Page 40 of The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes
“My fanciful muse,” Kieran answered, striving for an indifferent tone.
“No one in particular?” his brother prodded.
“I take my inspiration wherever I find it,” Kieran replied. “Never from any particular person.”
Or he had... until now. Because who else could the woman in his poem be, but Celeste? And why did he want to find words that rhymed with her name? Or find precisely the right simile for the color of her eyes?
Those eyes filled with the light of a thousand stars when she was joyous, and it crushed him to see that radiance dim when she talked about her unwanted engagement and marriage. How could anyone steal her brilliance? It was a crime.
Finn dropped into the seat opposite his. “What were you doing with Celeste Kilburn at Jenkins’s?”
Kieran started. “The woman with me wasn’t Celeste Kilburn.”
His brother raised one of his eyebrows. It was remarkable how that tiny expression spoke so eloquently, but then Finn was always adept at managing what he showed and to whom. Kieran was one of the fortunate ones whom Finn entrusted with his thoughts and emotions, which were bestowed the way a fairy king gave out enchanted gifts.
“I wasn’t sure you’d seen us,” Kieran said. “You didn’t approach or say anything.”
“Given that you were with Miss Kilburn and she was in disguise,” Finn replied dryly, “it seemed prudent to steer clear of you both.”
“How’d you work out that it was Miss Kilburn? No one else recognized her.”
“There are tells.” Finn added when Kieran motioned for him to explain, “She has a particular way of holding her head, unlike anyone else I’ve met. It’s as though she’s attempting to work out a complex equation.”
Kieran sat back in his seat. Thinking on it now, Celestedidoften seem as though she was carefully, thoroughly assessing the situation, which, given what she’d been saying about her particular social position, made perfect sense. She had narrow paths to navigate, with far more limitations imposed upon her than he’d ever know.
“What—”
Kieran barely uttered a syllable before the front door to their rooms slammed open. Heavy footfalls stalked across the floor, headed in his direction, and a moment later, Dom stood in front of him, his arms crossed over his massive chest.
“What the fuck are you doing with my sister?” Dom demanded.
“How did you—?” Kieran shot a glance at Finn. “Why the hell did you tell him?”
Finn used the poker to stir the fire. “I didn’t.”
“Lord Montford stopped by and said he’d seen you and Celeste at some damned flower show. Explain yourself,” Dom gritted.
“I’m not saying a bloody word until you cease looming over me like some East End Colossus of Rhodes,” Kieran answered. At the least, Dom knew nothing about Salome. He tucked the sheets of foolscap into his book, and, setting it aside, he answered, “I’m trying to fix our collective goddamned problem.”
“How is squiring my sister fixing the problem?” Dom challenged.
“I’m not answering you until you sit down,” Kieran snapped in response.
Glowering, Dom stomped over to a chair at the dining table and picked it up as easily as if it were made of reeds. He slammed it down on the ground, turned it around, and straddled the seat, bracing his arms across the back of the chair.
“Talk,” he ground out.
“Don’t understand what you’re so scorched about,” Finn murmured. “You were engaged to our sister and neither of us were sent into a roasting fury about it. Not even when you jilted her.”
A contrite, wounded grimace flashed across Dom’s face. “Youhelpedme jilt her.”
“Now I wonder at the wisdom of that,” Kieran said darkly.
“And my intentions toward Willa were always honorable,” Dom muttered.
“Until you jilted her,” Finn added.
“Until then,” Dom said, grim. “From the moment I met Willa, I was true to her. Whereas you,” he went on, pointing a finger at Kieran, “are the biggest slut in London who wouldn’t know the meaning of constancy if it sucked your cock. So, I won’thave you toying with Celeste whilst you amuse yourself with others.”
