Chapter Six
Wilfred inhaled deeply and screamed into the cushion for a third time.
“Arghhhhh!”
“Now, normally, I wouldn’t interrupt something as important as this,” came a voice from somewhere to his left. “But I think in this case, I’m going to.”
Wilfred pushed himself up from where he had been lying on the sofa and gazed blearily at the outline of a gentleman in the doorframe of his library. When he blinked, the outline found a little detail.
It was Michael. Michael Chance. Michael?
“What are you doing here?” asked Wilfred, his voice hoarse after screaming into a cushion.
“The butler let me in. Told him I knew the way,” said Michael Chance breezily as he helped himself to a seat in an armchair on the other side of the room. He stared at Wilfred, seemingly expecting something. “Yes, it’s lovely to see you, too. Yes, I will have some tea.”
Wilfred glared for a moment at his friend but then stood up in high dudgeon and tugged at the bell pull.
Mrs. Ansley had to have been waiting outside the door—undoubtedly listening to me scream, Wilfred thought darkly—for she appeared at an astonishing rate. “Yes, Master Wilfred? That is—Your Grace?”
“Tea, cake, and whiskey,” Wilfred said heavily. “In that order.”
Her eyes glittered. “We seem to be all out of whiskey.”
“Nonsense!” he barked. “There’s always—”
“It is eleven o’clock in the morning,” his housekeeper said primly as Wilfred tried not to notice Michael smirking. “I will bring plenty of tea, and a cake. That is your lot.”
She did not wait to be dismissed by him—which is probably all to the good, Wilfred could not help thinking darkly. He clearly could not be trusted at the moment. His decision-making was absolutely awful.
What had he been thinking?
“I love you as a gentleman. As a man adores and desires a woman.”
The mere memory of what he had said caused Wilfred to groan and sink back down on the sofa, lowering his head to the cushion.
“So, I don’t actually know what happened between you and my sister,” Michael said conversationally, as though he frequently had such conversations with dukes, “but she’s not been the same since and you clearly have a decent amount of regret.”
Wilfred sat up and glared. “If you are suggesting I did anything a gentleman ought not to…”
“I’m just saying, if I need to call you out to defend my sister’s honor, could we wait until Thursday? I’ve got a very nice dinner planned with a family friend tomorrow,” said Michael, his smile twitching, “and I’d hate to be killed before it.”
“There’s no need for a duel,” said Wilfred quietly.
Not entirely. It had been a kiss, that was all. A single kiss. Irene Chance was not ruined, not as such—and as long as no one ever knew about it, there was sufficient plausible deniability for her reputation to be kept safe.
Wilfred swallowed. Not that he wanted it kept safe. He wanted to ruin her, ruin her for all other men. He wanted to make it impossible for her to ever stand near another man, wanted her to feel so intoxicated by his kiss—
“No need at all?” asked Michael as Mrs. Ansley brought in a tea tray.
It was the hesitation that did it. If Wilfred had not hesitated, he knew, then his best friend’s brother would not have widened his eyes and shooed away his housekeeper.
“His Grace and I need to discuss something important and private,” Michael said rapidly. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Ansley arched a brow at Wilfred but said nothing as she strode out of the room, shutting the library door quietly.
Then again, if she was still standing by the door two seconds later, she probably still heard the outburst.
“Dear God, man, my sister? What did you do to—you know what, I don’t want to know.” Michael was panting heavily, tea and cake utterly ignored. “How could you do it—ruin your best friend? Ruin Reeny! I never thought—”
“I have not ruined her, you fool, but if you do not keep your voice down, then you will!” hissed Wilfred darkly.
There was silence, just for a moment. And then footfalls, departing from the library door.
Wilfred glared at his visitor. “See what you’ve done?”
“What I’ve done—what I’ve done!” Michael managed to keep his voice low, but that did not reduce the intensity of it. “Christ alive, man, we took you into our family when you were but a boy and this is how you repay us?”
It was difficult not to feel the physical weight of the reproach on his shoulders.
Because Michael was right. The Chances had been very good to him, the Pernrith Chances especially. There had never been a family like theirs for embracing a lonely child.
That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? If he hadn’t fallen in love with the family as a whole, perhaps he never would have fallen in love with Reeny…
“Look,” Wilfred said heavily, tea ignored but cake swiftly divided onto two plates. “Look, I didn’t… She and I, we… There was nothing…”
It appeared nothing was going to diminish Irene’s brother’s steely eye, so eventually, Wilfred realized that the truth had to be told.
A version of it, anyway.
“I kissed her,” he said dully.
Michael stared, fork full of cake halfway to his mouth. Then he took a large bite and chewed slowly, never looking away from Wilfred.
It was a disorientating expression, to tell the truth. Wilfred could feel his stomach twisting as the realization of what he had done hit him afresh.
He had kissed Irene. Kissed her, and declared his love, for a second time, and she had thought him…what, teasing? Jesting? Drunk?
It did not bode well that she did not even for a moment consider that he could have been serious.
Michael swallowed the cake. “You kissed her.”
“Yes,” Wilfred said testily.
“And she kissed you in return?”
“Of…” Of course. That was what he had been about to say.
But the memory was fading; it had been fading from the moment that he had left the Chance townhouse. Now it was twisting, getting caught up with his daydreams and the dreams at night that he could not control.
Had Irene kissed him back? Had she wanted the kiss, just for a moment? Oh, it had felt wonderful, the sweetness and the tartness of her mouth, the warmth of her, the ways he had leaned into him…
But had she? Was that just his mind filling in the gaps of what he had wished had been?
Michael’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Goddammit, man, I knew you were in love with her, but I never thought you’d actually act on it.”
It took a moment for his friend’s words to register. Then—
“You—You knew?” spluttered Wilfred, cake utterly forgotten. “How could you know?”
“Anyone with eyes knows,” Michael said calmly, halfway through his cake now. “My parents have talked about it for the last two years, and though Teddy and Gwen are too young to notice these sorts of things, it won’t be long. Honestly, man, did you think it was a secret?”
Wilfred tried not to laugh. “It’s a secret from the only person who matters.”
Not that he hadn’t tried to explain. Just as it had been at the opera house, it hadn’t been a planned speech, that night at the card party, and perhaps that had been the problem.
The words had tumbled from his mouth with absolutely no control and perhaps no coherence.
Irene had certainly looked at him as though he were speaking utter nonsense.
Perhaps he had been.
Perhaps there was nothing to be done but accept that if she had any desire to return his feelings, she would have responded better to the kiss. Wanted to kiss him again. At least listened to his words.
“What you need to do,” Michael said, smacking his lips as he finished the cake and put down his plate, “is stop moping about and court someone else.”
Wilfred blinked. “You are joking.”
“Oh, Reeny is pretty to be sure, but there have to be countless—”
“You are trying to dissuade me from courting your sister?” Wilfred could hardly believe it. The pain of the rejection was, in a way, as sharp as that of Irene’s herself.
A rejection from Michael was, in truth, a rejection from the whole of the Chance family. He would be the one who would speak for them, as the future Viscount Pernrith. Irene would be under her father’s protection and then, one day, if she did not wed, her brother’s.
For Michael to say such a thing—
“You know I like you, Aynor. I’ve liked you for years. And if Irene had returned your affection, then I’d be here celebrating your upcoming nuptials. But I’m not,” said Michael quietly. “So why not look elsewhere?”
The fire Wilfred had not even known was within him flamed, hot and bright.
Cake and plate and fork falling to the carpet with a crash that scattered crumbs, Wilfred tried not to clench his fists as he spat, “‘Look elsewhere’? With Irene, the perfect woman, already by my side? Why on earth would I even think to look at another woman when the only one I care about is already in my life?”
“In that case…” Michael began.
Wilfred did not let him continue. Flames were scalding the insides of his veins and his whole body seemed to be vibrating. “No, you don’t understand. Irene is—She is—She makes me—Without her, I-I can’t…”
His voice trailed off when he saw Michael’s smile. “You really love her,” said the Chance before him.
It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.
“If I never marry another but spend the rest of my life dedicated to making Irene happy, as her friend, that will be enough,” said Wilfred finally, sinking back down on the sofa. “That will be enough.”
He had expected Michael to nod slowly. He had expected the man to sigh and lean back, yes. But he had not expected him to say what he then said.
“And the duchy? There will be no more Dukes of Aynor. Unless there’s some distant cousin I don’t know about who’d qualify as your heir at the moment?”
No, there weren’t any cousins on the male line—not as far back as three generations, and then, no one living. Wilfred’s stomach tightened. He had not thought of that.
Why should he, when all his thoughts were filled with Irene?
“Look,” Michael said quietly, “far be it for me to interfere with my sisters.”