“Just leave me alone.”
“No. I’m fed up with you moping around. You’re the one who always tells us that all decisions are a choice.” She picked up a bottle from the floor and sniffed it then looked at the label. “Things must be truly dire if you are drinking this swill.”
“They say it’ll put hairs on your chest.” Archer shrugged. “Besides, at a certain point of drunkenness, decent wine becomes a waste.”
“I would not give my worst enemy this to drink, not even if the person had stolen my true love and dishonoured Juliet.” Cora gagged. “No wonder you look like a body pulled from a river.”
“I do not look that bad. It is only a bit of beard.”
“Iris has started calling you Uncle Bear.” Cora gave him a hard look. “You look like some sort of wild man who has been living in caves for half a century.”
“Did you come here just to insult me, or was there a point to this?” Archer snapped. “Much as I am enjoying this little tete a tete, I am not in the mood.
Cora ignored him and threw a few logs on the fire. “You realize that Iris is threatening to follow in your suit? She keeps saying that if Uncle Dash doesn’t bathe, then why should she?”
Cora kicked another bottle into the Hessian sack and surveyed the room with a satisfied air. Even Archer had to admit that without the tens of bottles, the place looked better.
“Just leave me alone, Cora. Juliet has already tried to make me see sense.” Archer leaned against the desk, running a hand over the beard that he had let spread across his face.
It was scratchy and coarse, and normally, he wouldn’t have been able to stand the feel of it, but he figured he deserved the discomfort.Bear man.Iris had not visited him in days. It made his heart ache, but he had not found the will to rouse himself from his self-induced stupor.
“Yes, but Juliet tried to soft approach. And now it is time for the Cora approach.” She gave him a wicked grin, and Archer closed his eyes, hoping she would take the hint.
“And what is—Arrrrrgh!” Archer leapt to his feet as Cora dumped a bucket of water over his head. “What the hell are you playing at?”
“If you are going to behave like a child, I will treat you like a child.” Cora glared up at him. “You were the one who used to bring to bath to us if we did not behave.”
“I am a duke, Cora. I am the man of the house?—”
“Then start bloody well acting like it, Dash. Because right now I can barely recognize the man you have become. All my life, I have looked up to you. I have always wanted to be like you. Whenever I felt like I might lose my course, I thought,what would Archer do.God, I hated that I could not be like you.”
“Why would you want to be like me?”
“Because you are strong. You kept us safe in ways I cannot even dream of. I may be strong, I may be able to pretend to be you, but I will never actually be you, Dash.”
“I never wanted you to be. I was only strong so that you would not have to be.”
“Then it is time for me to return the favour. Let me be strong for you right now, let me lend you my strength as you have done for us so many times.”
“And how do you propose you do that?”
“Well, by forcing you to talk to me, and if that fails, giving you a good kick up the rear.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“There is the Dash I know. You are not the kind of man who just rolls over like a dog. You have always gone after what you want, always. And that is doubly true when it is something someone you love wants.”
Archer said nothing, but his sister took this as permission to continue, a small smile stealing across her face. “Do you remember when Iris said she wanted that one particular doll? The one that was impossible to get because of the war in France? And you somehow contacted a soldier who had been injured at the front and his commanding officer and arranged to have the doll sent home with them?”
Cora was on a roll now; Archer could tell by the spring in her step as she paced around the room. “Or the time that I wanted to try my hand at mead making?—”
“Don’t remind me. I don’t think any of us have ever been so unwell.”
“My point is, you did everything that was within your power to make that happen.” His sister prodded him in the chest. “Because that is who you are. So why are you pretending that it is not?”
“It is different, Cora.”
“Do you love her?”
