Marcus watched him with a perceptive stillness that always made Blaise feel, absurdly, as if he were the one being examined.
“I liked her,” Marcus said at last. “She spoke to me as if I were not a child. Or a problem. Or a charity case. That was?—”
He broke off with a small shrug, as if aware he was admitting too much.
“That was?” Blaise pushed him gently.
Marcus’s mouth flattened. “You know what it was.”
“Then perhaps you might like to see her again?” Blaise straightened, letting his tone turn careless. “She will be at the party. As will other eligible young women. And quite possibly some family we have not seen in a while,” he added, as if tossing in some minor information. “Unfortunately, the viscountess’s charming niece, Lady Pamela, I believe, is only seventeen now, and her debut is next year.”
“Who is that?” Marcus’s expression did not soften as Blaise had half expected; if anything, he seemed more wary. “And young women being paraded at parties in the hopes of catching a husband among the starving wolves of the peerage is not very noble.”
Blaise’s brows rose. “Be careful, you are speaking just like your father.”
“You did not need to bring him up,” Marcus said. “The peerage is corrupt anyhow. You know that better than anyone. You have spent half your life avoiding being a proper lord because of it.”
“And I spent the other half becoming precisely the sort of man they cannot ignore,” Blaise replied. “You grew up watching the worst of them, and I grant you that. But it is a larger world than the few cowards and hypocrites you have met.”
Marcus folded his arms, mirroring Blaise’s earlier posture. “Thegood dukes, you mean? Are we back to that phrase?”
“Careful,” Blaise said, “or I shall embroider that one on another cushion.” He let the quip land lightly, then allowed the humor to fade. “Marcus. Come. You do not have to dance. You do not have to flirt with anyone. You can stand in a corner and glower at me all night, if that pleases you. But be there.”
“Why?” Marcus demanded. “If everything goes as you say, I will not be a duke. You do not even want to be a duke. Why do we care what any of them think?”
“Because Daniel seeks to destroy us,” Blaise answered simply. “And I will not have you walk into that battle unarmed.”
“If it is my battle,” Marcus said quietly. “Why are you fighting it?”
Blaise stilled. The remark was not petulant; it landed with the dull certainty of something rehearsed in countless solitary hours. “How can I not fight for you, Marcus?”
Marcus stared at the floorboards, as if the answers were written there. “My father might have abandoned me,” he said carefully, “but that is not your burden to carry.”
Blaise let out a slow breath through his nose. “That is not quite how it works.”
“It is exactly how it works,” Marcus said, looking up sharply. “He made his choices. He did not visit me, nor did he write. He did not even acknowledge me.Youdid all those things, had no obligation, and did them anyway. That does not mean you now have to break yourself trying to fix what he never bothered to begin.”
“You think this is about fixing his mistakes?” Blaise asked.
“Yes,” Marcus said bluntly. “You forget I watched this family, too. From the edges, perhaps, but I am not blind.”
Blaise’s hand curled around the edge of the desk, the wood biting into his palm. “I appreciate your keen analysis of my psyche,” he said dryly. “But I do not agree with all of it.”
“You do not have to agree for it to be true.”
“Marcus.” Blaise took a step nearer, close enough now to see the faint shadows beneath the young man’s eyes and the tightness at his mouth that spoke of nights spent awake, thinking too much. “Do you care to know how your father died?”
Marcus flinched.
“No, not particularly.”
“That is a lie.”
His nephew’s eyes flashed. “I know that he was hunting. Like thegood dukehe was meant to be, and I know that there was an accident. I do not see what further details would accomplish now.”
“Nevertheless, I am offering to give you the full story.”
“And I am declining.” Marcus’s voice sharpened. “That is your memory, not mine. Keep it. I have enough of my own.”
