CHAPTER11
“What are the bloody odds?” Wolf grumbled, mostly to himself but ostensibly to the entire carriage, which—he was ashamed to admit—he’d forgotten for a moment included his sister.
His mind was thicker than mud. Difficult to tell a notion from an inkling. And all because of her. Portia. Meanwhile, he’d been tasked with playing the damned chaperone to the youngest in the Sutton clan yet again, a position to which he was wholly unsuited on the best of days and desperately unqualified for on the worst.
“That you’d find yourself in love with Archer Tierney’s sister?” Lily asked as their carriage swayed through the narrow rookeries lanes that were as foul smelling and rough as they were familiar.
He sent his sister a ferocious scowl and drummed his fingers on his knee, wishing they had already arrived at their destination and that he had not confided in his sister earlier that morning at breakfast. Telling Lily about Portia had not been his intention, but he’d been deuced confused about what to do with the possibility she was Archer Tierney’s half sister. And he hadn’t wished to go to his brothers with the tale just yet; they would never allow him to hear the end of it.
“Here now, Lil,” he said with a glower. “No one said a damned thing about love.”
The word was difficult to say. It seemed to stick to his tongue like raw honey. And it filled him with a queer sensation. It made his chest swell and his head ache. He was not in love with anyone, curse it. Lydia had cured him of that notion.
Had she not?
“You needn’t say it explicitly,” his sister said calmly, stroking her gloved hand over the fur of the orange cat which was curled on her lap. “You have spent the entirety of the drive fretting over your countess—”
“She ain’t mine,” he interrupted, hating himself for the bitterness in his voice. But Portia had made it more than apparent he had no claims upon her.
Although he had offered her his help in not just finding her half brother but also protecting her from whatever bastard in her life had struck her, she had only accepted the former rather than the latter. But even so, he had to use a duchess he did not know and had never met as the conduit for his communication with Portia, as she had requested. It set his teeth on edge.
“Archer Tierney’s sister, then,” Lily said.
“Half sister,” he corrected, still frowning, “and we don’t know if Archer Tierney and Avery Tierney are the same cove.”
“One syllable’s difference,” Lily drawled, patting the cat’s head.
The feline gazed up at her in adoring fashion.
“Where did you find that damned cat?” he demanded, feeling vexed with his sister. With the orange-furred creature. With Portia.
Most of all, with himself.
“Behind The Sinner’s Palace,” his sister said calmly. “He was mewing quite loudly, but he was not readily seen. I searched for him everywhere, until I finally spied him hiding beneath a cart. The poor darling was terribly thin. I fed him some chicken and we have been friends ever since.”
Why was he not surprised his sister had befriended a stray cat?
And why was said cat currently riding with them in this bloody carriage?
“Cats make me sneeze,” he said, which wasn’t true.
But the orange creature was purring so loudly that the hum traveled above the familiar sounds of the road. It was nettling for someone in this carriage to be so contented when he was in such turmoil. Even if that someone happened to be beast rather than mortal.
“Sir Bellingham shall take that into consideration.” Lily rubbed the cat beneath its chin as she addressed it instead of Wolf. “Won’t you, my little darling lad?”
“Sir Bellingham?” Wolf adjusted his hat, his eyes narrowing on his sister. “Never say you named the cat after Bellingham and Co.?”
“And what if I did?” Lily adjusted the cat on her lap, giving him a stubborn look he recognized all too well. “I like to shop there, and its owner is a bit of a stray himself.”
Wolf flicked the brim of his hat in idle irritation, snapping it with his forefinger. “The owner, you say? And how are you acquainted with the high and lofty Mr. Bellingham?”
A flush quickly covered his sister’s cheeks, and her gaze dipped back to the cat. “We are not acquainted. Not at all.”
He detected guilt in her tone.
It felt better to divert his attention to his sister rather than bedevil himself with his own woes.
“Do not lie to me, Lily Sutton,” he said, tapping the toe of her shoe with his boot. “Why is it you insist on shopping at that silly bleeding place with all the nobs? All of them looking down their aristocratic noses at you.”
“Do you mean the silly bleeding place where you pretended you were married to your countess and had poor Mr. Smythe bring you all the gloves and lace as if you intended to buy it all?”
Well, Christ.How the devil did Lily know about that? His ears went hot, and he was damned thankful for the brim of his fine hat to cover them.
Eying his sister, he scrubbed his jaw with a gloved hand. “And what do you care to tell me about all the fans and slippers and lace and hats you’ve been keeping in your attic room?”
Her color heightened, her discomfiture at his question more than apparent as she clutched the cat a bit tighter to her chest. “Wolf Sutton, have you intruded upon my private room?”
Aye, he had done. Because he had been worried about her the day she had not attended the meeting along with the rest of their siblings. And because most of their family—save Loge, of course—was busy chasing after their own spouses and future spouses. Which left Wolf to do everyone else’s bidding. Including invading Lily’s room and finding it stuffed to the rafters with gewgaws.
“I was looking for you,” he said truthfully. “You were missing, if you will recall.”
Her nostrils flared. “I was at the foundling hospital.”