Page 6 of A Chance to Dance with the Duke
Anger rose up, swift and…misdirected.
They weren’t the ones who’d humiliated the poor girl. That had been all him.
“Was this your idea of a joke?” His aunt’s hiss had his spine straightening and Kal grimaced in sympathy before they both turned to face Aunt Evie.
Kal’s mother was a force to be reckoned with. Which, most of the time, Carver was grateful for, honestly. She’d come into his life when he’d been desperately in need of a parent. With his mother long gone, and then losing his father and older brother in one dreadful accident, he’d been lost. A child surrounded by servants who’d been kind, but distant. Ingratiating, but impersonal.
And then along came Aunt Evie, and she’d swept Ian into her home, where she’d raised him and Kal, and Kal’s two young sisters, with the same sort of brisk efficiency she used to run multiple households.
“I wasn’t—” he started.
“It was cruel.” Her tone was hard and crisp, and Carver was fairly certain those words made his insides wither and die.
Cruel.
No. That wasn’t him…
His father, undoubtedly. His brother, perhaps. But not him. Aunt Evie had raised him better than that.
“I raised you better than that, Ian.” The words so perfectly echoed what he’d been thinking, he blinked in surprise. But it was the use of his given name that made his heart stutter.
Ian. No one called him that anymore. Or very rarely, at least. Almost everyone, even Kal, had taken to referring to him by his title.
To hear her use it now made him feel like a lost child all over again.
He straightened when he saw her starting to launch into a lecture. Because hewasn’ta child. And he hadn’t been for far too long. He forced his voice to be even and cool. “Aunt Evie, it was a mistake. It was not my intention to embarrass the girl?—”
“Well, intention or not, you made her a laughingstock just now.”
Carver opened his mouth to protest but clamped his lips shut just as quickly. Much as he wished he could deny it, he couldn’t. He’d been thoughtless. So worried about his own image, he hadn’t imagined how this might go wrong.
How Miss Taylor might get hurt.
He looked to Kal, whose brooding expression was uncharacteristically regretful. He still bore the hint of a wince as he met Carver’s gaze.
“You know what you need to do,” Kal said.
“Of course.” Carver exhaled sharply with a nod. “I’ll apologize.”
Aunt Evie huffed, seemingly put out that she’d worked herself into a state and wasn’t allowed a good lecture.
But just then a friend of hers called out and she was all smiles as she returned the other woman’s wave. To Carver, she added, “Be sure to make this right. Her father is not a man you want to quarrel with, not if you expect to have any allies in the House of Lords.”
She walked away before he could respond that he’d make this right—of course he would. And not because he wanted to win favor with her father.
“I despise feeling sorry for people.” Kal’s tone was edged with annoyance as he gazed in the direction where Miss Taylor had disappeared. “Pity is a wretched emotion. Useless and cloying.”
“Mmm. Beautiful sentiment as always, Kal.”
Kal’s lips twitched at the corners as he let out an exasperated sigh. “Do make amends before I have to pity that girl much longer.”
“I’d hate for you to suffer, dear cousin.”
They shared a small smile at the wry jest.
“I really did not mean for that to unfold the way it did,” Carver added after they’d stood there in companionable silence.
“I know, Carver.” Kal nudged him. Hard. “Now go. And try not to make this mess even worse.”
