Chapter 13
Everett felt like the world’s greatest arse.
He’d been rude to his wife during their lone waltz.
He was jealous of one of his closest friends without cause, aside from Kingham’s deliberate provocation.
He’d been glowering at everyone who had the misfortune of crossing his path this evening. He’d even snapped at Maman, who had looked quite hurt by his tone, even if she had held her tongue.
And now, his sister was lost.
Maman had approached him, inquiring whether he’d seen Verity recently. Which, of course, he had not. He’d been too damned preoccupied by watching his glorious wife dance with other men all evening. His eyes hadn’t strayed anywhere else.
He hadn’t known he ought to be watching his sister like a governess with her wayward charge, but that was what he felt like now as he scoured the ballroom in search of her.
As he was performing his second circumnavigation of the dance floor, he spied her at last. She was, much to his surprise, dancing.
But perhaps it wasn’t the fact that she was dancing that shocked him, quite as much as who she had partnered with.
Kingham.
He had to admit that they made a well-matched pair, even as his brotherly instincts rebelled at the sight of his rakish friend with his sister. They were both dark-haired and tall, moving flawlessly about the ballroom together.
Not that Verity would ever entertain the suit of another man; she had been mourning Lord Leopold these last ten years. Nor that Kingham would court his sister. King didn’t dally with innocents. He preferred widows and unhappy wives.
Unhappy wives like Sybil.
Everett struck that thought down at once.
His wife had no reason to be unhappy. She was the one who had professed her love for another man on their wedding day.
She was the one who had been dallying with a servant.
She was the one who had been embracing a footman and telling him how much she would miss him just after she had spoken vows to Everett.
He had only responded to what he had witnessed as any husband would.
Meanwhile, he had given her carte blanche for jewels, the finest gowns, and even this bloody ball, all of which added up to thousands of pounds.
All he asked for in return was that she bear him children.
In the bedroom, he had no doubt that she was well pleased.
Should that not be more than sufficient?
He scowled at Kingham and Verity one last time and turned toward the terrace.
His necktie felt more like a noose. His evening coat was too cumbersome for this crush.
The chandeliers made it feel as if hundreds of miniature suns were roasting them all.
Perspiration trickled down his spine. He needed a respite from this sickly stew of people.
The smell of hair grease and sweat mingled with perfume and spilled champagne, all the endless preparations leading to a herd of lords and ladies eating and drinking and making messes as they made merry.
Such a waste.
He had almost reached the door to the terrace when Lady Rhiannon Northwick surged through it in a bustle of silken skirts, her expression distressed as she hastened off in the opposite direction.
Lady Rhiannon was the Duke of Whitby’s sister, and Everett considered himself another brotherly figure to her.
If she was unhappy, then by God, he was going to see who had caused the distress.
But before he could further investigate, the Duke of Richford stalked through the same door, appearing similarly vexed.
Everett stopped. Surely Richford and Lady Rhiannon had not been having a row on the terrace.
Had they?
Richford would never dream of trifling with Whit’s sister. Such an egregious overstep of boundaries would shatter the gentlemanly code between them all, much like King and his own sister. It would simply never happen. He was being fanciful. Reading too much into things.
That was all.
He turned away from the terrace, deciding against the fresh air in favor of awaiting Kingham and Verity as their dance concluded. Everett doubled back to the periphery of the dancing couples and waited for their approach.
“Kingham,” he greeted, unsmiling. “Sister. I must admit, I was surprised to see the two of you dancing together this evening.”
“His Grace persuaded me that he deserved a dance,” Verity said, casting a glance in the direction of Kingham that Everett found curious indeed.
“That was most kind of him,” Everett said, casting a warning glare in his friend’s direction. “Next, he shall be accompanying you to the orphanage and braiding your bloody hair.”
“It would be my honor to do both,” Kingham offered smoothly.
“No, it wouldn’t,” Everett snapped at him. “Be gone. I need to speak with my sister alone.”
King raised a brow, looking like an emperor surveying his vassals. “Your poor darling mother must be appalled by your lack of manners, Riverdale.”
Everett was being rude again, but he didn’t care. The notion of Kingham sniffing about his sister suited him as much as the thought of him attempting to seduce Sybil did. Which was to say not at all, damn it.
“Why don’t you run along and ask her? She’s guarding Lady Eastlake just over there.” He nodded in the direction of the brigade of dowagers who had clustered together. “Maman has always liked you. I’ve never known quite why.”
“Riverdale,” Verity scolded him, sounding scandalized. “Apologize to Kingham at once for being so beastly.”
“Beastly seems to be his mood of the evening,” King said pointedly. “He wears it like a poorly cut waistcoat. Speaking of which, old chap, in addition to the stripes—”
“That’s quite enough of you for one evening, King,” Everett interrupted.
His friend’s expression turned wry as he offered a bow to Verity. “Thank you for a most enlivening quadrille.”
With that, King took his leave, melding back into the throng of guests, though he was a head taller than most of them. Everett turned to Verity, who was scowling at him as if he had just announced his intention to drown a sack of puppies.
“Did you have to behave so abominably?” she demanded. “Kingham was a complete gentleman.”
He didn’t expect her to understand the vagaries of rakes. She had no experience with suitors, save Lord Leopold, and she’d been but a girl freshly come out then.
“Keep your distance from him,” he ordered her flatly.
“He is like a brother to me.”
“But he is decidedly not your brother,” Everett growled, feeling suddenly as if all the world had gone mad. “And you would do well to remember that.”
“He’s your friend,” Verity countered, her expression turning defiant.
He ought to know better than to deny his sister anything. She was headstrong and willful. Everett sometimes wondered if he had been too soft with her. Heaven knew she’d run roughshod over him these last ten years, if not longer.
“Yes, he is my friend, but that does not mean I trust him where my sister is concerned,” he told her.
And most especially not where my wife is concerned, he thought grimly, keeping that to himself.
Speaking of which, where had Sybil gone now?
“Then perhaps you might trust me,” Verity told him, hurt lacing her voice.
“Do you not see how impossible it is to trust? Every time I’ve trusted a woman, she has betrayed me.”
His sister’s countenance turned sorrowful. “I think it is you who doesn’t see, brother. I am not anything like Lady Marnham, and neither is Sybil.”
“This has nothing to do with Lydia,” he denied sharply, not wanting to be reminded of the past. Not here, not now, when they were surrounded by so many others. “It is my duty to protect you, and I would be remiss if I didn’t warn you away from a dissolute rakehell like Kingham.”
Verity sighed. “I can assure you that the duke has no interest in me, prurient or otherwise. He was simply being kind because he found me hiding in the alcove upstairs, weeping. He gave me a handkerchief to aid my dripping nose and persuaded me to dance with him as a distraction.”
Worry made his stomach clench like a fist. “You were weeping? Why? Tell me who dared to cause you distress at once. I’ll throw the bastard into the streets myself.”
“That is also what Kingham said. Or something very like it.”
“And I hope you told him that it isn’t done to go about defending the innocent sisters of his friends.”
“I did.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“Everett?”
Verity scarcely ever called him by his given name. That she had done so now, and in the midst of a crowded ballroom, gave him pause.
He frowned. “Yes?”
Verity’s expression turned melancholy. “You need to speak with Sybil and work out some sort of truce between the two of you. I can’t bear to watch you both making each other so miserable.”
He stiffened. “We are not miserable.”
That was a lie, of course. The last month had been an agony of pleasure, followed by anger and avoidance, in an endless cycle.
“I would give everything I’ve ever had and everything I shall ever own in the future, even my very life, just to have the chance to see Leo one more time.
To tell him all the things I never did. To sit with him and bask in his smile.
To hold his hand. But I shall never have that opportunity.
You have a second chance now, however. You and Sybil both do. ”
He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to see the tears glistening in his sister’s eyes. Didn’t want the emotion that was threatening to clog his throat.
“Mind your own bloody business, Verity,” he growled.
And then he stalked away from her before he said something else. Something he couldn’t take back.
The ball was over.
It was half past four in the morning.
And still, there hadn’t been a sound next door from Everett’s bedchamber to suggest that he was within. No familiar footsteps, not the creak in the floor just before the pitcher and basin where he splashed water on his face before he came to her each night. No tap at the door.