“That really is not a very ladylike thing to comment upon,” Lucien said, trying his best to sound affronted. “I taught you better than to mention such things as where a duke and duchess spend the night.”
“Oh, I don’t care about any of that!” Leah cried, throwing up her hands. The carriage began to rumble back along the road toward the house, and Lucien wondered how much time they had until he could escape his sister’s interrogation. “And I don’t think you care about any of it either.” She glared across the carriage at him. “Now tell me. What happened? Why are you both moping around the house, avoiding one another and refusing to tell me what has gone wrong?”
“She hasn’t told you?” he asked, surprised.
“No. So you better tell me the truth. And I’ll know if you’re lying.”
“I have no reason to lie!” Lucien spluttered. “I chose to separate from Emery for perfectly legitimate reasons.”
Leah raised her eyebrows at him. “Such as…?”
“Such as the fact that my feelings for her were blinding me to my duty.”
“What does that mean?” Leah asked. “How have you ever been blind to your beauty?”
“It was the O’Farrell’s garden party,” he said at last, turning away from her. “I took Emery off to the hedge maze in order to have a moment alone, and when I did--well, I can’t tell you exactly what happened, but I found your brother there as well. He had completely abandoned chaperoning you, and I hadn’t realized it, because I was so distracted by my desire to be alone with Emery.”
His cheeks heated as he said it, and embarrassment flooded him. He did not like telling his sister that he had wanted a moment alone with his wife.
But when he looked back at her, it wasn’t embarrassment he saw on her face, it was puzzlement.
“That’s it?” she asked after a moment. “That’s the entire reason why you decided to separate from Emery? Because you didn’t make sure someone wasn’t chaperoning me for five minutes?”
Lucien frowned at her. “Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad, but I assure you, it was! Anything could have happened.”
“What could have happened at a garden party?” Leah countered. “Anyway, I am a responsible young lady; if I had noticed I didn’t have a chaperone, it wouldn’t have induced me to immediately start behaving in an unladylike way. You have taught me well, Lucien. I know how to behave myself. So I don’t see what the problem was.”
“I let myself be distracted!” Lucien said, banging his fist down on the seat beside him. “I shirked my duty! Just as Mama and Papa did when they focused all their attention on one another, abandoning us and nearly bankrupting the estate.”
Leah didn’t say anything for a long moment, but her eyes were very soft and very understanding. Never in his life had he seen his sister look at him like this; like she could actually see him.
“Lucien,” she murmured, and she reached forward and took his hands in hers. “I know that you took on far too heavy a burden when Mama and Papa died. I know that it was too much for a young man, and that you have spent every day since then trying to undo the damage they did. But you are not them. You are not doomed to repeat their mistakes. Anyway, it wasn’t love that made them act irresponsibly.”
“It wasn’t?” Lucien asked, his voice oddly choked.
“Of course not,” she said, shaking her head and laughing slightly. “They were just irresponsible people! If they’d been unhappily married, I’m sure they would have found a way to bankrupt the estate doing other things for themselves, just separately. They were good people, and deep down, I know they loved us very much. But they were selfish. And you are not like that.” Her hands gripped his tighter, and he saw tears fill her eyes.
“It would kill me if you threw away your chance at happiness just because you were afraid of becoming them,” she murmured. “Because trust me: you are not them, and you couldn’t become them if you tried. Emery wouldn’t let you. She would never allow you to shirk your duty for her. You’ve seen how much she cares for us as a family. And if, for some reason, you found yourself getting distracted by your feelings for her--which I very much doubt would happen--she would set you back on the right path.”
Lucien swallowed. His throat still felt tight and raw, but he also felt a strange calmness coming over him. His sister’s words were like a balm over a wound. And he wondered, as they sank deeper into him, if there just might be some truth in them.
“You’ve spent so much of this past year thinking about me making the perfect match,” Leah continued, “that I think you’ve forgotten to ask yourself what you want from a marriage. I will marry, then Celeste will wed, then Eve. Henry is already married! And when we are all gone, who do you want to spend your days with? Because if you ask any of us, Lucien, we will tell you we all want to see you happy with the woman you love. And I believe she’s the woman you married.”
“But--” Lucien thought about what Emery had said to him, about how she wanted a man who was brave enough to love her. “I think it might be too late.”
“Then you have to show her that it’s not,” Leah said. She leaned back in her seat and released his hands, giving him a hard, determined look. “And you have to do it today.”
“Emery, would you mind if I had a private moment alone?”
Emery had just been walking across the entrance hall to where the wedding breakfast was being hosted in the breakfast room when her husband had stopped her. She hadn’t seen him at first, waiting in the shadows near his office, and her heart hammered in her chest as she looked up at him. He had a blazing look on his face that she didn’t recognize, and she felt strangely nervous as he held her gaze.
“I--I am needed at the wedding breakfast,” she said, turning to glance around the hall, where other guests were beginning to arrive. The butler was taking their coats, and they were talking excitedly to one another, but Lucien didn’t seem to notice. He had eyes only for her.
“It won’t take long,” he said, his voice low and soft. “I really do need to speak to you.”
“Well…” she glanced around again, but no one was paying attention to them. “I suppose we could talk for a few minutes.”
“What is this about?”
