Page 6 of Yielding to Love

“Where is Hazard?” Viscount Haslet. Jasper’s closest friend. An accessory brother. He was always about somewhere.

It unnerved him to see the way they all exchanged glances.

Reg said, “Jasp, didn’t you write to tell him?”

“No, I didn’t write,” Jasper answered, bristling. “I assumed Haz would have.”

“What is wrong?” Crispin asked, his gut tightening. Hazard was the best of fellows, but, considering his…proclivities, any number of things could be wrong.

“Nothing.” Jasper shook his head as if to loosen the clench of his jaw. “Nothing. He is on his way back from Cumbria. He and Alice would not miss Olivia’s wedding for all the world.”

Crispin tried to rearrange Jasper’s words into some semblance of sense, but the phrases did not fit together. “And where is Alice?” She, too, should be with them. Alice Fogbotham was Georgiana’s cousin, and Olivia had taken to her at once. Crispin liked her a good deal, despite a certain intensity of purpose that made him wary.

No one answered. “What is wrong?” he demanded once more.

“Nothing!” Olivia cried. “It’s all wonderful. Alice is with Hazard. They’re on their honeymoon.”

He stared at her, trying to discern if she was joking. Perhaps they were all pulling his leg, and Hazard and Alice would leap out from behind the draperies.

Jasper said, “It’s for the best.”

Vanessa harumphed and said, “It is the best.”

All at once, Crispin understood. Hazard and Alice had solved their own difficulties—Haz’s need for an heir, his not-so-well-hidden preference for men, Alice’s lack of a dowry, and her bizarre fondness for arguing politics.

“It is perfect.” It seemed everyone had sorted themselves out. Except for him.