“Must I hear one more word about the heart and how noble it can be? I think I need someone to take hold of both of you and toss you into the sea.”
Cassian was back at White’s, not what he had wanted or expected to be doing with his evening. He should have been grateful that Benedict and Sebastian had deigned to leave their wives and warm hearths to sit with him in a room that smelled of tobacco, old leather, and the particular desperation of men who had nowhere better to be. He was not especially grateful. He was on his third whiskey and growing less grateful with each glass.
Three days.
It had been three days since he turned his back on Juliana, and the whole thing felt like the end of their marriage. There had been a cold silence between them since then, and he did not plan to break it. She had wounded him in a way he had not anticipated and was not yet certain how to account for, not the anger, which he was accustomed to, but the particular sting of having opened something in himself that he had kept locked for years and then being told that he was using it as a weapon.
He was not using it as a weapon.
He was simply right.
Could she not see what Kit was truly like?
I did everything for her. Everything.
He had opened his home to a man he despised. He had sat across from Christopher Hawthorne and pretended that he could tolerate him. She had stood in his hall afterward and told him he was only looking for reasons to destroy her brother as though the reasons had not been handed to him, five years ago, in a letter from a field hospital outside Salamanca.
“You are drowning, Stonevale. You are drinking too much and with poor grace,” Benedict commented, eyeing him with a mix of concern and suspicion.
“I did everything she wanted me to do!” Cassian exploded. “I tried to be as civil as possible to her brother, the same man who ruined my life. Still, she takes his side. Over and over. He had done atrocious things to her, his flesh and blood, but she is still his protectress. And I? I was just the man who tried to make peace because she said we had to do it if we wanted to start our own family.”
“You feel rejected,” Benedict murmured thoughtfully. Was that pity in his eyes? Cassian certainly hoped not.
“She did not reject you, Cassian,” Sebastian declared, eyeing his brandy thoughtfully. He drew it near his nose and sniffed. “She is simply responding to the call of her blood. He is her brother. Admittedly, though, from what I have been hearing, the Hawthornes seem difficult to love.”
Difficult to love. Cassian flinched at that. His sister fell in love with Christopher Hawthorne, while he seemed to be giving up his pride for Juliana. Until now. It was too much. The woman did not care for him. She only wanted him to save her family, the same one who continued to tear Stonevale down.
Or perhaps, said a quieter part of him,she cares for you so much that she cannot bear for you to be less than the man she believes you capable of being.
He silenced that part and reached for his glass.
“It would have been understandable if she had not known what her brother was like. But no. She knew what her brother did to my sister. She knew he could be involved in criminal activities. Of course, she experienced his incompetence herself. What more does she need to give up on him? Meanwhile, she looked at me as if I were the villain.”
“You are heartbroken, friend,” Benedict offered, smiling knowingly. Was he taking all of this as a jest? “It is terrifying when you realize your wife’s opinion matters to you more than your pride. Do not worry, Cassian. All couples fight. I think you will believe me when I say Anastasia and I had disagreements others might think would make the history books.”
“Not all couples fight, though,” Sebastian retorted. “Some of us prefer to handle things peacefully. However, Benedict and his wife have had legendary fights.”
“A good row does clear the air, Sebastian,” Benedict insisted. “Some of us have more passionate natures.”
“The only person in your marriage with a passionate nature is Anastasia.”
“Will both of you hush?” Cassian bellowed. “You were supposed to be here to talk about my marriage. Instead, you bicker about who has the best fights with your wives. Come on now. Anyway, I just want to express my disbelief that she would continue to support her brother, the plague of our lives, just because she loves him.”
He gazed into the bottom of his glass, surprised he could actually see it. There was barely any liquid left, which meant he had drunk far more than he had planned to.
The truth was, and he was only willing to admit it here, in this room, that he understood why she loved her brother. He did not like it. He did not agree with it. But he understood it because he knew what it meant to love someone despite the evidence against them, to keep the door open long past the point when it would have been easier to close it.
He had done it for Marta.
Juliana did it for Kit.
The difference was that Marta had deserved it.
But perhaps, on some level, he was not yet ready to examine too closely. That was not the point.
“I should not care what Juliana thinks, but somehow I do. I must go home now so we can sort out his silly argument once and for all. I am even willing to accept her good-for-nothing brother if that will make her happy.”
Cassian also missed touching Juliana so much that it had become more painful than his leg. She had become like a phantom wound. Her absence had been his worst punishment.
