Page 57 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
Romeo’s frown deepened, but he didn’t defend himself as he once might have.
“We began an affair shortly after. I did mean to abide by what you and I had discussed, you know. I do love Sybille.” The words were plaintive, but Corin couldn’t help but notice how ashen Romeo got as he spoke. “Sandra returned here. I slipped. More than once. Sybille was keeping me at arm’s length, I was arguing with you. I rationalized it as just a continued dalliance rather than starting something new. I assumed that she would grow tired of it, at some point, I thought that it might be safer, with her being so.”
“You thought conducting an affair with an Earl’s wife would besafer?”
Romeo grimaced.
“I didn’t think it through, clearly, Corin.”
“And now you think that the earl means to kill you?”
“Not think.” Romeo paused, throwing his drink back before slouching into a chair across from Corin dejectedly. “He found letters that we had written to one another. Evidence of our rendezvous. When I went to go and meet with her, with all the intention of breaking things off, mind you, he was there waiting. He was…I’ve never faced a man that I’ve wronged, you know.” Romeo laughed, the sound lackluster and bitter in the same breath. “You’ve always handled that end for me.”
Corin wanted to believe that Romeohadbeen going to break things off. But all he had was Romeo’s word on that. And, unfortunately, that was no longer even the biggest issue in the story.
“He demanded a duel,” Romeo continued blandly. “He’s sworn vengeance. To either kill me or die trying. Either way, I am ruined.”
Corin sat back heavily, the drink in his hand heavier than a glass had any right to be.
A duel.
A duel with the Earl of Medbourne.
“And you accepted this duel?” It was a stupid question, but it was the only one that Corin felt any strength to voice.
Romeo shrugged, placing his empty glass on the desk between them and sitting forward. His head fell into his hands, as his shoulders shuddered as if he were repressing tears.
“I thought about running.”
Corin didn’t blame him. The earl was hardly considered a bad shot.
“I thought about running and then I thought about Sybille.” Romeo sat up with a wry smile, his eyes so full of pain that Corin, for once, forgot to chastise him. “I thought about Sybille and what she would be left to face on her own. I’ve put her through so much already. Oh, I know that you all think I do not care. That I do not care for her at all. But Sybille…”
Romeo’s sigh was heavy.
“I have always loved Sybille. The fault, all faults, lie within me. But you knew that. There is something rotten and willful in me. I do not know hownotto take, Corin. I want to know. God, I’ve wanted to know for so long. But every time I resolved to do better, something would happen, and I would cave. This time, though…”
“What makes this time different?” Corin’s voice was soft, the anger leaching out of him despite all his best intentions.
People would call him weak, he was sure. But looking at his brother right then, he couldn’t have thought of a better punishment than the mirror that had been apparently forced up to his eyes.
“I looked the earl in his eyes, and I didn’t feel bad for myself.” Romeo stared off past Corin, his eyebrows furrowed. “I thought about what it would do to you, what it would do to Sybille, and I knew that I had to stay. I cannot abandon my wife. I cannot leave you to clean this mess up. I want to be a better man, Corin. I want to…atone for everything that I have done.”
It was Corin’s turn to laugh.
He took a large swig of whiskey as he stared at his brother.
There was a conviction in Romeo’s tone that he had never heard before, a steel that made him more than justwantto trust his words.
“So then you are going to face him?”
He wanted Romeo to say no. For the first time ever he wanted his brother to be the carefree rake that had caused him so much headache over the years.
“I am. And I am here to ask you to be my second. If you are willing. If it is not too much to ask of you.”
It was.
The image of Romeo on his back, blood pooling around his lifeless body, flashed through Corin’s mind, and he had to close them tightly to try and keep from continuing to see it.
