The Unexpected Heiress. Kaitlin O'Riley

      2

      A Man of His Word

      Spring, 1895

      London

      “Hell, you look like something the cat dragged in!”

      Phillip Sinclair ignored his younger brother’s more than likely accurate assessment of his current appearance, but he ran his hand across his dark hair in an attempt to smooth it down a bit just the same. He was not proud of how he looked at the moment. With his head pounding relentlessly, he slowly made his way to the sideboard to fill his plate with some much-needed sustenance. A hot breakfast of sausages and eggs would do the trick quite nicely.

      “Were you out all night again?” Simon questioned with a slight note of amazement in his voice.

      “Does it look like I’ve been home?” Phillip answered sardonically, taking a seat at the long dining room table. He truly was starving. “Coffee would be just the ticket, please,” he said to the liveried footman who hovered nearby. Then he picked up his fork and dug into a fat, juicy sausage.

      “You just got home, didn’t you? You’re still wearing the clothes you had on last night.” Simon shook his head in disbelief, his blue eyes tinged with something akin to disapproval. “You could have at least had the decency to change your clothes before Mother happened to see you.”

      “Has she left for the bookshop already then?” Phillip managed to ask between ravenous bites.

      “Yes,” Simon muttered.

      Relief flooded him; Phillip had risked the chance of seeing his mother this morning, but his hunger had won out. He had no desire to spar with his mother again, for his younger brother was right. He hadn’t been home last night.

      Usually after staying out all night, Phillip made the effort to change his clothes and wash up to make himself respectable before coming down to join his family for breakfast. Phillip had some standards after all. Besides, he rarely stayed out until after sunrise. Recently, however, his very late nights out seemed to be growing more and more frequent.

      And last night . . .

      Well, last night had been something else! He barely knew where to start.

      It had all begun innocently enough, playing cards with the fellows after Lord Shelley’s ball. Then one thing led to another, and he’d ended up at Lady Katherine Vickers’s townhouse for a very exclusive after-hours party. He had been under the impression that she had ended things between them the week before, but then Katherine made it quite clear that she wanted to be with him last night.

      What healthy man could refuse the desires of a beautiful and seductive woman?

      Not Phillip Sinclair, the Earl of Waverly!

      But now all he wanted to do was eat some breakfast and then retire to the solitude of his bedroom, where he could sleep in peace for at least eight blissful hours before he would rise and get ready for this evening’s adventures, which would surely include another visit with the lusciously tempting Lady Katherine.

      “Mother was looking for you, and you’re quite fortunate that you missed her,” Simon remarked. “She would have given you hell for coming to breakfast looking like that, not to mention staying out all night again.”

      Phillip avoided his brother’s eyes and the censure he was sure to see there if he looked. It was better to not acknowledge it. His brother had no control over him anyway. Phillip was an adult. Twenty-four years old, almost twenty-five, and he didn’t need his little brother telling him what to do. Phillip could manage his own life and do whatever he pleased, thank you very much.

      He was the eldest son and heir of a marquis, after all.

      Besides, was staying out all night truly the end of the world? Hardly! None of his friends had gone home at a reasonable hour last night either. However, as he attempted to recall the events of the previous evening, Phillip was not entirely sure of that. He continued shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, barely tasting the food. His head continued to throb with relentless persistency and his stomach roiled. Too much champagne could do that to a man, and he knew better.

      Perhaps he had overindulged a little more than usual, but Lady Katherine Vickers had been particularly persuasive last night. The woman loved her champagne; what more could be said?

      In any case, as soon as he was through eating his breakfast, he would escape to the quiet and solitude of his bedroom to recover in blessed peace.

      “Are you still seeing her?”

      His brother’s question sent a twinge of guilt through him. He wasn’t sure why that was. He’d done nothing wrong. Not really. Phillip met Simon’s eyes with a direct gaze.

      “Would it be too much for you to let me eat in silence this morning?” he ground out.

      Simon gave him an amused smile and leaned back casually in his chair. “Yes, actually it would.”

      “Have you nothing better to do today than annoy me?”

      Phillip usually wasn’t so short with his younger brother. In fact, they got on quite well together and were closer than most siblings. But this morning, with his head pounding, his patience was gone.

      “Not a thing,” Simon murmured with a relaxed air, folding his arms across his chest. “I thought you said you were ending things with the fair widow?”

      Phillip gave a careless shrug. “It seems things have changed.”

      He didn’t care what anyone said. He enjoyed being with Lady Katherine Vickers. She was different from all the other women he knew. There was something incredibly exciting and intoxicating about her. She possessed a worldly sophistication and seductive glamour that he was powerless to resist.

      Most importantly, she made him feel like a man. Probably because she treated him like one.

      Unlike anyone else in his family, Phillip thought in disgust. He was tired of everyone telling him what he should and shouldn’t do. Ever since his two Hamilton cousins had married during the past year, it seemed the pressure was now on him to be the next one to head down the aisle and tie the knot.

      Phillip simply wasn’t interested in marriage and the responsibility of a wife and family. Not yet anyway. He wished to have some fun before settling down and wanted to be free of obligation for just a little while longer, which didn’t seem an unreasonable request to his way of thinking.

      Simon’s eyes narrowed. “That’s very interesting.”

      Shoving the last of some buttered toast into his mouth, Phillip pushed away his empty plate and stood up, glancing at Simon as he did so. He’d had quite enough. As he walked from the dining room table, he heard his brother snicker, and it irritated him more than it should have. He didn’t care for Simon acting superior to him, but Phillip was too weary to argue with him.

      In spite of his current state of exhaustion, Phillip hustled up the wide staircase of Devon House, his ancestral home. One day this grand and beautiful house and all its expensive and priceless contents would belong to him.

      Devon House was a bit of a local landmark at five stories high and almost a city block long. The magnificent, white, Georgian-style building possessed tall Palladian windows on the first floor, which led up to gabled