face does not make for an ideal wife, as was so drastically found out with the Reid girl."

"Course it does," Archie disagreed blithely. "Ye dinna hae tae listen tae a wife, can ignore them as ye please, but ye do ha' tae look at them every sae often, sae a pretty face does take precedent o'er an empty head."

Neville rolled his eyes, but pointed out, "Duncan must not feel the same, since he is showing a marked interest in this particular girl. Now, he may just enjoy her company. He admitted as much. She amuses him. If that's all it is, then there is no problem."

Archie frowned at that point. "Yer no' making sense yerself, mon. If ye dinna care if he weds a beauty or no', as ye keep harping, wha' is yer problem wi' this lass? Is she no' titled tae yer satisfaction?"

Neville sighed again. "Sabrina Lambert's looks have not a thing to do with my concern, Archibald. As it happens, I think she's quite pretty. Her eyes make all the difference, remarkable as they are."

"Pretty eyes, eh? I didna notice."

"Likely because all you look at are breasts and faces and so don't take in any of the finer details a girl might possess, let alone if she had a lick of intelligence."

Archie smiled over the sour tone. "Nae, I just havena met the lass yet tae get close enough tae see her eyes. It mun be her credentials yer objecting tae then." "No, as it happens, her great-grandfather Richard was a duke, her grandfather an earl. Her own father would have held that title as well, if he had survived his father, but he didn't. She doesn't need a title to be quite suitable in that regard, in fact, far surpasses most of the chits in attendance. What does concern me is she comes with two cantankerous old-maid aunts—"

Archie's chuckle interrupted. "That's yer problem, no' mine, I'm pleased tae be saying. I'll be going home after the wedding."

"Thank God for that," Neville said with undisguised relief. "But she also comes with a forty-year-old scandal that I'm told is making the rounds again."

Archibald was no longer amused, sat forward to demand, "What sort o' scandal?"

"Not one that I ever gave much credence to, since I happen to have known Richard Lambert personally, knew how clumsy he was with weapons. He bloody near shot my foot off once when we were hunting together, so it was entirely possible that he shot himself by accident, rather than deliberately as the story goes. His wife, now, was a silly twit who I have little doubt did kill herself when the scandal broke that he had. She wouldn't have had the courage to dispute it, nor the courage to face the ridicule over it."

"Tha' hardly seems the stuff o' scandal tae me," Archie scoffed.

"I would agree, if that were all of it, but there was a daughter who did the same, and her son and daughter-in-law—Sabrina's own parents— who did likewise. Are you getting the point yet, Archibald? When our main concern is another heir who will continue both our lines, do we really want to take the chance that there might be any truth to this girl's sad history?"

"Does Duncan know all this?"

"You think he confides in me? I have no idea if he's aware of it, though he may have heard the gossip. Would it make a difference to him?"

Archibald frowned thoughtfully. "Likely it wouldna, and definitely no' if ye bring it up tae him."

Neville's lips tightened at the implication. "Haven't we been over this before? I know you would like to think that the boy would be stubborn and go against his own common sense just to spite me, but I give him more credit than that. However, on this marriage business, he'll more likely to listen to you, so find out if he knows, and if he doesn't, apprise him and make clear that this chit simply won't do."

Archie actually nodded in agreement for once, though he did add hopefully, " Tis likely nae more than ye said, that she amuses him."

"As I also said, there would then be no problem, but the very fact that Lady Ophelia Reid is back under my roof this morning—"

Archie cut in, "The devil she is—"

Neville cut back in, “Because she happens to be a guest of the Lamberts at the moment, and they were invited by Duncan despite that fact. This either means he was smitten by her beauty after all—which should delight you —and has decided to forgive her insults and marry her anyway, or he's serious about the Lambert girl. Take your pick, Archibald. I'm pleased with neither." "And I am?" Archie snorted. " 'Tis more likely he's going tae be surprised himself when he sees who the Lambert women hae brought wi' them. I'm guessing he didna ken who their guest was when he invited them. And that right there will get rid o' the lot o' them."

Neville actually chuckled now. "Wishful thinking doesn't get you very far, you know. Sabrina Lambert would have told him last night. She may have this unfortunate scandal attached to her family, but she's not an empty-headed twit who wouldn't realize the ramifications of bringing Duncan's ex-fiancée to a gathering arranged for the express purpose of him picking a bride."

"Och," Archie said in disgust to that as he rose to leave the room. "I'll be finding him now and finding oout for m'self  what's what. Speculating wi' ye, Neville, just gives me a bluidy headache."

Duncan had avoided going downstairs this morning, after the decision he'd made last night. He had slept on it, or rather, tossed and turned on it for a while before sending a second message to the coachman that canceled the earlier one he'd sent, and added any guests on the Lambert premises to the man's list of pickups. He'd then gone promptly to sleep. But this morning the decision was not sitting well with him at all, was turning his disposition quite sour.

Letting Ophelia Reid back into this house was a big mistake, no matter the reason. It would be an unspoken "forgive and forget" message in her mind that wasn't at all what had been in his mind.

He could have figured out ways to visit with Sabrina every other day or so over the next couple of weeks of the party, without being unduly missed, and if he was missed, well, too bad. No one had told him that he had to be in attendance at Summers Glade twenty-four hours of every day. So why hadn't he done that instead?