Page 8 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
“You’re the one who said it,” she returned with a giggle, her whole face pink from the scandal that she hadn’t justimpliedbut had outright said.
It was the most damning thing that Corin had ever heard out of her mouth.
“I said no such thing,” Corin answered stiffly, recovering more slowly than he would have liked. He’d certainly meant nothing along those lines. He didn’t judge those who dabbled in such things so harshly as most that he knew; he’d had the great fortune of rooming with a lad in school who had indulged in such preferences and liked to think of himself as rather open-minded.
Just…not so much as his cousin was implying.
“You know that Mother is going to push, Corin,” Charlotte confided gently, keeping her voice so low that only he could hear her as they passed from the entryway into the slowly filling ballroom.
Already, ladies were milling about, fanning themselves with coquettish expressions while the gathered men watched hungrily from their packs. It was like an animal study, only worse, because Corin knew that his family meant for him to be thrown into the fray of it. A fate he thought he’d escaped upon his marriage two years before.
“She can push all she wants,” Corin muttered. “I have no wish to join the throngs of eager bachelors. I’m a widower, in case she’d forgotten.”
“You know she’s done no such thing.” Charlotte eyed the gathered guests with a kind, judgment-free eye. “She hardly counts your marriage to Alice, you know. It only lasted six months and—”
“Yes, well, she died, didn’t she?”
Corin knew he’d been too harsh the moment the words left his lips. Charlotte’s eyes watered as she looked away from him, her sensitive spirit uncomfortable with the brittle, angry notes between Corin’s words.
Most people usually shied away from him when Alice came up. It was a fact he’d grown accustomed to over the last year and a half.
But he hadn’t meant to be unkind to Charlotte, of all people.
“Charlotte…”
“No, I know. I am aware that she died, Corin. And so is Mother. But she said a year and a half is enough time to move past your mourning, especially considering the short nature and circumstances of your marriage in the first place.” Charlotte stared adamantly out at the crowd, refusing to meet Corin’s expression as he tried to apologize to her with his eyes.
Charlotte didn’t need to parrot her mother.
Corin knew what she said. He knew her opinion on his staying out of the marriage market just as well as he knew his own name. He just didn’t feel the need to bow to her desire to see him back in front of the altar again when getting in front of it the first time had been so damning, to begin with.
Across the room, Romeo stood in the middle of a gaggle of young women, his hands gesturing dramatically as he charmed the lot of them right by the entrance, set up to be seen by anyone who entered.
It left a sour taste in Corin’s mouth, especially given the topic of his and Charlotte’s discussion.
And apparently hers as well.
“You really don’t have to clean up every mess that he makes,” Charlotte whispered sadly.
Corin almost laughed.
Didn’t he?
“If not I, then who?” he asked dryly.
Their father? The man was so far gone that Corin didn’t think he knew the day of the week on any given day well enough to tell anyone, much less have the attention span to see what his youngest son was getting up to. No, that was Corin’s job…and had been for quite some time.
“Oh, Lucy Thiebald is wearing that dreadful gray dress again,” Charlotte muttered as she leaned into Corin’s arm, squeezing it gently. “But…maybe you ought to consider allowing him to clean up his own mess from time to time.”
Corin did laugh at that.
Loudly. Too loudly and bitterly, his teeth gritting together as he forced his lips back to a close.
Romeo clean up his own mess? Their father would recover before that happened.
“He would have to care enough to do so first,” Corin reminded her, not-so-gently. And be motivated enough to fix it on his own, too, a thing that Romeo had never been.
Corin watched him sweep one of the ladies he was entertaining away to the dance floor, his hands just toeing that line between proprietary and indecency as he did. Because that was what Romeo did—toe the line. Every line and every boundary that he could find. Almost as well as he crossed right over them mindless to the consequences that would follow.
