“Of course it was unauthorized! The new laws against any form of protest are so Draconian and unreasonable, the only way to protest nowadaysisillegally!”
As her point was valid, Leo quickly pivoted. “There are better ways to bring about reform, Abigail, than to align yourself to the radical cause. And reform will come.” Bloodlessly. Or so he hoped. Andwithout any further danger to his reckless sister. “The tide in Parliament is changing.”
“At a speed slower than a snail over sand, Leo, which you would know if you attended there as often as you should!” A point he couldn’t argue with either because the majority of the House of Lords still feared a bloody revolution that rivaled those that had happened in France and America, and therefore refused to concede an inch. They were so wedded to their outrage and entrenched in their ways that he had long given up trying to argue with them. Parliament gave him acid. Much like his sister was doing now. Unfortunately, he could only avoid one of those indigestible things, and it wasn’t Abigail. “Meanwhile, while you ignore your duty, the people are still suffering.”
Abigail huffed and, to further remind him of his unconscionable failings as a big brother, began to pace the Persian rug. Her limp was barely noticeable nowadays—but he noticed.
Leo always noticed because it was his fault she had it.
“It is a travesty how little the factory workers are paid, Leo, and you know it!”
Before this turned into a discussion on what was morally right and what was so plainly wrong, which he knew he couldn’t win, he turned the topic back yet again to the safety of his womenfolk. “Until you marry, it is my sworn duty to protect you from harm. I promised Father—”
He was cut off by his sister’s theatrical groan. “I might have known you’d link a small knock to my head withthe accidentand blow it out of all proportion.” She rolled her eyes heavenward in a god-give-me-strength kind of way. The flippant gesture was mirrored by both his mother and his younger and sillier sister, Emilia, who all currently believed that he had mentally traveled back in time and was confusing Abigail’s first wholly avoidable brush with death all those years ago with her most recent. Which was true, he supposed, in part.
Not that he would admit it aloud.
“Is that why you are more insufferable than normal? You are being an overbearing oaf because you feel guilty that I got a little knock to the head that you should have predicted and prevented, just as you believe you should have prevented me from climbing up that tree almost fifteen years ago?”
Of course it bloody well was!
She had fallen out of that tree as a child because he had failed to keep an eye on her that day, despite being tasked by his father to watch his sisters like a hawk. And she had got injured at last week’s protest because he had failed to diligently protect her, yet again. “Not at all.” Both Abigail and his mother eyed him dubiously, so he continued undeterred. “I am beinginsufferablebecause one of us has to behave like a sensible adult and that clearly isn’t going to be you.”
Intercepting his sister’s next interruption, Leo raised an imperious palm. “A bit of time and distance gives perspective, which you currently do not have, and a few months at home here in Bath will give us all time to reflect. Besides—we’ve not spent a season in Bath together in forever.”
“For good reason,” muttered his mother, “as it pales into insignificance against the London season becausenobodyis here.”
“What nonsense! This city is a veritable hubbub of activity.” To prove that he marched to the window to pull back the lace curtain, expecting to see the usual gaggle of tourists wandering along the Royal Crescent in awe and wonder at its architectural splendor, only to be confronted with a street as barren as the desert.
“Such a crush,” said Abigail clutching her pearls before she rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time. “How are we to contain ourselves with so much pointless excitement going on all around us?”
“Bath is filled with nothing but old people and invalids.” That came from Emilia, who had never liked being in their second home whenever there were leaves on the trees. “Here to take the waters in the hope that they will feel invigorated enough to be able to returnto London where all the excitement actually is.” Which was why she rarely came here anymore.
In fact, unlike Leo, none of his womenfolk had ventured here much since his father’s passing. The ladies had visited only a handful of times in the last four years. Probably because there were reminders of the former duke everywhere and that made them all melancholy.
Leo, on the other hand, had no choice but to be here often. The bulk of his estate was made up of lands surrounding Bath, and it was impossible to manage it all from afar. However, what his sisters found boring, he found peaceful, and so this house had become his oasis. A place to escape all the noise and nonsense of London and simply… be.
“I have no friends here in Bath.” Emilia was pouting now. “So I shall be bored to tears if I am incarcerated here all summer.”
“Neither of us have any friends here.” Abigail shot him a look that would curdle milk. “Which is precisely why our overprotective big brother has dragged us here. He wants us to be bored. Bored and dutiful because all that ruthless control makes his life so much easier.”
“Actions have consequences, Abigail, and you have brought this on yourself.” Leo gestured to his glaring sister’s bandage again and instantly felt his pulse race. “As the head of this household, those consequences are mine to meter out.”Oh good grief, now he sounded like a bloody tyrant too and he loathed himself for it.Loathed how out of control he felt. How unsettled and afraid he felt. Why couldn’t his womenfolk see that he was doing this out of love? When he was saving them from themselves and keeping them from harm at the same time. Why did they have to keep pushing him and pushing him until the red mist descended and all his new and terrifying panic, which he still had no clue how to control, possessed him completely?
“Besides, I fail to see how a couple of months of blessed peace is too much to ask after all the worry you have caused?” As tempers were heightened enough already, he tried to be conciliatory. “All I am asking for is the summer—not eternity.” Some time for them allto regroup and him especially. “And you will soon make friends here. I have a huge stack of invitations to all manner of things in my study and there is a ball at the Assembly Rooms twice a week, so there will be plenty for you to do.”
Rather than be placated by that, Emilia looked stricken. “I do not see why I should be punished with the parochial society of Bath because of Abigail’s mistake. I did nothing wrong.”
“This week,” he felt compelled to clarify. “But I think we can both agree that some of your decisions this season have left a lot to be desired. Especially those involving the opposite sex.” He did not need to add that Emilia was damned lucky not to have been completely ruined a fortnight ago. If he hadn’t accidentally interrupted her passionate kiss with a fortune-hunter soldier in the stables during Lady Bulphan’s house party, all the other guests would have witnessed her up to no good when they had arrived mere moments later. What would have happened if he hadn’t been there really did not bear thinking about. “Without someone sensible keeping an eye on you constantly, I shudder to think what will happen to you the next time you recklessly flirt with a man in uniform as you completely lose your head.”
“How dare you imply that I am not sensible! I am quite capable of chaperoning my daughters,” said his mother, annoyed. Although why she felt the right to be aggrieved was a mystery to him, when it was all thanks to her lackadaisical chaperoning that Emilia had been ravished and Abigail had snuck out to go on that hideously dangerous blasted march! “And have managed to do it well enough in your absence for most of the last two years!”
“Did you try to stop Abigail from absconding to that rally or do anything to prevent Emilia from sneaking off with that scoundrel at Lady Bulphan’s? No, Mama, you did not. Worse, you did not even notice that either of them was missing until I pointed it out, so I rest my case.”Were none of them capable of seeing reason, for pity’s sake?Or of seeing the danger everywhere that kept him awake at night?
“Your sisters are adults, Leo, and need to follow their own paths.That includes being allowed to learn from their mistakes rather than you suffocating them with your overbearing, I-know-best interference.” His mother bristled, clearly missing the point that, where his sisters were concerned, he jolly well did know best! “Perhaps if you attempted to treat them like adults, they wouldn’t feel so inclined to rebel like children whenever you are home!”
How typical that he would be blamed for their rebelliousness! “A convenient way of saying that you fail to even notice all of their shenanigans when I am not, Mother!”
“If there are shenanigans, you push them to it, Leo! With your controlling ways and doomsaying mentality, which frankly has increased a hundredfold since last week.”
