Page 66 of The Duke's Return
“We should attend.”
“It’s in the next county over and they’re not hosting guests through the night. Returning home would be dangerous,” she pointed out to him.
He gave a short nod. “There is a level of danger, but not enough to warrant our lack of attendance. Our driver knows the roads well, as do the horses. Besides, we must keep up our appearances. It’s important we were once again seen together.”
“Again? We have already so much.” Genevieve bit her tongue from going on. Drained from a morning of entertaining, she sighed. There was no energy for fighting now. “Very well. I’ll send Lord Winburn notice we will be in attendance. Is that satisfactory?”
“It’s not about satisfying me, but the rest of England,” he reminded her. “Everyone needs to believe the story we’re telling.”
Something about those words put a discomforting lump in her throat. Genevieve took a side step away to put distance between them. “Yes,” she agreed with a tight smile. “I know exactly the story you’re telling, Julian. It just isn’t the right one.”
He looked ready to respond. But Genevieve wasn’t. So she offered another curt nod and swept down the hall before Julian could say another word.
CHAPTER 25
“She’s not only beautiful, your duchess, but she’s obviously clever and kind, even brave to put up with the likes of you on any day. Better than any of us deserve. You run now, Julian, and you will lose her for good.”
Setting aside the brandy, Julian supposed there wasn’t a drink enough in the world that was going to block out his friend’s voice.
Nor the memory of Genevieve’s soft lips curving so neatly when she spoke sharply to him.
He picked up the decanter and grimaced before setting it back down. Already he’d filled his glass three times. The room didn’t spin but the warmth inside him wasn’t making tonight as easy as he hoped. He turned away from the side table and made his way over to the fire.
It was a surprisingly chilly evening for the summer. The window glass had been cold to his touch. Though the jacket had been removed, he kept the cravat loose at his neck and settled in for the heat of the flames, hoping they would relax him.
The velvet trim chair was a high back, allowing him to rest his head against it. This was supposed to help him relax. And yet it didn’t.
“Tristan, you old fool,” he murmured to himself. “Why do you always have to be right?”
But that was always the way of things. Tristan had the wisdom, Julian the charm, Sebastian the muscle, and Ronan… well, he had helped them stay together. The peacekeeper of the four friends. And the three of them together had kept Julian sane, giving him the space to be whomever he desired to become.
There was no need to wonder what they would say to him now.
“You’re being a namby-pamby sort of dunce,” Sebastian would drawl. “Isn’t it obvious? Pull yourself together. Do what needs to be done.”
What does that even mean, Sebastian? No one tells me what to do anymore. I don’t know. I don’t like it.
Then Tristan would be there to harrumph before muttering aloud, “While you may not have anticipated that you would ever find yourself a married man, it only matters what situation you are now confronting; I have never known you to back down from a fight. This isn’t even a battle. It’s the opposite. The only one you’re fighting now is yourself.”
You always say too much. Why do my friends speak in riddles?
“We’re only trying to help,” Ronan would be there to point out. “Life isn’t meant to be simple, is it? But sometimes we know the truth of what needs to happen even when we don’t want to say it. Don’t you know?”
No, you bloody fool, that’s why I’m talking to the lot of you inside my head. How abysmal this all is. I don’t want this. I never wanted any of this. There was never supposed to be a wife. There were never supposed to be complications.
But he sensed the doubts within.
Perhaps he was running. Perhaps he was afraid.
A bitter laugh tumbled free of his lips as he set his empty glass aside, not particularly certain when he had drained it. But the brandy was thick on his tongue. He didn’t mean to be drinking. The fuzzy sensations in his mind were clearly not going to be enough to help him deny the truth.
“I am,” he admitted to the empty room. He didn’t want to be afraid, but he was.
She was never supposed to matter.
The weight in his chest fluttered with an unfamiliar sensation. Oh, he had begun to feel it more frequently of late, yes. But he didn’t understand it. The feeling came and went. All he knew was that it had to do with her. His wife. This had all started as an intention to be a man of his word, to protect the family name as she had wished of him. Since then, it had changed into something else, something more.
Sometimes it was a lovely sensation and other times it made him wish he were ill. So ill he couldn’t think about anything or anyone.
