Page 91 of The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes
“I thought older brothers looked out for their younger siblings.”
“This one knows a losing bet when he sees one.”
“My soul is at ease with you beside me,” Kieran grumbled.
Dom glanced up through his brows as Kieran and Finn neared his table. He grunted, which might have been a greeting or a warning. Difficult to tell the difference.
“Ain’t you supposed to be polishing some toff’s arse in your bride quest?” Dom asked snidely.
“We thought we’d spend some time with your arse instead,” Kieran answered. “Is there a private room where we can talk?”
Dom snorted. “That’s where they keep the bodies.”
“We’ll sit with you, then,” Finn said, sliding into the opposite settle. Kieran joined him, and perhaps this was what people felt as they approached the gallows on Old Bailey Road. It was both terror and a macabre eagerness to get it over with.
The publican came over and without asking for their order, slammed two tankards down in front of Kieran and Finn before stomping away.
Torn between drinking the suspect liquid in his mug or offering Dom a full confession, Kieran chose the less dangerous option and sipped at his beverage.
The best way to handle the situation was to come straight out with it.
“I’m in love with Celeste,” Kieran said, looking Dom straight in the eye.
It felt terrifying to speak the words aloud, but also marvelous. Saying them calmed all of the vorticesof emotion in him, as if uttering them was an enchantment.
A moment passed as his friend simply stared at him. Dom’s jaw looked made of iron, and his voice was likewise full of rust when he finally uttered, “How does she feel about you?”
“She may care for me, too,” Kieran answered, then added fervently, “I hope like hell she does. But even if she doesn’t, I have to help her. She’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Dom demanded. He reached across the table and grabbed hold of Kieran’s neckcloth, which he used to shake Kieran like a sack of bones. “Is it your fault? Is it?”
Though Kieran was strong, Dom was stronger, and it took some strength to pry Dom’s hand off his neck.
Flopping back against the settle, Kieran coughed as he dragged in a breath. But the air in the tavern was rancid and smoky, and set off a new round of coughing. Finn pressed a tankard into Kieran’s hand and he took a reluctant drink.
When he felt somewhat certain that he could talk without hacking up one of his organs, Kieran rasped, “It’s everyone’s fault. Mine, yours. Your father’s. Do you know that Ned’s made her responsible for maintaining your family’s reputation? Even when you were brawling in taverns, Celeste was the one who had to ensure that the Kilburns were accepted in the right circles.”
“I didn’t know,” Dom said broodingly. “Damn. I never would have tasked her with that, had I known.”
“She’s been caged too long,” Kieran persisted. “She needed a way to break free. In exchange for getting me into respectable gatherings where I could meet potential brides, I agreed to take her to some of London’s less reputable corners.”
“You. Did. What?” Face turning purple, Dom ended his sentence on a roar.
“I helped her live the life she wanted,” Kieran threw back. “You and your father keep her chained to respectability. It was killing her.”
Dom sneered. “And you were motivated by pure charity?”
“Admittedly,” Kieran allowed, “my thoughts were at first only of myself. Celeste was the most respectable person I knew, and I wanted something from her. I figured it would be harmless—and not much trouble for me—to take her to a gaming hell, and one of Longbridge’s parties. But,” he went on resolutely as Dom growled, “I saw what it meant to her. That she could be responsible for herself, and no one made her decisions for her. She got tolive, Dom, outside of the prison of respectability. And her happiness...”
He swallowed, his throat burning, but not from Dom’s prior grip. He recalled her growing confidence at Jenkins’s, and how she reveled in her freedom at the party.
“It was a beautiful thing to see.Shewas beautiful. Free and fierce and I couldn’t help it—I fell in love with her. There was no waynotto love her. To see her become all that she was, all that she could be, it was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.”
Dom’s jaw was rigid, but he didn’t speak. Neither did Finn, who watched him with curiosity, as though observing a wolf suddenly learning the power of flight. Speaking of Celestedidmake Kieran feel as though he could fly, with all plummeting lows and soaring heights. Falling didn’t frighten him nearly as much as never getting high enough.
Planting his hands on the tabletop, he leaned forward. “But Lord Fucking Montford is going to steal all that away from her if something isn’t done.”
“Always knew that sniveling fop was trouble,” Dom said through clenched teeth.
