Desperate for a moment to think of anything else, I seized on Lady Juliet, still my responsibility. “Do you… Has she been compromised?”
“Not irrevocably,” he replied. He baited me, again, arguing with me over the state of the girl’s purity before adding, “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?”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean, offer for her?”
“Are you going to ask her to marry you?” I asked slowly, deliberately.
“She’s already promised to Rosehill. And more besides, as you so kindly pointed out, she’s not for me.”
“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.” It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.
“She. Is. Already. Promised. To. Rosehill,”
“Has it occurred to you that she may be expecting your address?” I reminded him. A lady didn’t walk out of the woods looking the way Lady Juliet had without expectations.
“Even if she wanted to, I could never ask it of her. She could not understand what a life with me would mean. She would be ruined. Never to be accepted in polite society again. I couldn’t do that to her.” His speech was hoarse and pitchy, too full of desolation to be contained.
I sighed. “You are determined then? Nothing I can say will convince you?”
“I won’t drag her to hell with me.”
“Very well then. I must ask you to refrain from engaging with her unchaperoned. No more strolls to places unknown. No more cards in the drawing room without Kate or myself present. The strictest proprieties must be followed.” I could not, would not, allow that girl to be ruined. I was a poor gentleman, but in this, I was firm. No matter how much Michael loved her, if he wouldn’t offer for her, then my only choice was to protect her.
“I’ll leave,” he replied.
“What?”
“I’ll go back to London.”
“That is not what I said, Michael.”
“I can’t stay here. I can’t be this close to her and not be with her.”
“Are you certain?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, first light.”
Alone once again, I realized that somehow, after nothing but a singular twenty-minute conversation with my brother, I had only begun to see him for the man he truly was. How many others had more beneath the surface than I knew?
Twenty-Nine
THORNTON HALL, KENT – JUNE 4, 1814
KATE
I awoketo Anna’s quiet rustling in my dressing room. Basin filling, tray settling, I had grown used to the ambient noises of married life. It was familiar now, comforting. Today the light streaming through my curtains was muted, a gray day then. No matter, we would not be in England if those were not an occasional nuisance. I did hope the rain would stay away, at least until the afternoon. Both Michael and Jules became restless and snappy if they weren’t able to sneak away for at least an hour each morning.
Jules had been frustratingly closed-lipped about where they went and what they did each morning, but her smile was infectious. It warmed my heart to know that, if I could not have the love match of my dreams, she would. There was no more deserving person in the world, and Michael seemed poised to offer her the world.
