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James gave a weary sigh. “It’s not as though you’re the first man to ever fall in love, you know. And certainly not the first whose love went away from him.”
“What?”
Mary-Anne reached out a sympathetic hand to Laurence’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Laurence. If I had known just how deeply you and Miss Ramsbury felt for one another I would never have intervened as I did. I ought not have talked to you that way.”
“Nor should I,” James echoed. “I’m right sorry about bringing all that poisonous gossip from the pub to your ears, Laurence. And for making sport of your affections for the girl. It was cruel of me.”
“It’s…I…” Laurence began. But there, reflected in the pity-stricken eyes of his loved ones, he saw that terrible army staring back at him, and knew he could not bear to face them. He forced a smile, raised up his hands in surrender, and spoke without looking into their eyes.
“Oh, is that what all this is about? Yes, we shall miss our Miss Ramsbury here, without question. A most entertaining visitor; I hope her journey back home is a safe one, now that her business here is concluded. Now, if you don’t mind,” he said, gesturing to the mostly-full plate before him, “I have put in a long day of work, and I am absolutely famished.”
But he had not so much as picked up his fork before James reached over and pulled his plate out of reach. “Here now!” Laurence objected, rising from his seat.
“As a matter of fact, I do mind,” said James. “You think poorly on an empty stomach, but not at all on a full one.”
“I told you, this business is over and done with.”
“And we told you that we don’t believe you,” said Mary-Anne, her face flickering with irritation. “It’s well and good for you to feel as you like. But if you’re going to take out your despair on the rest of us, then it becomes our duty to see you through these feelings.”
“Or get you to act like a man with an ounce of sense, for a change,” James muttered.
“Will the two of you just leave italone?” Laurence snapped. He gave a laugh of disbelief, spreading his arms wide as if to show he was still all in one piece. “I’m completely fine, I tell you. I’m healthy, uninjured, and most importantly, happy to be left to my farm work, as it should be! All is just as it was a week ago, and if all of you will just leave me alone I shall be just as content as ever to live as I always have and always will.”
“That’s just it, though, isn’t it?” asked Mary-Anne. “You can’t go back to the way things were because now things are different. Now there’s something else you want—someone, I mean.”
“You clearly have feelings for the girl, Laurence. You can’t ignore that.”
“And what if I did have feelings for her?” Laurence asked, feeling the gate slip beneath his mental grasp. “It wouldn’t make any difference. She’s gone, and no amount of wishing on my part will change that.”
James shrugged and spluttered as though to show this was an idiot’s question. “Bollocks. If you love her, then go after her. Fight for her. Anything but surrendering at the very first sign of resistance, for God’s sake!”
“But it’s…it’s not as simple as that,” Laurence stammered. “Alicia isn’t—”
“Alicia?” James asked, waggling his eyebrows to punctuate Laurence’s apparent familiarity.
Laurence sneered at this gesture and kept up with his protestations. “Even if I wished to be withMiss Ramsbury—which I do not concede, mind you—she would never be with me.”
“And why not?”
“She…” he stopped, hearing his voice break as the gates were breached for an instant.Get a hold of yourself, damn it.“She is of a different world. She comes from money and has a reputation to protect. She has other suitors, men with titles and money and…and I don’t even know what else.”
Laurence felt himself deflating as he continued to release the thoughts that had simmered at the edge of his mind all day long. “I…I could never offer her the kind of life she wanted here in Dunwood. All the balls and parties and society of London would be out of her life, and she would never want that. Not really. I have nothing to offer her.”
This was the first opportunity Laurence had given himself to give voice to these thoughts. Now, hearing them aloud, they seemed as clear and irrefutable as saying the sky was blue. He felt himself grow still colder and more despondent, his posture collapsing like a tree consumed by rot.
She would never be with me. She is gone for good. I would only drag her down to the level of a poor country farmer. Damn what they say, it’s better for her to let her live her life and forget as soon as possible.
“Brother, I may be the smarter of we siblings, but there’s no reason for you to be so thoroughly stupid.”
Laurence looked up, eyes flashing with anger.
James nodded, a characteristic smirk returning to his lips. “I always knew Mary-Anne was the only one of you Gillinghams with any sense.”
“Well, evidently you are blind enough not to have noticed the fact that she is obviously head over heels for you, for starters. And putting aside the fact that you seem to have ignored my years of complaints about life in London society—”
“Not an easy task, ignoring Mary-Anne,” James chimed in.
Mary-Anne shot James a look before continuing, “You seem to somehow think it is for you to decide what Miss Ramsbury—Alicia—can and cannot live with. Your intentions may be noble, but you should know better than to try to make decisions for a woman’s own good. If she wants to be with you, Laurence, and you are foolish enough to gainsay her, then you are even a bigger fool than I thought.”
