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Ernest had been most clear with them, and yet that did not appear to matter. They seemed convinced that as long as they kept knocking, he would eventually agree.

The trouble was, the man standing in his doorway as Ernest wrenched open the door with a glower, was completely different.

“I should think not.” Michael Chance, the new Viscount Pernrith, grinned. “May I come in?”

Ernest stared. Michael…here?

It was so unlikely that for a moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating. Perhaps the two nights of terrible sleep meant he had started to imagine people coming here who weren’t actually here.

Why it would be Michael, and not Gwen, he had no idea.

“Are you going to let me in or not?” asked Michael cheerfully, as though he frequently visited unpleasant inns to see old friends. “Goodness, it’s a bit depressing, isn’t it?”

“I… I…” Ernest did not appear to be able to say anything else, but he did step back and let his old friend into the room.

Michael did not appear very impressed as he stood and looked around the place. He did not need to walk around it to take it all in; it was small enough to be viewed in one glance. “Good God.”

“It’s only temporary,” Ernest hastened to explain, shutting the door behind his friend and turning to him. “I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

His guest, for want of a better word, turned and looked at him. “Yes. I should hope so.”

Ah.

Well, perhaps he should have expected this. He had, after all, totally destroyed Gwen’s honor, and if Gwen did not keep that to herself—and she surely could tell her family without risking her reputation—there would be questions from Gwen and Michael’s parents about the whole affair, which he had unfortunately left for the lady alone to answer. Not very chivalrous.

And that would explain why Michael was here.

Ernest braced himself for an argument. It was only right. If he’d had a sister, and she had managed to get herself entangled with a rogue, Ernest would probably have punched the man on the nose.

To start with.

“Look,” Michael said wearily, dropping into one of the rickety chairs and looking at it with a furrowed brow before turning his attention back to Ernest. “I’m not here to argue with you.”

He isn’t? “You should punch me on the nose,” Ernest said darkly, striding over and dropping into the opposite chair with a certain amount of guilt.

And relief because he knew now that Michael wouldn’t do that. Being punched on the nose was, he had to expect, not entirely pleasant.

“You do know that my sister is in love with you?” asked Michael conversationally, as though it were perfectly normal to discuss such things.

Ernest’s pulse skipped a beat.

In love with me.

Oh, he already knew that. She had told him herself, it had been one of the best and most exhilarating moments of his life.

But to hear it in the mouth of another was like another confirmation, somehow, of the absolute disaster he had created.

Gwen loved him. She loved him, and somehow, he had managed to completely destroy any hope of happiness between them. That was, she had also ruined it by not properly breaking things off with the Marquess of Ravenshurst, and he had ruined it by compromising her without any direct offer of marriage… All in all, Ernest thought bitterly, it was a rum affair.

And he had, he realized now, said some cruel things, just like she’d accused him of doing.

She’d told him she’d felt dismissed by her family, that she hated being treated as someone who couldn’t know her mind because she was the youngest of them all.

And he had dismissed her feelings. Told her she was too young to know herself.

And yet he loved her.

How could he not? A mistake could not undo a passion that had consumed him utterly. One poor decision could not remove a yearning for her that Ernest knew would be within him for the rest of his life. A single misunderstanding could surely be overcome…