Page 63 of Duchess Material

“Fine!” George let out a long groan and left the table.

Robbie apologised for his son. “I really am mortified. Penny, you and Henry didn’t deserve to see our drama on full display.”

“Nah,” Henry, Patrick’s father said. “My brother once got into a full-on fist fight over dinner. We only had boys. It was too much testosterone. Penny has been embarrassed for us all.”

“Boys are… a joy,” Penny said, flatly.

* * *

“Lucy, may we speak?” George called into the drawing room.

Lucy was a disaster. Winston was dabbing her eyes with tissues.

“Like hell you can,” Winston growled protectively.

“No, it’s… let him talk,” Lucy said.

George stood before her, looking like a kicked puppy. “I want to talk… apologise. I come in peace. We need to put everything on the table.”

Winston balled his hands into fists. “She doesn’t owe you anything!”

“No, she doesn’t,” Lucy said in third person. “But she would like to discuss this for once and for all. That is, George, if it never comes up again.”

“I promise to bury this. Patrick is about to kill me, and my father put me on my arse. You deserve much better.” George sounded contrite.

Winston looked from Lucy to George. “Okay, fine. I will leave you, but if you say two words—”

“I will be a good boy. I’m still cross with you. Not her.”

Winston walked past George, shooting daggers as he left.

George took a seat next to Lucy. “Luce, I’m sorry. It was totally below the belt. I’m angry with Winston—”

“You shouldn’t be, but it is between the two of you and not me, Georgie.”

“I know. Um… I know you could have ruined me. Perhaps I deserved it—”

Lucy wished she believed George. She wished she could be angry at him for doing what he did, but she was well past anger.

“I don’t hate you. Not now. Not ever, probably. I realise we were hiding things from one another—both of us. It would have ended in disaster and unhappiness, and I never would have been the one to end it.”

“Wait? What were you hiding?”

“Everything about my family. Everything I share freely with Winston I knew I couldn’t with you. And I shared him with them. I never wanted to do that with you. It was—”

“Wow. What a shit thing to say!”

“You know what, George, I have a mind to tell you off anyway! You want it? You got it! You could have my life, leaving me holding the damn bag. God, if I don’t still love you in ways you may never understand. God, if I don’t wish I could hate you! Jesus fucking Christ, you left me in limbo with your family! If they were any less understanding and kind, it could have gone so wrong. You inflated my abandonment complex—”

“Your abandonment complex? Oh, please, Lucy!”

“No, you wouldn’t know because I didn’t tell you!”

George exploded now. “And whose fucking fault was that!? You are fucking him to get back at me—”

“I’m not. I love him. I bask in the way he adores me.”

“As if I didn’t spoil you mercilessly! Next, you’re going to say you never loved me, all the sex was a lie, and I was cruel to you!”

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