‘Oh, but it was just getting interesting,’ said Edward, sounding vastly amused.
‘True, but he needs to be thinking with a clear head over the next few days, so we should cut him off now.’
Freddie didn’t try to get the brandy glass back from his brother. He didn’t need to; he was on a roll now and didn’t need it to explain about his lack of apology, even though there probably should have been one. Besides, they’d left the bottle by his feet; he could as easily drink from that as from a glass. ‘Because I knowed… no, wait, that doesn’t sound right. Knowed. No, I already said that.’
‘What is it that you know, Freddie?’ asked Christopher patiently. He’d always been the best out of all his brothers; Freddie should tell him that but not right now. Now he had something else to impart.
‘Tobias,’ he shouted. That was it; that was where he was going with this. ‘Tobias was going to ask her to marry him and I did it anyway.’ He paused. Did that make sense? ‘The kissing. I did the kissing anyway and I should be saying sorry but I am not. So, I am sorry about that. Sorry about not being sorry. I feel guilty but not. It is very odd but yes, sorry.’ He paused. ‘I think maybe I am repeating myself.’ He petered out. He’d made his non-apology, which perhaps should have waited until he was sober, but he’d been a lily-livered coward without alcohol, so this was the only way it was going to happen.
‘Do not be a damned pea-brain,’ said Tobias, an exceptionally long sentence for him and one which shocked the room into silence. Or perhaps it had already been silent; Freddie wasn’t sure if he had stopped talking. Now he felt his mouth swing open but closed it again when no words came out. His scrambled brain searched around forsomething, anything really, and he finally managed, ‘I am sorry. I mean, pardon, I am not sorry, as I have already…’
‘Before we go around the houses with this again, I will clarify Tobias’ statement,’ interrupted Edward, leaning back in his chair. ‘What our brother is trying to say is that if Emily was going to marry one of us, it was obviously going to be you.’
Freddie made a noise he was sure he had never made before, a sort of wheezing denial. Yes, for as long as he could remember, his body had longed to be in contact with Emily’s in a very desperate, visceral way, but marriage had never crossed his mind. Or at least it had crossed his mind, but he knew it was not something that she wanted. He was a bad fit for her; even he could see that, even after all the brandy. That it was obvious it was always going to be him who married her couldn’t be obvious to everyone because it certainly wasn’t clear to him. ‘That is not… I did not…’ The brandy had been a bad idea; he could not find the words to argue with Edward. ‘It was not meant to happen.’
Edward’s grin was rapier sharp. ‘Ah, she just happened to fall into you, did she? And then, when your mouth landed on hers she what…?’ His brother tapped his chin in mock thoughtfulness. ‘She could not get away because you aresogood at kissing?’
Christopher and Edward laughed but Freddie didn’t; they shouldn’t be making light of something so serious. ‘She did not mean to kiss me…’ He waved his hands around. ‘It sort of happened.’
Edward’s grin deepened. ‘I see. It was the sight of your manly chest that made it impossible for her to resist you.’
Even Tobias guffawed at that one.
The only thing Freddie had to throw at his brother was one of the hideous blue cushions, but he wasn’t sure his aim was as good as it could have been, given the three large brandies.
‘I made the first move.’ He wasn’t sure that he had; he had no recollection of moving and yet one minute he’d been standing on one side of the clearing with her on the other side and the next he had been in the middle, his arms wrapped around her, his fingers in her hair and finally, finally with his mouth on hers. He could have died in that moment and he would have been a happy man. ‘I am not good enough for her.’
Edward rolled his eyes. ‘Of course you are not, but you have been adoring her from afar for years, so it is high time you got on with it and made her your wife.’
‘I have not.’ He had been doing just that, but a man had to have some dignity.
‘Freddie, you look at her like this.’ Edward pulled a face that had his other two brothers laughing.
Two laughs in one evening was possibly a record for Tobias, but the brandy and the swirling thoughts made it hard for Freddie to focus on that miracle. Besides, his skin was hotter than the surface on the sun at the sight of Edward’s awful impersonation. ‘I do not!’ He paused for a beat. ‘Do I?’
‘Perhaps not quite that bad,’ said Christopher, still in contention for position as his favourite brother, although the competition was not high.
‘Exactly that bad,’ said Edward, definitely Freddie’s least favourite.
‘But Tobias…’ Freddie turned to look at his oldest brother, who was swirling the amber liquid around in his glass, a hint of a smile on his lips, or perhaps Freddie was imagining it, because the room was slightly blurry around the edges. He was never drinking again; it was making it dashed difficult to follow the conversation or make rational observations.
‘Freddie,’ said Edward, leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees. ‘I am going to save you some time trying to work out whatwe are saying. The brandy has clearly addled your brain. It has been clear to all of us that, for some time, years actually, you have been dangling after Emily Hawkins. Anything that has been said by any of us regarding Tobias and Emily has been to irritate you for the benefit of our entertainment and not because our older brother had any serious intention of courting her.’ He turned slightly towards the duke. ‘Is that correct, Tobias?’
The duke nodded gravely. ‘It is.’
‘See?’
‘I see that you all think I am foolish and a half-wit and…’
‘No,’ said Tobias. ‘We do not think that, Frederick.’
Edward and Christopher nodded in agreement, Edward’s smile finally fading away.
‘You think that,’ said Edward quietly. ‘The rest of us do not.’
Oh. Freddie’s heart expanded painfully. This was the precise moment into which he should say something profound, but once again, nothing came to mind. Edward cleared his throat, followed quickly by Christopher as the noise made the moment less sentimental and more manly.
‘You are quite the artist,’ said Edward when no one else said anything at all.
