‘What in the devil is happening?’
She looked towards the open study door and felt...everything shatter. It was not merely her brother and a few colleagues; it was a house tour. Complete with some of the sharper-tongued gossips of the ton.
And then she looked up, up at the man who held her in his arms, to see familiar blue eyes. Far too familiar.
The stars. The sun.
Briggs.
His hand was still planted firmly on her buttocks, and suddenly the warmth of his body became an inferno, the strength of his hold a revelation.
She could not breathe.
You can breathe. No man is allowed to steal your breath.
Even so, the fact remained...
She had flung herself at Briggs. And her brother had walked in just in time to see it.
‘I demand an explanation now. Or I will have no choice but to call you out.’ She could see murder in her brother’s eyes, and she knew that he was not speaking in jest.
‘There is nothing untoward here.’ Briggs released his hold on her slowly, ensuring that she did not fall.
‘And yet, we have all witnessed something quite untoward, sir.’
‘It’s my fault. It’s my...’
‘There is no question. There is no question of what must be done.’
She looked back at Briggs, who was gazing at her brother with fury in his eyes. ‘Of course.’
‘What’s it to be. Pistols at dawn?’
‘No,’ Briggs said, his voice firm. Decisive. ‘It is to be marriage.’
CHAPTER TWO
Philip Byron, the Duke of Brigham, was not a man to be trifled with. He was not a man easily bested, nor was he a man to back down from a challenge. But at the moment he felt thoroughly bested, by a chit barely out of the nursery. And were there reasonable challenge to be had in the current situation, he would gladly undertake it. But the only man in the world that he considered a true friend was currently glaring at him with clear murder in his eyes, and Briggs was well aware that when it came to the honour of his sister, Kendal would follow through with that murder.
Kendal was hardly a prude. The man took his pleasure when he wished. Briggs knew that better than most. They frequented clubs, gaming halls and brothels often enough. But that was just it. When it came to pleasures of the flesh, Kendal kept it separate from his family. And he certainly did not go about despoiling ladies. Neither did Briggs, for that matter. And he would never, ever have touched his friend’s sister. It was she who had flung herself at him. But at the current moment, there was no space to say so.
He regarded Kendal closely. ‘Might we see that your sister is safely ensconced in her chamber and continue this conversation in private?’
‘No,’ Beatrice said, scrambling even further away from him. ‘I don’t need to be ensconced. I wish to speak to you, Hugh, we must...’
‘Do not speak to me,’ Kendal said. ‘Neither shall you speak to me,’ he said to Briggs. ‘Not until I have had a chance to...’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kendal said to the group of waiting guests. ‘I must adjourn the tour. I bid you please make use of my hospitality further. But I would also ask that you refrain from speaking on the matter that you think you have witnessed here until we are able to set it to rights.’
The entire group dissipated at Kendal’s command, for he was, after all, the Duke. But Briggs knew that there would be gossip. That it was unavoidable. The damage was done. And it did not matter what had truly happened.
‘Hugh...’
‘Go,’ Kendal said. ‘Go to your bedchamber, and we will speak later.’
‘I wish to speak now.’
‘I will not hear you now.’
‘But please I...’
Kendal held up his hand, and he could see that Beatrice was weighing her options. She could persist. She could say what she had to say between his denials. Or she could wait until he was in a better frame of mind. And when she demurred to Kendal’s commands, Briggs did think it was likely the better of her options.
She left the room, and Kendal closed the door behind him.
‘Explain this to me.’
‘I was simply standing there. I do not know who your sister thought I was, but I swear to you, that I have never, and I would never...’
‘Good,’ Kendal said. ‘I know exactly what manner of man you are in your relationships. I should not like my sister exposed to any such thing.’
‘Have no worries, Your Grace. I have not exposed your sister to my appetites.’
The air seemed less deadly in the aftermath of that admission.
‘You have an heir already,’ Kendal said, looking at him closely.
Briggs felt a stab of discomfort over the mention of his son. It was true. He had already achieved the highest purpose of his life. He had sired an heir. The line would continue. It did not matter that he had been ill-suited to marriage, always and ever. That he had no idea what to do with the child, particularly not one with the difficulties his own had. But he was receiving good care and a fine education.
What else could be asked of him?
‘You must marry my sister,’ Kendal said.
‘You believe that I did not touch her.’ That was important. Briggs had very few people in his life he considered friends.
He had not been allowed at school until he was fourteen. So ashamed had his father been of his behaviour and so intent had he been on crushing Briggs, to remake him into something he could control, something he could understand.
When he finally had been allowed at school it had been after his father had died.
His mother had sent him.
‘You’re the Duke now,’ she’d said, her voice still soft from years of tiptoeing around his father. ‘You are no longer simply Philip.’
And he had not been Philip. Not once since.
He’d become the Duke of Brigham, wholly and completely. He had made a new man of himself. Briggs.
Ironically, that was what his father had wanted all along and it had taken the bastard dying for Briggs to accomplish it.
Still, he had not found school easy and the process hadn’t occurred overnight. When it came to friends...
In truth, he had precisely one.
And it was Hugh.
Hugh sighed and turned away from him, as if gathering his thoughts. Or just perhaps reining in his desire to punch Briggs in the face.
He imagined, had he been anyone else, Hugh would have attacked him on sight. It was only the strength of the connection between them that he didn’t. Hugh had been Briggs’s first friend, and in the end, he felt that Hugh was the only true friend he had even now.
While he might understand the rules to society now, while he did not require Hugh to act as a guide any longer, he did not feel a connection to anyone else.
In truth, he knew Hugh felt the same. They’d both had the full weight of their titles thrust upon them far younger than they should have. They had navigated those dark waters where boys became men. And the rarer passages of boys becoming dukes. And they had done so together.
It was that history now which kept Briggs from certain death and he knew it.
Also what kept him back from challenging Hugh in return, a defence of his own honour justifiable under the circumstances.
It was not his fault Beatrice had thrown her body against his.
A body that was quite a bit softer than he had ever allowed himself to imagine...
‘Yes. Because I do believe that you are man of honour, and you would at least confess your sins, even if you had sinned in such a manner.’
‘If you will not believe that I would never compromise your sister, then please do believe that virgins have no interest for me. If you will recall, I have already had a lady wife who could not bear me.’ He did not speak of Serena. Ever. It was a mark o
f just how exceptional the situation was that he did so now.
‘What happened with Serena was not...’
‘I do not need your reassurance, Kendal, particularly not when I stand before you with the choice of marrying your sister or taking your bullet. It is rather duplicitous, do you not think?’
‘You’re my friend, even if I would like to shoot you at the moment.
‘Honour is everything,’ Kendal said.
‘I know. And you know I share your feeling. I understand why you must see the world as you do, given the way your father set about salting the earth of morality while he drew breath. But you must not think it would be a good thing for your sister to...’
‘A marriage in name only,’ Kendal said. ‘Society will never have to know of your arrangement. You have always been good to her. Protect her, as I wished to do.’
‘Do you not think your sister might have something to say about that? You consigning her to a marriage only in name?’
The alternative...well, Briggs could not see it. His father had died when Briggs was so young, he had been resolute in his need to marry and produce an heir as quickly as possible. He had married Serena when he was twenty-one. And had lost her at twenty-three.
He had been infatuated with Serena and he had been so certain...
He had been so certain love would grow between them. If not love, at least a friendship.
He had been naive.
He had interpreted her mercurial nature as something exciting. The scope and change of her moods like a tide. So stark was the ebb and flow of them that he could read them easily.
But they became erratic. The high of them often as unsettling as the low, which could last months. And eventually became all that remained.
It was only after his marriage with Serena had deteriorated to the point she no longer spoke to him that he realised he’d been...a romantic. He’d believed that she would be the one person he could be himself with.
He had met Beatrice when she was a girl, and had felt instantly drawn to the child who was nearly a prisoner in her bedchamber. He so rarely felt compelled to reach out to people around him. And truly, he did not often need to. He was a duke. People were desperate to reach out to him, and it made his life all the easier for it.
But she...
He had wanted to make her smile. In a world that seemed very determined to give her nothing to smile about.
If there was one thing he had understood, it was what it was like to be born into a life you had not chosen, and that felt ill-suited to your nature. And so he had always paid her visits when he’d come to call. Had always brought her sweets from London.
He had recognised a rebellion in her eyes, and he had felt a kinship to her. For he had been much the same. In the wrong life, the wrong family. Perhaps the wrong bloodline. Never meant to be the heir.
She had been placed in the wrong body. One that could not contain the wildness in her spirit. One he wholeheartedly supported.
Until, of course, it ensnared him.
Still, he would never have sentenced the poor creature to a marriage with him.
One of the many, many ways in which he was wrong included what he desired from women. He had been young and foolish and he had believed that his wife would...that as she was a virgin when she came to his bed he might—in time—introduce her to his preferences and she would share them.
Nothing could have been further from their reality.
In the years since his wife’s death, many women had enjoyed their time in his bed. But those women were not ladies.
Ladies, marriage...
All of that was supposed to be behind him.
‘You can continue to do whatever you like,’ Kendal continued, as if a wife was an incidental hardly worth overthinking. ‘You already have your heir. And Beatrice will have...a child to care for should she wish it. She... She desperately wants that. I know when the doctor told her that it was not advisable that she bear children she was deeply upset.’
‘She cannot have children?’ Briggs had not been aware of that.
‘She should not. That is my concern. She very likely can. But you know how her health was in her childhood, and it is the opinion of those in the medical profession that she would take a great risk to bear children. It was why she was not to make her debut this Season.’
‘That’s what you told her?’ Briggs asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What exactly did you tell her, Kendal?’
‘That she would not need to marry. That she would not marry. Because I would take care of her. And of course I will. She is my responsibility. It is my responsibility to keep her safe.’
He could see his friend had no real idea of what he’d done, and further that he...did not know his own sister.
Beatrice was sweet, it was true. But she was also quietly determined. And she was not half as biddable as she appeared. Over the years he’d stayed at Bybee House on many occasions and he knew Beatrice was often not where Kendal assumed her to be. He had seen her appear at dinner out of breath, with red cheeks from being in the cold, and occasionally a leaf somewhere in her tangle of brown hair.
But of course, his friend’s largest shortcoming centred around the idea everyone took his authority as seriously as he did.
His little ward, Eleanor, she hung on his every word.
His own sister on the other hand...
‘I see,’ Briggs said. ‘So, what you’ve done is create this situation we find ourselves in, while laying blame everywhere else.’
‘How have I created the situation?’ Kendal asked, clearly outraged.
‘You offered your sister a life sentence. Living here at Bybee House in the country, away from society, from friends, from freedom. I don’t know why she chose to target me as her means of escape, but she has found it, hasn’t she?’
‘What exactly are you saying, Briggs?’
‘You sent the lady from the room, so we cannot ask her. But do you not suppose that she was taking matters into her own hands? Now she is ruined. If I don’t marry her my honour will be worth nothing. If you don’t call me out as a result of this ruination, your honour will be nothing. If Beatrice does not marry, she will be... Well, she will never be received in society, will she? Not that you were to allow her out. She is, of the three of us, the one who stood to lose the least.’
‘You do not think...’
‘I am telling you that I have never laid a hand on your sister. And somehow, she came to be in my embrace in this study, which, I believe she knows you make use of in the evenings following such gatherings.’
Briggs could see the wheels turning behind Kendal’s eyes.
‘Shocking though I know you find it,’ Briggs said. ‘Not everyone agrees that you know best. Clearly, Beatrice is among that number.’
‘Beatrice,’ Kendal said.
And this time it was her name that held the tinge of murder. Kendal turned and tore from the room, and Briggs went after him, because after all, why should he not? He had already ruined the lady, why not accompany her brother to her bedchamber?
They wound down the labyrinthine halls of the massive estate, Kendal’s footsteps announcing his outrage against the marble floor. He flung her doors open, and a maid, who had been kneeling by the fireplace, immediately scurried away.
Beatrice was laying on a chaise, looking collapsed, which gave Briggs a strange sort of squeeze in his chest. He had come to know Beatrice when she was aged fourteen or so, and had not known her in the worst part of her illness. And he had to wonder if this was how she had looked then. Pale, drawn, and not infused with the sort of life he had come to associate with her.
She sat up, her face swollen, her eyes red. She looked distraught, so much so that it would nearly be comical were it not for...everything.
‘Briggs,’ she said. ‘Please know
that I did not mean...’
‘You did not mean to entrap Briggs?’ Kendal asked. ‘Then who, my sister, did you intend to be caught with tonight?’
‘Hugh...’
‘Do not think me a fool, Bea, I know that this was a plot of yours.’
Of course, Briggs had been the one to tell him that. But it was not the time to comment on such a thing, he was certain.
Kendal continued, ‘Who did you intend to be trapped in a marriage with, Beatrice?’
‘Had I been caught with James rather than Briggs you would never have known it was a plot...’
He curled his lip. ‘James. James. That friend of yours from the country estate next door?’
Beatrice tilted her chin up, intending to look imperious, clearly. It was not terribly effective, given the tip of her nose was red. ‘Yes.’
‘His father is a merchant,’ Kendal said.
‘His father is an earl. The same as Penny’s, and you were going to marry her.’
At the mention of his former intended, Kendal’s face went to stone. ‘That is of no import. That is enough for me. It is not enough for you.’
Beatrice swung her legs over the edge of the chaise, the motion sudden and not at all ladylike. ‘You were not even going to allow me to marry, so what concern is it of yours the title of the man that I choose?’
‘I feel we are perhaps having the wrong fight,’ Briggs said. ‘As he was not going to allow you to marry, and now you cannot marry this...this boy anyway.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, turning her focus back to him. ‘I did not know that you would be there. I expected for James to be there already. But he was not and... It was you.’
‘This is dangerous,’ Kendal said. ‘And foolish. You were playing with things that you knew nothing about. What you have done... You have potentially damaged yourself beyond saving. You have to marry Briggs, but that does not mean that society is going to be kind to you. You were caught in his embrace. Unfortunately for you, the wrong sort of people, the worst sort of gossips, saw. And from where I was standing the embrace had the mark of the obscene.’
Briggs snorted. Because, honestly, it was becoming theatrical. ‘I dare say that it looked nothing like obscene to you, Kendal. You might be playing the prig in front of your sister, but you and I both know that you have seen and participated in more decadent pursuits of a common afternoon, let alone a night in an empty drawing room.’
Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 23