“Do not put words into my mouth, Duke.”
“You pledged to genuinely consider him!” her brother snapped.
“And I am!” Allie sniped in return.
They stared at one another for a long moment, both breathing hard.
Window light raked across her brother’s face, painting him in planes of dark and light, haloing his preternaturally gray hair.
He looks tired, she thought.
Dark bags hung underneath his eyes and his skin held a sallow tint.
This man betrayed you. He kidnapped you,she reminded herself.He has repeatedly attempted to browbeat you to his will.
And yet . . .
She hated this, Allie realized.
She hated always being at loggerheads with her twin. Hated how they taunted and derided one another.
Hated that their father’s cruel hand had forever altered Tristan from the kind, quiet boy he had been.
Begrudgingly, Allie inwardly acknowledged that her own experiences might have changed her, as well. She was anything but the buoyant, affectionate girl her brother had known.
And so . . . for the first time since arriving in England, she extended her brother the tiniest olive branch.
She blamed Ethan Penn-Leith’s ridiculous optimism for the change in herself.
Swallowing, she said, “Charswood’s offer is tempting. He intends to invite us to his seat in Derbyshire in six weeks’ time, so I may give him my answer then.” Her voice dropped into the silence between them. She pointed a stern finger at her brother. “Donotgloat.”
Kendall’s expression scarcely twitched, but his eyes did brighten considerably.
Hewasgloating, the reprobate.
“I told you not to gloat!” she hissed.
Her brother dropped his gaze to the desk before him, slowly moving his pen and nudging his inkwell. Gathering his thoughts, she knew, just as he had as a boy.
Abruptly, she saw him as Tristan once more. As the brother she had long loved.
Could they ever return to that place of trust and friendship, the two of them?
Finally, Kendall lifted his eyes back to her, the smugnessmostlygone from his face. “As I have repeatedly said, Charswood is a good man. He is a fair man. He would treat you with respect and care. I will speak with him about the visit. I know you haven’t believed me up to this point, but permit me to say it again—Idowish for your happiness, Lady Allegra.”
“If that is truly the case, then why force my hand in this manner?” Allie asked, genuinely curious. “Why not permit me to choose my own bridegroom?”
At her question, all traces of Tristan evaporated as so much mist. The imperious Duke of Kendall took center stage.
“A man like Ethan Penn-Leith, you mean?” Kendall said on a sneer. “A lowborn poet who will do nothing to further our family name politically?”
Frustration swelled in Allie’s chest. “Not our family, Kendall. It’s you—you want my marriage to benefityoupolitically. Let’s not ignore the truth.”
“The goals are one and the same! Iamthe family. I would not have my only sister debase us all with such a marriage. Beloved poet or no, I would destroy the man first.”
“He is a gentleman!”
“Bah! He is a showman. A bourgeois nobody who is a wit with a pen. He wields no real power beyond what we aristocrats ascribe him.” Her brother surged to his feet, arms crossed over his torso. “You can put a top hat on a swine, but it is still a pig!”
