Page 111 of Outrageous

Eva looked away from her too-knowing eyes, and then remembered the pair of brown eyes she’d just left in the courtyard. “Mel is certainly getting into the spirit of the preparations—I almost feel bad this ceremony will be so small and unimpressive.”

Mia smiled, but it was not her normal, joyous expression. “Yes, she is enjoying going on these jaunts, for now, at least.”

Eva frowned. “What do you mean? For now?”

“Are you ready, my dear?” the marquess asked, coming up alongside his wife.

“I am, darling.”

“Oh, are you two leaving?” Eva asked, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. “I thought you might stay?”

Mia grinned. “Oh, the last thing I want is to give your father any more ideas about breeding.”

Eva’s jaw dropped.

The marquess sighed heavily and shook his head. “I can see I shall have to start muzzling you before I let you leave the house.”

Naturally, Mia laughed and the two wandered off, her stepmother leaning her head against her husband’s shoulder, the marquess holding her tight with one arm, as if he would never let her go. Eva had to swallow several times as she watched them depart. What must it be like to be so obviously in love, even after many years?

Somehow, she suspected she would never know the answer to that question.

* * *

Godric had been staring at the same letter for some time. So he turned it over and picked up the next, continuing the farce that he was actually doing work. Not that anyone was watching or cared what he was doing. Hell, not even he cared that he was sitting in the vast cavern of a library going over correspondence. Alone.

Oh, stop or you shall make me weep.

Godric felt nauseated by his self-pity—an emotion he was generally able to restrain until the wee hours of the morning. But tonight not even Andrew was here, and he was having difficulty keeping the feeling in check. He’d become accustomed to the younger man’s presence at meals and in the evening, the times of the day when solitude was least desirable.

You didn’t have to be here alone, the annoying resident in his skull pointed out.

That was true. He’d been invited to the same dinner party as Andrew—the one at Lord Ingram’s, the second largest landowner in the area after Godric. When he’d been a younger man, Godric had often got up to mischief with Baron Ingram’s sons, all of whom were long married with families of their own.

Godric was the area’s most eligible bachelor—albeit long in the tooth—and his neighbor, Lady Ingram, seemed to labor under some compulsion to throw young females at him. The last dinner party he’d attended, three weeks earlier, had been horrifying. At least for Godric.

Andrew, however, had enjoyed himself thoroughly, even though, as a penniless young male, he was not particularly marketable. Still, that didn’t seem to matter to the younger man as he appeared to have no eye to marriage.

But just because Andrew did not wish to marry did not mean he didn’t wish to socialize.

So Godric was alone tonight. How pitiful had he become, sighing heavily over the loss of his nineteen-year-old dinner companion?

He put aside the letter in his hand—a bill for candles—and picked up the familiar spidery handwriting of his grandfather.

The letter was not long, and a cursory reading of it was sufficient to communicate the thrust of its content: When was Godric coming to the ducal seat?

This was the third letter in six weeks, and Godric had responded to the prior two with vague references to repairs, obligations, et cetera. But he would have to go soon; it was cruel to keep the old man waiting. He set down the letter and went to pour himself another brandy—the third, and final—for the evening.

When he’d first come home to Cross Hall, he’d waited until Andrew went to bed each night to drink himself into unconsciousness.

After two weeks of that, Andrew had come to him, his sensitive face frightened and concerned. “You look ill, my lord. Very ill. I feel it would be remiss of me not to recommend a physician.”

“Your recommendation is duly noted. Consider yourself relieved of any responsibility,” he’d said, and then continued on his path of self-destruction for another week.

Once again Andrew had come to him, but this time he’d come to Godric’s bedchamber with a quack in tow.

Godric had placidly submitted to the requisite poking, prodding, and inevitable bleeding, after which he’d informed the physician—privately—that it would be worth his life if he said anything to Andrew other than the words, “His lordship is as healthy as a horse.”

Rather than return to his downward spiral, Godric had taken the opportunity to examine himself and his future. If he wanted to put a period to his existence, surely he could do so more efficiently and expeditiously than drinking himself to death?