Always the Best Friend (Never the Bride Book 4)

by Emily E K Murdoch

  Letitia looked apologetic but still continued to speak. “He is not my favorite cousin if I am truthful, but he…he does not appear to have done anything to lose your trust nor regard.”

  Harry blinked at the woman who still found it difficult to speak in front of gentlemen she did not know. It was easy to forget Letitia noticed these things—always had done, ever since they were children. It had been easy when they were younger to forget Letitia was in a room, for she faded into the background so easily.

  “I am not being cold to him,” was all she could think to say. Harry started walking, as though mere movement alone would remove all of Letitia’s questions.

  “I think you are, even if you do not mean to be,” said Letitia quietly, walking alongside her. “I do not believe you have seen him or spoken to him in weeks, and that is not like you. The two of you are always so much together, and even if you cannot be together, you correspond. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Harry said bluntly. “What gown do you think you will wear to Almack’s? I was thinking my pale satin, but I do not want to match.”

  That trick might have worked a year ago when Letitia had been significantly more naïve than she was now.

  But at two and twenty, there were few things you could get past her.

  A smile crept across her face. “You cannot distract me, Harry. Tell me. What occurred between the two of you? After so many years of being best friends, it is sad to see you grow apart.”

  If Letitia had not had a heart of gold, Harry would have suspected she was bitter.

  “You are best friends,” Letitia pressed.

  “Being best friends with Monty is not the easiest thing in the world.” She glanced at Letitia to see how she’d react.

  “Yes, I suppose it must be strange,” she said, considering it as they turned a corner. “We all thought you would get married, of course.”

  Harry’s stomach lurched.

  “But then if that was going to happen, it would have done already—years ago,” Letitia continued, unaware of the pain she was causing.

  They were walking along St. Audley Street, a place where ladies and gentlemen of worth came to see and be seen. Harry tried to focus on seeing who else was parading slowly along the street—tried not to think about Monty.

  It was impossible. She had no more cards to play, no other parts of her personality to tempt him with. She had literally laid herself on the table, and he had taken her eagerly, but as a lover, not as a wife.

  He needed neither prestige nor gold, title nor acceptance into society. Those were the reasons a gentleman would propose to her, if one ever did.

  The day Monty found himself a duchess, she would become a spinster for life. That was just the way it was to be.

  Just as she thought it was not possible to feel more despondent, Harry and Letitia turned a corner and saw a tall gentleman with gray eyes and wild, flyaway, sandy-colored hair.

  Her heart pounded, and her spirits soared. It was Monty.

  He was standing, talking with the Earl of Lenskeyn, and jealousy rose like a green snake within her—but quickly quelled. How was she so affected by him?

  No matter what she told herself or tried to convince herself of, she was completely in his power and always would be. He was the sun, and she a sunflower. Where he went, she watched. When he went away, she drooped. And when he returned, she suddenly felt alive again.

  Monty looked up and saw her. His smile made Harry’s throat tighten.

  “Letitia, Harry,” he said mostly directed at the former. “I thought you were at Chalding today?”

  Harry tried to ignore the inflection of confusion in his voice. So, he had attempted to avoid her, then? Had he ventured into town because he thought her safely hidden away?

  The sentence ‘No, we are walking about town and getting some fresh air’ readily formed in her mind, but she did not speak quickly enough to say it.

  Instead, Letitia smiled nervously. “Would you and your friend like to join us on a walk, Monty?”

  Her eager eyes flickered across to Lenskeyn.

  “I am afraid urgent business keeps me elsewhere,” he said with a bow of his head. “I will see you this evening, Devonshire.”

  Monty returned his friend’s bow and then beamed at Letitia, ignoring Harry completely. “Of course, Letitia, I will accompany you ladies. Where to?”

  “We do not need you to accompany us,” said Harry with a hint of grit in her tone. “We are quite safe together. This is not Timbuktu!”

  Monty moved to Harry’s other side. “But what if bandits come? You are unprepared, I see no cutlasses!”

  Harry laughed, for he was so ridiculous. “Bandits? In the middle of London?”

  “What sort of a gentleman would I be if I allowed my cousin and my best friend to be accosted by bandits!” Monty grinned as they walked, the three of them taking up the entirety of the pavement. “I could never forgive myself!”

  “’Tis most unlikely,” Harry said. Just being beside him felt like heaven.

  Monty shrugged. “Until you can promise me it will not happen, I consider the safest course of action to be staying by your side like glue.”

  Harry’s heart fluttered painfully. She bit down the desire to say yes, stay by my side forever, marry me!

  “I take it a little hard you believe us incapable of defending ourselves from bandits, Monty! Why, Letitia and I are more than a match for a brigand, are we not, Letitia—Letitia?”

  Harry stopped. Letitia was not with them, and when she turned around, she could not see hide nor hair of her.

  “Where did she go?” Harry asked, disconcerted.

  Monty pointed. “There she is, going the other way toward home. She is with what’s her name. That woman who hates men but loves books.”

  Harry snorted. “Miss Mariah Wynn does not hate men—but from what I hear, she does love books. I cannot help but feel guilty, for I did not notice Letitia had left.”

  “Poor girl. The eternal wallflower,” said Monty softly. “Come on, this way seems relatively clear of bandits.”

  Harry smiled as she started walking again with him, but it was with a sigh. All of Letitia’s friends were concerned. She was pretty enough, intelligent enough, accomplished enough for a lady. But if she did not start to grow a backbone, she was going to be walked all over for the rest of her life, and that would bring her no closer to marriage.

  “There was talk of the two of you getting married at one point,” she said lightly. “You and Letitia,” she clarified, seeing Monty’s bemused face. “Uniting the two Cavendish lines, keeping it in the family.”

  Monty laughed and shook his head. “Keeping all the money in the family, more like. No, if I knew my father and my uncle, it was more of an insurance in case one of us grew up to be hideously ugly, or so irritating that no one would stomach us. Letitia is more my sister than my cousin. It would be wrong to think of her that way.”

  Harry knew she should not say it. but did anyway. “You considered me that way, once.”

  She saw his eyes widen and looked desperately for something else to say—anything.

  Anyone who looked at them would just see two people. Perhaps two people who barely knew each other.

  Harry barely knew herself.

  In silence, they turned down Stanhope Gate, a shortcut to Hyde Park.

  “Did you know this was named after my family?” Harry asked, trying to think of something safe to discuss.

  “I will have to pick a bride soon,” said Monty, obviously preoccupied. “I need to hurry, actually, I received a wonderfully formal letter from my lawyers yesterday reminding me I needed to start thinking about redrafting my will if I lose the title. Just got to find someone and get on with it.”

  Without thinking, Harry laughed. “Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just pick me?”

  The lane was empty, and Monty stopped dead. “What did you say?”

  She refused to face him.

  “Harry, wha
t did you say?”

  She finally turned, seeing shock and something like curiosity in his eyes. She must remain calm, as though she had made a hilarious joke.

  “I said,” she said lightly, “wouldn’t it be easier if…if you could just pick me?”

  He was closer to her than she thought, only a foot away. There was a wild look in his eyes, something she had never seen before.

  “Yes,” he muttered, “it would.”

  Reaching out, Monty pulled Harry toward him and kissed her hard on the lips. It softened, causing her to melt in his arms, but he was strong. He held her as she leaned into him.

  When he finally released her, Harry stared into his eyes and saw desire. He wanted her.

  And she would gladly give it. She opened her mouth but was interrupted by the softest word she had ever heard him speak.

  “Harriet.”

  Her heart stopped. He had never called her that before.

  “Yes,” she breathed, his arms still around her.

  “By God—Devonshire, is that you?”

  “It is you!” Josiah’s face appeared at the end of the lane. “I thought you would be in Hyde Park, and it so happened this was our quickest route—and with Harry!”

  Harry leaned gratefully back into the wall of the lane, trying to catch her breath as her brother and his wife, Honora, came down to greet them.

  Monty stepped forward and clapped Josiah’s back. “Chester! Devil take it, you told me you would be arriving tomorrow. I had plans to come to the dock and everything!”

  “Our honeymoon was long, but the ship was fast!” Josiah grinned. “And I thought, why not come to town, and Honora has spent no time in town, and so we…”

  Harry’s breathing slowed, but her heart was still racing. Wonderful as it was to see her brother back from his honeymoon, there was nothing more infuriating to have what could have been the most important moment of her life interrupted.

  Honora smiled at the two men talking over each other and stepped around them to take Harry’s arm.

  “I have much to tell you of Rome, Barcelona, and Paris,” she said, walking and pulling the unresisting Harry with her.

  “And I heard you gave Mr. Lister a dressing down!” Josiah was saying behind her. “Good on you, what a horrible worm!”

  “It was Harry who gave him the fatal blow,” came Monty’s voice, and Harry smiled as he said, “Slapped him right across the face in the middle of Almack’s. I have never been prouder.”

  As Josiah laughed and Honora exclaimed with glee, Harry caught Monty’s eye. He smiled.

  “Never been prouder,” he repeated.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “And that, gentlemen, is why you should never overstretch your hand.”

  Monty threw down his cards in triumph and laughed at the looks on Orrinshire and Braedon’s faces.

  “But—”

  “Surely not,” Abraham Fitzclarence, Viscount Braedon, said weakly. “You said you had a weak hand!”

  Charles Audley, the Duke of Orrinshire, shook his head sadly. “Braedon, if you do not learn what bluffing is soon, I am going to start playing with you more often. But even so, that is a fine hand, Devonshire!”

  Monty chuckled as he pulled the pile of coins toward him. It was mostly silver, but there was gold, too.

  “You should not have underestimated me,” he said with a grin. “I told you I was good at cards. You would think the warning would have been heeded, but there you are.”

  “I still think it was luck,” sulked Braedon, glancing at his pitifully small pile of coins and then his own hand of cards in disgust.

  But Orrinshire did not seem to mind. On the contrary, he looked pleased to have a distraction.

  “I am not worried,” he said good-naturedly, leaning back in his chair. “I have more than enough coin to spare—more than I know what to do with, actually. I swept the board with Chester last night.”

  Braedon laughed, and Monty joined him as he sorted through his winnings.

  “Poor man,” he said. “Marriage has certainly made him a poorer player, and he never was that good to start with.”

  Braedon pulled the last cards from the table, scooping them into a pile, he started to shuffle. It was his turn to deal, and though he was perhaps not the most elegant when it came to poker, his ability to move the cards around was quite something.

  “I am not worried, either,” he said, no hint of bravado in his voice. “You did not need it when you were the Viscount of Braedon. Because I know I will win all that coin back. The game is poker, gentlemen, with aces high and the joker in the pack?”

  Monty nodded, reaching to the table and picking up his lightly smoking cigar.

  Yes, it had been a good idea of his, deciding to host this little gathering this evening. The perfect remedy for a mind unable to be still. Irritating, though, that Chester thought it more important to be with his new bride.

  Lady Honora must truly be something, but after what Josiah had told him about how he had met her, he wouldn’t be surprised if Josiah was having far more fun that evening than the three of them combined.

  “Do not be too sure, Braedon,” he said, blowing out cigar smoke across his drawing room and settling comfortably in his chair. “I am on a winning streak, and you know how hard those are to break. Perhaps you would prefer a lower blind?”

  They had started at a shilling and worked their way up as the candles had burnt down. By—Monty glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner—two in the morning, their blinds had risen higher and higher, and now stood at half a crown per hand.

  “Speaking of a winning streak,” said Braedon, utterly ignoring Monty’s comment and throwing down half a crown as he continued to shuffle the deck, “poor old Mr. Lister is on a losing streak. Did you hear? He was utterly snubbed at Marnmouth’s ball last night.”

  Monty sat straighter in his seat. He could still recall the satisfying sound of Mr. Lister receiving his comeuppance from Harry at Almack’s ball, and he wondered where he had gone next.

  “Oh?”

  “He is a nasty piece of work,” Orrinshire said darkly. “I would not want him anywhere near my sister.”

  “Few would, and after losing his voucher for Almack’s, he has apparently found it difficult to find any house which would admit him,” continued Braedon, dealing out the cards. “But he managed to secure an invite to Lady Howard’s ball.”

  Monty laughed as he reached out for his cards. “I am not sure why he would want to go! I heard the last ball hosted by Lady Howard ended in a riot.”

  “Four footmen ended up with black eyes, that’s all I know,” added Orrinshire, frowning at his cards as he did every time a new hand was dealt.

  Monty smiled. Orrinshire thought his frown covered up any tells, but he was not so fortunate. His left hand twitched whenever he had a strong hand. It was steady now.

  “And what do you think,” said Braedon, “but he was turned down to dance…by Lady Letitia Cavendish!”

  Orrinshire guffawed, almost dropping his cards.

  Monty blinked in absolute disbelief. “You do not mean—not my cousin? Not our Letitia?”

  “The very same!” Braedon grinned as he glanced at his cards. “You know you are a gentleman with no honor and no reputation to speak of when the greatest wallflower of the ton declines your hand to dance!”

  He laughed, and Orrinshire laughed with him, but Monty frowned. Though he could see the jest from their perspective, something rankled.

  “That is my cousin,” he said irritably. “Her honor you quip about.”

  Braedon’s laughing face quickly sobered. “No, Devonshire, it is not like that! We would never—Lady Letitia is a—we are laughing at Mr. Lister.”

  Monty’s frown deepened, and he threw down a shilling. Orrinshire matched him after the briefest of hesitations, and Braedon followed suit immediately.

  “I meant,” Braedon said in a calmer tone, “the true joke is on Mr. Lister, naturally. I mean, what a fool,
thinking the stories of how he treats young ladies would not circulate, especially in this time. Good on Lady Letitia, that’s what I say.”

  Monty tried not to smile. Braedon had few faults, but two of them were on display: his inability to review his words before he spoke them and an unbelievable desire to be liked by everyone in the room with him.

  But he was not a bad sort. Young, impetuous. Not unlike himself, really.

  “There is no harm in admitting it, Devonshire,” Orrinshire said lazily, “your cousin is a wallflower, and one who has few opportunities to dance. She must dislike Mr. Lister to turn down a chance like that.”

  Orrinshire’s measured tone and gentle smile calmed Monty’s fury. He had no sisters himself, and Letitia was, as he had said to Harry the day before, the closest thing he had to one.

  Relenting, he picked another card and threw down a shilling. “She does dislike him, and for a good reason, too. She is a close friend of Harry—Stanhope, that is—and Mr. Lister was rather…indecorous to Harry a month or so ago.”

  Braedon raised an eyebrow. “Indecorous?”

  “He was damned rude, and he deserved what he got, which was a slap to the face,” Monty said, more harshly than he had intended. To think that maggot, that filth had tried to touch Harry—had obviously stepped so far beyond the bounds of decency, she had been forced to physically fight him off. “Letitia has not forgiven him, and neither have I.”

  Orrinshire laughed. “I fold, too rich for my blood. Well, I say good for her, though ’tis a sad day when our ladies have to use their fists to fight off unwelcome attention. Though she is a strange one, now I think of her.”

  Braedon snorted as he matched Monty’s shilling. “This town is full of them, mark me.”

  Monty’s hackles raised, but he stopped himself from speaking. It would not do to draw attention to the fact he was particularly interested in protecting the reputation of another young woman, especially as he did not have the excuse of being related to Harry as he did with Letitia.

  “Yes, but think about it,” said Orrinshire slowly, reaching out for Monty’s last cigar and lighting it with his tinder box. “A pretty young thing, and it would be churlish to deny Lady Harriet is a very beautiful woman.”