How to Marry a Marble Marquis(6)
“Yes, my lord.” The mothman gave him a patronizing smile. “Your sister is here.”
Silas’s head dropped, shoulders slumping as he waved Kestin away. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected a single night’s peace, a preposterously foolish notion, he understood now, for the study door had scarcely closed behind the steward before Silas heard her voice.
“Silas!”
He wasn’t certain what his sister Maris ever meant to achieve by shouting his name from down the hall. He had no intention of leaving his study, and she still had an entire corridor to traverse, yet this was how she opted to announce her presence every time she came to visit him, which was every time he was in residence at the manor. That ridiculousness of shouting had never stopped Maris before, and that evening would be no different, apparently.
“Silas!”
“Maris, darling, please don’t shout,” he called through the closed door, his voice flat, uncaring if she heard him or not. “You can raise your voice all you want. It doesn’t mean I’m getting up for you.”
His sister burst into the study, not bothering to knock. It had always been this way. There were four years that separated them, but Maris had decided sometime around the age of seven or eight that she no longer needed to take his orders, despite the fact that he was the one with the title.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?” she asked peevishly, flouncing to the chair before to his desk, seating herself without invitation. “You could have sent word, you know. I would’ve had a welcoming dinner prepared for you.”
“Unnecessary,” he muttered. “In any case, I won’t be here long.”
“You’re never here long,” she shot back. “Just long enough to cause trouble before you flit back to London and leave us to pick up the pieces.”
“Well, I daresay I won’t be here long enough to cause any trouble, love,” he lied smoothly. He had every intention of paying a visit to the fair lady of Derrybrook that night, having run into her husband the previous evening as the lord journeyed to London. Draining his balls before going to bed was a sure way to ensure his headache would be extinguished while he slept, and Lady Derrybrook had a fantastically firm grip.
Maris rolled her eyes, clearly not believing him. “We really need to throw a ball, you know. Invite all of the most eligible—“
“No.”
“But Silas, we need to start finding you a—“
“Maris, I said no.”
“Well, are you at least staying long enough so that we can invite the Countess of —“
“Maris.”
Her mouth snapped shut at last, glaring at him.
“I’m not,” he went on succinctly. “I need to be getting back to London before the end of the week, actually. I’ve only come back to deal with the accounts and to make sure that you’re set up with everything you require for the season, darling. And besides, I don’t think I would be very welcome at any table across from the Countess of Crevingsham unless she’s acquired a concussion and no longer remembers the incident involving her sister.”
Across the desk, his sister grumbled. He couldn’t quite make out her words, but he was certain he managed to catch appalling behavior quickly followed by thinking with your cock before her mouth set in a firm line, resembling their mother so entirely that he nearly shuddered.
He and Maris had been told they resembled twins since they were children, and he knew the sour look she was directing at him was likely identical to the one he had given Kestin only minutes earlier. Her silver-white hair was twisted into a thick plait that began at her temples, the long length of it winding back up to curl around her head like a crown. The white veining shot through her ebony skin was dusted in a powder that gave it a luminous glow, and her lips were painted to look like plump cherries. The only marked difference in their outward appearance was her slightness, her wings more angular, taking on the guise of a bird rather than a bat. She’d had her horns capped in silver the previous winter, and Silas was forced to admit that the effect — her crown-like hair, the winking silver, her haughty expression – coalesced into something more lord-like than he probably managed on a day-to-day basis. All the better. Proof that your plan is a good one.
“I’ll be reviewing the accounts tomorrow evening,” he pushed on, changing the subject to things that actually mattered. “You have unlimited access and absolute authority in my absence, you know that. Don’t let me come back here to find little Silas sleeping in a cradle not adorned with moonstones and silver, so you understand?”
She laughed, her hands landing on the swell of her stomach almost without her conscious choice. She was looking well, he thought. Silas knew she was worried. Their mother had died in childbirth, the egg she’d been carrying never hatching, a double loss from which their father never recovered. He’d not been lying to Eleanor Eastwick when he’d offered his condolences, knowing exactly the burden that rested on her attractive shoulders. His sister was well-positioned to carry on the family line, and if at least one of her children were named after him, he would be satisfied.
“I think it’s a girl. I don’t know why, it’s just a feeling I have . . . Have you heard from Cadmus?” Her voice softened, and Silas nodded, indicating the unopened parchment on the desk before him.