The only thing more ominous than the Dowager Marchioness of Guilford’s too-obvious matchmaking attempts was her silence.
Since he’d returned, with Alice at his side earlier that morn, Rhys had been greeted by scores of it from his mother. Great, big stretches of unending silence and dark glares. He had enough unfortunate experiences with the woman who’d given him life to trust that taciturnity.
As such, Rhys had taken the safest—and certainly the most cowardly path—to safety. He’d retreated.
Or, if one wished to be truly precise, he’d hidden.
Which was no small task or unimpressive feat in a household brimming with guests and servants.
Alas, desperate times and all that.
Standing before the bevel mirror in his chambers, Rhys lifted the collars of his shirt. With a murmured word of thanks, he accepted the black silk cravat from his valet, Fischer, who hurried off to gather a jacket from the armoire.
Except… he paused, fabric dangling from his fingers.
Was it his mother he’d been hiding from? Or Alice who’d seen entirely too much?
Unnerved, he looped the satin scrap around his neck and leveled the sides of the material. Quickly going through the motions, he wrapped the fabric once, and then drew it through the main knot creating a haphazard display.
“My lord.” Pain stamped in his face, Fischer reappeared, a black tailcoat with black velvet trim in hand.
Rhys snapped his collar down.
“Cheer up, Fischer.” Rhys plucked the jacket from the other man’s hands. “You look even more miserable than me.”
Fischer held his palms up, imploringly. “Might I?” Agony contorted his features. “May I…” He reached for Rhys’ neckwear.
“I assure you, my knot is fine.” Or fine, enough, anyway. In the sense that he had one on.
The stout valet swallowed loudly. “But, my lord, last time Her Ladyship followed me to the servant’s dining quarters and scolded me on your deplorable dress,” he whispered. “She suggested I take my services elsewhere.”
Rhys gnashed his teeth. Interfering, miserable harpie. It was as much a part of her as the perpetual scowl she wore and the coldness that spilled from her person.
Ah, the dragon had that effect on all. She always had. “Do you take me as one who’d sack you because of a cravat I’d gone and rumpled myself?”
“No, my lord,” the other man said, his voice threadbare.
Rhys smoothed the lapels of his tailcoat. “That is correct. I wouldn’t.”
Rhys then looked around the room. “My boots, if you would.”
Fischer cringed. “But, my lord… boots?” Rhys may as well have ordered the other man to steal the dowager marchioness’ jewels for the horrified shock in that whisper. Swiping a hand over his face, the valet shuffled off.
Returning his attention to the mirror, Rhys readjusted his silk cravat, smoothing the knot.
There was a firm knock at the door. That rapping was solid and powerful, unlike his mother’s vexing scratch. “Enter,” he called out.
The door handle was already twisting, and his brother stepped inside. Immaculately attired from his snowy white cravat to his strapped, gleaming, black shoes, he exuded refinement and a deference to Polite Society’s fashion dictates.
Miles did a quick once over of Rhys. It was a perfunctory search employed by one who sought to verify that Rhys was suitably attired for the dinner party.
Rhys arched an eyebrow. “E tu, Brute?”
“I don’t know what you’re speaking about.” The guilty flush staining his brother’s cheeks marked him for the poor liar he’d always been.
Rhys snorted. “Were you sent to verify whether I was joining the dinner party? Or to drag me to the table if I weren’t?”
Miles grinned. “Both?” he asked, sheepishly.
“Ah, at last, honestly.” Taking pity on Fischer, who stood shifting back and forth on his heels, he dismissed the servant. The portly fellow dropped a bow, and another deferential one for Miles before making a hasty retreat.
“She was fearful you wouldn’t join us,” Miles confessed after they were alone.
He chuckled. “What rubbish. Mother hasn’t feared for anything outside the marquisate title.”
Miles’ lips turned down at the corners. “You know that isn’t true,” he said somberly.
Of course, the optimistic counterpart to Rhys’ cynicism, his brother had long rushed to their mother’s defense, if for no other reason, Rhys oftentimes suspected, than to spare the family conflict and tension.
“She is also equally concerned with each of her children’s marital states,” his eldest sibling intoned. There was such an unexpectedness to that droll reply, it pulled a sharp, bark of laughter from Rhys.
“Which, I trust, is the reason for your visit to my rooms?”
This time, his brother nodded. “She also asked that I… speak with you. Brother to brother.”
Rhys tensed. “Oh?” he ventured cautiously.
Hands looped behind him, Miles wandered over to the garish rognon desk. Its ornate rosewood trellis marquetry and ormolu mounts suited to the tastes of the woman who’d outfitted the manor twenty years earlier: ostentatious, glimmering, the décor of this place exuded wealth and prestige. Letting his arms fall to his sides, his brother examined the open ledger. With a distractedness to his movements, he caught the corner of the page between his fingers and lingered his focus there.
Rhys stiffened, braced for a disapproval that came from all members of the peerage for one who dabbled in trade.
At last, Miles shot a look back. “A… steam engine?” he murmured.
He sought to make sense of the meaning in those three words strung together and punctuated by a slight pause. Rhys rolled his shoulders. “It has been around for more than a hundred years now,” he felt compelled to defend. “An inventor named Newcomen. Watt merely improved it.”
“Hmm,” Miles replied, again his thoughts carefully schooled. His brother returned to studying Rhys’ books. Near in age, they had been close as young boys. Where many spares to the heir resented the role as second and forgotten child, Rhys had never coveted the title. Instead, he’d welcomed the freedoms it allowed him to escape their parents’ notice. Yet, Miles had never been one of those aloof, unfeeling brothers either. Rather… he’d been a friend until, with the passage of time, responsibilities and life… for each of them had replaced the friendship they’d once enjoyed.
At last, his brother released that page and faced him. “I had no idea of your business interests.”
“Yes, well, there is much we don’t know about one another.” Lillian. Rhys’ business ventures. So much. That hadn’t always been the case. There had once been a time they’d shared secrets and stories. Regret filled him at the natural gulf that had been brought by time and their responsibilities.
“You are right,” Miles said, sadness stealing into his tone. “Mother asked me to speak to you about the Guilford line.”
He laughed. The Guilford line? “Married as you are and she’s still not content?”
“Faith and Violet will be the only children Philippa and I will ever have,” his brother said with a quiet somberness that killed Rhys’ dry amusement.
Rhys’ jaw went slack. He struggled to force words out. A question. A platitude. And he, glib with words, found himself at a complete loss with this.
His brother coughed into his fist. “It is a decision that belongs to Philippa and me, and is a product of…” Miles’ eyes darkened. “My being unwilling to risk her life for the sake of an heir.”
“I didn’t know,” he said lamely. I should, though. I should know about my brother’s life and Lettie’s friends…while all along, he’d been so self-absorbed that he’d kept a careful façade in place and shut everyone out. How odd that after a handful of meetings, one young lady had so carefully detected that mechanism within him, and made him see the truth of how he’d lived his life these past years—safe. For he hadn’t wanted to speak on what was hard or painful… for him… his family. It had been easier transforming himself into the careless rogue Alice had described.
Miles skimmed his fingers over the ledger. “I’m telling you this to try and explain mother’s relentless determination where you’re concerned. To her…” His brother paused. “To all… you now represent the line.”
Rhys dissolved into a paroxysm of choking, until tears streamed down his cheeks.
His brother quickly crossed over and banged him on the back.
“I… I…” The last thing he wanted, desired, or needed was the obligation of the Guilford title. And yet, with everything his brother had shared, the dowager marchioness’ determination to see Rhys wed made sense.
At least as far as ruthless matchmaking mamas were concerned.
Miles flashed a wry grin. “You’re taking this a good deal better than I’d suspected.” That hint of amusement instantly faded to a mask of solemnity donned by his brother. “I’m…” He hesitated, seeming to search. “Sorry that her attentions have shifted to you and that my inability to carry on the line should see those responsibilities pass to you.”
They’d grown, and grown apart. That divide was a sadly natural gulf as a product of life’s responsibilities. Miles’ murmured regrets, however, spoke to a brother who’d always known Rhys… even with the passage of time.
“Do you believe I’d resent you or Philippa for that?” He scoffed. Striding over to the gleaming, black boots at the foot of his bed, Rhys sat. “If that is the case, then you don’t really know me,” he chided, tugging into first one of the articles, and then the next.
Miles steepled his fingers, tapping the tips of the gloved digits together. “I thought I’d explain Mother’s determination… and the situation the Brookfield line finds itself.”
The muscles of his gut clenching, Rhys stared at the boule mantel clock in an act of cowardice, unable to meet his brother’s gaze. For what his brother now alluded to thrust forward long buried possibilities: Rhys married… with a family of his own. Those had been silly, romantic dreams he’d allowed himself as a young man; dreams he’d never before shared with another. After all, gentlemen didn’t willingly cede their independence for marital constraints. The hopes, however, had been there. He hadn’t sought a proper Societal wife; stiff, dull, and vapid. Rather, he’d longed for a spirited one, capable of laughter and who’d flout Polite Society’s conventions along with him.
A lady such as Alice—
Rhys jumped up. “We should go,” he blurted, his heart thudding inside his chest.
What sickness afflicted his head that a proper miss should keep wheedling her way inside his mind?
Miles gave him a probing look. “Are you all r—?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” He wasn’t. He was madder than King George himself.
Rhys reached for the handle when a hand on his shoulder stayed his movements.
He cast a questioning look back.
“Mother wished me to speak to you about your doing right by the line,” his brother said with a somberness that sent Rhys’ muscles tensing. “I, however, wanted you to know that I would never expect you to marry because of the Brookfield line or to please Mother or me.” He held Rhys’ eyes. “Or anyone… except yourself. As one who deeply loves his wife, I would hope that you will one day know that.”
Rhys’ rubbed the back of his neck. Even with everything his brother had revealed about his own life, Rhys still could not bring himself to share the folly he’d made in his youth: giving his heart to a woman who’d broken their secret betrothal all for a sack of silver like the Judas she’d been, to stay away from the Brookfield spare to the heir. Once, such a truth had devastated him. Now, nothing but embarrassment at his own folly lingered. “I…” he finally brought himself to say. “Thank you,” he finished lamely. “We should join the dinner party,” he continued on a rush.
“Of course,” Miles murmured. He stared at Rhys for a long moment, having the look of one who wished to say more.
And as they started from the room, Rhys’ mind returned to thoughts of the dinner party… and the minx he’d spent the better part of the day hiding from.