by Sophia Nash
Rory turned his head to find . . . James Fitzroy, the infamous Duke of Candover, sitting on a padded leather chair, one leg crossed over the other, not a hair out of place, his eyes narrowed to slits as he puffed on a cheroot.
For a few moments the face of the man Rory had once considered a brother was obscured by a cloud of smoke.
“Still writing, I see.” James coolly glanced toward Verity’s note, which Rory held in his hand. “One would have thought you would quit by now.”
“I could say the same to you regarding that filthy thing between your fingers.” Rory stood his ground. It was the only way.
The silence grew deafening. Now he knew where Verity had learned that silent way of hers. James was far better at it than she.
He finally strode to where her brother reclined and stood a few inches from his knees.
James inhaled from the cheroot, examined the butt before tossing it in the grate, and then slowly stood up. Then, as slowly, he exhaled the pungent smoke in Rory’s face.
Rory didn’t bat an eye.
“There is only one reason I’m not tossing your rutting arse in after that cheroot,” James grit out. “Shall I tell you what it is, or would you prefer not to know?”
“I can see you want to tell me, and I’m happy to oblige.”
“I don’t know what sort of hold you have on the Prince Regent, but when I sort it out, you can be sure you won’t live to see another day. Are we clear?”
“That’s a threat, not a reason.”
“The Prince Regent informed me, upon my return from Kress’s nightmarish house party, that I was not to touch you.”
“And you’re willing to abide by our ruler’s commands? Good to know.”
“Well, unlike some of his subjects, I understand the notion of loyalty. You’ve never understood any part of the concept.”
They were beak-to-beak, and neither flinched.
Rory’s sense of smell had always been keen, and the scent of his old friend’s shaving soap reached his nostrils. His gut clenched.
He took one step back.
James chuckled without an ounce of hilarity.
“How much longer?” Rory asked.
“Will I tolerate your presence?”
“No,” Rory replied. “Until you realize you are still pining for someone who did not exist.”
Rory could see the muscle of James’s jaw tighten.
In one swift motion James grabbed Rory’s ill-fashioned neckcloth and twisted it. “If you think I will ever let you have my sister, you are out of your murdering mind. Prinny be damned.”
“Catharine never loved you,” Rory ground out, despite his limited air supply. He refused to stop James.
James twisted the neckcloth an inch more.
“She didn’t love me either,” Rory rasped.
James’s eyes narrowed.
“But most of all,” he whispered, “she didn’t love herself.”
All at once Verity’s brother released him, his face ghostly pale.
“James . . .” He gathered his thoughts. “I told you I accepted full responsibility for her death. I didn’t ask for your pardon then and I never will. I don’t have the right.”
At least James was listening. It was a start.
“The only thing I can do is tell you the truth,” Rory continued. “She was a wild and beautiful creature whose only passion came from the chase. It was a game. She dabbled in securing a gentleman’s love and devotion, and then when she had it, she became disinterested. But the moment a man began to walk away, she’d resume the chase. Yet I understood it, and I understood why.”
He waited.
“Don’t you remember her parents?”
“What about them?”
Rory shook his head. “The earl was old enough to be her grandfather.”
“A respected gentleman in every way,” James insisted.
“A respected, rich aristocrat who marries a beautiful destitute lady nearly forty years his junior is a lecherous bastard in my book,” Rory continued, “and it creates a mother who teaches her daughters the art of marrying up since security is all.”
James crossed his arms over his chest and glanced down at the floor. “When did you begin with her?” His voice was so tense Rory had to lean down to hear him.
“That’s not important.”
James quickly glared at him. “Of course it is, you ass. She was engaged to me. And you were one of only two men I considered—” James stopped.
Well, the insults were less biting, but sadly he knew he had to risk the small gain. Only the painful truth would cure his friend. “I fell for her charms when she was fifteen.”
A log broke in the massive fireplace, sending sparks in every direction.
James Fitzroy, the premier duke in England, sagged. “Before me,” he ground out.
Rory nodded. “A bit.”
“Two years is a lifetime when you’re that age,” Candover said, regaining his posture. “Why in bloody hell didn’t you tell me?”
“What did it matter? She was dead.”
“No, you idiot. Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with her?”
“Because we were juveniles masquerading as men.”
“You might be an idiot, Rory, but you were never juvenile. That state was reserved for your parents. You were the only adult in that former crumbling wreck of a manor.”
“How soon one forgets your extraordinary talent with compliments.” Rory scratched the back of his neck.
The silence in the room was killing him. He knew James so well. Candover was mulling it all over in that mulish nob of his. His pigheadedness was legendary. It was second only to his generosity of spirit.
It was why Rory had always admired him, always wished he was like him when they were young. They were opposites on the first trait, while Rory had always wished to be able to match James’s other attribute.
James’s face finally relaxed. “This still doesn’t mean I’ll let you have my sister.”
Well, it was a start, thought Rory. He might have dodged death by dagger, but life without Verity was little better. “Understood,” said the master of diplomacy and deceit.
James paused, then suddenly squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples with one hand. “No you don’t.”
Again the silence. Well, Rory thought, it was better than the lists that took forever and a day to read. He shoved that damn thing of hers into his pocket.
“Look,” James began, “I won’t have her hurt.”
“On that we agree.”
“She is different from the rest of us—my other sisters and I.”
“I figured that out already.”
“She might be petite but her compassionate spirit is stronger than the rest of us combined. And her heart is always in the right place. She refuses to see the bad in anyone—even if it is to her detriment. She knows right from wrong to the nth degree and never shies away from admitting mistakes. And she’ll do anything to avoid giving pain to another person. And finally, unlike the rest of the scientific and algebraic Fitzroys, she is the most creatively imaginative person I know. I only wish she would harness her talent and put it to use.”
“Um, you might want to reconsider that last wish.”
James raised his brows.
“And I would describe her creative imagination as more of a desire to bare the truth at any cost—in an original and amusing fashion—except to the unknowing victims under observation.” Rory kept his smile in check. “But that part about doing something to her detriment is spot on.”
Candover furrowed his brow in anger. “Sounds rather insulting, put that way.”
“Absolutely not.”
Others, who did not know them, would never guess that the layers of frost between them were melting a fraction of a degree with each passing minute.
Rory took a chance. “Jay?” It was the name he had always used in their youth.
The other man didn’t answer.
“I love her
,” Rory said quietly.
He had never seen the unflappable Duke of Candover startled. This was a first. James was not silent—he was speechless, a vastly different state.
“And I will promise to protect her, cherish her, and guard her with my life.” It might just come down to that, the way things were looking.
Her brother still appeared dazed.
So Rory kept talking, but lowered his voice. “I know about the fortune-hunting tooth-drawer’s son. And she does not know but I have already taken steps to find the bastard and extract justice.”
James cut in. “Don’t bother. He’s already dead.”
Rory started. “I see. Well then. I can only give you my word that I will always love her, protect her, and cherish her until—”
“You know I’m not a minister, right?” James’s rare smile appeared for but a moment. “And she has to be present for it to count.”
He ignored him. “Jay, I will never bruise her heart.”
“That is my fear,” Candover admitted slowly. “She might be strong, but she has a weakness. When she gives her heart, she does it unreservedly. And if that person dies, a part of her is lost.”
“I know someone just like her,” Rory murmured, looking directly at his lost friend found, who had eyes just like hers.
“She just—” James exhaled slowly. “—never fully regained her happiness after our mother died a decade ago.”
When she had been seventeen. He thought he might be ill. A sudden certainty engulfed Rory’s gut. “During the summer?”
James nodded once. “The June solstice.”
God. It was the day after Verity had lost her innocence in the maze. And most likely her mother had guessed but her brother did not know. And would never know if he had anything to say about it.
It would kill James if he knew her innocence had been taken by that blackguard.
“Well,” Rory continued evenly, “you know I cannot promise not to die. But I can promise to never again drink that bloody frog firewater Kress provided that god-awful night, and I won’t swim with swans in the Serpentine again—by the by, wasn’t Norwich chased by one of those white buggers?”
When James pursed his lips to hide a smile, Rory knew he had him, and so he muddled on. “Well, Seventeen lived through it so let’s not ever let the Duke of Duck forget it. Now, where was I?”
“The list of all the things you will not do to avoid getting yourself killed, and a promise to make her happy.”
Lord, Rory thought, he was apparently already making lists like a Fitzroy. “Right. Shall we just cut to the end? I will attempt to keep out of harm’s way to the extent possible.”
“A true, lying diplomat in every way,” James muttered.
The two men stared at each other. Both were of the same height, with the same width shoulders and the same dark, dark hair. The only difference was their eyes. James’s were brown and held untold truths, while Rory’s were green and world weary.
“So will you honor me with your blessing, Jay—reluctant though it may be?”
“You don’t know her at all, if you think my blessing will help you win her.”
Rory finally exhaled with a smile. His friend was back. “Shall we have a brandy, then?”
James whacked him on the back in a show of brotherly affection or strength. Rory wasn’t sure which, but who was he to care. He had just won the longest stand-off in history.
Candover gestured with his arm in an “after you” movement toward the doorway. Rory led the way toward the ducal study he had once visited on a near daily basis all those years ago.
A growl sounded from his back. “And by the by, brother, if I find you again in my sister’s bed before the wedding?” James paused. “I will—”
Rory turned and faced his newfound friend. “Jay?”
“Yes?”
“You know I love you, right?”
It was funny how fast one little four-lettered word could render the greatest of men into mortar statues glued together with horror and mortification.
Yes, Verity had taught Rory well the ridiculous way that one word could paralyze the strongest of men.
For the next day and a half, Rory worked nearly straight through. The serious cramp in his hand began only after the first six hours passed.
And so it went. Sunlight by day, candlelight at dusk, full candelabra at night—all at his desk by the window. His old window, the one in his room from his boyhood. Not that anything had changed since returning here.
He would never reside in the rooms his parents had occupied. They had always been and always would remain people he would never know or understand.
Not by his choice.
His childhood hadn’t scarred him. He had thought that all parents lived separate lives from their offspring while residing in the same house—until he met James’s mother and father.
His best friend’s family had been his salvation then, and now Rory would return the favor and become the Fitzroys’ salvation.
He lifted his head from the paper lying on his desk. He had fallen asleep. He hoped he didn’t have ink spots on his forehead. There was only so much sleep a man in his advanced years could miss before he fell like an oak.
He glanced at the words he had written.
The curlicues at the end of each capital letter in the alphabet were going to kill him.
He sighed heavily, arched his back to relieve the stiffness, trimmed the quill, and dipped it back into the India ink. He paused for a moment and studied the crumpled paper next to him.
And then applied words to the page. For another six hours he continued to write, until there were no more words to say.
He rang for his butler.
She still had not finished what she needed to do if she stood a chance of success, and a sense of completion toward her obligations to her family and the people who depended on her. For three days and nights she had worked to finish every last task. She even attended to the future needs of the boys heading to Eton.
Verity sat at the desk she had occupied for so many hours of all the many days since her mother had died and she’d assumed all of the duties of hostess of Boxwood.
At first she hated the role. But it had been her penance.
She had caused her mother’s distress that day.
She alone.
And the shock of it had stopped her mother’s frail heart. Verity accepted that she was ultimately responsible.
That was why she had sat in this old, empty, beautiful room, away from everyone else, performing the duties her mother had not liked either.
Her mother had constantly said that a moment indoors was a moment wasted. Verity smiled at the memory.
Remembering her didn’t pain her nearly so much anymore.
And the oddest thing was, the household duties had taken on a certain charm as the years sped forward. There was a certain rhythm to the calendar of a grand estate such as Boxwood. And rhythm brought harmony and . . . peace.
Verity studied the latest list of things to do that the housekeeper had suggested. It might just be the last time she would do this, and so she took care and joy in the small task.
Her time in Derbyshire was limited. She was balancing the need to carefully plot her course against the worry that Rory would do something he had no right to do.
Her short snatches of sleep had been plagued by visions of Rory running toward the broken form of Catherine Talmadge, whose death had triggered a guilt in him that lasted fourteen years. She would not let that happen again. When she did what she planned, she would not allow him an inch of guilt.
Verity had given herself less than a handful of days to accomplish far too much. She filled short parts of them with Rory for the sheer joy of being with him, and more importantly, to keep an eye on him. She even stooped to wheedling his stable master to send a note if he left the estate.
She also interviewed the three candidates to replace Miss Woods and herself at the school, and during the first night she secret
ly finished packing her two trunks, even if she still had to figure out a way to drag them out to the stable without anyone seeing.
She also still had to finish the letters to each of her sisters and the longer one to James, and finally had to put on a very convincing act toward Rory that she wasn’t going to do what she was, in fact, going to do.
She had already gathered her nerve to write the greatest love letter and good-bye in the history of mankind.
Today was to be a day where she had to endure the weight of the world with an innocent smile on her face while she entertained a long dinner table filled with neighboring families, now that her brother had become once again the acknowledged crown jewel bachelor in Derbyshire.
Verity feathered her chin with the quill’s soft end and reviewed the chef’s proposed menu.
She hoped Rory liked roasted asparagus, quail eggs in gelatin, and goose. Of course there was not a single pea to be found. The chef knew better now. Five courses later the menu was done. Another three hours later and everything had been neatly crossed off the long list of duties to see to.
There was really only one last important thing she had to do today before she could escape to the outside world she loved. And it was not on the list.
Verity reached into the drawer with her small key, lifted the board, and removed the stack of red leather volumes.
She ran her fingers over the labor of ridiculous ramblings through the years and could not help but feel pride despite everything.
She carefully replaced the inner workings of the drawer, pushed back her chair, swept her dark blue lawn morning gown’s skirting behind her and stood up slowly. Grasping the small stack, she crossed to the crackling fire housed by the beautiful gray marble mantel.
Verity stood before the fire for a long time.
And then she tossed the volumes into the blaze, one by one, and watched her years of work catch fire and turn to cinder.
She should have felt relieved that now she would never have to ensure they stayed hidden again. Instead she felt ill, as if she had lost part of herself. The part no one would ever know existed.
And yet a small part of her sensed freedom. Freedom from the past.
