Page 42 of Duke of Emeralds (Dukes of Decadence #2)

“ Y ou do know you’re allowed to enjoy the view, don’t you?” Colin called, breaking the long silence between them. “You ride like a man running from the devil, but not even the devil could keep up at this pace.”

Thomas reined in and scanned the fields. Colin had invited him for a ride, and he’d accepted, hoping it would provide adequate distraction from thoughts of Hester. “I thought ye were the one racing. Last I investigated, the Duke of Copperton preferred to win at all things, even the scenery.”

Colin grinned. “Winning is the only reason to get up before sunrise. That or a wife.” He let the barb fly then circled back, clearing his throat. “You’re distracted, Tom. And it’s not the weather. What gives?”

“Nothing gives,” Thomas said, aiming for an insouciant shrug. It came out as a full-bodied shudder, his joints still raw from the sleepless nights. He pressed his thumb against the pommel of the saddle, grounding himself.

“Lushton is known for his honesty,” Colin went on, as if narrating for an invisible audience. “This—” he gestured at Thomas’s posture, “—tells me that you are troubled, and you expect me to believe it’s nothing?”

“Well,” Thomas replied, “the only thing worse than a friend who guesses at your misery is one who’s right.” He tried for a joke.

Colin’s horse snorted as if to respond. “Is it the estate? You’ve never once let that ruin a ride.”

Thomas shook his head, biting down a dozen answers. “It’s just…”

Colin waited. If patience were a weapon, he wielded it with the edge of a duelist.

“Town is not what I thought,” Thomas finished. “Or perhaps it’s exactly what I thought. Either way, I’m not made for it.”

Colin reined his horse closer. “This is about her, isn’t it?”

“Her who?”

“Don’t insult me. I know the difference between a man shot through and a man just gutting it out. What happened?”

Thomas’s mouth felt lined with wool. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told ye.”

“Try me,” Colin said. “Unless you plan to drown in your own silence which, while dramatic, seems an awful waste.”

Thomas did not answer.

“Look,” Colin said, dropping the banter, “I don’t pretend to be a philosopher, but if it’s worth brooding over, it’s worth mending. Or at least worth admitting that you care.”

Thomas glanced up. “You sound like your wife.”

Colin laughed. “She’d be delighted to hear it. But this isn’t her wisdom, it’s mine: Don’t wait for the other party to break. You’ll outstubborn each other and both wind up miserable.”

Thomas nudged his horse ahead, staring straight down the line of the hedge. “Not every argument is about stubbornness.”

“No,” Colin agreed, “sometimes it’s about fear.”

They rode for a while without words then Colin broke the silence. “What do you want, Tom?”

Thomas gripped the reins tighter. What did he want?

The question had hung in his mind, unspoken, for days.

He wanted Hester, but he could not have her—at least not the way he wanted.

He wanted the castle in Dorset filled with sound of laughter.

He wanted children, and a woman who looked at him with something other than duty or polite affection.

He wanted, for once in his life, to not be an outsider in his own story.

“I want to not feel this way,” he sighed.

Colin made a face. “Can’t help with that. You’re doomed, man. That’s the curse of marrying above your station. It was inevitable.”

Thomas snorted. “Ye think I regret it?”

“Not for a second,” Colin said. “But you think she does. And that’s the rub, isn’t it?”

Thomas turned his horse down the east fork, signaling the end of the ride. “I should be getting back.”

Colin followed, drawing up beside him. “I am not fond of blue-deviled friends, Tom. Speak to your wife, and tell her ye love her.”

Thomas almost laughed at the manner Colin mimicked him.

“It’s not the end, unless you want it to be. Just remember that.”

Thomas nodded, but as they reached the crossroad, he turned his horse toward the quiet road that led out of Town. Colin paused, watching him go.

“Thought you’d be heading home,” he called after. “Aren’t you due in Mayfair for supper?”

“Business to settle,” Thomas lied, not slowing.

Colin shook his head then spurred his horse west. “See you at the club, then!”

Thomas watched until his friend vanished behind the hedgerow. Then, alone on the narrow lane, he let himself breathe out the truth.

He was not going home. He had no idea if he ever would.

“The Duke of Copperton and the Duke of Craton, Your Grace.”

Thomas, startled, nearly upended the entire pot of coffee he’d been nursing for the better part of an hour. Miss Pebble, his temporary housekeeper, had the sort of voice that could split oak, and she used it now with the full force of someone unimpressed by titled men in damp overcoats.

He set the pot down, gathered his wits, and stepped out to the hall where Colin and Isaac stood side by side, dripping water onto the cheap runner. Both wore expressions best described as insubordinate.

“Well,” Colin said, “I suppose this is what passes for hospitality on the outskirts of civilization.” He scanned the narrow hallway then the bare walls. “Were you planning to greet us, or have we interrupted your morning brooding?"

Isaac’s eyes swept the ceiling, as if he expected the roof to cave in. “He probably hoped to die of loneliness before we arrived,” he said. “Or possibly to outlast the supply of coffee, which, judging by the aroma, is already past salvation.”

Colin stripped off his gloves. “We need to talk, Tom. And we’re not leaving until we do.”

Thomas stood his ground. “How did ye find me?”

Colin shrugged. “The world is not so big, my friend. When you turned east at the crossroads yesterday, I knew you weren’t going home. After supper, I met Isaac at the club, and he mentioned you’d not answered a single letter in a week. Which is, frankly, disturbing.”

Isaac nodded. “I had to commission a boy to deliver them by hand, but the result was the same: no reply. Are you in hiding?”

“I’m not hiding,” Thomas said. “Just… not at liberty to entertain visitors.” He tried to sound wry, but even to his own ear, it landed flat.

Colin grinned. “You’re in retreat, then. Like Wellington after the Spanish mess. Only with fewer casualties and worse coffee.”

Thomas tried to usher them into the sitting room, but the two men ignored him and made straight for the hearth where a weak fire attempted to warm the air.

Colin slouched onto the sofa and stretched his legs with abandon; Isaac poured himself into a chair as if weighted down by years of disappointment.

Thomas took the armchair nearest the window and waited.

“You look like hell,” Colin said, after a beat.

“Thank ye. It’s the new fashion. You’re meant to look as if you survived a duel with a bear.”

Isaac steepled his fingers, thoughtful. “I would have guessed a duel with your conscience, but yes, the bear is also plausible.”

Colin leaned forward. “We are here because we are worried about you. It’s not like you to go silent.”

Thomas considered denying it then shrugged. “Maybe I had nothing to say.”

Isaac cocked his head. “You always have something to say. Even if it’s about sheep or the price of barley or the way a man should sharpen a scythe. The lack of opinion is what concerns us.”

Thomas smirked. “It’s not a crime to be quiet.”

“It is,” said Colin, “if you are our friend. Especially if you’re in a mood to go off and do something idiotic.”

Thomas leaned back, arms crossed. “Ye traveled across town in a monsoon to accuse me of idiocy?”

Colin grinned. “We missed you.”

Isaac, less inclined to humor, said, “And we think you are in danger of making a mistake you can’t undo. Or rather, you already have, and now, you’re trying to live with it.”

There was a silence, during which Thomas stared at the flames and tried to pretend he did not know what they meant.

Colin, never patient, broke the tension. “Let’s not dance around it. Is this about the Duchess?”

Thomas let out a low laugh, but it sounded like a cough. “No. It’s about sheep. And the scythe of course. I’ve always been partial to a well-balanced blade.”

Colin made a face. “Don’t be an ass.”

Isaac said, “We know it’s about her. Why not just say so?”

Thomas pressed his thumb to his brow, fighting off the headache that had been building for days. “It’s none of your business.”

“It is,” said Colin, “if it ruins you. Which, by the look of you, it already has.”

Isaac tried a gentler tack. “Did you quarrel?”

Thomas snorted. “We did, but not about anything you’d guess. She wanted to set me free, so I obliged. End of story.”

Colin’s eyes narrowed. “You left her?”

He shrugged, a noncommittal roll of the shoulders. “It seemed best.”

“Best for whom?” Isaac asked.

Thomas did not answer.

Colin sat up, all the lazy confidence gone. “I know you, Tom. You don’t give up. Not ever. If you left, it’s because you thought it would help her. Am I wrong?”

Thomas shook his head. “That’s not how it works. Some things are better ended.”

Isaac studied him. “Is that what you want?”

Thomas stared at the cold grate, words slow and quiet. “I don’t know what I want.”

Colin exhaled, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “That’s the first honest thing you’ve said all morning.”

Thomas rubbed his jaw, feeling the scratch of stubble. “There’s nothing to be done about it. We had an arrangement; she kept her end, and I kept mine. But it’s finished now.”

Colin shook his head. “That’s not how people work. It’s not how you work. You don’t get to walk away from a marriage just because it got hard.”

Isaac offered, “Unless you want to spend the rest of your life alone, drinking bad coffee and talking to sheep.”

Thomas smiled despite himself. “Some days, that sounds preferable.”

Colin scoffed. “You’re a bloody liar. You want her back, but you’re afraid she’ll say no.”

Thomas looked up, surprised by the sharpness in Colin’s voice.

Isaac said, “You’re afraid she’ll say yes, and then what? That you might actually be happy?”

Thomas shook his head. “She’s better off without me.”

Colin rose and stalked to the window, staring at the drizzle. “You ever wonder what you’d be without all this?” He gestured at the cottage, at Thomas, at the whole sorry mess. “I’ll tell you: you’d be the man who let the best thing in his life walk away because he was too proud to ask for help.”

Thomas bristled. “That’s not?—”

“Yes, it is,” said Colin. “You’re too damned noble. If you’re in pain, you bottle it. If you want something, you talk yourself out of it. No one ever told you you’re allowed to want things, Tom.”

Isaac added, “Or that you’re allowed to ask for forgiveness.”

Thomas was silent.

Colin turned from the window. “Go to her, Tom. Or at least write. If she wants you gone, let her say it herself.”

Isaac nodded. “It’s better to fail than regret never trying.”

Thomas sat, staring at his hands. They looked foreign to him, large and worn, the hands of someone who’d spent a life building things just to watch them break. He swallowed hard. “What if she says no?”

Colin smiled, a wolfish thing. “Then you come drink with us, and we’ll help you plot a more dramatic rescue.”

Isaac raised his cup. “To lost causes.”

Thomas almost laughed, but it caught on the edge of something raw. “You’re both fools.”

Colin clapped him on the back. “But we’re your fools. Don’t forget it.”

They left him soon after, citing appointments and wives who would murder them for arriving late. As they stepped out into the drizzle, Colin called over his shoulder, “Think on it, Tom!”

Isaac lingered, one hand on the knob. “You’re allowed to want things, Thomas. She might want them too.”

When they were gone, Thomas sat by the fire, alone with his thoughts and the silence they’d left behind.

He tried to picture Hester—her hands, her voice, the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t watching.

He wondered if she missed him, or if she’d already moved on, locked the memory of him away with the rest of her disappointments.

He poured another cup of coffee and stared at the gray world outside. The fire burned low, and the room grew cold.

He was not sure he could bear the answer either way.