“It matters because in the eyes of thetonI am already fallen.” She spoke gently, seeing he really was outraged on her behalf. “And because I was also to blame.”
He took her hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips in an oddly tender gesture. They were too often tender with one another, and it frightened her. “Did he hurt you?”
The urgency in his voice was disorienting. Her lovers were not supposed to rise to her defence like knights on white horses, leaving their round tables in search of monsters to vanquish.
He should not have done. He was a poet, a man who made battle with his pen, not his fists.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He frowned, looking as though he might say something in response, and she shook her head. Her heartbeat trembled her body, and she felt as though she might split into a dozen tiny pieces and he would scoop them all up in his hands, as though they were precious. As though, to him,shewas precious.
She had been selling his gifts to provide for her illegitimate daughter. How could she confess to such a thing?
“Caro,” he said, the name falling from his lips like honey. Her stomach dipped unsettlingly. “You can be open with me.”
“Nonsense,” she said lightly. “If I am to compel you to still visit me, I can never be open with you again. A lady must have her secrets.”
“Even from me?”
“Oh, darling.” She kissed him on the mouth, light as butterfly wings. “Especiallyfrom you.”
Chapter Eight
George sat at his usual table in White’s and watched as his friend Henry Beaumont, Viscount Eynsham, settled into the seat beside him. Recently married, Henry had only just returned to London, a fact that was particularly well timed: George was in the unusual position of needing advice.
“You look well,” he said.
Henry smirked. “I hear marriage can do that to a man.”
“Only if he is attached to his wife first, I fancy.”
“Perhaps.” Henry shrugged. “Louisa says she hopes she can meet with you in the next few days as well.”
“I hope so too.” George hesitated, but while his friend was perhaps not the most experienced, he needed to talk to someone. “I have a question.”
“Oh?”
“You recall Lady Augustus Spenser?” At his friend’s blank look, he added, “Caroline.”
A knowing smile crept onto his friend’s face. “Ah yes, I remember.”
George recalled the time he had swept the papers from his father’s desk so he could lay Caroline down on it, and how just a few hours later, he had consoled Henry’s broken heart there. “Yes,” he said a little hastily. “Well, the problem is that my father is keen for me to marry. Caroline has said herself that she would not do, and I confess that she would not be the logical choice.”
“I see,” Henry said.
“But once I marry, she will no longer see me.”
Henry’s brow quirked. “Very honourable of her.”
“Very obstinate.” George sighed. “My father is dying, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. When he does, I will be the Viscount Worthington, and my wife will be a viscountess.”
“I understand how these things work,” Henry said dryly. “So you are reluctant to choose a wife when it would mean losing Caroline, but you are under obligation to your father.”
“Precisely.”
“What would you like my advice on?” Henry rested his ankle on his knee, giving George a look of repressed amusement. “How to live with heartbreak?”
“Nothing so tragic. Just—how does one satisfy oneself with choosing a wife when she will not be half the woman you will lose?”
