Chapter 3 #2
‘You want the truth? Very well. Eveline and I do not want the same things. She is reckless, stubborn, incapable of accepting a warning without turning it into a declaration of war, and if it occurs to her that some senseless act is necessary to prove she is mistress of her own life, she will not stop though the whole world be watching her. She does not listen, she does not weigh the consequences, and when she feels wounded she hurls herself against the first obstacle as though she could break it by sheer obstinacy. And then there is her tongue—so full of venom that a serpent would be no match for her. And the entire blame for her being this way is yours and yours alone.’
Statony drew himself up.
‘Careful—you are speaking of my sister. This will turn very ugly if you keep on down that road.’
Yet Arden, who also knew when a man was about to spring, did not have the good sense to stop and went on speaking:
‘And yes, she is mad. Utterly mad. She slips away from a party at which there are guests from half the county. Do you think I would marry her if I had a choice?’
The duke stepped back, because he was at his limit and did not trust himself.
‘Do not call her mad again. And I must remind you that no one was holding a pistol to your head; you could have refrained from kissing her. For the love of God, Arden! What I witnessed was no simple kiss. You were plundering her!’ He no longer knew how many times he had repeated it, though he was sure many more remained to him.
‘Do you want me to lie? Your sister is a disaster with pretty eyes and a supernatural ability to push a man to the brink of madness. She is mad, she drives me mad, and now my life will be a calvary because I was unable to restrain myself!’ he shouted with force.
Statony’s punch arrived before Arden had finished exhaling.
It was not an elegant blow. Nor did it mean to be. It caught him on the jaw and sent the chair toppling backward. Arden rose at once, brought a hand to his face, and looked at the duke with an absolute incredulity that lasted a fraction of a second.
The earl returned the blow at once.
Statony took the impact on his cheekbone and stumbled back until he struck the desk. An inkwell overturned, several letters slid to the floor, and the brandy glass rocked from side to side.
For a few seconds, they ceased to be a duke and an earl. They were not even friends.
There stood two furious men, two rivals who had found the exact point where loyalty had broken and turned to violence.
Statony seized him by the coat, Arden shoved him against the table, another chair fell with a crash that must have been heard in the corridor, and the two of them grappled amid inelegant blasphemies.
‘You have kissed my little sister,’ growled Statony, holding him firmly by the lapels.
‘I know that already!’ barked the earl.
‘You have kissed my sister and on top of it you dare tell me she is mad and that you did not wish to marry her.’
‘Because she is, and I did not.’ He reaffirmed it.
Statony shoved him again, but Arden caught hold of him before the blow could be repeated.
‘Damn you, I will not allow you to ruin her life.’
‘And even so I am going to marry her, and you will accept it!’ he shouted with all his fury.
That stopped them. Not at once, but enough for the fight to lose its force.
Statony was breathing with difficulty; Arden had a split lip and a reddened jaw.
The two of them looked at each other as though they had suddenly remembered they were not a pair of boys brawling behind a tavern, but grown men, noblemen, and supposedly endowed with an exemplary upbringing they had just dishonored in a rather censurable manner.
Statony was the first to let go of his friend’s lapels.
Then Arden did the same.
Neither apologized for what had passed.
The duke ran a hand over his cheekbone and looked at the disaster reigning in the study. The ink was beginning to spread over a parliamentary memorandum. For once, that mattered to him very little.
‘I cannot let you marry her. I will not condemn either of you. Eveline has always detested you, and it is clear you do not want her. I do not understand the reason you were kissing each other, but I am certain it has been a mistake for you both,’ he said at last.
Arden tensed at once.
‘What did you say?’
Statony picked up the empty brandy glass, looked at it as though he did not remember having drunk from it, and set it back where it was.
‘I will find a way to free you from the engagement. I do not know how I shall manage it, but I will. You will not marry her.’ He reaffirmed it.
Arden’s reaction was immediate.
He crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, seized him by the lapels, and pushed him against the nearest wall.
‘You will do nothing of what you have just said.’
Statony did not try to push him off. He was too astonished to react. He did not understand the cause of that fresh burst of violence in the man who had always been the most trustworthy in his circle. The earl looked like a bloodthirsty murderer who had just decided to take a duke’s life.
‘Release me, Arden,’ he ordered.
‘I will not until you swear to me that you will not intervene.’
‘Arden, have you gone mad?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘You are not going to take me from her, nor will I allow you to take her from me. ’
The earl’s voice was charged with anger, desire, and a possessiveness so evident that Statony, even with his cheekbone throbbing, began at last to glimpse a part of the disaster before him.
‘You just said it would be a doomed marriage,’ he reminded him gently, without trying to defend himself from the attack.
‘It will be.’
‘Then I will not permit it.’
‘She is mine! And neither you nor anyone will tear her from me,’ he shouted with force.
Statony pressed his lips together.
‘Be careful what you say.’
‘No. Hear me well. I have made a mistake, yes. I have lost my head, I have kissed your sister when I should not have, and before those who ought never to have seen it, but I am not going to step aside and let another man take the place I have just claimed. Eveline will marry me, or she will marry no one,’ he pronounced.
The duke did not answer, for he certainly did not know what to reply to that decree.
Arden released him, but did not move far off.
‘I do not understand you. I am truly trying to comprehend you, but I find it impossible,’ the duke argued calmly.
‘The last thing I had ever wanted was to be made the eternal nursemaid of a woman who detests me and is so reckless,’ he continued, his voice low and fierce at once.
‘She is stubborn, she defies me constantly, she drives me out of my wits with an ease that ought to shame me, and she has an exceptional talent for finding the one road that leads to disaster. I know that accepting the task of watching over her and protecting her is going to end very badly. I know it, Statony. I know it better than you.’
‘Well then?’
‘Despite that certainty, I know I cannot leave her in other hands. ’
‘Why?’ he tried to goad him.
‘Because only I am capable of managing her.’
Statony looked at him as though he had just heard a confession far more alarming than having witnessed a scandal.
Arden could not tear his gaze from his best friend. He did not want to, even though he was certain the duke would be seeing the reflection of his soul.
And indeed that was what was happening. Statony began then to understand what he had not wanted to see in the garden, what had perhaps been going on for years beneath the surface of every reproach, every excessive vigilance, every look Arden directed at Eveline masked beneath the most absolute indifference.
His friend had not spoken to him like a man trapped.
He was a condemned man who was lost. Lost over Eveline!
Love? Could it be love, or only desire? Lust?
God! He did not want to ask himself that question, for the very idea turned his stomach. She was his little sister!
Nathaniel took a step back, set his coat to rights with brusque movements, and drew a long breath as though he had just won a battle that condemned him—but to heaven or to hell?
Statony no longer knew what to think about Arden’s relationship with Eveline.
The earl walked towards the door and, before going out, turned to look at the duke.
‘I will leave for London at once to obtain a special license. We will marry before the rumors begin to spread in earnest. ’
‘Arden…’
‘Do not try to undo it, Statony. It is decided and done. Remember that when I make a decision I am as implacable as you. ’
‘I certainly do not understand you.’
Arden rested his hand on the knob.
‘There is no need for you to. I have already made my position clear. Eveline is mine, and mine alone she will be,’ he insisted, in case any doubt remained.
He opened the door and left the study without waiting for anything more.
Statony was left alone and ran a hand over his brow.
Arden had kissed his sister.
And that was not the most worrying part.
The most astonishing thing about the matter was that the duke was beginning to suspect his friend had spent years wanting to do it. Then why did he not rejoice over the marriage?
Good God!
What the devil was happening between his sister and his best friend?