Page 31 of A Deviant Spinster for the Duke (The Gentlemen’s Club #3)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“ L ook at him,” Duncan snarled from the periphery of the old feasting hall, transformed into a ballroom for the revelry of the house party guests.
A fine orchestra played a lively tune that had coaxed a few brave couples to dance, while the rest mingled and gossiped, picked at the array of delicious morsels laid out at the back of the room, and supped the punch and lemonade at their leisure.
It should have been a pleasing scene, but Duncan wanted to kick them all out, sending them home without so much as a ‘farewell.’ He wanted to retreat back into the empty silence and endless solitude of Thornhill Grange. But, more than anything, he no longer wanted to have to look at Roger Grove, Viscount of Campbell.
“Who?” Lionel asked, keeping Duncan company. Or keeping an eye on him.
Duncan sniffed, knocking back the contents of his glass: punch, mixed with a liberal dose of his brandy from his hip flask. “Nothing. It is of no importance.”
“I beg to differ, if it is making you glare like that,” Lionel replied, wearing a concerned frown.
Duncan slipped his hip flask from his pocket and poured what was left into the now empty glass. “Go and dance with your wife, Lionel. Admire her, cherish her, pretend no one exists but the two of you and your darling child. I am in a foul temper—do not let me ruin your evening.”
“Amelia has gone to Skeffington with Valeria, Lockie,” Lionel said, a touch hesitant. “She is meeting Isolde there, with the boys. Edmund is on his way here.”
Tilting his head to unravel the tight knot at the base of his neck, where all of his restless nerves seemed to be trickling from, Duncan resisted the urge to down the brandy in one. “Why has she gone to Skeffington?”
He knew the answer already, but he wanted to hear it.
“To help with wedding preparations,” Lionel replied.
“Preparations?” Duncan scoffed, his nose wrinkling. “That oaf has only just announced the engagement. Why would anyone need to begin wedding preparations so soon?”
Lionel stared down into his own drink, a more sedate measure of punch. “They are getting married in three weeks. It is best to begin preparations as soon as possible.”
“Ah, well, how am I to know that? I have never been married.” Duncan grumbled under his breath as his sharp gaze found Roger among the guests.
The red-haired man with the giddy grin was in the middle of a small crowd of congratulants, lapping up the blessings and felicitations with false modesty. Duncan could hear him, fending off comments that he must be the luckiest man in Christendom, shooing away any suggestion that she was the lucky one, grinning all the while.
You do not deserve her, Duncan seethed. There is not a man living who is deserving of her. She is the San Graal. She is a goddess. She cannot be destined to end up as the bored wife of a dull husband.
“Lockie?” Lionel’s voice carried a quality found only in fathers and brothers; a stern affection that demanded attention.
“Hmm?”
Lionel frowned. “Why do you care so much? Did you not tell me yourself that your aim was to help Valeria do exactly this—find a husband before the Season’s end?”
For a moment, Duncan wished he had never imparted the truth to his dear friend. He should have lied at the dressmaker’s shop and said the purple gown was for an old flame or a current paramour. That would have quietened Lionel; he had never liked to hear much about Duncan’s exploits. Exploits that Duncan no longer liked to think about, either.
If I were a better man, I might be worthy of Valery. But I am no better than Roger—I am merely his opposite. The realization stuck in Duncan’s throat like a fragment of chicken bone, working its way down into his heart.
“I do not care,” he said flatly.
Lionel pulled a face. “It sounds like you do.”
“Very well—I do not care that Valeria is getting married, I care about the choice of husband.” Duncan took a sip of his brandy. “Roger Grove is the gentlemanly equivalent of cabbage soup.”
Clamping a hand over his mouth, Lionel spluttered out a laugh. “That is rather unkind, Lockie. He is a decent sort.”
“And cabbage soup will allay hunger, but that does not mean anyone looks forward to seeing it served,” Duncan replied, the brandy burning its way down his throat.
“No one says, “Goodness, I should relish a huge bowl of cabbage soup! That is what Roger is, but Valeria… she is fresh apple pie, just baked, on a snowy winter’s day after wandering the fields all afternoon. She is a cold glass of lemonade on the hottest day of the year, allowing you to feel like you can breathe again. She is… far greater than him, and I simply believe that she deserves more.”
Amusement danced across Lionel’s face, his eyebrow raised in playful accusation. “Do you think, maybe, that she might deserve to be a duchess instead of a viscountess?”
“I would have to know the duke in question,” Duncan replied, rejecting the bait. “There are not too many eligible ones left.”
“What if you knew him very well? Personally, in fact?” Lionel pressed, enjoying himself far too much, oblivious to the very real battle raging inside Duncan.
“I told you,” Duncan insisted, “I do not care that she is marrying. I care who she is marrying. I certainly am not deserving of her—why, I am the very last man I would pair her with. Not eligible in the slightest.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, he felt the raw honesty like a too-hot cup of tea scorching his insides. He had thought them, but he had never spoken them aloud. It was akin to having someone confirm a suspicion he had long held, but that person was himself.
“Christopher would have been her perfect match,” he said, more to himself than to Lionel, who uttered a quiet gasp.
“Your brother?”
Duncan nodded, swallowing uncomfortably. He understood his friend’s surprise; he rarely spoke about his brother, for it did not exactly lend itself to good cheer, and merriment was all Duncan cared about. Used to care about, at least.
“Had he not already been in love with Louisa, of course,” Duncan added with a dry chuckle. “My brother would have wooed Valeria as she deserved, would have lavished her with gifts and affection, would have charmed her with the utmost sincerity, would have courted her with the chivalry of a medieval knight, would have had her laughing until she could not stop.”
He would have known how to love her properly and she would have loved him in return, he neglected to add, hating that it was probably the truth. Christopher had not hesitated, not for a moment, to fall in love with Louisa. He had been so certain of her, and of his feelings for her, that it had looked so… easy.
“I teased him for it,” he whispered, gulping down another mouthful of brandy, ignoring the burn.
What an idiot, to tease a man for loving a woman so utterly, so unashamedly.
“You are not so different to him,” Lionel said gently, resting a hand on Duncan’s shoulder.
A cold smile twisted Duncan’s mouth, a colder laugh leaving his lips. “I could not be more different. If I had fifty years to become the man he was, I would not manage it, even if I started now. I have been myself for too long.”
“And what, pray tell, is wrong with who you are?” Lionel’s voice grew sterner, taking on that fraternal tone again. “I would not have been your friend for all these years if I thought there was something amiss with you. You are a fine man indeed.”
Duncan shook his head, the quantity of liquor finally catching up to him, dredging up emotions he had buried deep, pinching at his eyes until, for a terrible moment, he thought tears might form.
“You have endured a lot, Lockie,” Lionel urged. “Grief does strange things to people. I understand that more than most.”
“It is no excuse,” Duncan muttered, his throat raw as he tried to swallow down his guilt and shame and sorrow, the feelings lodging until it felt like he might choke. “My bad habits began long before my losses. My brother tried to get me to behave, pleading with me, getting me out of trouble, but… what an impossible task, eh?”
In truth, it had started as a means to annoy their father, so that their father would at least notice that Duncan existed. The more their father had scolded and berated him, the more inclined he was to continue. And there had never been a mother to beg him to behave, for he had stolen her life when he had been given it.
Was it any wonder my father could not bear to look at me? He could not have looked at the boy who had taken the life of his beloved, either.
After their father died, Duncan’s antics were too ingrained in his daily existence to give them up entirely, though he had tried to be more discreet for his brother’s sake.
“He should be here, not me.” Duncan’s voice cracked, and no amount of brandy would slick the fracture closed. “It was such a silly riding accident, Lionel. Any other day, he would have shaken it off with a laugh and a joke, and I would have teased him about it for a while. He should not be dead. It is… so very unfair. It always will be.”
Lionel put an arm around his shoulders, squeezing gently. “I know, Lockie. I know.”
“He would be so disappointed in me, Lionel,” Duncan rasped, his breaths shallow. “If he were here, he would shake his head, ruffle my hair, and say something like, “I was the one who died, but you were the one who made a wreck of your life.” Him dying should have set me off on a different, better course, but I just… used it as an excuse to do whatever I wanted.”
Lionel sighed sadly, turning himself toward his friend to hide the distressing moment from any guests. A kind gesture. The sort of gesture that Christopher would have offered.
“You were in pain, Lockie. You are still in pain, I suspect. I retreated from society and became numb after my losses, while you threw yourself into life—both are valid, my good man,” Lionel assured.
It was, in truth, the loneliness of a vacant manor that had made Duncan wild, craving the company of anyone who would alleviate his sorrow. He had chased that feeling for years, not caring about the scandal, for as long as he was being talked about, then that meant he was not alone; he was not a forgotten duke in an empty house, absent all family.
“Why are you being so hard on yourself?” Lionel asked, frowning. “What is the matter, Lockie? You can tell me. I know there is something more to this.”
But Duncan could not speak, even if he had wanted to explain. He was filled with the thick molasses of so much repressed feeling, from his stomach to his lips, and no words could pass through.
Christopher always said I would ruin myself; that when I finally realized what I had done to myself, it would be too late. Duncan banged on his chest, but it did nothing to dislodge the suffocating hindsight. He warned me, and I did not listen… and now I am going to have to watch Valery marry that drab creature… because I am so much worse.
“I have had too much to drink,” he said abruptly, sweeping a hand through his hair while his mouth strained into what must have been an abomination of a grin. “Goodness, listen to me—that is assuredly the brandy talking. I ought to get some fresh air.”
Lionel held onto his shoulders. “It is not the brandy, Lockie. What is going on? Is it Valeria?”
“Yes, fresh air ought to remedy this odd mood,” Duncan persisted, slipping easily from Lionel’s grip. “Sorry about that, Lionel. I have not the faintest notion where all that came from. You have yourself another drink, and I shall reconvene with you in a while.”
He started walking away before his friend could stop him, and though he heard Lionel call his name, he did not turn back. He could not be in that manor a moment longer, indulging in a house party that had turned into an impromptu engagement party, without the future bride present.
She has gone, and if it is the only decent thing I ever do, I… must let her go.
For he was not his brother, and he would never be worthy of a woman like her… no matter how much he wished he could be.