Page 4 of My Darling Mr. Darling
“You’re not seriously consideringstayingmarried to the chit?” The horror threaded through Alex’s voice might have been humorous in any other circumstance.
“It makes little difference to me. I’ve never known marriage to affect a man’s life overmuch,” John said.
Grey snickered into his glass, an incongruous dimple flashing in his cheek. Odd, that—humor itself had until quite recently seemed almost anathema to the man. “I’ll have to remember to tell Mouse that,” he said. “She’s hosting a dinner party next week. Perhaps if I inform her that she ought not overly affect my life, I can get out of attending.”
But he would never do it—the man lived and breathed for his wife. If Serena so much as fluttered her lashes, Grey would move mountains in her service.
Rolling his eyes in annoyance, John snapped, “You’re an outlier. A statistical anomaly.”
“I’ve been called worse, I suppose,” Grey said, his voice dry and amused. “But I would be remiss if I did not warn you that marriage can be a complicated endeavor.”
“I’ve got nearly eight years of experience in marriage. I’m aware,” John returned snidely. “You think yourself an expert in it, married just a fortnight?”
“Oh, no,” Grey said cheerfully. “But at least I know where my wifeis.”
“For God’s sake,” John snapped. “I know where Violet is—she’s taken refuge in that little project of your wife’s. The school, or whatever it’s meant to be.” Grey’s wife, Serena, had recently decided to open a school of sorts, offering instruction in deportment to those in need of it. It was there that Violet currently resided, guarded by a giant bruiser of an Irish butler, several strapping footmen, and probably a dozen other security measures that John couldn’t possibly know about. After all, Grey had purchased and staffed the building for his wife, and he would never have compromised Serena’s safety.
“Ah, well, as tothat,” Grey said, sipping his whisky. “I’m afraid if you’re expecting me to return Violet to you, I can’t help you.”
Silence pervaded the room as a tension grew so thick between John and Grey that Alex coughed into his fist in an effort to cut it to a less volatile level.
“Can’t?” John inquired. “Orwon’t?”
“Take your pick,” Grey said. “They amount to much the same thing. Serena made Violet a promise that she could remain beneath our protection as long as she liked. I’m not in the habit of making my wife into a liar.”
“Perhaps you ought to have thought of that before you let your wife go around making promises she can’t keep.” The words emerged as a guttural growl; perhaps the least civilized statement John had made in the past decade or better.
“Alas, Idostrive to be a better husband than some I could name,” Grey replied. And then, as John bristled indignantly, he waved an arrogant, dismissive hand. “Oh, settle down, John—I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you.”
Alex cleared his throat, all rapt attention. “You did, rather.”
“No; IsaidI wouldn’t return her,” Grey clarified, draining his glass. “Serena and Violet have finalized their curriculum, and they intend on holding their classes as soon as I recommend to them a list of potential students. Violet won’t see you alone, John—she was quite clear on that front. Bit afraid of you, if I had to make a guess.”
Somehow, that knowledge stirred the weight of guilt in John’s stomach, and it sloshed about, kicking up the dull ache of nausea.
“So you’ll be her pupil, instead.”
And just like that, guilt was seared away by incredulity. “I’llwhat?”
Grey turned to Alex, his voice bland. “Have I stuttered?”
“Er,” said Alex, his gaze shearing to John. “Well, I—”
“I am not in need of lessons in deportment,” John seethed. “I am not a prospective debutante whose social graces require polishing.”
Grey quirked a brow, his eyes flitting to the arm of the chair John clasped in his fist—beautifully varnished wood, the surface of which had just been marred by the scrape of John’s blunt nails across it. The suggestion that a man whose social graces were not in need of polishing would not have allowed himself to damage furniture he did not own hung thick in the air between them, unvoiced. “You want to settle this business with your wife?” he inquired. “You’ll do it therightway.”
The emphasis deflated the tiniest bit—a smidge, a jot—of John’s anger, because it carried with it the weight, the experience, of a man who had learned better than most what it was to regret one’s actions.
“And,” Grey added, “I’ll want to see those settlement papers you’ve had drawn up. Mouse would never forgive me if I let her friend be cheated.”
OfcourseGrey, with his incredible business acumen and diabolical tendency to control and manipulate, would put his particular skill set to use in the service of appeasing his pretty—if equally calculating—little wife. It was a match made in Hell, and John could hardly countenance the fact that he had, all too recently, encouraged it. Hindsight was a fine thing, indeed.
But the glint of steel in Grey’s gaze suggested that to refuse would be to his detriment, and if there was anyone who could aid Violet in a swift—and effective—disappearance, it would be Grey.
“Fine,” John snapped. “I’ll send them round.” It wasn’t that he had anything in particular to hide. It was only that it was none of Grey’s damned business—hadneverbeen any of Grey’s damned business. Not that Grey had ever been particularly concerned about what was and was not his business; he’d made something of a hobby of involving himself anyway.
Alex heaved a weary sigh and collapsed back into his chair in a fashion that was certain to give his valet conniptions when he beheld the dreadfully wrinkled state of Alex’s clothing. “Well, I’ll thank you to keep this news from Mother, if you please. I’d hate to give her any more ammunition in her grand quest to see me dragged to the altar.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shuddered in as melodramatic a fashion as John had ever seen him affect. “I’d never hear the end of it. You’d think we were the only two bachelors left in the whole world, by her unflagging dedication to see us married.”