Page 36 of The Duke of Distraction
“What the bloody hell?”Anthony muttered from the bed.
“Perhaps you should draw your bed curtains next time,” Felix offered unhelpfully.
“Perhaps you should stay out of my damn bedchamber,” Anthony grumbled.
“Gladly, but it seems to be the only way to reach you of late.”Instead of spending less time abed, he seemed to be spending more—according to his valet, whom Felix had interrogated a few days ago.
“Then don’t reach me.Go away.”He rolled to his side, presenting his back to Felix and the window, and pulled the covers over his head.
“No.It’s time you got out of here.”
“I do.I go downstairs to the library every night.”
Not quiteeverynight, but Felix didn’t correct him.“Out of London.We’re going to the country.”
Anthony sat up and glared at him.“I’m not going to Oaklands.”
Felix had suggested that last week, which had sent Anthony into a spiral of guilt and self-loathing.That had likely sparked his current penchant for sleeping.When one was asleep, one couldn’t be tortured by one’s conscious thoughts.“We’re going to Stag’s Court.We will ride and fish and get into trouble.”
Anthony shook his head and winced.
“We’ll also dry you out,” Felix said.He wasn’t going to let Anthony drown himself in liquor as Felix’s father had done.
“I can’t go.Sarah—”
“Is going, so you see, youmustgo.It wouldn’t be proper for us to go alone.”
Anthony’s heated gaze found his.“Don’t think you’re going to take advantage of her again.”
“Is that what you think happened at Darent Hall?It was a bloody mistake, Anthony.She dropped her assigned number along with Miss Reynolds, and they picked up the wrong ones.Sarah was supposed to meet Blakesley.”Lavinia had explained what happened to Felix a few days afterward when they’d encountered each other here in their efforts to console Sarah and Anthony.And Miss Reynolds had explained it to Lavinia right after Felix had left the room with Sarah and Anthony.Miss Reynolds had been distressed since it seemed there was a problem between Felix and Sarah, which, of course, had not been the reason for their departure at all.“Believe me when I say that no one was more horrified by the mistake than I was.”Or perhaps Sarah.
“You took longer to return to the drawing room than nearly everyone else,” Anthony said.“And when I learned you’d kissed…my sister, I realized she was the last woman to return.”He glowered at Felix again.“So you must have been enjoying yourselves.”
Felix most certainly had.And he was fairly confident Sarah had too.If not for the footman interrupting them, he wasn’t sure how far they would have taken things.He’d thought of that encounter a hundred times or more, dreamed of it, and in every single instance, he knew he would have taken more if he could.
But he couldn’t.Because…Sarah.
“Don’t read anything into that,” Felix said coolly.“You need to let it go.Sarah and I have.It’s as if it never happened.”
“Good.”
“Why would it anger you so much anyway?Your parents wanted us to marry.”Felix realized his error immediately and wished he could take the words back.“Forget I said that.I’d be angry too if my best friend was kissing my sister.”
“My parents would have wanted Sarah to marry an oak tree.They hated that she wasn’t wed already, and they hated that I wasn’t ready to wed either.They were fucking obsessed.”His lip curled.He was angry with them.Felix understood that—he’d been angry with his father for a long time.
Felix hadn’t known they were that upset about Anthony not marrying yet.He knew they’d wanted him to and hoped it would be soon, but they’d seemed to direct all their efforts and desperation toward Sarah.
Silence reigned for a moment before Anthony exhaled in resignation.“Sarah wants to go?”
Felix had no idea and didn’t care—they were going.“Yes.We’re going to have a splendid time.You’ll see.It’s just what you both need.”
Anthony looked up at him with the most honest—and painful—expression Felix had seen from him yet, and it pulled at his chest.“If anyone can bring us cheer—it’s you.”
That was precisely what Felix meant to do.
The air was fresher, the weather beautiful, the accommodations more than comfortable, but Sarah still felt hollow.You just got here,she reminded herself.In time, you’ll feel better.
Her maid and the housekeeper and the butler in London had all been telling her this for weeks.As had Lavinia before she’d gone to Fanny’s wedding.Time, however, had only made her feel more empty and disillusioned.She kept trying to make sense of what had happened to their parents, where there simply wasn’t sense to be made.
