“She asked me to do it!” Henry said, his tone sharpening just slightly. “She wrote me a letter telling me she didn’t love me and couldn’t marry me. In it, she begged me to call it off, to leave her at the aisle. I knew it might ruin her, but I also knew it was what she wanted. What we both wanted…”
“I know,” Lucien said. “I read her letter to you, and I have also spoken to her about it at length.”
A shadow of guilt passed across her face, and he shifted. “How is she?” he asked. “Is she… upset? Relieved? Have the gossip columns caught wind of it yet? I do hope she won’t be ruined…”
Henry’s large, round gray eyes were so full of earnest worry that Lucien almost felt bad about the news he had to deliver. Almost. It was his brother’s doing, however, and he ought to know the consequences of it.
“Her state of mind is unclear,” he said after a moment. “But she is at least saved from ruin.”
“She is? How?”
“She married someone else.”
Henry’s jaw fell open. “What? Who? She never mentioned anything about--”
“Me. She is married to me.”
A beat passed. Another shocked silence.My whole life has become one shocked silence.And then Henry sat down heavily in his chair, a stunned look on his face.
“You?” he whispered, looking up at Lucien. “But… why?”
“Because I could not allow you to tarnish our family name,” Lucien said. “Nor could I allow my younger brother to ruin a respectable young lady. I had to do something or everyone would suffer.”
“But… now you and Emery will suffer most of all!”
Lucien narrowed his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
Henry spread his hands wide, as if this were obvious. “You two are the most incompatible people I could ever put together. Emery is light-hearted and funny. She’s a bit mischievous, really, although she never got a chance to act on it. And she’s fun! She loves to dance and stay up late. Her biggest regret is not getting to spend every Season in London having adventures. Whereas you…”
Henry didn’t need to finish that sentence. Both of them knew what he thought of Lucien. Over the years, the brothers had clashes more times than Lucien liked to remember. Henry was charming and gregarious, a dreamer, full of ideals and ambitions but no willpower to see them through, no discipline. He was, in Lucien’s opinion, lazy and spoiled. Whereas Henry thought Lucien was uptight, cold, mirthless, and even cruel. He had told him so on more than one occasion.
Well, someone has to protect this family! He’d wanted to shout during all those arguments.And protecting one’s family takes discipline, control, and yet, sometimes cruelty. Not that I would have to be cruel if you would be less foolish in your choices.
But he’d never said those things. If Lucien had one fear that out-trumped all the rest, it was tearing apart his family by saying or doing the wrong thing. So, he always suppressed his anger and let it seethe underneath an exterior of cool indifference.
Henry, seeming to realize that he’d rekindled these old arguments, flushed. “I just mean to say that Emery is very different from you. She’s not as serious. She’s a bit mischievous.”
“Well, if you admire her character so much, why didn’t you marry her?” Lucien snapped, and his brother flushed.
“I hold Emery in the highest regard,” he said, standing up straighter. “But she is like a sister to me. To marry her felt wrong on every level. And…” he paused, and the flush deepened in his cheeks. “There is someone else. A young lady to whom I have formed a deep attachment. There is no understanding, of course.I could say nothing while I was engaged to Lady Emery--er, Her Grace. But now that I am free, I should very much like your permission to follow my heart.”
To follow my heart.
Lucien felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. After everything he had told his brother, after all the ways in which he’d tried to protect him, all the ways he’d sacrificed for him, now this?
“Do I have to remind you,” he began, through gritted teeth, “of what happened the last time someone in this family decided to marry for love?”
Henry’s shy, hesitant smile vanished, and he glared across the room at Lucien. “Mama and Papa, you mean? No, you don't have to tell me: they had five wonderful children and, although they died too young, got to share their lives with a partner they loved deeply.”
“They ignored us!” Lucien shouted. He could feel himself losing control of his temper, of his carefully constructed aloofness, but he couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “They may have given birth to five children but they didn’t care about us once we were born! They completely abandoned us and our upbringings, running off together whenever they could on expensive, elaborate holidays abroad, or spending the entire Season in London and never visiting us back at the Castle. They were selfish, completely wrapped up in one another, and unableto meet the needs of their children, who should have been their first priority!”
“Not this again,” Henry said, shaking his head. “I know that you have your issues with Mama and Papa, but just because they could be a bit self-involved doesn’t mean everyone is like that when in love! It doesn’t mean I will make their same mistakes if I marry for love!”
“Their mistakes?” Lucien snarled. “They completely failed in their duty to take care of us! I had to do everything. If it weren’t for me, you and our sisters wouldn’t have had enough food to put on the table. I was the one out there, collecting rents at just ten years old, while they were in London spending all our money. I was the one staying up with Leah whenever she had a bad dream, riding through the night to find a doctor when Celeste was sick, teaching you how to behave like a gentleman when I should have been enjoying my childhood!”
Henry’s expression had become softer throughout this speech, and when he spoke, it was much more calmly. “And I’m sorry you had to do all of that, Lucien. Truly, I am. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t marry the woman I love, or that I should be forced into a marriage I don’t want.”
Lucien didn’t respond for a moment. He was still so angry that he was seeing red. Finally, forcing himself to take a deep breath, he said, “Well, thanks to your actions,Iwas forced into a marriage I didn’t want. I was forced to marry a girl I barely know because you could not, for once in your life, put this family first and do your duty.”
