Chapter Eighteen
W hen one was the oldest son of a duke in a family of four siblings, there were very few places one could go and truly be alone. After all, every room save your own bedchamber belonged to your father, and no one wanted to mope about in the same four walls all day.
It had all become rather complicated since Thomas had become the Duke of Cothrom. He was now the duke…but did that make him head of the family? He had now come into ownership of Stanphrey Lacey, and the London townhouse, and the Bath one, but did that mean both his parents, his siblings, would defer to him?
And just when Thomas would have preferred to be alone, did his mother have to host one of her “little” gatherings?
“It’s not ‘little’ if I can’t make it down a corridor without bumping into someone,” he growled tetchily.
Thomas’s mother raised an eyebrow. “I do apologize, Your Grace . I did not realize I had to ensure you approved of all and every action I took.”
The flicker of irritation flared, then passed. Thomas pulled a hand through his hair, growling a curse he would not utter in his mother’s presence. “I’m going to the study.”
“But your father, he will be back at any—”
“ I am going to the study ,” repeated Thomas, walking past his mother and muttering, “He has the whole house to entertain guests. I just want to be alone.”
Whether or not his mother had heard him, he was not sure. His father certainly did not enter the study as Thomas whiled away the hours there, bored out of his mind yet finding nothing to do but sit there, staring at the grandfather clock whose hands moved slowly through time.
And when he had nothing to do, Thomas thought. And the thoughts hurt.
“So it’s you, really, who is the liar? You… You were just manipulating me.”
“Manipulating a man who chose me thanks to a coin flip!”
His jaw tightened, his temple throbbing, and there was pain in his hand—in his hand?
Thomas looked down. He’d clenched his fists, something utterly unconscious. They were clenched so tightly, his nails had dug into his palm. On his right hand were two small semicircle marks in the soft skin.
Forcing himself to relax, though who knew what that meant now, Thomas was astonished to see beading blood along one of the semicircles. He’d gripped his own hand so tightly, he was bleeding.
“I think you should leave.”
Growling and uttering words no one could hear, Thomas rose from the armchair and began to prowl about the room like a caged animal.
This was ridiculous. It had all been a pretense, hadn’t it—at the beginning? And yet here he was, desperate to understand how the woman could have gained such a grip on him.
A grip from which he could not, would not, release himself.
Thomas sighed heavily as he reached the window, glancing out through the panes at the wintery bustle in the street, and hated himself.
Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? He liked this pain. He liked knowing his heart was broken, that he would never be the same again: it meant it had been real. He had really loved her. It was no slight of his imagination, no accidental mistake.
He loved Miss Victoria Ainsworth, and he was going to spend the rest of his life miserable about it.
Thomas leaned an arm up against the frame and stared out. All those people, going about busy with their lives. Did they have any idea what it was to love someone, to lose someone? To realize nothing you had was permanent, that it could slip through your fingers at any—
“Dear God, Mother wasn’t exaggerating when she said you were brooding in here,” came a cheerful voice. “I feel almost inclined to set up an easel and paint you.”
Thomas swore and refused to turn around.
He’d barely seen him. He did not want to see him. The bas—
“You’ve missed luncheon, you know. You must be starving,” said Alexander lightly.
There was the sound of a door closing and Thomas relaxed, sagging against the wall. At least he was gone. He didn’t think he could stand much more of him.
“You are going to forgive me at some point, aren’t you?”
His brother had not left—and this time, his voice was a little less cheerful.
Thomas still did not look around. Partly because he did not trust himself to be honest. His forgiveness was not something he could just offer, not with the damage Alexander had caused. And partly because the tear falling down his cheek had to be brushed away elegantly so his brother did not notice.
There was a scraping sound, the noise of a chair being moved across a wooden floor. Thomas took advantage of his brother’s distraction and used his cuff to dry his eyes. God damn, I have not let a single tear fall about this whole sorry business. Not until now.
“So how long are you going to mope in here, then?”
Thomas straightened up, plastered a serious expression on his face, and turned to face his brother.
Alexander was seated in the very armchair he himself had so recently vacated, though his brother had moved it to face the window. There were bags around his eyes, which could only mean that he had frequented a gaming hell last night. Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all.
He wouldn’t be the only one to do the latter.
“I do not know what you mean,” Thomas said brusquely.
He was in half a mind to leave the study entirely. That was his purpose as he strode across the room and opened up the door, but the sudden noise of feminine laughter, chatter, the clink of teacups against saucers, and his mother’s voice caused him to halt.
“They’re here all afternoon,” came his brother’s helpful voice behind him. “Some sort of charity affair, apparently. St. Thomas’s Orphanage. Mother’s all for it.”
Thomas almost laughed. It was all too ridiculous. Of course he was now trapped in here, unable to escape his pox of a brother, because his mother was hosting an event for the charity he had created. Without them knowing. With their money.
The irony was exquisite.
Taking care not to slam the door shut, though he desperately wanted to, Thomas sighed and turned to face his brother.
Who looked uneasy. “Look, man, I wanted to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Thomas, striding across the room with purpose and throwing himself bodily to lounge on the sofa.
If he had to remain in here, the very least he could do was not talk about Victoria. Not think about her. Not remind himself just how delicate she was, and yet strong, how beautiful and elegant and—
“You must miss her.”
All the muscles in Thomas’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Evidently, his attempt at brushing off the topic of conversation was unsuccessful. As Thomas lay there, staring up at the ceiling, his brother’s snort was audible even over the noise from the drawing room next door.
“I don’t buy it.”
“I’m not selling,” Thomas said, as lightly as he could manage.
Alexander scoffed. “You can’t pretend. You can’t lie to me and say you don’t care about her.”
“As I said, I don’t know what you mean.” Thomas spoke in a cool, calm voice. At least, it sounded cool and calm in his ears. Perhaps it was fragile around the edges, but then, so was he.
There was a moment of silence just long enough to make him wonder whether his brother had given up the nonsensical line of conversation, until…
“It is ridiculous for you to attempt to pretend you do not love her, you know.”
And that was it. That was the catalyst. Had he not earned the right to be left in peace? Had it not been mortifying enough to have such a disaster occur before his whole family? Had he not done enough?
Swinging his legs off the sofa and glaring at his brother opposite him, Thomas hissed, “Fine. Fine! You want me not to pretend? Fine. I will no longer pretend that I don’t hate you. I will stop pretending that your idiotic, open-mouthed stupidity lost me someone that I—I cared about, very deeply. I will stop pretending that you are not the reason for my misery, Xander. How do you like that?”
His voice had risen to a pitch and volume he had not expected and Thomas could barely understand how he’d managed to spit out all the words. His lungs were tight, pain aching down his shoulders to his elbows, the stinging in his right palm where he had injured himself now clamoring for attention.
God, what a fiasco.
And Alexander said nothing. He just sat there, face placid, as though he had expected all of this—as if he deserved it.
Well , Thomas thought darkly, he does deserve it. And the rest.
“How could you reveal the coin toss to Victoria?” This time, Thomas was not quite controlled. His voice cracked when he spoke her name. “You’re a complete ass—”
“I know,” Alexander said softly. “I was.”
“—and…” Thomas blinked. “What did you say?”
“I was an ass, a complete ass, as you say,” his brother said. Only then did Thomas notice his brother had clenched his fists in his lap. There were glowing white marks across his skin where he had presumably recently dug his fingers into skin before. Just as Thomas had.
Thomas found he was breathing heavily, as though preparing himself for a fight. And wasn’t he? Hadn’t this been coming, ever since his brother had been so foolhardy as to tell Victoria the truth?
“I thought you would fall in love with me eventually, and—”
“So it’s you, really, who is the liar? You… You were just manipulating me.”
“Manipulating a man who chose me thanks to a coin flip!”
Guilt tugged at his heart, making it skip a beat. He should have been the one to tell Victoria.
“Look, I am not saying what I did was right, because it most certainly wasn’t,” said his brother, leaning forward and speaking in an urgent tone. “But I can’t help but think that at least this way—”
“If you’re going to try to convince me of a silver lining, you dolt—”
“—this way, she knows the truth and you don’t have to lie to her anymore,” Alexander persisted, speaking over Thomas.
There was a moment of silence in the subsequent room. Then the chatter in the drawing room returned, a buzz of noise that was surely echoing through the whole house.
Rather like this conversation, if we aren’t careful .
“I wasn’t lying to her.”
The words had spilled out before he had fully formed them and he could see how ridiculous they were.
Clearly, his brother could too. Alexander raised an eyebrow. “What do you call it, then?”
“I… I omitted a few details.”
Even to Thomas’s ears, his excuse sounded pathetic. What sort of a man was he?
“Surely, it is better, when one is about to get married, to enter into it with no omitted details , to use your phrase,” his brother said quietly. “Not that I am much of an expert on marriage, but—”
“You’re right, you’re not,” Thomas barked back. “And you will have to wait longer to see another one close up, because there is not going to be a wedding now. Because of you.”
He had intended the last three words to hurt, and for a moment, he did see a spark of pain in his brother’s eyes. Only after a few heartbeats did he realize he was seeing a reflection of himself.
“Because of you ,” Alexander repeated pointedly.
Thomas lifted a hand to his face and rubbed at his tired eyes. Was this what it felt like, not sleeping properly for three days? As though the whole world made no sense?
Or was it because he had not seen Victoria in that long?
“Look, you hurt me,” Thomas said wearily, dragging his hand across his face then looking up at his brother. “Whether you meant to or not, whatever noble intentions you assign to the mistake now, that’s essentially immaterial. You did it.”
His brother winced. “And I am sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t change things, Xander. Sorry doesn’t fix it.”
“I wasn’t the one who—”
Anger flared in Thomas’s chest. “If you are going to try to turn this around on me, my boy, I can tell you now—”
“There wouldn’t be anything to tell if you had just been honest with her,” his brother most inconveniently pointed out. “You were the one who said to me, on that New Year’s Day, that you needed to marry a fortune.”
Thomas sighed, trying not to think of what he had said. He could not deny it. “Your point is?”
His brother leaned back in his chair, examining him with a surprisingly wise expression. “Well, Victoria—”
“ Miss Ainsworth to you,” Thomas said through gritted teeth.
He rolled his eyes. As if the man had any cause to call her other than by her proper title. She was not his sister-in-law—and never would be. “Lord above. Fine, Miss Ainsworth. She is hardly a foolish woman, is she?”
The cleverest I have ever met. “No.”
“And the gossip about our fortune, or lack thereof…”
“Get to the point, man.”
A flicker of a smile creased Alexander’s face. “Oh, I’m sorry, do you have somewhere to be?”
The glower on his face must have been more amusing than frightening because despite Thomas’s best efforts, his brother merely grinned.
“My point is, Miss Ainsworth worked out you were only courting her for the money.”
“It wasn’t like that, not for long,” Thomas protested, as though somehow by saying it, he would make her understand.
She had to understand, didn’t she? But he had written and there had been no reply, and when he had gone to the Ainsworth house, he had failed to knock on the door. Cowardly, perhaps, but her silence in regards to his letters had been hint enough at the reception he’d receive.
“Listen, man, for more than five seconds!” Alexander’s face was a tad red now, his irritation showing. “You want to marry a fortune—you need to, in your own words. You select Miss Ainsworth, it doesn’t matter how, and she is wise to your game. Can’t you see, can’t you understand that she would want to take some control? I mean, how much control to ladies have in today’s Society, really?”
Thomas frowned, ready to spur forward with a response that would cut Alexander down to size and demonstrate his affection for Victoria to boot.
No words came.
God damn it. Did the man have to be right?
“I miss her,” he said suddenly.
Readying himself for the expected laughter from his brother, the scorn that would inevitably come, Thomas clenched his teeth.
No such mockery came.
He looked up. There was a look on his face that was altogether too knowing. What on earth did he not know about this youngest brother of his? The man was only four and twenty. He couldn’t possibly have fallen in love.
“I can see that,” Alexander said quietly.
Placing his elbows on his knees, Thomas dropped his head into his hands.
He missed her. He loved her. This woman who was only supposed to be convenient had most inconveniently wormed her way into his affections, and now he couldn’t let go. Let go of the feelings, of the need for her, of the knowledge that he would never be truly complete until he was by her side again.
Christ alive, he would accept just being an acquaintance of hers, someone she saw socially, sharing light conversation with her before she moved on to another.
Just to be in her world. Her orbit. Her life.
“Love is a painful thing, isn’t it?”
Thomas’s head snapped up, aggression pouring through him, ready to bark back at his brother’s teasing—but he halted himself.
There was no ridicule in his brother’s face. Instead, there was a… a curiosity, for want of a better word. The man looked interested, the index fingers of both interlocked hands leaning against his mouth.
And he was sitting here, bothering to listen to him. And he had apologized.
Hell, it would be so much easier to just go on hating him.
“‘Painful’?” Thomas echoed, leaning back with a sigh. “Yes. No. At the moment, it is. Other moments it was… It was wonderful. It was like sunshine. Sunshine on a wintery day—you almost forget the rest of the world is cold because you’re so warm. Everything is warmer, everything is better. Better with her.”
He was sounding like a complete sap, but at this point, Thomas hardly cared. What did it matter? The whole world could know how much he needed Miss Victoria Ainsworth.
“She’s a woman in a million,” he said quietly. “A woman in a million.”
He should have known not to use such language, for before he could tell the man to button his lip, Alexander snorted with laughter.
“Yes, just like the coin toss when it landed on its—”
“I swear to God, Xander, I will smack you.”
“Yes, yes, sorry,” his brother said hastily, putting his hands up in mock—or perhaps real—surrender. “What, so I am never allowed to talk about that moment again? It was fantastic! Something we will never be able to repeat!”
Something we will never be able to repeat.
Thomas’s gut twisted painfully, a wave of nausea pouring into his lungs, but he fought it.
Being in love, loving someone like Victoria Ainsworth: that was the one-in-a-million chance. That was the something he would never be able to repeat.
How could he ever feel something like this for another?
“You should go to her.”
Thomas sighed heavily and shook his head. The poor lad was so green, so innocent. He didn’t understand how the world worked. Yes, he was honor-bound to marry her, but if no one knew what he had done, she might still survive Society gossip to claim another husband. “She’ll never take me back.”
“Probably not.”
“Why don’t you keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself?”
“Look, I’m here to help!” protested his younger brother.
Thomas snorted. “Fat lot of good you’re doing me, you complete ninny. What have you done? Apologized for a huge mistake that was completely your fault, pointed out I will never have it so good again, reminded me Victoria is far cleverer than I am and totally saw through me, and then suggested I go to her? What sort of help is that?”
His brother’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, I’m sorry, what sort of help were you expecting? A fairy godmother to appear, wave a magic wand, and inform you that everything will be well if you can just get to the ball?”
Despite himself, Thomas felt his lip twitch. “I mean, it wouldn’t hurt.”
Alexander chuckled. “Life isn’t like that, I’m afraid.”
“When did you get so wise?”
A dark cloud passed over his brother’s eyes. “When I… I didn’t. It doesn’t matter.”
“You can tell me,” he said curiously, lowering his voice. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” said Alexander with a bracing smile. “But that’s neither here nor there. I’m here to fix your life. I’ll fix my own another day.”
“But—”
“That’s another story,” Alexander said with a wink. “Besides, you technically wouldn’t be in this fix if it weren’t for me.”
Thomas could not help but snort. “‘Technically’?”
“Fine, definitely,” said Alexander with a shrug. “The question is, how are we going to get you out of it?”
Thomas sighed. It was a hopeless case, and he knew it. The best he could hope for was a chance meeting somewhere on Milsom Street, or at the Pump Rooms, or—
“I have an idea,” said his brother slowly with a grin.
Thomas did not like the look of that. When he spoke, it was warily. “What on earth are you suggesting?”
“Thomas Chance, Duke of Cothrom,” his brother declared with a grin, “you shall go to the ball!”