Page 89 of Duke of Emeralds
Thomas’s mouth felt lined with wool. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told ye.”
“Try me,” Colin said. “Unless you plan to drown in your own silence which, while dramatic, seems an awful waste.”
Thomas did not answer.
“Look,” Colin said, dropping the banter, “I don’t pretend to be a philosopher, but if it’s worth brooding over, it’s worth mending. Or at least worth admitting that you care.”
Thomas glanced up. “You sound like your wife.”
Colin laughed. “She’d be delighted to hear it. But this isn’t her wisdom, it’s mine: Don’t wait for the other party to break. You’ll outstubborn each other and both wind up miserable.”
Thomas nudged his horse ahead, staring straight down the line of the hedge. “Not every argument is about stubbornness.”
“No,” Colin agreed, “sometimes it’s about fear.”
They rode for a while without words then Colin broke the silence. “What do you want, Tom?”
Thomas gripped the reins tighter. What did he want? The question had hung in his mind, unspoken, for days. He wanted Hester, but he could not have her—at least not the way hewanted. He wanted the castle in Dorset filled with sound of laughter. He wanted children, and a woman who looked at him with something other than duty or polite affection.
He wanted, for once in his life, to not be an outsider in his own story.
“I want to not feel this way,” he sighed.
Colin made a face. “Can’t help with that. You’re doomed, man. That’s the curse of marrying above your station. It was inevitable.”
Thomas snorted. “Ye think I regret it?”
“Not for a second,” Colin said. “But you think she does. And that’s the rub, isn’t it?”
Thomas turned his horse down the east fork, signaling the end of the ride. “I should be getting back.”
Colin followed, drawing up beside him. “I am not fond of blue-deviled friends, Tom. Speak to your wife, and tell heryelove her.”
Thomas almost laughed at the manner Colin mimicked him.
“It’s not the end, unless you want it to be. Just remember that.”
Thomas nodded, but as they reached the crossroad, he turned his horse toward the quiet road that led out of Town. Colin paused, watching him go.
“Thought you’d be heading home,” he called after. “Aren’t you due in Mayfair for supper?”
“Business to settle,” Thomas lied, not slowing.
Colin shook his head then spurred his horse west. “See you at the club, then!”
Thomas watched until his friend vanished behind the hedgerow. Then, alone on the narrow lane, he let himself breathe out the truth.
He was not going home. He had no idea if he ever would.
“The Duke of Copperton and the Duke of Craton, Your Grace.”
Thomas, startled, nearly upended the entire pot of coffee he’d been nursing for the better part of an hour. Miss Pebble, his temporary housekeeper, had the sort of voice that could split oak, and she used it now with the full force of someone unimpressed by titled men in damp overcoats.
He set the pot down, gathered his wits, and stepped out to the hall where Colin and Isaac stood side by side, dripping water onto the cheap runner. Both wore expressions best described as insubordinate.
“Well,” Colin said, “I suppose this is what passes for hospitality on the outskirts of civilization.” He scanned the narrow hallway then the bare walls. “Were you planning to greet us, or have we interrupted your morning brooding?"
Isaac’s eyes swept the ceiling, as if he expected the roof to cave in. “He probably hoped to die of loneliness before we arrived,” he said. “Or possibly to outlast the supply of coffee, which, judging by the aroma, is already past salvation.”
