Page 45 of Nothing Compares to the Duke
She entered so quickly the door cracked against the wall.
“What have you done?”
“The list is long, little sister. How much time do you have?”
Meg sighed. Rhys scrubbed a hand over his face before meeting her irritated gaze.
“I’m referring to Miss Prescott. She stormed out the front door without a word, and she looked upset.”
Pointlessly Rhys wondered if Bella was more upset with him this morning than she’d been that day at her garden party. He suspected both days were a pinnacle of disappointment.
He’d failed her. Again.
“She asked something of me that I couldn’t give her.”
Meg narrowed her gaze at him. “There was a time you would have done anything for Arabella Prescott.”
“I did do something. Saying no was the best thing I could have done for her.” Rhys pushed his chair back, stood, and started pacing again. He’d had enough sitting still in the last weeks in Essex to last him a bloody lifetime. “Believe me, I wanted to say yes.”
“I don’t understand.” Meg perched her hands on her hips. Never a good sign. It meant he wasn’t going to escape this conversation without answering a dozen questions. “Explain.”
He grabbed the foil from the top of his father’s desk as he made a circuit around the room. He whipped it sharply through the air as he approached the window. “Sometimes the best we can do for someone is tonotgive them what they want.”
“That would only make sense if she asked for something outrageous.”
“Yes.”
“She’s known as one of the most proper young ladies in the county. I can’t believe she’d ask for anything improper.” Meg’s tone turned dubious and her brows lifted in curiosity. “Did she?”
“She needs a husband.”
He couldn’t resist turning to see his sister’s reaction to that, and he wasn’t disappointed. Meg’s big blue eyes widened at the same moment her mouth dropped open.
“Marriage? She wishes to marry you?”
“No, that would be ludicrous.” He let out a bitter chuckle. “It’s complicated.”
“She’s famous for not wishing to marry anyone. Which seems strange,” Meg said softly.
“She wishes to please Lord and Lady Yardley.”
“But marriage would please them, and the right one might make her happy too.” Meg bit her lip as if she’d given too much away.
He tried not to think about how eager Meg was to marry, how vulnerable she’d be to fortune hunters on the marriage mart. He wished she had even an ounce of Bella’s hesitance about wedlock. It was why he’d been so keen on her advising Meg.
“Someday I’m sure she’ll find a suitor that...” He paused, hating the taste of those words on his lips. “Suits her,” he finished.
He tried to imagine the kind of nobleman who could deserve Bella and came up with nothing. She was a uniquely smart, maddeningly stubborn woman andit would take a man of far more intelligence and patience than he could imagine to make her happy.
“I take it she won’t be coming back to visit if you don’t assist her.” Meg’s worried tone spiked his own anxiety.
“I’ll send a note to the Duchess of Tremayne. She’s quite the popular hostess during the Season.”
Meg wrapped a finger around a ribbon fluttering down from a bow at the front of her dress. “She’s never had a Season herself though, has she?”
“No.” Tremayne’s wife was lovely and capable and could manage a household with an efficiency that verged on frightening, but she had been born the daughter of a land steward and never had a formal coming-out.
“Perhaps Miss Prescott, Bella, would still be willing to speak to me.” She cast him a look tinged with accusation. “Unless she’s too angry with you to have anything to do with our family.”
