“That’s flattering.” My comment was brittle, harsh.
“I did not mean…”
“No, you did mean it. And why would you think otherwise? After all, I am a dishonorable bastard.” I couldn’t hide the bitter undertone.
“I did not mean that.” I shot him a withering look. “Alright, I did mean it. But you do not need to run the club, Michael. You can do something respectable. You know I would fund you…”
I couldn’t restrain my bitter laugh. “The club is everything I have, Hugh. I built it from nothing, and it’s mine. There’s nothing else, nothing in the entire world that’s just mine.”
“But if you just tried your hand at a respectable occupation—”
“Seven years. I was viscount in all but title for seven years. In seven years the ton never once forgot. And neither did you, so don’t try to deny it.”
“I did not know you wished to be thought of as such.”
I couldn’t hold back the acidic laugh that escaped.
“Yes, who would want a title and wealth and power handed to them at birth? Who would want the chance to marry the woman he cares for? I had four years before he married your mother. Four years where no one treated me as lesser than. Four years where I thought I could do anything I dreamed. Then he married Agatha. Then I was banished from her sight. Worse still, she had a son, and everything that could’ve been mine was handed to you. I never, not once, complained. But don’t for one second mistake my silence for lack of feeling.”
I was breathless. And worse still, I had said too much. As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted each one more than the last. I never wanted him to know these things.
“Michael, I… I don’t know what to say.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“It doesn’t matter. The things I wanted were never mine to dream of in the first place. She’s not mine to wish for either.”
“Do you… Has she been compromised?”
“Not irrevocably.”
“What do you consider to be irrevocably?”
“She’s not with child, Hugh.”
“Is that a possibility?”
“Not unless her offspring is the son of God.”
“I have to ask these questions, Michael. She is a guest of my wife. She is under my protection whether you like it or not.”
An exhausted sigh escaped. “I’m not a seducer, Hugh. I’ve never touched an innocent.”
“As far as I know, you never cared for a woman until now either. Are you going to offer for her?”
“What do you mean, offer for her?”
“Are you going to ask her to marry you?” he asked it slowly, as though the words were foreign rather than their meaning.
“She’s already promised to Rosehill. And more besides, as you so kindly pointed out, she’s not for me.” There was a resentfulness in my voice I couldn’t restrict.
“Damn it all, Michael, I did not know you actually felt for her.”
“My feelings hardly change the situation.”
“You could ask her. She might say yes.”
“She. Is. Already. Promised. To. Rosehill. And even if she were not, do you really think a father, even one so poor as Dalton, would allow his daughter to marry a man of my reputation and situation? Even if I hadn’t threatened him bodily little more than two months ago?”
