“Well, perhaps notthere, but one of the others—”
“They’re all the same, Barnaby, but it isn’t even the houses, it’s…”
“What?” Carefully, Barnaby set his glass aside. “What is it, Cross?”
Miles stared at the drops of port he’d spilled, the dark red against the spotless white linen. “Don’t you recall how miserable he made her?”
Barnaby sighed. “I recall it, yes, but what does your father’s heartlessness have to do withyoubeing in love with Miss Templeton?”
“When a gentleman is in love with a lady, he marries her, Barnaby.” Miles didn’t bother with a glass this time, but lifted the bottle directly to his lips.
“Yes, I believe I’ve heard something to that effect, but you still haven’t answered my question, Cross.”
“Only the worst sort of scoundrel would take a lady like Juliet Templeton and doom her to a lifetime with a man who doesn’t have the first idea how to behave as a husband should. That would be like… like trapping a bright, colorful songbird in a cage until she no longer sings.”
Until she became so despondent, she lost her song forever.
“Don’t look at me like that, Barnaby.” Miles took another gulp from the bottle. “It’s nothing more than the truth.”
“Bollocks. It’s nowhere near the truth. You’renothingat all like your father was, Cross. He was bloody terrifying. Do you know I was frightened to death of him as a child?”
“I was, too, and so was she.” His mother had been a quiet, tender-hearted lady, and no match for her harsh, exacting husband. He’d lectured and tormented her until he’d whittled her down to a bleak shadow of the happy, pink-cheeked lady she’d once been. She’d shrunk further into herself with every year that passed.
Until finally, she’d disappeared altogether.
“Yes, but I’ve never been terrified ofyou, Cross. Oh, you’re a bit rigid, rather like an over-starched cravat, not to mention moody and occasionally ill-tempered—”
“Is there a point forthcoming, Barnaby?”
“The point, cousin, is despite your flaws, you’re a good, decent man. You’ve always been patient with me, and you’re an excellent friend to Melrose. Why would you think you wouldn’t be a fine husband, as well?”
Because people didn’t change. Not really. Especially when they hadn’t the first idea what to change into. “It’s too late for that, Barnaby.”
“Bollocks. You’re only forty years old, Cross—”
“Twenty-nine.” He raised the bottle to his lips again. “And stop saying bollocks. It’s vulgar.”
“Then stop forcing me to say it with this nonsense. Instead of engaging in these Byronic histrionics, you’d do well to send up a prayer of thanks to the heavens for sending you a lady as ideally suited to you as Juliet Templeton.”
“You’re mad, cousin. We don’t suit at all.” Juliet was playing-at-bowls-in-a-ballroom, rearranging-all-the-books-in-the-library chaotic. “She’s… chaotic.”
Delightfully, unpredictably, joyously chaotic, and he was stiff, starched, pressed, and perfectly creased. How could he ever do justice to such a magnificent tumult of a wife? He couldn’t even bring himself to wear a scarlet waistcoat embroidered with golden suns, for God’s sake.
“You could do with more chaos in your life, Cross. Think about it. I’m back off to the dining room, before those villains you left in there empty every bottle of port in the cellars.”
“As long as they leave me this one.” Miles curled a protective arm around his own bottle.
Barnaby rose to his feet, but he paused at the door. “What did you mean earlier, when you said I’d better grow accustomed to acting as host?”
“That? Only that you’ll take on more of the duties of the earldom once you and Lady Cora marry. I despise company, as you know, Barnaby, and I don’t mean to entertain, or spend much time in town in the future.”
“What, you mean to hole up here at Steeple Cross, like a lonely hermit?”
“Not a hermit, cousin, aneccentric. That’s what they call it when you’re an earl.”
Barnaby snorted. “If you say so, cousin. But before you decide against doing Juliet Templeton the grievous insult of asking her to be your countess, and thus ruining all her happiness, do one thing for me, will you?”
“Anything, cousin.”
