“No,” Xander insisted in that same maddeningly calm tone. “She could have weathered that. People do like to talk, but they would have gotten over it eventually. No matter how close you stood together,standing in the streeteventually loses its appeal, as far as stories go. No,thatwas not the scandal that led you and Clio to the altar in the end.”
Hector supposed he ought to be grateful that Xander didn’t say,The real scandal was that you ruined her at a house party,since Hector rather doubted either of them would survive the embarrassment of it.
“The event with the carriage was the inciting incident,” he said through clenched teeth instead.
Xander shook his head. “And yet,” he said, as though this was any point at all.
“And nothing,” Hector snapped. Approval be damned.
But Xander refused to be baited. He gave Hector a very patient look.
“Do you know what I think?” he asked, then failed to wait for a response before continuing. “I think that Clio is actually rather likeme. I think she wants—no,craves—a home. And love. And Ithink she is so afraid of admitting those things that she pushes them away at every turn.”
He paused, turning his empty tumbler around in his hands.
“I think often of the scandal that led to my marriage,” he said. “And I think now—with the perspective of hindsight, mind you—that I did it on purpose. Because I wanted Helen, and I could not admit it to myself. So, I put myself in a situation where I could give in to what I really wanted—having her, marrying her—all while telling myself that I was doing it as a matter of honor.”
He gazed at Hector with piercing blue eyes, and Hector didn’t know if he wanted to believe what Xander was saying or if doing so might truly ruin him once and for all.
“So, I ask you,” the Duke of Godwin went on, “to consider why Clio didn’t just wait. Why didn’t she just let the scandal pass? It would have taken a while, perhaps, and she would have had to bear up against poor Aaron’s stress. But we both know she’s strong enough to withstand it. So. Why did she let herself be drawn into your orbit … if not because she wanted to be?”
Hector closed his eyes briefly because it was a tempting idea. It wassotempting to think that, for bloodyonce, someone had chosen him. And not justsomeone. Clio. Clio, who burned brighter than the stars.
“She did it to protect her family,” he said hoarsely after a moment. “She did it because she loves you all.”
Lovedthem. Nothim.
Xander looked downright disappointed in him.
“Metford,” he said chidingly.
“I know my wife,” Hector insisted in that same tone, as though he had to force the words out past the gravel in his throat. “I know our marriage.”
Xander sighed.
“Perhaps,” he said.
But he did not look convinced, and Hector didn’t have the heart to correct the Duke of Godwin, because of how desperately he wanted to believe that the other man might be right after all.
CHAPTER 23
“Here.”
Matthew thrust papers at Hector and tried to escape, but Hector wasn’t about to fall forthattrick twice.
“Stop,” he snapped, halfway surprised when his brother actually listened. “What in the hell is this?” he asked his brother, who had turned his back.
Hector was in no mood for whatever shite his brother was up to now.
It had been an agonizing few days since returning from Godwin Estate, and, almost as though London itself was the problem, things had become icy once more between Hector and his wife.
Only it was worse now, because he had the gnawing feeling in his chest that he suspected might be despair. He blamed XanderLightholder for taunting him with the things he could never have.
Clio was little more than a ghost, and Hector couldn’t decide if he wanted to see her more or not. On one hand, seeing her and knowing that there was still such a cavernous distance between them hurt.
On the other hand, not seeing her also hurt.
Matthew turned, a sneer on his face. God, he looked ever so much like their father when he did that. It made the little boy inside Hector want to flinch, but he wasn’t a child any longer. He was a man and a husband and a duke, and he wouldn’t give way just because someone else looked at him slantwise.
