Page 59 of A Bride for the Rakish Duke

“I shall pretend I did not hear that,” William growled in reply, for if there was one insult he would not tolerate, it was that.

Anthony sniffed. “Then, I shall repeat it so you can be certain you heard me correctly. You are a coward. You are a coward for running away from your wife, purely because she might just be someone you could be close to and grow attached to. You are a coward for not taking the time to get to know her. You are a coward for not giving her the honeymoon she deserves. You are a coward for taking the easy path of believing she is some… hussy. You are a coward, and worse, you are wrong about her.”

“I would be very careful about your next words, Brother.” William narrowed his eyes, delivering his coldest stare, but either Anthony had become impervious, or he had decided not to be afraid.

“Are you planning to take another lady to your bed?” Anthony asked bluntly.

William laughed tightly. “Tonight? Of course not.”

“Ever again?”

“I am not a soothsayer,” William replied.

He wondered absently if he could do it, were he to be propositioned… or would he see Lydia’s face in his mind’s eye and find it impossible.

Anthony looked angry, his expression tense. “Are you so invested in your old ways that you would throw away something that I believe, with all my heart, could be the best thing to have ever happened to you?”

William furrowed his brow. “I have little interest in my old ways, but that does not mean that?—”

“Then go home,” Anthony interrupted sharply. “Go home to your wife, and for goodness’ sake, be what she deserves. Stop punishing her for being someone she is not, or you will lose her.”

William smirked to hide the jolt of alarm that shot through him. “Lose her? I hardly think so. What is she going to do? Ask for a divorce on the grounds that I have given her what most ladies would dream of? Risk her reputation entirely because it is not quite what she expected?”

“I suspect it will depend on how far you push her,” Anthony said with a solemnity in his expression that suggested he might know more than he was letting on.

William’s smile faded. “Has something been said? It was that sister of hers, was it not? She is conspiring again?”

“Nothing has been said, there is no conspiracy, but I know what I saw. Lydia is not happy, and she comes from a family of women who will not settle for unhappy,” Anthony replied. “Go home. Tell your wife of your success and good news. Go home and be a husband. You do not know how lucky you are.”

For a moment, William simply observed his brother, noting the sadness in the younger man’s eyes. He had always assumed that Anthony was not yet interested in the idea of marriage and certainly not interested in emulating his brother’s wilder youth, but he wondered if he had been so fixated on his own life that he had missed what was right in front of him. That Anthony might be lonely.

Is it really possible that I am capable of making my brother and my wife feel abandoned?

Marriage was becoming a rather eye-opening thing, that was for certain.

“Returning will only worsen her mood,” he said, already sobering.

Anthony shook his head. “Then face her ill temper, for you are the one who put her in it. Do not keep running, or you will make a hypocrite of yourself.” He thumped a fist onto the table, disturbing the brandy glass. “Go home. I will not say it again.”

Frowning at the warps and stains on the table’s surface, William raised his hand to catch the attention of the waiter. “Another brandy, if you please.”

The waiter bowed his head and hurried off while Anthony’s expression grew ever more exasperated. The sort of look one might have while training a dog that refused to obey.

“You cannot be serious,” he muttered.

As William waited for his drink in silence, he thought back to the night of the Bruxton Ball. It was the most beautiful he had ever seen his wife look, yet he had not said a single thing to compliment her. He had not told her that she resembled some manner of celestial being, too fine and glorious to be mingling among mortal creatures.

He had not said that when she smiled at the Earl of Gorsley and had danced with him so magnificently, he had wished thatit was him. Had wished that he had gone to Bruxton Hall early, accompanying her instead of playing games by arriving late.

He had not told her that, for a moment, he had been wildly, uncontrollably jealous that another man was touchinghiswife. That, deep down, he was jealous still.

The waiter set a fresh glass of brandy down on the table.

Mumbling a “thank you,” William picked it up, downed it in one go, and with the potent liquor burning down from his throat to his stomach, he pushed back his chair and marched out of there without another word.

CHAPTER 24

In the past few days, Lydia had settled into her exile rather nicely. She had the manor to herself, aside from a brief encounter with Anthony before he had abruptly departed again—a habit of both brothers or so it seemed—and was determined to make the most of it.

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