“Will you tell me what happened with Lord Wessex?”
She put her silverware down and paused as she gathered the best way to relate what happened.
“Honestly? He acted like he always did. He was half-way to foxed and stumbled across me. He didn’t even ask why I was here. He just saw me and my tits and decided”—She adopted a low, gruff voice—“I think I’ll tup that.”
She shook her head. The insolence of Colborn never ceased to amaze her. “And I told him in no uncertain terms that, no, he most certainly wasnotgoing to touch me, let alone tup me. He was pushy, but naturally he was no match for me.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I wasn’t opposed to putting him in a headlock.”
But her brother didn’t smile, his lips only flattened further.
“Regardless, he got angry, petulant, as he does whenever I deny him. He shoved me, and I collided with a piece of furniture and ended up on the floor.”
Felix’s face was turning red again. No. No more raging.
“It was really not all that bad,” she said hastily. “I just got lucky, and of course, collided with the corner of the dratted thing, so it hurt like the bloody devil.” That didn’t seem to appease Felix. “Ash almost choked him to death, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It actually does. I think I like the man a little more now.”
Felicity let out an airy snort. “Anyhow, Ash ended the betrothal right then and there.”
Her brother was quiet, and Felicity glanced at him. Emotions battled over his face, anger for certain, and perhaps sadness?
“That would have been my future,” she said softly. “I tried to tell you numerous times, Fifi, and it always went unheard. My words were ineffective, so I took action. I am done letting anyone else have control over my life.”
“I see that.” His face was drawn, definitely sadness now. “I’m sorry I refused to listen to you, treated your concerns as though they weren’t valid.”
Which brought her back to the question she always asked herself when it came to his denying her wishes. “Why? Why did you not listen, not inquire, not dosomethingto see if they were valid?”
He grimaced. “I-I was trying to please Father. Father had always wanted a grand match for you, Flick. His daughter—a duchess. The kind of beauty you had could not be wasted on anything less.”
She made a disgruntled noise deep in her throat. She’d loved her papa, but God, she wasoverthat way of thinking. Did everyone forget how many dukes were, in fact, balding, toothless, and suffering from the pox? Why was that her future just because she was beautiful? That didn’t seem like much of a grand destiny.
Not to mention that she was more than her outward appearance. There was this thing, mushy and pink, that resided in her skull.A brain. Dear Lord, here she was going all Wollstonecraft in her thoughts.
“I held onto this match because it made me feel like I was granting Father his last wish,” Felix said quietly. “And I thought… Well, Wessex is a very handsome man. Has all his teeth. Though, with how much he sleeps around, he probably has the pox…”
Felicity’s lips twitched. She and her brother apparently shared like minds.
“Papa would have never wanted the match if it was at the expense of my happiness, Fifi,” she pointed out. Though a part of her wasn’t sure about that fact. Papa had been gone a long time, and could Felicity truly know how he would have acted in this situation? Like Felix, all she knew of was his dream of her to be a duchess.
A heavy sigh exploded from Felix. She was fairly certain there was more to that sigh than regret about his sister’s match.
“I’m sorry, Flick.” His gaze met hers, tortured and broken. “I think it was me holding on to the last piece of Father, and it wasn’t fair of me to do to that to you. I feel as though I have failed him in so many ways. And I just wanted him to be proud of me—in some way.” His gaze dropped to his plate, and he toyed with his potatoes. “Make up for the burden I brought him, for everything he had to go through covering up—”
“Don’t. You.Dare. Don’t youdarethink for one moment that what happened to you is your fault. Or that it in any way was a burden. Because every one of us, our gentle mother included, would slit that man’s throat if we ever found him. And I wouldrelishit.”
The tight-lipped smile he shot her was pained, just like his amber eyes. A painful past that would forever haunt her beloved brother. “My bloodthirsty little brat of a sister,” he said affectionately. He blew out a sigh and stared out over her shoulder. “But it doesn’t change that no father in his right mind wants a son who favors men to inherit.”
“Fifi, you know that isn’t true,” she rushed to assure him. “Mama and Papa have always accepted and loved you. A rarity in the world we live in.”
“Did he, though? He didn’t disown me—or worse. And for that I am grateful, truly. But he still expected me to marry, sire an heir and a spare, put on the front of a happily wedded couple. He told me of his and Mother’s arrangement, compared it to them.” Felix laughed. “I could find my love on the side. It’s no different, he said.”
His eyes met hers, piercing in their intensity. “But it is different. They didn’t love each other, but there was still attraction between them. At the end of the day, they were a man who wanted a woman and a woman who wanted a man. I can’t bed a woman—”
His voice broke, and so did her heart. Her poor, poor brother. She truly couldn’t imagine what he was going through.
“I just can’t do it, Flick.” He released a shuddering breath.
“Then you shouldn’t. Fitzy can inherit. He’s already married, and I’m sure he and Georgiana are well on their way to breeding a whole litter of children. I would have been worried Fitzy didn’t know where to stick his prick if I didn’t know what a little wanton Georgiana is.”
