Page 24 of Seven Nights with the Wicked Duke
He nodded and smiled at her, the smile quickly fading when her brother growled softly in his throat.
Whether he got her hint or not was irrelevant, because his next words told her he didn't care what she thought.
"He did not have to hold your hand so long to offer a greeting," he said frowning even harder if that was even possible.
Lord Hightown must have realized just how hostile the environment was, because he pressed the bouquet of flowers into her arms with a hasty bow, turning on his heel and hurrying towards the entrance he just came through.
"Perhaps I will visit some other time. I bid you a good day, Lady Cecilia," he said just before he stepped through the doors of their townhouse.
Cecilia knew that he was never going to come back from the dust he kicked up as he rushed from her home. Men like that had fragile egos to match their fragile physique and being intimidated by the brother of a lady they were interested in was not conducive for the ego.
She held no affection for him, but the young man was a potential suitor for her and was quite likable. While his departure was no great loss to her, there was a chance that if Magnus continued this way, she would be soon without any suitors and remain solidly on the shelves in the years to come.
Already, gentlemen of thetonhad started to shy away from her for fear of Magnus arriving to threaten them or positively embarrass them and it had been no easy feat securing the connections she had so far.
If he continued his tyranny of all her suitors, she would damn near be forced to marry one of his choosing. If he picked anyone like him to be her husband, then she would much prefer to be a spinster instead.
"You do know that you did not need to do that, Magnus," she said slowly, trying to control her annoyance, as she turned to her brother. "You were positively rude."
"Do what?" he asked nonchalantly, leaning against the wall of the drawing room, looking for all the world, like he planned to set up shop on that spot, with no plan to leave anytime soon. "Teaching a young man how to behave properly with an unwed lady?"
"You scared Lord Hightown away."
"No. I was protecting your virtue and it says a lot of his strength of character, if he could be that easily scared by a mere reprimand," he said with a sniff of disgust. "You do not need such a weak man. Besides he just wants to marry you so he could get his hands on your dowry."
Yes, Lord Hightown was definitely a coward.
That much was true.
But that didn't mean Magnus should have behaved the way he did.
She had only approached him to lengthen her list of potential suitors which was drastically reducing as the day went on.
He was the kind of man she could never profess genuine attraction towards, but the man had hardly done anything out of the ordinary.
Members of noble society over the centuries have always married for either titles or fortune, in some cases it was even for both reasons. Lord Hightown, even if he was a fortune hunter; was only doing what his predecessors had always done. He had hardly done anything to deserve the poor treatment he had received.
"That is not enough reason to be as rude as you were," she said in a low voice.
She would never agree openly with him or he would grow smug and infuriate her even further.
"Perhaps you might spare some ofyourgood manners for Lord Finch. He would be a good match for you. He is a scholar just like you are, quiet and possesses a modest fortune. He would suit you quite nicely."
Of course how could she have forgotten Lord Finch who was her brother's latest prospect for her?
He was definitely quiet and studious, and it was for those two reasons that she knew he could never make a good suitor for her. Magnus on the other hand, was so sure that the man was her soulmate. The reason why he thought that way was not so far-fetched.
She had realized that there was only one way she could help her brother return to some level of normalcy on his return from war and that was to become less of a burden, quiet and unassuming so as not to be just another disturbance in his already chaotic world.
Over time, pretending to be quiet and unassuming, she became so seamlessly one with this persona that she had created, that she no longer even knew who she really was under the layers of pretense. She truly believed that she had become this person, the quiet unassuming young lady, who liked to study and stay indoors.
That was until the moment when she realized that her brother meant to marry her off soon. She felt the locks on her gilded cage getting reinforced and she suddenly regretted the amount of time she had wasted trying to make herself small enough to fit into Magnus's life. It was now clear to her that she was in no way quiet and unassuming.
She wanted to explore life to the best of its limits, as far as she could go without true ruination, before she submitted to the final lock on her cage.
The fact she thought of marriage as a prison was ironic, considering that she had friends who became truly free and happy through the same institution. But then, not everyone got to be so lucky and if there was one thing she was sure of, it was the undeniable fact that marriage to Lord Finch would be a prison with a different jailer.
Lord Finch was a young man with a much older appearance, balding, with beady little eyes that always seemed to be appraising her every move, and finding her lacking every time. The few times they had conversed, he had found a thing or two to critique and made her feel much the same Magnus did when he began one of his lectures on her conduct.
