James sat back, the note dangling from his fingers.
A ninny.
Regrettably, not inaccurate.
The urge to crumple the letter warred with the urge to fold it carefully and put it somewhere he could not pretend to forget.He compromised by smoothing it flat and setting it atop the others.
There were not many.
A few bills, a note from his steward about tenants' repairs, an invitation to a house party in August he had no intention of attending.His life, on paper, was remarkably empty.
He pushed to his feet and paced the room, the familiar clutter of his study offering no distraction.Cards, books, a half-finished caricature Magnus had drawn years ago—all spoke of a man content to float.
He was no longer floating.
He was treading water, and he was tired.
Magnus's words returned, uninvited.
You hide behind that vow because it allows you to be noble without doing anything that frightens you.
"Coward," he muttered.
He thought of Esme's face when she said he never overstepped where it mattered, of the brittle dignity in her smile when she told him their society was at an end.
He had taken her at her word because it suited his fears.
He had never once asked whatshewanted, beyond what her mother and brother wanted for her.He had assumed that safety, as defined by them, must be the same as her happiness.
That was, he realized, an insult.
Choice, she had said on the terrace, was what she wanted.
And he had given her anything but.He had walked away and called it protection.
If I cannot imagine myself married to Lady Esme...
He could.
He had been doing so without admitting it for days.
It was there in every ridiculous little thought.Esme at the breakfast table.Esme in his study, rearranging his shelves.Esme in a carriage beside him, laughing while rain beat on the roof.Esme, at his side, catching him when his own footing slipped.
The fear did not vanish oncenamed, but it shifted.
He had spent so long trying not to become his father that he had never considered becoming something else entirely.
"You fool," he told his reflection."You absolute idiot."
Slowly, he returned to the desk and took up a fresh sheet of paper.
Dear Lady Esme?—
He stared at the words until theyblurred, then crumpled the paper and tossed it aside.
"Very well," he said."Haverleigh it is."
He rang for his valet.
