Theirs was a lovely companionship: the blind watchmaker and his caretaker—a deaf milliner that could read lips. But there was much more to Miss Juliet’s perception than lip reading. Julian once told Willow that his mother could hear with her heart, capable of a clairaudience beyond normal perception. After getting to know Miss Juliet over the years, Willow believed it. And after watching the eldest viscount interact with his daughter-in-law, Willow realized that though blind, he could see with his very soul.
Being privy to this family’s inner-workings had awakened a desire in Willow to change the way she saw and heard things, as well. To be led by something other than the corporeal or visceral, attuned to the spiritual and the introspective. Much like the story of Master Thornton’s dead brother.
The twenty-year-old tale revolved around an extraordinary flower and was such a well-kept secret that Uncle Owen and Aunt Enya hadn’t even learned the truth until a decade ago. The ghost of Master Thornton’s brother had befriended Miss Juliet through a flower in which his spirit resided in every petal, and he had ultimately led her to this manor. Even in her deafness, Juliet could hear the ghost’s voice and see his spectral image when no one else could.
Though Willow had never had any such experience with the spirit realm herself, she wished with all her heart she could speak to the dead. She would even give up her auditory faculties in the physical realm, just to hear her parents’ voices again. To know they were at peace in the afterlife; to understand why they had to make such a sacrifice for her. Upon that thought, a knot burned and vibrated in her throat as if wasps had taken up residence. She shoved the memory aside, unable to relive it.
Keeping her hand as though he was the one needing an anchor, Julian picked up his stride. It felt as if they’d been walking all morning. Surrounded by a forest on every side, the estate encompassed ninety acres. The front façade alone measured over one-hundred-and-twenty-three meters and was a compilation of a castle, a three-story townhouse, stables, and a winter garden. Willow’s adopted family shared the townhouse with Julian’s family and a slew of servants.
Willow squeezed Julian’s hand, not too tight, merely enough to relish the feel of him. His fingers had calluses where he held a pen or pencil day in and day out, making calculations and drawing designs. Yet his palms were as soft as down. The hands of an inventor, a mathematician, an engineer.
“Thank you for being here. For believing me.” Julian squeezed her fingers back without glancing up.
“Of course I believe you. Sempre.” Willow didn’t dare tell him the truth. That for an instant, when Lord Desmond had first accused him, her secret hope for a future with Julian had almost shattered. Then she remembered who he was, deep inside, and knew that he would never do anything so rash.
Julian had a hyperbolic sense of responsibility and ethics, due mostly to his brother’s lack of either. As a result, he always kept himself busy with the upkeep of the manor and intellectual pursuits. But were he ever to change his field of study to more sensual interests, Willow wanted to be the one to assist him. This was the very reason she’d had herself cast out of the finishing school … so he wouldn’t find a lover in her absence.
The beautiful words he had spoken earlier, of his future intentions upon his honeymoon, she had already made each one her own. Tucked them away deep within, a fantasy to hold like oxygen in her chest on nights when she tossed and turned in bed. When the nightmares of her past—the part she had told no one of, not even Julian—climbed her chamber walls like vines of smoke and consumed her with suffocating dread.
With her free hand, Willow rubbed her dress over the hummingbird tattoo on the small of her back, wrestling the fluttery feeling that it was alive, flapping its wings along her spine. A voiceless song, reminding her of things better left forgotten.
Julian’s steps slowed and he released his grasp on her fingers. Looking up to follow his line of sight, Willow saw Nick coming out of the castle’s front door, his shoulder length hair a mess of unkempt golden waves and his blue button-up shirt half-tucked into his brown trousers. The castle’s front door was the only way in or out of the garden—as all of the edifices at the manner were interconnected to the castle by enclosed corridors. Willow had an uneasy intuition that Nick had already visited his parents. But had he told them the truth?
“I’d like a word, Nick.” Julian’s neck muscles knotted. Besides his blushing ears, it was one of the ways Willow could distinguish him from his twin. When Nick was upset or angry, his eyes hardened to mirrors of slate and his powerful body bristled—a holocaust about to combust. But with Julian, his inner turmoil manifested itself only through the rush of blood to his ears, and in the cords of his jaw and neck. His silvery eyes remained gentle, serene even … like moonlight on a winter’s lake. Nothing seemed to ever rock his steadfast core. Even this, a betrayal by his brother, had not yet broken his calm.
“Willow, allow us some time alone, please.” Julian glowered at Nick who returned his brother’s stare.
Willow chewed her inner cheek. It was her presence holding Julian to such civility. However, she had a few choice words for his twin before she left. “Nick.” His name caught on a growl as she stepped up to him. “You unprincipled slavering lupo.”
As Nick tilted his chin to look down on her, Willow reconsidered her insult. The smugness in those dark gray eyes cloaked by sooty lashes, his high cheekbones and shapely lips turned on a complacent grin—he looked more like a thief admiring his plunder than a rabid wolf.
“Why hello, Sweeting.” He touched the dimple in her chin, the gesture at once tender and duplicitous. “Did I spoil some devious prank in my absence? Are you miffed that you didn’t get to rattle the help? Just look at you.” His thumb moved to outline her lips. “Eating dessert for breakfast again. So deliciously infantile.”
Before Willow could slap Nick’s hand away, Julian had grabbed his wrist.
“Let’s discuss what you had for breakfast, aye? A romp in the hay with Lady Mina, I’m guessing.”
Nick snapped out of his twin’s grasp without looking away from Willow.
Smelling alcohol on Nick’s breath, she took a step back. “You arrogant, thoughtless inebriate.”
Nick licked his lips. “I’m not drunk. Just besotted by your bedraggled beauty.” He chuckled—a masculine purr. She’d seen women melt to a puddle of wantonness at the sound. As for her? She despised it.
She harbored no delusions as to what people thought: that due to her and Nick’s many escapades together, a romance had blossomed over the years. Even Aunt Enya had pulled her aside once, concerned Willow had been taken in by his seductive talents, but Willow assured her they shared nothing other than feathers in their caps of mischief.
Thankfully, no one was aware of the episode one year ago, when Nick had been alone with her and tried to kiss her. He won a busted lip in the exchange. Willow had refused to be any man’s second fiddle, much less his hundredth one.
Nick possessed a fondness for slightly older, cultured women—so long as they had money. Upon his fifteenth birthday, he’d come to see the boundless opportunities allotted him via the manor. He’d honed his skills of seduction on women bred of wealth and loneliness. Much to his parents’ utter disappointment and shame, he’d made a career of fornication, earning gifts of fineries and wardrobes by satisfying the lusts of his adulterous lambs. Willow and her pranks had become nothing more than distractions he used to get the ladies away from their husbands long enough to bed them.
In Willow’s eyes, Nick would never be the man his brother was. Nick was just a boy with a fail-proof sense of timing and a knack for comedic devilry. Yes, she cared for him, like a rose loves its thorns—an evil necessary for her daily existence. But over the past few years, theirs had devolved to an even lesser symbiotic relationship: she, the remora fish to his shark—feeding off of whatever antics he would allow her to partake in, then cleaning up his messes when he was too drunk or belligerent to care.
Not this time. He??
?d crossed a line by putting Julian in danger.
She shoved Nick so his shoulder blades slammed against the castle’s stone wall. “Couldn’t you this once have left your ambition in your pants? The investor’s wife of all people? And using Julian’s identity! How is he to climb out of this bucket of piss? I abhor what you’ve become.”
Nick straightened his rumpled clothes and met her glare. It amazed Willow how two men could be such perfect images of one another on the outside yet share no likenesses within.
“Truly, Willow.” Nick’s cocky smile eroded to a frown. He almost appeared wounded. “This side of you is nothing short of peeving. I’m already handling the situation with our father’s aid. These are family matters that do not concern our temperamental little ward. So be a good chit and make yourself scarce.” He waved her away as if she were a gnat.
“Now wait there,” Julian’s voice erupted behind her—husky with the intent to defend. But she held him back. She didn’t need protection. Not from Nick. For she knew him within and without. Nick lashed out when he was cornered … when he knew he was wrong.
Willow’s jaw tightened. “Well enough. I’ll leave you to your brother. But you can rest assured I’m not finished with you.”
Nick shrugged his powerful shoulders. “No matter. I am with you. I’ve long outgrown your ill-bred pestering.” He nudged away from the wall and leaned close enough that Willow winced at the bourbon on his breath. Grasping her elbow, he drew her against him to whisper in her ear so only she could hear. “He’s my brother. My twin. All it will take is him dabbing it up just once with a lady of refinement. There’s nothing sweeter than lying atop the cushion of another man’s prosperity. You’ve lost him already.” His hot breath scorched her ear, slipped inside and sparked a reaction.
“Julian would never do that,” she hissed back.
“Wouldn’t he?” Nick narrowed his gaze.
Julian broke them apart, scowling at his brother. Unwilling to let Nick off so easily, Willow grabbed his open collar, twisting it around his throat. She ignored the feel of Julian’s palm on her back, his gentle persuasions to calm down. All she wanted was to hurt Nick the way his words had hurt her … the way his careless exploitations had hurt Julian.
Nick smirked and swallowed against the clenched fabric. “Just the response I’d expect from a circus urchin.”
Willow snapped. Grunting, she rushed against him, manipulating her weight and twisting her body to topple them both to the ground. Before Julian could pull her off, she’d managed to draw blood with a well-aimed cuff to Nick’s mouth.
Her toes lifted, her back pressed tight against Julian’s solid form. His scent warmed her lungs—amber and musk mingled with a hint of ink. In spite of the comforting elixir, anger burbled to her surface, fed from past memories she despised. She couldn’t seem to push it back down. Her insides boiled, as if Nick had unleashed a volcano.
“What the hell, Willow?” Nick glowered at her, swiping a dribble of red from his lip as he stood and dusted himself off. “You almost broke my tooth.” He ran his tongue’s tip along the perfect upper row of his white teeth.
She strained against Julian’s hold, ignoring the stinging stiffness in her knuckles where they’d met Nick’s mouth. “Let me be. I want to finish him, blast it…”
Julian looped his arms through hers from behind, holding her spine taut against his chest. “Remember, a proper lady does not act upon impulse.” His lips hovered a hair’s width from her nape, making her skin ache for want of full contact.
Nick cast her a smug smirk. “Yes, Julian is overtly aware of how ladies in the gentry behave, being as he’s my twin.” He exaggerated the final word—drew it out for her benefit. A reminder only she would grasp.
Willow’s mind raced, her blood roared. She growled and kicked out her bare feet, giving it one last attempt.
Julian whirled her around to face him. “Willomena. Enough.”
The name startled her back to her senses. She hadn’t liked the sound of it ever since the day she lost Mama and Papa. They had screamed it so many times that each syllable reverberated with the terror and hopelessness in their voices. But somehow, when it fell from Julian’s lips, the sting soothed away. He put reverence and music in the inflections … almost as if he were singing a hymn.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t know how else to get your attention.” The calm in his eyes reached inside her and smothered her flames like a rain of glistening silver sand.
She relaxed as he cradled her throbbing fist in his palm to study her split knuckles. It hadn’t been Nick’s blood on his chin. It was hers. His teeth must have sliced her skin.
“What did he whisper in your ear to warrant such a tirade?” Julian asked. “What is it that I would ‘never do’?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.” Her head bowed. She wasn’t sorry for punching Nick, only for Julian having to witness it. Only for making him more upset than he’d already been.
Julian released her and smoothed the wrinkles from her sleeves. “No harm done. Go inside and bid a servant to clean and dress that gash.”
Willow flashed a glare over her shoulder at Nick who stood beside the wall a short distance away, working out his jaw and tapping his lips gingerly. She hoped his mouth was as sore as her fist. Their eyes met and she willed him to hold her secret. Of all the foolish things to do. Of all the people she could’ve chosen as her one confidante. Why had she ever told Nick how she felt about his brother?
Nick stared back with a knowing glint, but wouldn’t acknowledge whether or not he planned to betray her confidence.
Fighting a bout of nauseous nerves, Willow turned to Julian again. “I truly am sorry.”
“He had it coming.” A neck muscle jumped as he glanced his brother’s way. “Has more than that coming.” Before Willow could respond, Julian escorted her to the castle door. “Find Emilia for me, would you? Keep her occupied until this blows over. She deserves to be blissfully unaware at least on her birthday.”
Gripping the latch with her good hand, Willow nodded then turned and watched from the threshold as Julian gestured for Nick to follow. The brothers headed off in the direction of the wrought iron gates, en route to the amusement rides on the other side of the manor’s stony walls. They often went there to fight, out of respect for their mother’s sensitivities. Although Miss Juliet knew of their battles, having tended to countless cuts and bruises over the years, she never liked to see them at one another’s throats.
Their father had Romani blood and allowed his sons’ quarrels to escalate far beyond what most ‘civilized’ nobles would approve. Boxing and fisticuffs had never satisfied the brothers. They could solve their differences best by short-lived outbursts born of raw testosterone and passion—their methods a mix between bear wrestling and barroom brawls. Master Thornton never allowed things to escalate beyond cuts, nosebleeds and puffed lips, but he attempted to let his boys work out their issues alone. He told his wife that as twins, they needed to push one another in ways no one else would, how else would they become men who could know their own minds and fight for what they believed? How else could they be individuals?
Willow suspected it stemmed from the fact that Master Thornton and his twin had been raised apart their entire childhood. They didn’t meet until they were already men with distinctive lifestyles. One, a tortured, love-sick gypsy who could turn a card game to his advantage at the drop of a hat; the other, an angry gambler trapped in a crippled body who drowned his pain in an excess of women and wine.
It was easy enough to surmise what Master Thornton feared: by being raised together his boys would be too dependent upon one another to have their own distinctive personalities, goals, and talents. So he had encouraged each son to branch out into a variety of interests separate from the other. As a result, he’d raised two men who could not be more different, and that shared only one common trait—an overtly critical eye for the other brother’s choices.
Opening the castle door, Willow
whispered a prayer that if only one twin were to be left standing after today’s confrontation, it would be Julian. And that he would be none the wiser to her feelings for him.
Three
Julian arrived first. His twin hedged through the trees behind him somewhere—the air between them as taut as a whip waiting to snap. Julian had already anticipated his brother’s stratagem. Nick would take his time and make him wait in hopes to play on his stress and get the upper hand.
Though his mind was a jumble of questions and accusations, Julian strode through the trellised archway, determined not to lose focus. Sunlight reflected off of the swinging sign where curvaceous pink letters on a black background proclaimed, “Welcome to a Midsummer’s Dream: Decadent Amusements for Lovers of Life and Merriment.”
Birds sang overhead, sitting high atop poles where parapets flapped at ten-foot intervals along the grounds. The flags, each bearing a white domino or harlequin mask on a pink and black checked backdrop, cast shadows on the ground with their movements. Honeysuckle vines, secured in places with black bows, wound in and out of the eight-foot-high latticework fence which encompassed the half-acreage park. Glistening with morning dew, the blossoms should have provided an aesthetic and olfactory feast for the senses. Any other time than today.
Julian tightened his jaw. It was natural that peace would evade him, knowing what awaited him at sunset … knowing he was to take a bullet for his brother’s latest lascivious exploit. He wouldn’t let Nick leave this park until he’d promised a way out of this mess.
Julian sat on the carousel’s platform and stroked a red and white vertical support beam—twisted and glossy like a candy cane. Within the clearing, the rides sat empty and anticipant beneath their canvas canopies of black and pink stripes, waiting to entertain their guests in the summer season. His gaze swept briefly over his two most recent designs. First, the Ring of Love—a giant rotating drum that forced participants to tumble into one another. Next was the Sea of Matrimony, a large boat formed of laminated wood and suspended with ropes from a gallows-style pole. When rocked back and forth, the seated riders had to cling to one another for support lest they lose their balance. These particular rides had emerged as favorites of the guests, for within them strangers became instant acquaintances and couples had a legitimate excuse to embrace in public.