Sinning with My Fiancé's Twin Brother novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Riding Double
Armand bets she'll be thrown from his stallion, his twin Laurent catches her, she wagers her house on riding the Teche Cup, and learns Armand sold her mare at dawn to Laurent.
Brimstone bolted the second the moss closed over the trail.
Behind me, I heard my fiancé laugh.
Then I heard nothing but hooves and branches.
A sidesaddle was never made for a horse like that.
My right knee was hooked over the pommel, and my left foot had lost the stirrup.
Spanish moss slapped my face.
I kept my hands low and my weight back, the way Papa taught me.
Brimstone didn't care what Papa taught me.
A live oak branch came at us at the height of my chest.
I ducked, and my hat went.
Then a black horse was running beside us, close enough to touch.
A hand caught Brimstone's rein right at the bit.
"Let go of him," a man said. "Give me your hand, Varina. Now."
I knew that face.
I had been engaged to it for four months.
But Armand never had mud on his jaw, and Armand never pushed his sleeves up past the elbow.
It was his twin.
Laurent Devereux hauled me sideways out of the saddle and across his own.
My skirts went everywhere.
I landed astride in front of him, his arm locked around my waist and his chest hard against my back.
Brimstone tore off into the trees without me.
Laurent brought his gelding down to a walk.
Neither of us spoke.
I could feel his heart going as hard as mine.
"Are you hurt?" he said at last, low, by my ear.
"No."
"Your hands are shaking."
"So are yours."
He didn't answer that.
Through the gray curtains of moss, I could see the rest of the riding party waiting at the bayou.
Armand sat his chestnut in the middle of them.
He was holding out his palm.
His three friends were counting bills into it.
"What is he doing?" I asked.
Laurent's arm went tight around me.
"Collecting," he said.
That morning, Armand had met me at the Belle Rive barns with a sad face.
"Sable's lame, chère. Take Brimstone. He's gentle as a lamb today."
I had believed him.
I was going to marry him on New Year's Day.
Armand saw us coming and grinned.
"Two hundred dollars, gentlemen. I told you she'd come off before the first bend."
One of his friends squinted at me. "She came off onto your brother. Does that count?"
They all laughed.
"It counts," Armand said, and folded the money into his vest.
He didn't ask if I was hurt.
He didn't even look at my face.
"He could have killed her," Laurent said.
"Brimstone? He's a big kitten." Armand turned his horse for home. "Bring her back to the house, will you? I've got guests."
He rode off up the trail.
Laurent didn't set me down.
I didn't ask him to.
We rode back to Belle Rive like that, double, through the moss.
Armand stayed forty yards ahead the whole way.
He never once looked back to see whose arms I was in.
The gallery at Belle Rive was full of lemonade and white dresses.
Aunt Odile sat in the middle of it all in black silk, her prayer book on her knee.
Armand was already telling the story.
"Off like a sack of rice!" he said, and the ladies laughed behind their fans.
Laurent swung down and lifted me off his horse.
His hands stayed on my waist one breath longer than they needed to.
Then he let go.
Aunt Odile looked at my torn habit and my lost hat.
"A Devereux wife sits whatever horse her husband puts her on," she said. "You'll have to learn, Varina."
Twenty people waited for me to smile and apologize.
My father had died owing this woman four thousand dollars.
Our house, our land and our river landing were all on her paper.
My sister Aurore was nineteen, and that house was the only home she had.
Marrying Armand was the only way I'd ever made to pay it.
I walked up the gallery steps.
Armand was still laughing.
I put my hand into his vest pocket and took out the two hundred dollars.
He stopped laughing.
"I sat that horse for a mile," I said. "You bet I couldn't. This is mine."
"Varina, give that back."
He reached for it.
I stepped back, and the whole gallery went quiet.
I turned to his aunt.
"I won't need your nephew to pay Papa's note, Mademoiselle Odile. I'll pay it myself."
She smiled thinly. "With two hundred dollars?"
"With eight thousand. The Teche Cup runs on New Year's Day. I'm entering Sable."
Somebody laughed.
Somebody else said, "A woman? In the Cup?"
Aunt Odile closed her prayer book on one finger.
"Very well. Since we have witnesses." She looked around the gallery. "If you win, I'll tear up your father's note myself, and you may marry whomever you please."
"And if I lose?"
"You marry Armand that same afternoon, in the dress I choose, and the Lacombe house is mine."
Armand grinned at me over her shoulder.
"Done," I said.
I went straight down to the barns.
Sable would need new shoes, and a real saddle, and every dawn between now and New Year's.
Her stall was the last one on the left.
The door stood open.
The straw was raked clean.
Her halter was gone from its hook.
I stood there with Armand's money crushed in my fist.
Laurent was in the next stall, rubbing down his gelding.
He didn't look surprised to see me.
"She isn't lame," he said quietly. "Armand sold her at dawn. Three hundred dollars, to cover a card marker from Saturday night."
My mare.
The last horse my father ever bred.
She'd come to Belle Rive with my betrothal papers, and on those papers she was Armand's.
"Who bought her?" I said.
Laurent set down the brush and finally looked at me.
"I did."
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