Lovestruck in Lilac: The Brothers Duke: Book Three

by Felicia Greene

  The silence that followed this declaration was colder than the winter air outside. Eventually, folding his arms, Robert spoke with gritted teeth. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘It doesn’t make it untrue. Believe me–I find it quite ridiculous myself.’

  ‘We talk about lots of things.’ Thomas’s dark line between his brows spelled mutiny. ‘We talk about everything under the sun.’

  ‘What we talked about the last time we all had breakfast together, in order.’ Henry closed his eyes, the words leaving his lips in crisp lines. ‘Edward commented on how nice the day was for the season, and Robert said the sun reminded him of the sun on his wedding day. Then came how lovely Robert’s wedding was. Diversion given to a discussion of the flowers. Comparison to Thomas’s wedding, with general agreement as to their mutual beauty. Discussion of honeymoon in Florence–a discussion that’s been had exactly seven times before. Diversion on the crumpets and butter we were eating, which became a long treatise on how excellent Charlotte and Dorothea are at household management. Description of a new fire-screen Dorothea is stitching–a description given four times before. Discussion of how good Charlotte is at drying herbs, with a list of said currently drying herbs. I talked about the stoat skeleton I’m drying out, and that somehow became a discussion about Charlotte’s keen scientific mind and Dorothea’s love for woodland creatures. Shall I go on?’

  ‘No.’ The line between Thomas’s brows had gone. In fact, he looked positively clammy. Henry rarely gave demonstrations of his astonishing memory, but when he did it was invariably shocking. ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘I can go on if you need me to. We talked about the fire-screen at least twice more before you both left.’

  ‘Henry.’ Edward smiled gently at his brother. ‘I think they may have understood.’

  ‘Well.’ Robert swallowed. ‘I say.’

  ‘Yes. Quite.’

  ‘And he’s—’

  ‘Suffering intolerably. Yes.’

  ‘And why haven’t you done anything about it?’

  ‘This is me doing something about it. Quite what else you expect me to do if a grown man refuses to leave his room, I couldn’t possibly—’

  They stopped as tottering footsteps sounded in the corridor. After a long, tense wait, the door opened. John stared at the assembled company, his shirt and breeches hanging off of his frame, his eyes sunken.

  ‘Christ, John.’ Thomas started forward. ‘Look at you.’

  ‘I’ve been being noble, but I don’t think I can be noble anymore.’John swayed lightly on his feet. ‘I think I’ll die if I don’t stop being noble.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Thomas ran to him, his mouth a taut line of concern. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘It’s not noble to gorge oneself when you’ve lost the love of your life.’

  ‘It’s not all that noble to leave your brothers to mourn you.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to eat. I couldn’t bear to taste it.’

  ‘That’s silly.’ Henry spoke like a cross nursemaid. ‘You must eat something.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. I don’t feel well at all.’

  ‘I shall get you something from a chophouse. What do you want?’

  ‘Soup. Something light.’

  ‘I know when everyone’s lying, John.’

  John paused. ‘Fine. I could murder a pie.’

  Once John had been bustled back into his bedroom with Thomas and Robert on either side of him, questions and comments barely audible through the thick wood of the door, Henry turned to Edward. He spoke more carefully than usual, as if he had just grasped a new theorem and didn’t wish to break his understanding of it. ‘He’ll probably be married. Won’t he?’

  ‘John? Goodness. A lot hangs in the balance. She’s meant to be marrying someone dreadfully important.’ Edward recalled the look of her in men’s clothes, the defiant look in her eyes visible even across the Thames. ‘But I don’t think anyone could make her do anything she doesn’t want to do–and I don’t think anyone could stop her doing something that she wants to do.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s hope she wants to marry him.’

  ‘I think she does.’

  ‘You’ve met her once, Henry. You can’t possibly know if she wants to marry him or not.’

  ‘I know most things.’ Henry spoke absently. ‘But I admit I don’t know that.’

  ‘All we can do is hope for the best.’

  ‘I’m hoping for the best.’ There was a long, meaningful pause. ‘This does mean that I have to marry, though.’

  Edward almost spat out his tea. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Marry. I have to marry.’ Henry looked at him with utmost seriousness. ‘If Thomas, Robert and John have married, it means I’m next.’

  ‘Next? Marriage isn’t death.’ Edward reflected on his words, laughing as he though better of what we had said. ‘It may be worse than death, but it isn’t as inevitable.’

  ‘I know you feel that way about marriage, but the line has been drawn. Destiny is leading us in a particular direction, and although I may be unaware of the details of its complex machinations I can understand the general thrust.’ Henry ate another biscuit very slowly indeed as Edward watched. ‘It seems clear that one of us will marry soon enough. Given that you view marriage as a punishment, I must be the one to do it.’

  ‘You’re talking complete nonsense.’

  ‘I’m not.’ A slight hint of pink appeared in Henry’s cheeks. ‘Besides. I–I might like it.’

  Edward looked at his brother, hardly daring to conceal his surprise. Henry had never expressed a sentimental longing for any woman of his acquaintance–why, he had never even looked at an uncommonly pretty woman on the street. They had even wondered if his romantic interests lay in an entirely different direction, but he hadn’t shown any furtive interest in men either. Henry’s world had always been a glittering, slightly unnerving spire of music and mathematics–elegant theorems and notations moving through space with silent majesty, untouched by human emotion.

  Apparently they had been mistaken. Henry had never seemed all that attached to the ordinary world and its daily concerns. From the look on his face now, the quiet determination in his eyes, Edward knew he had been wrong to assume.

  ‘Well.’ He gently put his teacup down. ‘It’s easy if one puts one’s mind to it, I think.’

  ‘I know that. If Thomas and Robert have managed it, it can’t be all that difficult.’ Henry paused. ‘Of course, they both appear to have made love matches. As does John, if he succeeds. I doubt I’ll have guaranteed success on that score–but a certain level of comfortable practicality can be achieved, I think.’

  ‘Why on earth do you consider a love match impossible?’

  ‘Well.’ There was that blush again, deepening slightly. Henry’s voice grew quieter. ‘I’m aware I’m quite insufferable.’

  Henry’s words hit like a blow. Edward had always tried to protect him from the taunts of other children at the orphanage–all of them had. Thomas would go to sleep with bloodied knuckles, while Robert, John and Edward invented all the most hair-raising insults they could think of and shouted them until their throats ached.

  It had never really worked. Henry had managed to absorb the cruellest of the insults, deciding that he was a lazy good-for-nothing who was useless to society at large. The final insult had come when one of the attendants, a sour-faced women with big red arms, had told Henry that people like him should be in Bedlam.

  He rose. He went to where Henry sat, looking at his brother with new recognition of the singular battles that he fought.

  ‘You aren’t insufferable in the slightest.’ He gripped his brother’s shoulder, speaking as powerfully as he could. ‘You are simply rare, Henry. Rare and unusual. Not every person will understand you, or afford you the merit you deserve–but someone will. More than one person, I think. All you have to do is go out there and find them.’

  ‘I’m not very good at finding people who like me.’


  ‘Thomas found someone who liked him. Robert found someone who liked him. Both of them can be much more irritating than you–especially when they’re talking about fire screens. There’s hope for you yet.’

  ‘I need to find a way of meeting people that isn’t going to balls and saying things. I’m terrible at both of those.’

  ‘There are people who facilitate meetings.’

  ‘I don’t want to marry a courtesan.’

  ‘Respectable ladies who want to meet respectable gentlemen. Matchmakers.’ Edward mused. ‘Isn’t Charlotte friends with one? Margaret Barton?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Well. When you’re ready to meet your destiny, you can ask.’

  ‘Yes.’ Henry looked up at Edward, a new determination in his eyes. ‘Yes, I will.’

  The day at the Duke townhouse progressed as eventfully as it began, with much discussion that carried on late into the night. At the other end of the scale, the shutters of the Fletcher workshop remained tightly closed even if the rest of the street hummed with life. Anne sat at her desk from morning to night, pale and silent, hoping that the familiar surroundings of the world she’d built would reveal a path through the horrific mess she’d made.

  Alas, nothing was forthcoming. Nothing at all. She tried to write a letter to Margaret a dozen times, explaining things–she even tried to write to Charles, telling him that everything was impossible. That she would have to give up her workshop, her dream, because the marriage that would secure the future of her business was the worst thing she could think of.

  She couldn’t write to John. Not a word. All she could do was dream of him, and even that caused pain. She eventually walked home through the cold, windy evening all alone, pushing away any correspondence that she had allowed to pile up on her worn kitchen table, and slept as deeply as a corpse.

  She hadn’t wanted to sleep. When she woke early, the weak morning sun filtering through her cheaply-made curtains, a sharp stab of failure filled her chest. She had fallen asleep, which meant a new day had begun–the day that Charles, Charles who she had known all her life but could never love, not ever, would propose to her.

  She hadn’t even finished her wedding gown. It lay where she had left it days ago, half-stitched and neglected, its pale silk shining like moonlight as she stepped over it in order to leave the house.

  She couldn’t be late for tea. She had slept so late! She wasn’t dressed correctly either–she should have worn something prettier, brighter. Charles’s house was so grand, its windows staring forbiddingly at her as she approached… oh, they would take her for a servant and insist she come through the tradesman’s entrance, or tell her to go away entirely.

  If they did that, she’d run. Run away from London, from England, from–from everything. Anne took a deep breath, the wind threatening to take her bonnet as she anxiously rapped at the door of the townhouse.

  She had to remember this final morning: the sun, the cold wind, the faint scent of wet leaves. This was the final, most brutal choice that she would ever need to make. The choice that would change her life forever.

  Despite a long, harsh look at her clothes, making her worst fears much more probable, the butler let her in without making a fuss. Anne took off her gloves, her teeth chattering in the cold of the entrance hall as she waited to be taken into the morning room.

  When the butler came back, he’d lost his look of haughty disdain. If anything, he looked a little unsettled. Anne elected to say nothing, following him in silence until the man spoke.

  ‘The master is a little out of sorts today.’ He looked at Anne carefully. ‘But he insists on seeing you.’

  ‘If you think it best, I could leave.’

  ‘No no. But he could do without excess excitement.’

  Such a comment bordered on impertinence, but Anne lacked the energy to do anything about it. Nodding, she followed the butler into the elegantly-decorated morning room of the Weldon townhouse and curtseyed as soon as she saw Charles.

  ‘Mr. Weldon.’

  ‘Miss Fletcher.’ A bow that barely seemed like a bow. And why didn’t he look at her directly? ‘The tea has just been brought in. Do have a cup.’

  ‘I… thank you.’ Best to sit and drink tea rather than try to interrogate why Charles looked so strange. Why he seemed to be looking at everything else in the room apart from her. ‘Of course.’

  To her surprise, Charles didn’t sit opposite her. Instead he moved to the window, looking out at the snowy city as she drank her tea.

  For a man who was meant to be proposing, he looked ready to climb out of the window and jump. Anne looked at her teacup. If he speaks of the weather, I’m going to scream.

  ‘There’s still a little snow on the ground. Was the journey smooth despite it?’

  Anne bit her lip hard for a few precious seconds. ‘Yes. Yes it was.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad. And–and is the snow deeper in your street?’

  ‘A little. But it isn’t unmanageable by any means.’

  ‘Good.’ There was a faint sheen of sweat on Charles’s forehead as he half-turned back to her. ‘Good.’

  Perhaps nothing would happen after all. They would speak in a desultory fashion about the weather, and leave. Anne sipped her tea, fervently wishing such a future to be true, until Charles cleared his throat. ‘Miss–Miss Fletcher.’

  Oh, no. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re aware of the importance of this current period. This date.’

  If she denied knowing anything about it, would the proposal never occur? Anne almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea. ‘I—I am aware.’

  ‘Yes. As am I. The traditional length of—of courtship has been passed. Almost twice over, in fact.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because we’re courting.’

  ‘I—yes.’

  ‘And so…’

  ‘Yes?’ Lord, why couldn’t he come out with it? It was as if he were giving a death sentence, not an offer of marriage.

  ‘I…’

  ‘Are you well?’

  ‘I can’t do it. I–I simply can’t do it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I can’t–I can’t!’ Charles turned away from the window, looking her in the eyes for the first time since the speech had begun. Anne bit her lip, restraining a gasp; she had never seen Charles so grey. It was as if he had aged a decade over the course of the conversation.

  ‘Please don’t exert yourself unwisely.’ She spoke carefully, her own heart tight in her throat. ‘We can speak quietly, patiently, we can—’

  ‘I can’t marry you. It’s impossible.’ Charles shook his head, a touch of frenzy in his movement. ‘I don’t want to. I can’t.’

  The silence that followed could have unnerved a monk. Anne looked down at the teacup in her hand, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘I’ve been racking my brains trying to think about how to say it. How to make you not hate me. But you must hate me—how can you not hate me after all the signs I gave you of my constancy? I’ve funded the workshop, I’ve spoken so firmly of future plans, I’ve—I’ve made you think that I’m ready to made all sorts of grand commitments, and I’m not. I’m just not.’ Charles’s eyes were bright; Anne stared at him, clenching the handle of her teacup, fearing that he would weep. ‘And if I tell you why, I’ll—’

  ‘Tell me why.’

  ‘You’ll only hate me more.’

  ‘If I hated you, I’d say so. Tell me why.’

  ‘Because… because I’m not in love with you.’ Charles gripped the windowsill. ‘And I know that’s no excuse to not get married. Believe me. The vast majority of people get married without any semblance of passion. I can count on one hand the friends and acquaintances that have ever felt it, true love, but—but a small part of me, a part of me I can’t kill no matter how much I try, refuses to accept less. Even the friendship that we’ve shared for so very long—the confidence and tenderness that we have always ha
d for one another—isn’t the same as what I seek.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘No matter how much you try and argue with me, know that—beg pardon?’

  ‘I know how you feel.’ Anne placed the cup down on the table with extreme delicacy. It was that or throw it down, shattering it into pieces. ‘I… I feel it too.’

  At first the silence was painful, bordering on dangerous. An open wound in the heart of the room, throbbing. Then Charles sighed, a long, slow sigh of pure relief, and the world righted itself again.

  It was alright. Everything would be alright. Anne looked down at her fingers, realising that she was trembling.

  ‘My God.’ Charles moved closer. The openness in his face made his expression starkly different from the one with which he had greeted her. ‘Truly?’

  ‘I wouldn’t lie to you about it.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t said anything. Yes?’

  ‘... In truth, I don’t believe so.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t come today. If you’d given any excuse, I never would have said a single word of my true feelings.’ Charles sighed again, his shoulders slumping. ‘Christ. What fools we are.’

  He leaned down, picking up a plate of biscuits from the table. Anne watched, too surprised to say anything, as he ate four biscuits in quick succession.’

  ‘I haven’t eaten properly for days.’ He shook his head. ‘I was too nervous about today. Have you been eating?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Because of today?’

  ‘... Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Lord.’ Charles looked across the tea-table, gently setting down his plate of biscuits. ‘What have we been doing to one another, Anne?’

  His use of her Christian name felt right. He finally sounded like the true, honest friend that she had always wanted–perhaps even the brother she had never had. ‘Something quite terrible, I think.’

  ‘Yes. Terrible indeed.’ Charles looked down at the array of tea things, tutting softly as the line between his brows finally cleared. He looked as if a great weight had been removed from his shoulders; Anne knew that she had to look brighter too. She felt as if she were feeling light on her face for the first time in months–no, years. ‘Your father wanted this so much.’