Page 16 of Married to the Duke By Midnight

It was not until Xavier’s father – prompted by Robert’s mother – started taking them out riding and shooting and taught them to fence, that Xavier had started to open up to Robert when they were alone too. Slowly over the course of a year, they had grown to be fond of each other, and when they had started Eton a year after their parents married, they had been best friends.

Which also meant that Robert was able to read him perfectly now. As one of only a few people. Xavier was known by others as the Gargoyle because of his impassive and expressionless face.

Xavier settled in his chair with a tired sigh and gestured for Robert to take the one opposite him.

“She seems… amicable enough. But it is uncharacteristically hasty of you. I want you to explain it to me in a way so that I might understand it.” Xavier’s blue eyes had an open, almost vulnerable expression as he looked at Robert across the desk.

“It…” Robert rubbed his sweaty hands on his beige breeches and looked at what was visible of the sunlit garden in the space between two neatly trimmed yew bushes. His mother and Jo were walking slowly beside each other, his mother gesturing to a rose bush. He smiled at her showing her roses to Jo already.

Xavier followed his gaze and his features softened even though he did not smile.

“Is it lust?” he asked. “She is an attractive woman.”

Robert knew Xavier meant nothing by it. That he only said it as an unbiased observation, yet Robert could feel his skin prickle at the thought of other men perceiving Jo in that manner. He had never felt possessive over a woman before. It had to be because she was his wife, he told himself.

“It’s more than lust,” Robert muttered and rubbed the space between his eyebrows as he thought of how to phrase it. If he could confide the strange feelings he had toward Jo in anyone, it would be Xavier.

“It is an alignment of sorts. She had made a contract for me to sign – with the terms of our marriage and they fit with mine. I could somehow see how our lives together would be. That it would be a good life, and I thought…” he looked out at the garden again, avoiding Xavier’s penetrating blue eyes. His mother and Jo had disappeared from sight. “I want to start a family, to have an heir of my own blood, and this arrangement saves me the time of having to court someone next season.”

His stepbrother scrutinized him for a long while, but Robert stood his ground.

“Indeed,” Xavier finally murmured and his eyes once again strayed to the papers on his desk.

“Come now, you cannot be looking forward to courting someone?” Robert tried to joke his way out of the slightly uncomfortable situation.

“I have no intention of courting anyone,” Xavier told him quietly.

“Ever?” Robert asked in surprise.

He had assumed that his stepbrother would marry one day.

Xavier only shrugged and avoided his eyes.

“I already have an heir, remember?”

“Who is eager to have himself killed in a fight against Napoleon?” Robert scoffed.

Xavier’s steady gaze returned to his and Robert suddenly had the odd idea that if Xavier had been there last night, Jo might have picked him. The thought made his mouth taste sour and he clenched his fists once again.

“We were talking about your hasty marriage,” Xavier redirected in a calm voice.

“Please, Xavier. Is there truly no circumstance under which you would have married in haste?”

Xavier’s nostrils flared as he exhaled deeply to compose himself. Robert met his gaze calmly, while he was fighting both the urge to apologize and to squeeze an explanation out of his stepbrother.

“That is neither here nor there,” Xavier said in a strained voice.

“If you say so,” Robert muttered and ran a fingernail through a grain in the desk.

“Stop destroying my desk!” Xavier snapped.

Robert met his eyes and ran his fingernail through the grain one more time before placing his hands in his lap. This earned him another glare.

“I am happy for you, if you are happy, Robert,” Xavier told him after another deep breath.

“I am happy,” Robert assured him. Even if he was not certain it was the right word. Content was probably more accurate.

“No, no, Evans, I can show myself in,” they could hear Thornston say on the other side of the door, and both looked at it as Thornston strode through it a moment later and shut it in the face of the butler.