Page 16 of The Viscount's Unwanted Bride
Deathly silence fell between them.
Theo didn’t think he could possibly have heard Nicholas correctly. He’d told his brother that he had no interest inremarrying. Had insisted as much. And yet Nicholas had chosen to ignore him.
“You deserve not to be sad and lonely anymore.” Nicholas flopped onto his side and slung his arm across Theo’s abdomen. “I hate seeing you like this. Elizabeth wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer.”
Theo shoved Nicholas’s arm off. “Don’t tell me what Elizabeth would or wouldn’t have wanted.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Fury simmered beneath Theo’s skin. “None of us can possibly imagine what Elizabeth might think. She’s gone, and I’m not marrying again.”
“Um… about that.”
Theo squeezed his eyes shut. “What did you do?”
“So… uh… I may have been caught alone with a marriageable chit on a balcony, and I’m pretty sure the ladies who saw us mistook me for you. In fact, I’m quite certain of it.”
The air was punched out of Theo’s lungs, and he sucked in a breath so sharp, it hurt. Now he understood why Nicholas was beside himself.
“Did you ruin her?” he demanded.
“No.” Nicholas sounded aghast at the possibility. “I’d never do that. I misjudged. We weren’t supposed to be alone, but in two seconds, it all went to hell.”
Theo massaged his eyelids. “What happened after they caught you?”
Silence.
“Nicholas, speak.”
“Erm, I may or may not have made a speedy exit.”
Theo opened his eyes and narrowed them at his brother, trying to read his expressions in the dark. “Are you telling me that you left a debutante alone after she had been caught with you on a balcony with no chaperone in sight?”
“It could… possibly… be construed as that. I panicked, Theo. I never intended to cause any harm. I just wanted to see if there were any young women who might bring some life back to you and to Blackwell.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“And you believe that you were mistaken for me?”
Nicholas nodded.“As I said, I accepted the invitation in your name. I greeted the hosts as you. Considering how long it has been since you made an appearance in society, word of your presence likely spread through the assembly in minutes. No doubt that’s why the gossips came looking for me on the balcony.”
“And they weren’t disappointed by what they found,” Theo gritted out, pushing the blankets off. He struggled out of bed and went to the nearest candle to start a flame. The darkness was making it too difficult to think. He needed to be sharp so he could understand the full ramifications of what Nicholas was telling him.
Nicholas had pretended to be him.
Nicholas had been found alone on a balcony with a young lady of marriageable age, presumably from a good family, considering her presence at the ball.
Whoever had caught them thought they knew exactly who the man in question was and had every reason to make that assumption because of Nicholas’s ruse and the fact that few people knew they were identical twins.
Ergo, someone believed that Viscount Blackwell had ruined an innocent. They would either expect him to marry the lady or to meet for pistols at dawn with her father, brother, or guardian.
Theo pulled on a pair of trousers and a loose shirt—one of the ones he typically used for boxing. He padded over to the desk onthe opposite side of the room from his bed and sat on the chair behind it.
“Why would you do this to me?” he asked, still confused as to why Nicholas would impersonate him in the first place, let alone get him into this shambles of a situation.
“I didn’t mean to.” Still on the bed, Nicholas made a visible effort to sit up.
