Chapter 12
“So, Peter still hasn’t emerged from wherever he’s hiding?” Gabriel Cely, Duke of Castletown and Leonard’s only true friend, asked.
Leonard leaned back in his chair and surveyed the scene.
The two men were in their favorite gentlemen’s club having a few drinks together.
Gabriel had insisted on it when Leonard had told him that he would soon be leaving town.
They had been friends since their school days, and a long parting really did feel momentous.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for,” Gabriel commented. “It’s not likely he would be here, is it?”
“Not very likely, no,” Leonard admitted.
“Still, a part of me does wonder. You know as well as I that this was one of his favorite clubs. If he was going to emerge from hiding, this would be a likely enough place for him to do it. But, of course, he isn’t very likely to come out of hiding while he knows I’m looking for him. ”
“I’m sure he thinks you’ll be in a proper rage if you do lay hands on him.
” Gabriel was one of very few people who knew the truth about Peter’s disappearance—that there had been an arrangement for his marriage and that he had run out on that arrangement.
Everyone else in society had been given a story involving a whirlwind courtship between Leonard and Prudence, a story that did not involve Peter at all.
No one needed to know that Peter had shirked his duty so egregiously.
If anyone ever found out about that, he’d be ruined and Leonard right along with him.
“I will be in a rage,” Leonard said, taking a swig of his ale. “I can’t believe what he did. Even knowing that it’s Peter, even knowing this is the sort of thing he always does…”
“Yes, one might say you should have expected it,” Gabriel agreed.
“I did think that for one day of his life I might be able to count on him for something! But you’re right. I should have known better. Peter has never been someone to count on. I’m not sure what I was thinking.” Leonard sighed.
“It could be worse, you know,” Gabriel told him.
Leonard raised an eyebrow.
“What I mean is that even though Peter ran off, he left the situation in your very capable hands,” Gabriel clarified.
“And my hands are tired of cleaning up his messes.”
“Still, you have to admit that this particular mess is less objectionable than the others. It’s not like all those times you’ve had to haul him out of bar fights,” Gabriel pointed out. “You ended up married to a beautiful young lady. What more could any man want?”
“I wasn’t looking to marry,” Leonard grumbled. “You know I wasn’t.”
“So much the better for you! A good thing was handed to you without you even having to look for it. I don’t know how you can be anything but grateful for the way things have turned out, Leonard.
If your brother walked in that door right now, I would think you ought to shake his hand and thank him for the situation he left you. ”
“You think I ought to be grateful?” Leonard shook his head. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you had any conception of the things I’ve been through since I brought Prudence home.”
“Is she giving you a difficult time?” Gabriel asked, laughing. “Personally, I feel it’s time someone gave you a run for your money. I say good for her! But what has she done, exactly, that troubles you so much?”
“She’s taken a free hand with the running of the household,” Leonard said. “She really seems to feel as though she can do whatever she likes. She increased the staff’s wages.”
“More than you can afford?”
“Of course not, but even so, to do that sort of thing without asking shows—”
“Shows what? Spirit? I like her already.”
“I was going to say disrespect,” Leonard said. “She has no regard for who is in charge in my household, and she doesn’t care to obey any rules I set down for her.”
“Did you make a rule against increasing your servants’ pay?”
“No, of course not, but… you’re not even trying to understand.”
“Oh, I understand fine,” Gabriel said, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re married, and you don’t know what to do with that. You weren’t ready for it. You’re looking for something to be angry about.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s easier for you! Because you know what to do with anger,” Gabriel said. “You want to be able to say there’s something wrong with her, so you don’t have to be happy about her presence in your life.”
“You’re talking madness right now. You think I don’t want to be happy?”
“I think you want this marriage to be a hardship and not a blessing, yes. I think you want to be angry with Peter for running out on you.”
“I am angry with him for that. Regardless of anything else I might feel about my wife or my circumstances, Peter was out of order, and his actions are reprehensible. They’ll bring us nothing but trouble.”
“Maybe so,” Gabriel agreed. “But how is it going to be if he comes back and finds you married to a lady who is worthy of the role of duchess—a lady who you genuinely like and respect? You know what would happen then. He would tell you he had been right all along to leave and that you should really be thanking him for it.”
He probably would, Leonard realized. He could just see the self-satisfied smirk his brother would wear if he believed everything had worked out for the best. “Fortunately, there’s no need to worry about that,” he told Gabriel.
“I don’t deny that I’ve managed to make the best of the situation, but what Peter won’t find when he comes home is me curled up in some love nest with the lady he abandoned.
It’s not like that between the two of us, nor will it ever be. ”
“You shouldn’t hold yourself back if you do genuinely like her, you know,” Gabriel said. “Don’t let Peter’s opinion of things keep you from happiness if you see an opportunity for it. That would be letting him win.”
“You’re seeing things that aren’t there.
” Leonard took another sip of his drink.
“I’m not keeping her at arm’s length for the sake of making a point to Peter—although I do think that would be more than enough reason to hold back from her if I’m being honest!
But that isn’t it. Neither one of us intended to marry the other.
I promised her a marriage to mitigate the scandal, nothing more.
She lives in my house and is Duchess of Desford, but in all other ways, we are more strangers than we are husband and wife. ”
“I see,” Gabriel mused. “So, you’ve had nothing to do with her?”
“Nothing.”
“I did think it odd that you were willing to leave home so soon after your wedding and escape to the country. Now, I think I see the full picture. You don’t mean to bring her with you, do you?”
“She’ll be much happier in the city.”
“No, that isn’t it. You’re leaving her behind because you don’t want to be a husband to her. You may as well admit everything to me, Leonard.”
“All right, very well, that’s why I’m leaving,” Leonard conceded. “We’ll both be happier living separately. I’ve discussed that with her, and she agrees, so there’s no point in trying to convince me otherwise.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Gabriel said. “Lord knows I’ve never convinced you of anything as long as I’ve known you. You are the most stubborn man alive.”
“Then you should know better than to question me about all this? What do you hope to achieve?”
“Oh, I suppose I’m just a fool when you get right down to it,” Gabriel said. “We ought to get more drinks.”
Leonard waved to a server, who nodded and went to fetch the drinks.
“I suppose the thing I want to know is this,” Gabriel said. “What if Peter was never going to come back?”
“What do you mean? Do you know something? Something to do with his whereabouts? If you do, you ought to tell me at once.”
“You know I would have told you if I knew anything. You know I don’t.
I’m just wondering if it would make a difference to you?
What if you didn’t have to worry about how your brother might respond if he saw that his actions had had a positive consequence?
What if you could develop feelings for your wife and no one would think anything of it? ”
“I still don’t feel that way about her.”
“And you don’t think you ever could?”
“She drives me mad. I’ve told you that. Every moment with her is torture, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Gabriel burst into a loud laugh. “It’s torture?” he guffawed. “She comes after you with thumbscrews, does she?”
Leonard groaned. “You know what I mean,” he said. “You know how ladies can be.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Gabriel countered. “I’m happy in my marriage. You could be too if you gave yourself the option—if you weren’t so insistent on seeing this as the worst thing that could have happened to you. Let yourself get to know her. Let yourself like her.”
“I thought you weren’t going to try to convince me of anything.” Leonard raised an eyebrow as the fresh drinks were placed on their table. “This sounds a lot like convincing to me.”
“All right, all right, point taken,” Gabriel said. He picked up his ale. “A toast, then.”
“A toast?”
“To you and your beautiful wife,” Gabriel said, lifting his glass. “To the adventure ahead for the both of you. You may not realize it yet, Leonard, but marriage is going to bring all kinds of unexpected things your way. This is only the beginning.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Leonard said firmly.
“Once I’ve left town, it will be as if I had never married at all.
I’ll get back to the life of peaceful solitude I was living before all this happened, and I won’t have to spend any more time worrying about Prudence.
I’ll rely on my staff to handle her for me, and that will be that. ”
He clinked his glass against his friend’s with a nod and took a long drink. When he had finished, he saw that Gabriel was still smiling.
“Now what?” he demanded.
“I just think you’re in for some surprises,” Gabriel said.
“No one ever knows, on the day he gets married, what the future is going to hold. No one can ever predict what a marriage is going to look like. You think you do. You think you can see into the years to come, that you know what your life is going to look like, but you have no idea how you’re going to feel about your wife a year from now, let alone five or ten years.
You two are at the very beginning of your story together, in the very first chapter.
You’ll write it page by page, and you might find that the way it unwinds is different from what you’re expecting right now. ”
“That’s pretty talk,” Leonard said. “But to tell you the truth, I think you’re wrong. That might be how your life works, but I have things under control. Nothing is going to happen between myself and Prudence unless I allow it to—unless I choose it.”
He nodded firmly to punctuate his words.
And he was certain he was right. Nothing ever slipped beyond his control.
But even so, Gabriel’s smile remained broad and intact.
It was enough to make Leonard wish that he hadn’t come out at all today. He let out a sigh. “I should get back home,” he said.
“Back to your wife?” Gabriel asked knowingly.
“Back to my work.” Leonard rose to his feet. “You know, I’m not so sure I’ll miss you when I leave London if this is the way you insist on behaving about things.”
“Oh, you will,” Gabriel said. “You may not know it yet, but you’ll come to see just how right I was.”
Leonard opened his mouth to retort, but before he could speak, something caught his eye.
At first, he wasn’t sure why he had noticed the young man who stood in the corner of the room with a drink in his hand.
It was obviously a commoner, to judge by his dress, and no one Leonard had had dealings with before.
He wasn’t doing anything to draw attention to himself.
He was just standing there surveying the room, a small smile on his face, as if he was happy about something that no one else could see.
He turned to leave, but seeing him in profile, Leonard felt a shock of familiarity.
There was something about him. Something that Leonard recognized, even though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
But his curiosity was piqued.
He rose without so much as saying goodbye to his friend and followed the strange young man out the door and onto the street.