Page 4 of The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes
“It’s a mistake,” Dom growled. “This whole thing is one enormous sodding mistake.”
For a moment, Kieran was stunned into silence.
“Like hell it is,” he finally said. “You and Willa are mad for each other. Have been for years, evenbefore her come out. Whenever she walks into a room, you stare at her like a lion eyeing a gazelle. Unless . . .” He straightened as an alarming prospect struck him. “You don’t want her anymore.”
“I’d kill for her,” Dom snarled.
Kieran silently exhaled. At least there was no shortage of deep emotion between his friend and Willa. Since childhood, Kieran had witnessed the distance between his parents, and their icy disdain for each other. They never addressed each other directly, and when they did, it was always “my lady” or “my lord,” but never their names of John or Aoife. Only when Kieran overheard a pair of housemaids gossiping did he learn that the match between an English earl and an Irish heiress had begun as a tempestuous love match, until in time they’d come to despise each other.
He’d had vague memories of his parents’ loud arguments, which had terrified him as a small boy. But by the time Willa had been born, his mother and father had barely acknowledged each other. That selfsame chill frosted the entire family. Simon had been treated decently, as he was the heir, but Finn and Kieran were afterthoughts—which was fine because it permitted Kieran all the freedom he desired.
Willa, though, was like a flame burning through the frost. She didn’t sit in the biting silence that reigned in the family, and was surprisingly adored for it. Whomever she was going to marry would have to be able to hold his own, or else be flattened like so much grass beneath her bootheel. Dom seemed to be the perfect match for her.
As the daughter of an earl, Willahadto marry, yet there was no expectation for Kieran to do the same, and thank God for that. How could he anchor himself to one woman when there were so many people out there in the world?
“Then go out there and marry her, you dolt,” Finn said.
“I can’t.” Dom shuddered as he covered his eyes with his hand.
“Why the fuck not?” Kieran demanded.
“She’s too goddamned good for me.”
Kieran stared at his friend in disbelief. “This can’t be the same man who swaggers into each ballroom as if every person within it isn’t fit to button the fall of his breeches.”
“It’s the truth, you bastard,” Dom snapped. “Even if she wasn’t a sodding earl’s sodding daughter, she’s so much better than me. In all possible ways, she’s better than me. I’m just some bloody longshoreman, and the things I’ve done—”
“Who hasn’t got a bit of mud on them?” Finn asked mildly.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Dom threw back. “Both of you, to the manor born, never knowing what you got to do to survive. The depths you got to sink to in order to lift yourself up. How can I touch her, with these”—he held up his hands—“that have committed the worst crimes? How can I be the right kind of husband for her? The right kind ofman? She’s ruining herself by becoming my wife, and I can’t live with myself, knowing that.
“Don’t you see?” He turned imploring eyes to Kieran. “Marrying her is the worst thing I couldever do to her. She’ll be miserable. Worse. I’ll destroy her, and I ain’t going to let that happen. But if I call it off, I’ll be wrecking her reputation.”
Kieran absorbed his friend’s anguished words. The pain within them had been tangible, like running a hand through a bowl full of broken glass.
There were things about Dom’s past Kieran didn’t know, but he’d seen the raw hurt that flashed in his friend’s eyes, and could only speculate that he’d endured some of life’s worst. And it pained Kieran to see Dom so wretched on this day, which should have brought his friend happiness.
“A moment,” Kieran said, motioning for Finn. When his brother stood close, he whispered, “I’d say he’s talking rubbish, but he and Willhavebeen driving each other mad. The fights. The tears. Do you think he’s right? That she’d be miserable as his wife?”
“Entirely possible,” Finn murmured. “And if the marriage is a catastrophe, there’s no undoing it. She’ll be shackled to him for life. Like Mother and Father.”
“If she didn’t want him, though, she could have cried off.”
Finn fixed Kieran with a dry look. “And own that she’d made a mistake in her selection of bridegroom?”
The two brothers were silent as they contemplated their only sister ruining her life because she was too obstinate to admit an error in judgment. Kieran remembered the day she was born, and how he’d snuck into his mother’s bedchamber to get a glimpse of Willa as she’d lain in her cradle. He’dbeen prepared to hate this new squalling creature who’d demanded the household’s attention, but he’d taken one look at the red, wrinkled thing who, within hours of her birth, already tried to pick up her head—and that determination had made him fall in love with her immediately.
That hadn’t prevented him from tormenting and teasing her mercilessly over the years, but between siblings, what was a little ink in the hand whilst napping? It didn’t mean he wanted her to permanently lash herself to a man who might obliterate any chance of her happiness.
He’d seen what had befallen his parents, and the way that poison had leeched into every branch of the family.
Was that what awaited Willa? God, he prayed that wasn’t so.
But... her reputation if Dom jilted her...
There was a tap at the door, and the priest said hesitantly, “Beg your pardon, sirs, but we’re to begin the ceremony shortly.”
A strangled groan tore from Dom.
