Charles snickered.The Earl continued to puff on his cigar.
“The real question is, why do you never leave London?”Harry countered.
Because El was here.
He blinked.The thought had been immediate, jerking through his mind, but El wasn’t the only reason.He had others.He… The Earl was here, and Lady C.His nieces and nephews.Other friends and acquaintances.It was not solely El.
Also, it was not like heneverleft London.When he was one and twenty, he’d toured the Continent, spendingmonthsaway.And yes, perhaps he’d missed El, and had impatiently awaited her frequent letters, and perhaps she was the first person he had visited upon his return, but that didn’t mean he fashioned his life around her.The fact he could not remember the last time he’d left London for any great length of time without El also being absent was of no significance.
“Seeing as you never leave London,” Harry continued.“When will you set up your own household?You cannot leech off our brother forever.”
Benedict scowled at his brother.He knew he should take rooms, but when he’d taken rooms previously, he’d ended up back at Colgrove House more often then not.His rooms had been too silent, he’d missed the constant chatter of his brother’s house, and he’d missed his nieces and nephews.
At thirteen and ten, Maria and Edward would bicker incessantly, often attempting to rope him in to their arguing.His eldest nephew, George, took himself ever so seriously, with his artlessly tousled curls and deceptively simplistic garb, as if he had not spent hours to make himself appear so careless.Peter was at Eton, though he would visit at the end of term, but five-year-old Gregory shadowed Benedict’s every step, talking his ear off and tugging him into his adventures.Lady C and Amanda constantly discussed the latter’s upcoming season, strategising and scheming which was entertainment in and of itself, and he supposed he did not much mind conversing with the Earl at breakfast and in his study after dinner.He’d had none of that when he resided elsewhere, and he found himself longing for the chaos a family created.
“I could take a house, but it seems excessive when it is only me,” he said to Harry.“Neither of you took a house before you were wed.”
An unholy gleam lit Harry’s eyes.“That is another question.When are you going to wed, Benedict?”
The Earl’s gaze swung to Benedict.Abruptly, his collar felt too tight.He resisted the urge to tug at it.
“We three have done our duty to the family before we turned five and twenty,” Harry continued.“Here you are almost forty—”
“I am nine and twenty, Harry.”For another month only, not that Harry knew or cared.“I should like to know how you believe I am somehow of a sudden two years your elder.”
Harry waved his hand.“You are old, and getting older, and you are yet unmarried.What if you can no longer function as a man due to your dotage?”
“I can assure you, it is not a concern,” he said.
Charles groaned.“Leave off, Harry.”
“How would you know?”Harry persisted, ignoring Charles.“You have not ever tried to get a wife with child.”
The Earl choked on his cigar.“I should hope not, seeing as he has no wife of his own,” he spluttered.“We do not need the scandal of our brother impregnating someone else’s wife.”
“Of the six of us, you alone remain unwed.Why is that?”Harry’s gaze sharpened.“It’s that girl, isn’t it?The one you are always around.Why don’t you just wed her?”
Charles shot Harry a sour look.“We have known Lady Eleanor since she was practically an infant.You cannot claim you do not know her name.”
Harry shrugged, but Benedict heard little of his response.Everything in him had frozen and all he could think on was El.El as his bride, pretending modesty as she walked down the aisle only to grin at him as he took her hand.El as his wife, her stockinged feet in his lap as she read a book in their library.El in their bed, her head thrown back and her hands tangled in his hair as he pleasured her.El holding their child, humming softly as she rocked the baby to sleep.
He shook himself, thrusting those thoughts aside.El was his friend only.His friend who would never marry.
His friend who had announced she wished to take a lover.
“You would do well to take her to wife,” Harry was saying.“She is not unpleasant to look at and she comes with a substantial dowry.”
Spine snapping straight, he clenched his fists.“I wouldnevermarry Eleanor for her fortune.”
“But you would marry someone else for theirs?”His brother smiled thinly.“There is no shame in it, little brother.Indeed, Colgrove would welcome an increase in the family coffers.”
Charles’s breath exploded in exasperation while the Earl said nothing, merely smoked his cigar while he regarded Benedict thoughtfully.
He was saved from snapping at Harry as a whirlwind in the form of a boy rushed into the room.“Uncle Benedict!”the whirlwind shouted and launched himself.
Benedict was smothered in boy, his chair rocking back with the force of his nephew’s leap.“Gregory, why are you not abed?”he asked once he managed to right both boy and chair.
The Earl’s gaze moved between Benedict and his son.“I too wish to hear this answer.”
