The derisive snort Edward let out sounded like a bullet. “When have you ever heard me say that I’d fallen in love or even gotten close to it?”
Even though you might be getting closer to it than you thought.
“Never,” Benedict sighed. “Which, honestly, seems a disservice to you. You should allow yourself to feel something good once in a while, Edward.
“I can understand all about gaining money and steadying the ship to make sure the future generation is secure, but what about yourself? Doesn’t your inner person want to feel—to have an intimate connection with anyone?”
“Defineintimate,” Edward allowed a smirk to play over his face.
Rolling his eyes, Benedict muttered, “Not that sort of intimacy. Stop playing the dolt, Edward, it does not suit you.”
Setting the cup down, Edward said, “You know that you are the one primed to take over the ducal role the day you graduate, and the yacht is already primed to sail me back to Europe where I have mapped out a direction for the rest of my life.”
“Alone?” Benedict shuddered. “God forbid.”
“On father’s deathbed, he tried to make me promise that I would marry so that the title would not be passed down to you,” Edward grunted while hitching a boot onto the other knee. “But father was a bastard beyond all reason, so hence, the Dukedom is going to you. Another salvo to him beyond the grave.”
“That is not what you meant,” Benedict finished his breakfast. “But I get the gist.”
“Are you going to see Miss Alice today?” Edward asked.
“No, but mayhap in the week,” Benedict replied. “The lads and I are going rowing today.”
“Ah, what it was like to be twenty-something with no responsibility,” Edward teased. “How I envy you.”
“No, you do not,” Benedict shot back. “If you did, you would finish my papers for me.”
“Not if you paid me a king's ransom,” Edward laughed. “Now go away so I can think.”
With Benedict gone, he rubbed his face. “Alice, Alice. What do I do about you?”
CHAPTER 14
“Oh, dear me,” Aunt Agatha tutted as she fixed her monocle, gazing at the scandal sheets of the London Gazette while having afternoon tea, two days after the Duke’s ball. “That is a hideous picture of you, Alice.”
The knife Alice had been using to spread marmalade on her toast hovered over the crumpet. She blinked, “Pardon?”
Her aunt did not answer yet because her uncle, dressed in his plain waistcoat and shirtsleeves, sat his cup of weak tea on the table and kissed his wife. “Good morning, dear.”
Aunt Agatha looked up with a thin smile. “Are your travels finished for a while, Richard? I hope you would have some time to chauffeur your wife and daughter around to the various ton affairs instead of letting them assume we are poor waifs, hm?”
“My apologies,” Richard sipped his drink. “What were you saying about Alice?”
“This,” her aunt spun the paper.
It showed a caricature of a petite blond lady, tripping with two glasses in hand, and a man who was supposedly Benedict lowered to one knee, holding up a bouquet of rolled-up pound notes, and what appeared to be diamond rings spilling from every conceivable pocket, looking like a besotted fool.
“I do not appreciate them disparaging your relationship, Alice. Richard, will you have a word with the editor today?” Her aunt ordered.
Alice cleared her throat, “I think that might do more harm than good, Aunt. It is simply gossip. By next week, they will be finding another poor soul to make fun of.”
“Hmph,” Aunt Agatha snorted as she shook out the paper. “The ton is all aflutter with news of Marquess Brampton courting, dare we say, an outsider! Hush hush, gently we shall tread. Discreet inquiries into this Miss Alice Winslow have unveiled… nothing much.
The lady, er, forgive us, Miss, is the daughter of a late merchandiser and a governess, decent enough occupations, we suppose, and eyewitnesses have reposted that the meeting between the two was complexly happenstance
A few ladies who know the miss in question have commented that she is severely lacking in appearance and gentility to become a duchess, as we all know that Duke Valhaven is handing his ducal role to his brother upon his graduation.Isthe ton ready for a gentry duchess? A makeshift one, that is. We shall know soon.”
With her stomach turning, Alice sipped her lukewarm tea and tried to control the roll in her heart.
