Again, Adrian shook his head. “I don’t understand why you can be so forgiving. She threw you over, not just once, but twice!”
Harbury fisted his hands in front of him. “We were cruelly separated by my father! Cruelly.”
Adrian winced. Harbury’s father had been powerful and demanding, but never cruel.
“Or,” Adrian reasoned, “to put it another way, the governess accepted money from your father, which she used as a dowry to attract a baronet. Then, not content to be a widow of a mere baronet, she eloped with a widowed earl against the wishes of his children all so she might become a countess.”
A very wealthy, very stylish, very independent countess.
“Perhaps hertendrefor you was real, but you, my dear Harbury, come with scores of responsibilities. And responsibilities have never been Vivianne’s strong point.”
Harbury scowled. “I’ll not listen to another word against my dearest Viv.”
Adrian looped his hands around Harbury’s wrists, easily preventing him from covering his ears. “Let me guess. When you saw Pennington dancing with his wife, you decided Vivianne needed to see you in the arms of a bright, young filly?
Harbury jerked away and grunted.
Adrian raised a brow.
“Don’t look at me in that fashion. I know I was wrong. I should have asked the chit properly. Waited to find out if she’d permission.” He tore his hands away from Adrian and held his head. “How, in a moment of—”
“Jealousy?”
“—pain, was I to remember all the rules?”
“How, indeed?” Harbury was not usually this obtuse. “You’re a duke. Your entire life is bound by rules.”
Harbury gazed up with pitiful, bloodshot eyes. “I’d give up the dukedom to be free.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Harbury.”
Harbury gazed at him in woeful reproach.
Adrian dropped onto the seat. Harbury was a mess.
He’d been this way on occasion when they were younger, but the old duke had raised him well—duty brought out Harbury’s best. Still, it had only been a year since he’d taken hisfather’s mantle. As evidenced by this night’s adventures, he was unhealed.
Beneath them both ran the same undercurrent of… what? Selfish restlessness?
They were both seekers. Discontented idealists.
Perhaps the time had come for them both to make a serious change.
“So, you’ve unintentionally caught yourself a debutante,” Adrian mused. Was that such a horrible thing? Maybe spending time with another young lady would finally break Harbury of the Vivianne Spell. “Is the girl pretty?”
“Yes,” Harbury replied. “At least I think she was.”
“Well-mannered?”
“How should I know?” Harbury threw up his hands. “Meek enough, at least, to be led into an improper dance.”
“Perhaps you will discover you like her.”
“No use.” Harbury propped his elbows on his spread knees, looking down into the glass he’d dangled in the space between his legs. “There is only Vivianne. There will only ever be Vivianne.”
So theatrical.
Good Lord.Bessie had made the same accusation of him. Had he been as insufferable as Harbury?
