“Yes.”
“The ones who think that horses are decorative furniture and gambling is a moral failure.”
Gambling, he believed, was a moral failure when it came to religion, but his cousins were extreme about it. They were terrified that everything they did would send them to hell, and if they were in charge, there was no telling what they would do with what he had built.
Dorian stood slowly and turned away from the desk as if distance might change the meaning of the words. “And what exactly qualifies as stability in their assessment?”
Harrington did not answer immediately. His silence was answer enough.
“Say it.”
“Marriage. A stable household. Something to indicate that you are no longer… volatile.”
A faint, sharp laugh left Dorian before he could stop it.
“Volatile,” he repeated.
Harrington did not correct him.
Dorian walked to the window, looking out across the grounds where the stables stretched in long, ordered lines. From there, everything looked controlled. Everything looked managed. It was a lie that had been easy to maintain until recently.
“You are telling me,” he said, “that I am expected to solve the structural incompetence of my family by marrying someone on their schedule?”
“I am telling you that the legal structure of the estate no longer tolerates delays.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then they will take what they can justify taking. The choice is yours to make, Your Grace, but I would be sensible.”
A heavy silence followed, one that Dorian could not easily escape. It was a simple choice to make—either one option or the other, but neither sounded inviting at all.
He moved back to the desk, picked up one of the letters waiting for him, and read nothing of it in any meaningful way before setting it down again.
“We are done,” he declared.
Harrington blinked once. “Your Grace?—”
“There is no need for you to say anything further. I understand the concept.”
Harrington hesitated. “There is also the matter of investor confidence. Several have already expressed concern regarding the future of the stables.”
“Let them leave,” Dorian said.
“That would accelerate the financial instability.”
Dorian’s expression tightened slightly, but his voice remained even. “If they do not have faith in me after I have proven myself, then they are not investors. They are spectators with money, and I do not need them.”
Harrington gave a faint nod, though not in agreement.
Despite his annoyance, Dorian understood that. In truth, he did need the investors, and he had to be careful.
Harrington waited for a moment, then sighed. “There is one more issue.”
Dorian looked at him again, his tiredness now beginning to edge into irritation. “Of course there is.”
“The new horse, Your Grace. Tempest?—”
“It is Diamond now. I do not need an animal named after a storm when I am trying to prove that we are stable.”
