Chapter 25
“So, are you going to tell me where you disappeared to this afternoon?” Zachary asked with a smirk as he swirled his glass of whiskey.
“I do not know what you mean,” Philip replied, relaxing back into his armchair.
Zachary quirked an eyebrow. “One moment, you were playing cones, telling me you knew what to do about your jealousy; the next, you were gone.” He paused. “Others may not have noticed, but I could not help but notice that Lady Selina also left the game shortly after you did.”
He had been trying to get the story out of Philip for the past half an hour, after they had escaped the duties of after-dinner conversation and games in the drawing room. They had used the pretense of discussing wedding arrangements, so none of the other gentlemen would ask to join.
“Did she?” Philip smiled. “You would have to ask her where she went. I was right here, tending to some correspondence that I had neglected.”
“You would lie to your oldest friend so brazenly?” Zachary laughed.
“I would when he is prying,” Philip replied.
“So, you did steal a moment together?”
“This is tedious, Zachary.” Philip sipped his drink. “Are there no ladies here who have piqued your interest? You are so invested in what is going on with me; I should hate for you to neglect your own chances of a happy union.”
Zachary perked up. “A happy union? You really do like her, then?”
That, at least, Philip had no qualms about answering.
“I do.” He gazed into the amber liquid in his glass, surprised by how true those two words were. “She is… remarkable.”
She softens my rough edges. She brings me a sense of calm I didn’t think I would ever feel again.
He kept that to himself. Private thoughts that were not for sharing.
He had never thought of himself as particularly lucky.
Some might have argued that the fact that he had survived countless battles made him very lucky indeed, but he couldn’t agree.
He had been sent there by the misfortune of his birth, and though he had lived, he had watched good men die.
Friends, comrades, brothers, men who had deserved to survive far more than he did.
Yet Selina made him feel lucky for the first time in his thirty years on this earth. He still did not know who to thank for sending her, but he was glad of the intervention.
“I confess, I have never seen you like this before,” Zachary said. “It suits you.”
Philip waved the remark away and concentrated on his drink and the gentle crackle of the fire.
He could have happily enjoyed the companionable quiet, but a knock at the door denied the gentlemen their mutual peace.
“Come in,” he said, praying it was not a guest from the house party come to request a sample of the good whiskey.
He nearly spilled his whiskey when Mary walked in.
“Apologies, Your Grace.” She bowed her head and half closed the door behind her. “I didn’t realize you had company.”
Philip narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here? I thought I ordered you to leave.”
“You did, Your Grace, and I am departing tomorrow,” Mary replied. “Your grandmother asked for my assistance at the dower house, and I have just finished my last duties. I won’t be bothering you again.”
A wary look raised Philip’s eyebrow. “So, you have come to say farewell?”
“In part,” she answered, her gaze lowered to the floor. Shyer than he had ever seen her.
“I would prefer to say this while you are alone, but no matter,” she continued. “I came to say that I harbor no anger or bitterness toward you. I understand why you had to send me away, and I am glad that my absence will bring Lady Selina greater comfort.”
Philip took a measured sip of his whiskey, wondering if he ought to send Zachary away after all. He did not want an interrogation from his friend afterward.
Then again, Zachary knew he was no saint.
“She will need that comfort,” Mary added, lifting her head. “When she learns that she is nothing but a means to an end, she will need every comfort she can get, and I am only sorry that I have put myself in a position where I will not be able to help her.”
“That is enough,” Philip said coolly.
For someone who claimed they harbored no anger or bitterness, her words said otherwise. Not the tone, which was mild and oddly pleasant, but the sentiment.
“It is not,” she countered defiantly. “I have come to like her, Your Grace, so I feel it is my true last duty to ensure that she doesn’t end up with her heart broken.”
Zachary cleared his throat. “I hardly think this is the time or the place to—”
“I am leaving tomorrow,” Mary interrupted. “It is now or never, and I respect Lady Selina. She has a right to know that she is nothing but your revenge, Your Grace.”
“That is presumptuous of you,” Philip said, treading carefully.
He had heard of servants reacting badly, even dangerously, to an unexpected dismissal.
He had been told by acquaintances of a cook who hurled pots and pans around the kitchen, maids who had raised hell, a housekeeper who had dragged a blade through every curtain she passed, and a gardener who had lopped the top off all of the topiaries in a fit of blind rage.
“Is it?” Mary tilted her head to the side. “Would your father approve of Lady Selina?”
Philip laughed tightly. “Heavens, no.”
“What would he do if he were here?”
“He would try to kill me, probably,” Philip replied with a shrug. “Or her. He would have preferred to burn this entire manor down with everyone in it than see me marry her, of all people.”
Of course, he could see what she was getting at, but she had not been there as feelings had begun to blossom between him and Selina. He could not see into his chest and witness the thaw that Selina had started in his frozen heart.
“That can’t mean nothing to you,” Mary said. “That must feel satisfying.”
Philip sighed. “It is not without its merits.” He leveled a hard stare at her. “But I have come to care for her. That matters more to me than any petty revenge on a dead man.”
Surely, that would be enough to silence her?
“Say that I believe you,” Mary replied. “How can you possibly care for her as she deserves when you don’t plan to give her any children? That will be a heartbreak all its own.”
“That is enough,” Philip repeated, harsher this time.
But Mary shook her head. “Is it not the truth? When we were together, you took great care to avoid getting me with child, and I know it was the same with all the women before me. The battlefield comforts.”
Her smile was a cold thing as she continued, “Don’t you remember that night after you had too much of that whiskey in your hand, when you told me you wanted your father’s bloodline to end with you?”
“I told you no lies,” he confirmed icily, “but this is none of your concern. The matter of children is between me and my betrothed.”
Mary nodded slowly. “The matter of no children, you mean?”
“Leave, Mary.” He shot her a glare that used to make grown men tremble. “You are done here. You should have left when I told you, but you cannot be blamed for my grandmother’s whims. That being said, if you are not out of this manor, this estate, by morning, I shall have you removed by force.”
Mary’s lips curled into a nasty smirk. “I am glad to be leaving, Your Grace, when you treat the women who care for you so despicably. But I could not have lived with myself if I hadn’t said something before I left, for Lady Selina’s sake.
If you can’t give her what she will undoubtedly want, you ought to let her go find a man who can. ”
She didn’t wait for his scathing rebuke. Turning on her heel, she left the study with a slam of the door.
From the opposite armchair, Zachary puffed out a breath. “Something I should know about?”
“Do you need to know any more?”
Zachary seemed to consider the question. “I suppose not.” He paused. “I didn’t realize you were… involved with one of your servants, that’s all.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Philip snapped, his patience paper-thin.
“Like what?” Zachary put up his hands in defense.
“As if I were like my father, chasing and ruining every pretty young thing that crossed his path.” Philip bristled at the thought and wondered if he was like his father.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your face did.” Philip downed the contents of his glass and reached to pour himself another.
“I had not long returned from war. The manor was in disarray. My sister was unruly, my grandmother indifferent to the chaos, my father’s ghost still lingering.
I was full of fury, of the things I had seen, and how meaningless everything else was when men were dying every day on battlefields that I had been sent to and then snatched from.
“Against all odds, I found purpose there. I was worth something with a musket in my hand and brothers-in-arms around me. Then, I came back, and I was… just a duke, handed a title that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, expected to act in a way I hadn’t in years.”
“You don’t have to explain, Philip,” Zachary said gently, a flicker of worry in his eyes.
“Everything was so frivolous and difficult, and I thought I would go mad,” Philip continued anyway. “I needed a distraction, and Mary was there—willing, warm, comforting, a remedy to my rage. She understood what it was, but then…”
“Selina came?”
Philip nodded. “I had no intention of continuing things with Mary. She and I hadn’t lain together in some time anyway, but Selina learned of it, and I knew what I had to do. I don’t want to hurt her ever.”
“I think that is a good sign,” Zachary said encouragingly. “A sign of a happy union to come.”
Philip sank back and sipped his refreshed drink more conservatively.
“It truly isn’t about revenge. I am not certain it ever was.
For a moment, maybe, but… I don’t care about that wretched man anymore.
All I hope is that he is suffering in hell.
He has no place in my future, and I want my future to be with her. ”
“But… what about children?” There was a wariness in Zachary’s voice, the hesitation of someone who feared they were about to have their head bitten off.
Philip shook his head.
“The maid was right about that?” Zachary pressed with caution.
With a sad smile, Philip nodded. “I won’t risk it.”
“Does Selina know?”
“No, and now I am uncertain if it is too late to tell her,” Philip replied. “When this began, I anticipated a marriage of convenience. Separate lives. An easier path to a life without children.”
“You should tell her,” Zachary advised. “She deserves to be allowed to make her own choice.”
The whiskey tasted bitter in Philip’s mouth. “I know that.”
But I don’t know how.
He swallowed another mouthful, feeling it burn in his stomach.
How can I tell her without losing her?
He had already lost enough, but perhaps he should have known that his luck was only temporary. A trick to allow him a glimpse of a happy life before it was snatched away. A last punishment from his father from beyond the grave.