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Still, he could not escape the uncomfortable truth. Something about this situation with Audrey had stirred memories he had long sought to bury.

He had returned from his Grand Tour three years earlier, weary from a wretched Channel crossing and looking forward to a warm welcome. The moment he reached his father’s townhouse, travel-stained and sodden, Julius had charged through the entryway eager to see his mother and his sister. He had always shared a closeness with Lady Smiling, his mother, and during those long years abroad, her letters had brought welcome news. He had folded them carefully into his trunk and reread them by candlelight when homesickness had curled around his ribs.

Little Penelope, he had imagined, would be far more grown than the bright-eyed child he had left behind. She would run into his arms with news of her studies and ponies and secret cakes in the schoolroom.

Lord Snarling would be no warmer than usual but, at least, predictable in his frost.

Lady Smiling would meet him with a kiss on the cheek, a cup of tea, and inquiries about Roman ruins and Venetian gondolas.

Except …

He had arrived to find that Lord Snarling was already away, off to the Continent on Crown business. Nothing surprising there. What had startled him was the quiet revelation from a butler he had never before met. Lady Smiling and Miss Penelope had departed for Paris two months prior and had not returned.

Julius had stood frozen, trunk in hand, the familiar hallway suddenly foreign in its silence. He had written to his mother at once, directing his letter to his uncle’s residence. Her reply had been lighthearted, even cheerful. She was extending her visit, finding great enjoyment in her brother’s company, and Penelope’s French was improving admirably.

Julius had not believed a word of it.

There was a deliberate brightness in her tone, the kind that concealed rather than revealed. He had read between the lines. Something had been amiss.

Still, he had written again. And again. Each letter more urgent, more pleading. But Lady Smiling did not return. With time, he had ceased writing and instead thrown himself into the distractions London provided. Fashion, gossip, terrible poetry. Widows. Anything to avoid the truth.

The slow unraveling of his parents’ marriage had shadowed much of his youth, simmering like a cracked kettle forever threatening to boil over. He had hated it. He hated the way indifference could become a kind of cruelty. But this final breach had broken something within him. It had confirmed the fear he had long suspected.

Marriage is naught but an unhappy trap.

It was utterly ridiculous that he, a grown man of breeding and experience, could not board a ship to visit his own family. He had tried—twice. On both occasions, he had barely made it past the gangplank before the gentle sway of the dock set his stomach churning. He had disembarked in humiliation, swallowing bile and pride in equal measure. Another crossing was simply not possible. He had cast up his accounts too many times before. Even the thought of embarking again left him with a cold sweat and a hollow roiling in the pit of his belly.

Perhaps Audrey knows of a remedy?

Julius growled aloud at the intrusive thought.

“Have you offered to marry her?” Brendan’s voice was casual, but his gaze was sharp from across the carriage.

“What?” Julius startled. His thoughts had been so private, so closely held, that the idea of another penetrating them was disconcerting.

“Miss Gideon,” Brendan clarified. “That is what you are chewing on, is it not?”

Julius frowned. He did not care to have his mind read. In fact, he had always taken pains to present an opaque front, hiding his true thoughts behind glibness and irreverence. He prided himself on being inscrutable.

“Why do you say that?”

Brendan shrugged. “I know what it looks like when a man is tangled in his thoughts about a woman. There is only one subject that stirs my own emotions to that degree—my wife. Her happiness. Her safety. And how she will react to some idiotic thing I have done.”

Julius did not respond.

Brendan waited a beat, then pressed. “Your expression was not typical. So. Have you?”

“I informed her we will wed,” Julius said shortly.

Brendan snorted. “And how did she respond to that proclamation?”

“Uh … she initially turned me down.”

His friend’s mouth twitched with suppressed amusement. “So you were forced to persuade her?”

Julius shifted in his seat, discomforted by the truth. “I was. And I did.”

The baron leaned forward slightly, narrowing his gaze with suspicion. “And what precisely did you offer the young lady?”