And definitely, definitely not because her disappointment had hung in the room like a miasma, making it impossible for him to think, let alone accomplish anything.
“Ach, well, you aren’t wrong there.” Ramsay, without invitation, tossed himself into an armchair. “Still. Lay your burdens upon me, oh mighty one. See if old Ramsay can’t help ye out a bit.”
Hector rolled his eyes again. “You are scarcely two years older than I am,” he pointed out.
Ramsay puffed out his chest. “Aye. Two years older, two years wiser. Plus, I’m descended from sensible folk. You’ll never catch my ancestors decorating a place like this.”
He waved around the room, and Hector felt a pang as he thought about Clio, draped over him, laughing as she mocked the decor. He hadn’t done much to introduce Clio to Ramsay, which suddenly seemed absurd. They were the two most important people in his life. And they would like each other, he thought.
Except Hector knew he would get to keep Ramsay. They’d been through too much together—too many boyhood spats, that one time when Hector had kissed the vicar’s daughter even though he knew Ramsay fancied her, too many long winter nights—to think their friendship would ever fade.
Clio was only his temporarily. That was the difference.
Ramsay was watching Hector’s face carefully.
“Come on, man,” he said, the teasing vanished from his voice. “What’s amiss? What’s got you in such a foul temper?”
Hector sneered, but there wasn’t any real heat in it.
“I’m always in a poor temper,” he reminded his friend.
This effort at distraction didn’t work. Ramsay kept giving him that assessing look.
“No,” he said. “No, you aren’t in a bad mood at all when you are around your wife.”
Ramsay might as well have punched him. Hector let out a laugh that was little more than a puff of air.
“I think you must be thinking of someone else,” he said, not bothering to hide his bitterness. He didn’t think he could have managed it if he’d tried. “Clio and I are forever arguing about something or other. Usually that I’m a sorry excuse for a Society gentleman.”
This wasn’t fair, and he knew it wasn’t fair. But he felt rather like a cornered, injured animal who lashed out at a helping hand.
Ramsay gave him a flat look.
“That,” he said flatly, “is a great load of shite and you know it.”
Something inside Hector flared, taking him back to any of a hundred boyhood spats.
“Oh, go to hell,” he snapped. “You don’t even know Clio. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Aye, well,youmight be a piss-poor excuse for a host,” Ramsay countered. “But your duchess is a right lady.Shehas been more than kind to me.”
This took Hector entirely aback. “She has?”
Ramsay looked positively disgusted with him.
“Yes, you bloody idiot, she has,” he said sharply. “A few days ago, now she sought me out and said that even if you weren’t going to show me proper hospitality, that she was. She invited me to breakfast. We’ve breakfasted together—” He quickly counted, “—three days in a row, now.”
Hector knew it was insane, but he felt jealous. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t have been with him—actually, the precise problem was that hecouldhave been with them. Instead, he’d been all but hiding in his office, determined to deal with the problems his brother presented to him on his own. Wasn’t that what a true gentleman would do?
He hated himself for wanting to be that, and hated that he knew he would fail. Because Clio deserved a gentleman. And she’d gotten him, instead.
And, apparently, Ramsay.
“Stay the hell away from my wife,” he growled, pointing at his friend.
Ramsay was unimpressed. “Oh, piss off,” he said dismissively. “She’s nice. I don’t know why you are always moping about and whining that she’s too proper. I told her the story about Fergus, Bessie the cow, and the village fete, and she laughed so hard that she almost choked on her toast. She’s not exactly some prim, dainty miss who will be scandalized by the mere sight of you.”
“You told herwhat?” Hector didn’t know what he found more appalling—that Ramsay had told a story about a man getting kicked in the bollocks by a cow after one of the milkmaids, tired of his constant flirtations, tricked him into disrobing in the stable, or that Clio had almostchoked,and he hadn’t been there. “Is she all right?”
