“You are chalking the cue like you intend to duel me with it,” Edward said, breaking the silence that had grown between them.
Crispin dusted the blue cube over the tip with exaggerated care.He glanced at Edward, a slow smile tugging at his lips.“I do not require violence to best you, dear brother.I have finesse.”
“A dangerous thing in your hands.”Edward lined up his shot, the cue cradled in long, elegant fingers.With a crisp crack, the ivory balls scattered, two dropping neatly into opposite pockets.He straightened and looked at Crispin with a knowing smile.“Are you going to tell me what is actually going on, or shall we continue pretending you are not engaged to a woman who loathes you?”
Crispin leaned against the table.“She does not loathe me.She is merely...spirited.”
Edward arched a brow.“She slapped you once at Vauxhall.”
“Misunderstanding.”
“You kissed her at the ball, and in the garden.”
“Observant.”Crispin studied the table, then took a reckless shot, sinking a stripe with a flourish.
Edward circled the table, stick in hand, gaze on Crispin.“Mother is already planning the guest list.Clara’s mother wept into her handkerchief when she thought no one was looking.And you have made your engagement known to all of London, yet I know that marriage is the last thing you want.”
Crispin sighed and moved to take his shot.“It is a temporary arrangement.”
Edward watched him, eyes narrowed with the kind of gentle judgment that only a sibling could muster.“Then you had better end it quickly.”
Crispin paused.“She was about to be ruined.Again.Because of me.”
Edward frowned.“You are admitting that?”
Crispin hesitated, his hand tightening briefly around the cue.A flicker of something, guilt, perhaps, ghosted across his expression.“I have never denied it.”
“You have never admitted it either.”
Crispin straightened, his jaw tightening.“There’s no harm in pretending.She gets a reprieve from the gossips.Mother gets a future daughter-in-law to crow about.And I get a little...entertainment.”
Edward rolled his eyes.“You are playing with fire.”
“That is the point.”Crispin set his glass on the rail, and stalked around to survey the next shot.“She is magnificent when enraged.I believe she would set the whole city aflame if she could, and I cannot help but admire her for it.That kind of fire, that refusal to be cowed…makes her more dangerous than half the men in Parliament.And far more captivating.”
“Clara Mapleton is not a game.”
“I am beginning to suspect that.”
Edward took a sip of his brandy, studying his brother.“What happens when she finds a man she actually wants to marry?”
“Then I let her go, of course.”
“Do you really think it will be that simple?”Edward arched a speculative eyebrow.
Crispin nearly laughed, then saw the way Edward’s mouth twisted on the last word.“She would be bored to death within a week if I did not play along.As would I.”He leaned in, voice pitched low and intimate.“Besides, the ton is insatiable.If it were not my engagement to Lady Clara, it would be a rumor of your elopement with a Polish ballerina, or Mother’s tragic addiction to French lace.”
Edward sighed.“Very well, but do not make it worse.For either of you.”
“That is always my aim,” Crispin said, pocketing the final ball with a flourish.“To make nothing worse.”
Edward laughed.“That may be the biggest lie you have ever told.”
Crispin lifted his glass.“To illusions, then.The lifeblood of every well-bred lie, and every well-dressed scandal.”
They clinked glasses, the firelight dancing between them.
Edward set the cue aside and leaned both hands on the table, the pose oddly parental.“You are not as heartless as you want them to think.”
