Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“To your upcoming wedding!”
Jasper Everleigh lifted his glass high, with his grin wide enough to split his face. A few nearby gentlemen glanced over with mild curiosity, but Jasper had never minded an audience and Greyson never encouraged one.
Greyson stared flatly at the raised glass. “Put that down.”
“Oh, come now,” Jasper laughed. “I’m congratulating you.”
“It is no reason to celebrate,” Greyson replied, taking a measured sip of his brandy. “It is merely something that needed to be done.”
Jasper leaned back in his chair, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Ah, yes, your favorite phrase. It needed to be done. How very romantic.”
Greyson set his glass down with a soft thud. “Romance is irrelevant.”
“That,” Jasper said, “is precisely why this is entertaining.”
Greyson ignored him and glanced around the club. The warm glow of gas lamps grazed him. The cigar smoke attacked his senses as it curled lazily in the air. He preferred the order of his study, but tonight, Jasper had insisted.
Jasper took another sip. “So… Miss Hazel Thorne.”
Greyson’s jaw tightened. “What of her?”
“She is a lovely woman,” Jasper said simply.
Greyson’s fingers paused around his glass.
He forced himself to relax. “I can see that.”
Jasper’s brows rose. “Can you?”
Greyson did not rise to the bait. “She is practical, sensible and disciplined. Those qualities are ideal for a duchess.”
Jasper smirked. “That’s not what I meant.”
Greyson looked away, studying the amber in his glass. “I know what you meant. I chose not to answer.”
“Because you have an answer,” Jasper sang under his breath.
Greyson shot him a look sharp enough to silence lesser men. Jasper only grinned harder.
Greyson inhaled slowly, looking at the far wall as if pretending interest in the paintings. He had seen far more of Hazel Thorne than he should have. He had noticed her flushed cheeks and her trembling lips when flustered. And, worst of all, he remembered her scent when she stood close.
He pushed the memory into the farthest corner of his mind.
“There is nothing further to discuss,” Greyson said stiffly. “It is a marriage of convenience. She wants nothing more than that.”
“And you?” Jasper asked lightly.
“I want even less.”
Jasper snorted. “You say that as though it were impressive.”
Greyson rolled his eyes. “I say it because it is true.”
“Oh, I believe it,” Jasper said. “It is just that I have never seen a man work so hard to remain unaffected. You have already decided this woman cannot touch you, and you have barely met her.”
“That is the correct way to approach marriage,” Greyson said without hesitation. “Emotion complicates matters.”
Jasper leaned forward, lowering his voice with false solemnity. “Greyson, my dear friend… you have the emotional range of a boot heel.”
Greyson glared. “And yet you remain here.”
“Because someone must watch you walk into matrimony as though it were a tenant agreement.”
Greyson exhaled through his nose. “This conversation is pointless.”
Jasper shrugged. “Most conversations with you are. I enjoy the challenge.”
Greyson resisted the urge to rub his temples. “Hazel Thorne wishes for a marriage without sentiment. I am offering exactly that. It is ideal.”
Jasper studied him for a long moment, his eyes too perceptive for Greyson’s comfort.
“She is more than sensible, Greyson,” Jasper assured him. “She is kind and tender. A woman you might actually—”
“Stop,” Greyson cut in sharply.
He took a slow breath, trying but failing to steady himself. Jasper’s grin remained infuriatingly confident, as though he could see through everything Greyson wasn’t saying.
“Do not mistake me,” Greyson warned. “I will not fall for her.”
Jasper lifted a brow. “You sound very certain.”
“I am,” Greyson replied in a tone like steel. “You know that I made a vow years ago, never to let myself fall for the charms of any woman.”
Jasper sobered slightly. “Greyson—”
“No.” Greyson’s voice cut sharply through the haze of tobacco smoke around them. “Do you know what happens when a man allows a woman to become the center of his world? Do you know what it costs?”
Jasper sat back, and his grin was now fading.
Greyson stared ahead, feeling the suffocating weight of the words he had not said enough times to make them hurt less. “I watched my brother die because of it.”
Jasper didn’t interrupt… not this time, although he knew the story. Everyone did.
Greyson continued more quietly now, but his voice was still edged with fury.
“He was in love with a woman he could not have. And instead of bearing it, instead of bearing disappointment like any rational man, he leapt into the river in a fit of despair.” His fingers curled tightly around his glass.
“He drowned for her, for a woman who chose to belong to another.”
He swallowed hard, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. It was almost as if he were the one, trapped under the waves, gasping for air.
“And she mourned him for all of a week,” he added coldly. “Then returned to her husband’s side as though my brother had never existed.”
Jasper exhaled, but he still didn’t say anything.
Greyson’s gaze grew darker. “And do you know what his foolishness accomplished? Besides ending his own life?”
Jasper’s eyes were focused on his friend. Greyson needed an audience for his rage, and Jasper was a willing one.
“It destroyed our mother,” Greyson said. His voice cracked, just slightly. But he heard it. Jasper heard it too.
Greyson forced himself to continue.
“She loved him more than anything. More than sense, more than reason. And when he died, something inside her went with him.”
His jaw clenched. That suffocating feeling was still there. He could still barely breathe. But he pushed through the pain and anguish, knowing there was no other way.
“She has not been herself since. She barely speaks. She barely eats. She stares at the garden window as though waiting for him to walk back through it.”
Greyson’s chest tightened as rage, grief and guilt all swirled in a venomous knot.
“My brother’s weakness stole him from us,” he said. “But it stole her, too. And it left me to pick up the pieces he shattered.”
Jasper’s expression softened. “Greyson…”
Greyson shook his head once. “Do not pity me.”
“I don’t.”
“Then do not speak as though falling in love were harmless,” Greyson snapped. “It is a disease. A vulnerability men cannot afford.”
Jasper watched him with unusual seriousness. “You think love killed him.”
“I know it did.”
“And your mother?”
Greyson’s throat tightened. “He broke her heart. And she never returned from it.”
Silence settled heavily between them. Greyson took his glass and downed it.
“So, understand me well, Jasper. I will not let Hazel Thorne, or any woman, for that matter, pull me into that kind of ruin. I cannot afford it. I will not allow it.”
Greyson leaned back in his chair, and his eyes glowed with that cold, controlled anger Jasper had seen only a few times in their long friendship. He knew somewhere deep down that he was being harsh, but he didn’t care.
“Love,” Greyson continued, “is a poison, Jasper. A sickness that blinds people to reality. It pollutes their minds with foolish fantasies until they cannot see reason.”
Jasper lifted his brows. “Pollutes—”
“Yes,” Greyson snapped. “Young men ruin their lives for it. Young women fill their heads with novels promising fairy tales and happy endings. They are all lies and all distractions.”
Jasper raised a finger. “You do realize your fiancée reads—”
“Hazel Thorne,” Greyson cut in quickly, almost defensively, “is practical and sensible. Her mind is not stuffed with romantic nonsense.”
Jasper’s lips twitched. “You sound very confident about a woman you’ve met exactly twice.”
Greyson ignored him entirely. “Romance is a story meant to pacify the masses, nothing more than a pretty trap.”
“Trap,” Jasper repeated slowly. “Greyson, good God, listen to yourself.”
“No,” Greyson barked. “You listen. My brother believed in all that drivel: devotion, destiny, love greater than duty. And where did it lead him? Into a grave.”
Jasper’s expression softened with concern. “Edward didn’t die because he loved, Greyson. He died because he was suffering. Because he was alone.”
Greyson’s icy eyes snapped toward him in fury. “Do not make excuses for him.”
“I’m not,” Jasper said gently. “I’m saying his pain was more complicated than—”
“It was weakness,” Greyson hissed. “And weakness destroys everything it touches.”
Jasper leaned back, studying him carefully. “You’re not angry at Edward,” he pointed out quietly. “You’re angry at grief, at the destruction it left and at what it did to your mother.”
Greyson’s fist tightened around his glass. “I am angry,” he said, “at love.”
Jasper sighed. “Greyson—”
“Spare me,” Greyson snapped. “I have no patience for preaching.”
Jasper’s gaze steadied. “And I have no patience for listening to you talk as though emotion is a moral failing. I admire my wife greatly, and I certainly do not consider that a moral failing. While you’re here, speaking like a man who has locked himself in a room and thrown away the key.”
Greyson’s jaw tightened. “I prefer it that way.”
Jasper shook his head, a slow, sad motion. “You’re not unbreakable, Greyson. You only think you are.”
Greyson stood abruptly, with the legs of his chair scraping against the polished floor. “This conversation is over.”
Jasper stood too, sighing deeply. “Yes. I can see that.”
The club was warm and lively, but the air between them had turned cold and brittle. Jasper gathered his gloves and hat, pausing only long enough to place a hand on Greyson’s shoulder. It was brief and steady, a reminder of seventeen years of friendship.
“When you calm down,” Jasper told him softly, “I’ll be here.”
Greyson didn’t answer. Jasper stepped back, dipped his head politely, and left the club. Greyson stood alone, staring at the empty doorway, feeling the fury simmering dangerously beneath his skin.
He told himself he didn’t need Jasper’s understanding… or anyone’s, for that matter. He didn’t need Hazel Thorne’s warm eyes, or her soft voice, or the way she looked at him as though she truly saw him. He didn’t need any of it.
Greyson sat back down, poured himself another drink with a steady hand, and stared straight ahead, furiously convinced that he was right.