The Duchess War

Oliver shook his head. “It wouldn’t come to that.”

The last of the bells faded in the distance. Robert could still feel her kiss, could still feel the want rise in his blood. “It might. You know who my father is. The sort of man he was.” His voice dropped. “And I want her.”

There it was, said aloud. He wanted. He didn’t just want her body. So few people knew who he was, what he desired. And yet Minnie had accepted him at his word. She hadn’t bowed or scraped to him; instead, she’d told him that she overmatched him.

More than that. He’d spent so long hiding how he felt, what he wanted. He had to work in Parliament to pass every bill that remotely advanced his goals, even while he gnashed his teeth at the slow pace of progress. The House of Lords bickered over the correct threshold for property ownership in voting while Robert chafed at the notion of any property threshold at all. They muttered about the privileges of peerage, when he wanted them all removed. But stating something so radical would have alienated them all. And so he kept it in. He argued minutiae. He voted for bills that made life a little more bearable when he wanted to scream at everyone.

Minnie, now… There was a woman who knew what it was to hide what she felt. And he wanted her so badly, so damned badly.

“I don’t trust myself,” he finally said.

Oliver shrugged. “Why would you trust me, then? I have as much of Clermont in me as you do.”

“You…” Robert stopped, turned to his brother. “That’s different.”

“Same blood.” His brother took off his spectacles. “Same eyes. Same nose.”

“But you…your…” He stumbled for an explanation. “I can be a right bloody bastard. You of all people should know that. And why you gave me a chance, I will never know.”

“That’s easy.” Oliver shrugged and looked at the pavement. “If you didn’t take after the duke, I wouldn’t have to, either.”

Robert stopped walking.

“I’m not a prize, myself. I can be a right bloody bastard, too. I have a temper worse than anyone else in my family. Sometimes, when I was a child, I scared myself with my temper. I know I scared my mother.” Oliver shook his head. “I’m not your conscience, Robert. I’m not a man who will show you what’s right. My mother’s suffering didn’t wash me clean of Clermont’s blood.”

“That’s not why I’m asking you.” The fog seemed to eat his words. “I’m asking you because…”

When they’d been at Eton together, Oliver had spent hours fashioning cunning boxes from sheets of paper or whittling a little flock of sheep, complete with shepherdess, for his sisters. His mother had received sketches of the buildings, carefully made. And for his father…nothing was ever good enough for his father. One year, he’d been set on getting his father a pair of cufflinks. And so for months before November—because Mr. Marshall’s birthday was in November—Oliver had worked, whittling carvings for the other boys for pennies apiece, just so he could have the money for a gift.

Robert had always watched in bemusement.

“You’re asking me because…” his brother prompted.

“Because I have nobody else to ask,” he said.

Robert had always hoped for a family of his own—first imagining his father more caring than he was, then hoping that his mother would love him. When he’d realized how futile his daydreams were, his wants had shifted outward. It had started so subtly that he couldn’t pinpoint the moment.

He’d had daydreams in which he accompanied Oliver home during the summer holidays. He’d imagined spending entire days together, talking and playing and boxing and fishing and doing whatever it was that brothers did.

But even though that hadn’t happened—his father, and then his guardian, would never have allowed him to spend his holiday with mere tradespeople—he’d gone one step further. It wasn’t just a brother he coveted; it was an entire family.

And, as it turned out, Oliver had one ready-made.

In his daydreams, Oliver’s parents would grow to know him. Mr. Marshall would give Robert sage advice and occasional clouts on the shoulder, while Mrs. Marshall would slide him slices of gingerbread, or whatever it was that mothers were supposed to do. Those details had always been frustratingly vague, but it hadn’t mattered. In his wild fantasies, he’d imagined himself becoming something of a favored friend, an almost-son to these people who loved Oliver with no limitations.

By the time he was sixteen, he’d invented an elaborate dream world—one in which he would fall in love with Oliver’s eldest sister (no relation; he’d made a point to convince himself on that score), and their difference in station be damned, he’d marry her anyway.

Of course, he’d never met Oliver’s eldest sister. For that matter, he’d not met Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. But reality had no bearing on the substance of his dreams. Every time Oliver got a letter from home—or sent back another carving for a younger sister—Robert fell a little more in love with all of them. It didn’t matter who they were, what they were like. If they would only love him back, then he would finally belong.

“Huh,” Oliver said, and punched him on the shoulder. A veritable love tap, that. “Well, I believe that you have nothing of your father in you.”

Robert shrugged. “If you say.”

But he’d had it proven otherwise—and by nobody so much as Oliver’s own family.

It had gone like this. On the day that Oliver’s parents were finally to visit, Robert had dressed with painstaking care. He’d brushed his hair and his teeth twice over and had tied his cravat three times in an attempt to make himself look earnest and respectable. He found himself pacing the room with a restless, desperate energy while Oliver gave him odd glances.

He knew that his daydreams were just daydreams. They were so idiotic, he had never mentioned them to his brother. But even if it was all bosh, even if they never loved him…they might still like him a little. Mightn’t they?

The door opened. Robert turned.

Mr. and Mrs. Marshall had to have been the most beautiful sight that he had seen. So utterly normal. They’d rushed forward, arms outstretched, and grabbed up Oliver. Who had scowled and made noises of complaint, the ungrateful wretch—noises like “Stop, Ma, not my hair,” and, “Don’t kiss me in front of the fellows!” All that fuss, just because they hadn’t seen him in a handful of months. Robert had watched from the other side of the room, a lump in his throat.