“I told you it’s not my fault. Mary kept asking me all kinds of questions, and then she wasn’t happy with my answers. The more I tried to explain, the angrier she got. Damn it all, I’m glad I brought her back. Imagine being married to a woman who nags like that.”
“What kind of questions, Patrick?” Nathaniel probed, knowing his brother too well to suppose he was entirely innocent.
“Where were we going to live after we married? What would we live on? Those kinds of questions. She just kept going on and on. Nothing I said seemed to please her.”
Nathaniel yelped with laughter despite his general frustration. “Patrick, you are eight-and-twenty. I don’t know whether it’s worse that the questions surprised you or that you could not answer them to your intended wife’s satisfaction. I’m not surprised she has thrown you over. I think I would have done the same.”
“It’s all right for you, Nathaniel,” Patrick retorted crossly. “You’re the Duke of Greyhaven. You have the title, the fortune, the estates. No one asks you how you’re going to support yourself, never mind a wife. I’m a second son. I have nothing.”
“The Duke of Rencaster’s second son is in the army,” Nathaniel replied without real sympathy. “The Earl of Anstwych’s younger brother is a partner in a small private bank. Both of Viscount Yarmouth’s younger sons are in the diplomatic service…”
“Now you sound like Mary,” Patrick remarked sulkily. “Why doesn’t she just marry one of the paragons you mention if that’s what she wants?”
“Oh, forget it, Patrick,” Nathaniel sighed with a wave of his hand, having had the conversation about professions with his younger brother before without any obvious benefit on either side. “Let’s stick to the present crisis, shall we? You say that Miss Mary will not marry you. That could be a problem if you’ve already bedded her.”
“What?” Patrick gasped indignantly. “What do you take me for? I have many faults, but I do not deflower young ladies who need my protection.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Nathaniel replied with a pragmatic nod. “So, if you swear that Miss Mary has not been?—”
“Nathaniel, I’ve already told you,” Patrick interrupted, his voice growing fiercer. “I have not touched her.”
“Very well.” Nathaniel stopped him with a raised hand, accepting that he was telling the truth. “I shall take you at your word. As this is the case, I may well still be able to… come to terms with Miss Holt and arrange for both ladies to be removed to a safe location. They cannot be returned to their old home, under the circumstances.”
Patrick nodded, although he was still frowning.
“I still don’t understand why you care so much,” he wondered aloud.
Nathaniel rose to his feet. “You don’t have to understand,” he replied, going to the door. “I’m leaving now with Miss Holt and Miss Mary. You may make your own way home in the other carriage, in due course. I’ve already paid your bill.”
He frowned as he walked out of the inn and to the carriage where he expected to find the Holt sisters. He didn’t really understand why he cared so much either.
Regardless of rational understanding, one thing was very clear in his mind. No matter what ridiculous argument had occurred between their siblings, he was determined to make Cecily Holt his.
CHAPTER 13
The Duke returned to the carriage alone and climbed in, taking a seat opposite Cecily and Mary and knocking on the ceiling for the driver to depart.
“Patrick will be making his own way back,” he told them laconically when Mary raised her blotchy face from Cecily’s shoulder in question. “I think that’s for the best, for now.”
Cecily nodded her agreement and stroked Mary’s hair.
Patrick was to make his own way back, but what would happen to her and Mary now? Her sister was adamant that she would never marry him and never wanted to see him again.
Mary had also sworn on her honor that they had not lain together. Despite her professed resentment toward Patrick, she had actually defended him fiercely from the faintest notion that he might have taken her virtue.
Where did all this leave them? Alone in the world, with only the contents of Cecily’s two bundles and the unpredictable goodwill of the Duke of Greyhaven. How far would any of this stretch?
Cecily was not alone in the world, but she was also responsible for her younger sister, who by law should be returned to her legal guardian. With this additional burden, would the Duke still want to marry her?
Peculiar dismay coiled in her stomach at the thought.
The Duke was very clear that he preferred a simple life and wanted to marry her because she met his criteria for a duchess. He had not even bothered to learn her name before declaring his intentions, and it wasn’t hard to see that he would give up his pursuit at the first sign of new complications.
Surely she ought to have been relieved by the idea. Instead, it left her feeling bereft, like she had felt when their passionate kisses had been interrupted by Mary and Patrick’s carriage, longing for more of something she knew she probably shouldn’t want.
“Oh, what will become of us, Cecily?” Mary blurted out, echoing her thoughts. “Where will we go? What will we do? We can’t go back to Uncle Preston and Grandmother. They will make me marry that old man, and I can’t think what they will do to you for coming to find me.”
“Everything will be all right, Mary,” Cecily told her, hugging her close and hoping that wishes would prove as good as truths. “Whatever happens, I will not let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
