TWENTY-FIVE #2
But even if she recanted her words tomorrow, the doubt was now planted.
Yes, Matt loved her more than his next breath, but he wouldn’t marry her under duress.
He had thought that he didn’t care. That he would be grateful to have her, no matter the reason.
But the sentiment was false, he realized.
He wanted her to yearn for their life together as much as he did.
He wanted them to enter marriage equal in their love and desire for each other.
Matt bit into his scone. It clung like sawdust to his tongue. He dropped it back onto his plate.
“Has anyone ever wanted me?” he asked. The words came out quiet, almost conversational.
“Good grief, Matt,” Gray snorted. “What mawkish nonsense is this? That must have been one hellish argument with your lady love. No need to race straight to self-pity.”
“It was hardly an argument, Gray. More like a slap of reality. I ask the question sincerely.”
“If you’ve ever been wanted?” Gray sounded bored.
Matt was anything but bored. “I know our parents wished to leave me on a hill to die as an infant, as the Romans did with deformed young. Nurse certainly mentioned it enough. I even overheard Mother intimate as such once.”
“Our mother is a trollop without much in the way of a conscience or the ability to sympathize with others.” Gray did not attempt to hide his rancor. “She is the last person I would look to for a credible assessment of self.”
Ah.
Matt should have known better than to mention their mother. But in for a pound . . .
Might as well deal with all the messiness at once.
“What have you decided to do about her . . . about Mother, that is?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Gray sipped his tea rather aggressively. “I will ignore her pleas for assistance. She made her choice nearly fifteen years ago. There is no undoing it, no matter how much she may wish otherwise. She is legally dead to us and will remain in the grave she dug for herself.”
They sat in silence for a long moment.
Gray relaxed back in his chair, hazel eyes staring broodily into the fire.
“You’re wrong, you know,” he finally said.
Matt lifted an eyebrow. “About what?”
Surely Gray’s list of all the ways Matt was lacking could fill a library. Or, at the very least, a fine set of Dr. Johnson’s dictionaries.
“Father adored you. You were his favorite.” Gray said the words with an emphatic finality. The way one might declare a joint of roast beef sublime, or admire the gait of a particularly fine filly.
Incontrovertible truths.
“Pardon?”
“Father. He took inordinate pride in you. Your confidence in the saddle. Your steady, quiet character. You two were birds of a feather.” Gray bounced his foot.
“I’ll be honest—I was rather wild with jealousy at times.
How Father would always wait for you in the stables and pull you up before him on his stallion.
He rarely did so with me. Do you remember your first horse? ”
“Jennings?”
“Yes. I was incensed that Father gave him to you.”
“You said Jennings was a third-rate hack better suited for the slaughterhouse!”
“Of course I did! I was sick with envy and furious at being denied. Father had granted you the superior animal. I confronted him on it, and he told me that when I sat a horse as competently as you, he would give me a better mount.” Gray rolled his eyes.
Odd, Matt mused, that a simple statement could completely alter how he thought of himself and his relationship with his father. Akin to how the slightest shift in light could utterly change the color of a familiar painting.
Yes, he strongly resembled his father, both in looks and personality. He had long known they were similar creatures, the two of them.
But he had never once considered that those very traits would endear him to his sire.
Matt had always assumed that his missing arm defined him as the demon spawn who had tainted the family line.
His throat grew tight to think that his defect might not have been as large an impediment in his father’s view as it was in Matt’s own.
Gray fixed him with his hazel gaze . . . their father’s eyes. One of the scant ways Gray resembled their sire. “You were always wanted, Matt. Never forget it.”
That marked the kindest thing Gray had ever said to him.
More silence.
Matt stared into the fire until he was confident he had a hold on his emotions.
“What of Isla?” he asked into the quiet.
Gray hadn’t spoken with their sister since her marriage to Tavish Balfour. Matt suspected it was because Isla was the absolute image of their mother and a stark reminder of their mother’s choices. And, of course, a betrayal of their family’s feud with the Balfours.
Gray’s expression shuttered—a castle portcullis slamming home. “What of Isla?”
“Her birth is no more her fault than my own. She does not deserve to be punished for our mother’s sins.”
“My quarrel with Isla is none of your affair, Matt.”
“I know. But Wee Fletch is a delight, and I eagerly look forward to meeting Elspeth. It’s a tragedy that you refuse to know your nephew and niece.”
“Balfour’s offspring, you mean,” Gray spat. “Stick to your own problems, Brother. Leave me to mine.”
Matt stifled a sigh. Like their father before him, Gray was a mass of contradictions. Magnanimous when moved upon, but generally displaying the flexibility of stone on matters he disapproved. His ability to hold a grudge was astounding.
“Are you truly going to marry her?” Gray continued. “This Armstrong woman?”
“If she’ll have me.” Even Matt could hear the doubt in his voice.
“I thought she already accepted your proposal of marriage?”
“She did. But Drempton’s arrival has spooked her, and she worries that we would not be marrying for the correct reasons. I, of course, will not force her to the altar.”
“That is probably for the best,” Gray sniffed.
Matt bit his tongue and looked away.
“Nothing to say?” Gray continued. “No defense of your lady love?”
“I don’t expect you to understand love, Gray,” Matt said the words without hint of accusation.
Gray flinched nonetheless. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Matt frowned at his brother’s vitriol. “Just that . . . having never been in love yourself . . . I can’t see . . .”
He drifted off as past scenes flitted through his memory. Gray staring at Lady Mariah Balfour like she was an oasis in a desert. Gray inhaling and looking away, jaw clenched, when her name was mentioned.
Perhaps . . . perhaps Matt had misspoken.
“What is love anyway?” Gray tossed up a hand.
“Love?” Matt lifted his brows. “Love is waking up, aware there is no one with whom you would rather share your day. It’s trusting the other person with the deepest, most tender parts of yourself and knowing they will guard them with care.
At its best, it’s finding someone who appreciates your passions and interests. ”
“Your Mrs. Armstrong is horse mad, is she?”
“You say that mockingly, but yes, actually. She is a remarkable horsewoman and has helped me immensely with my horse training.”
Gray stewed on this information, gaze lost in the fire.
“You can’t marry her, Matt. Surely you see that. She’s a housekeeper, for pity’s sake, not a lady.”
“I disagree. She was born a lady and remains one still. She married Drempton’s cousin and heir. If she had a son, he would be Drempton’s heir apparent. So don’t tell me that she isn’t a worthy lady.”
“You are deliberately missing the point. Her choices have utterly soiled her. She abandoned her husband and the marital duties legally owed him. She debased herself by going into service. Yes, a lady must be born into gentility, but it’s not a God-given right. Behavior matters.”