Page 13

SEVEN

Briar

I was not going to get angry. I was not going to get angry. I was not going to?—

“And is there anything else, Lady Briar?” Mr. Stephens said smoothly.

Tempted as I was to glare, I knew it wasn’t his fault. I’d been clear to Peregrine, the Duke of Markham precisely when and where this meeting was going to take place, and he wasn’t here.

Why was I surprised?

I don’t think Peregrine had been on time for anything. Certainly nothing I’d requested him to be at.

The table was full of people staring at me, and I tried to smile as I shuffled the papers in front of me. “Anything else?”

The proposal I’d put together with Peregrine’s help to buy out the Queen’s Head slipped beneath the board’s report.

I was ready, I knew that. If I wanted to I could pitch it to them, try to get them to see that I had the vision to take this forward.

My heart was beating fast, my palms sweating. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and wondered if they could hear the panic growing in my lungs, tighter and tighter.

He wasn’t here.

What had happened? Something must have happened—I’d been clear with him just how important this was.

And I couldn’t do it without him.

It was stupid, how quickly I was starting to depend on Peregrine’s insight, his sharp wit, his ability to cut through the noise and get to the problem. Or the solution.

It was my idea. I’d put together the proposal. And?—

“Lady Briar?” Mr. Stephens said quietly.

Oh, hell.

“No, nothing,” I said brightly, rising. Everyone else around the table rose too, some of them hastily closing notebooks. “That will be all, thank you.”

Within ten minutes, I was holed up in my own private study on the third floor. I never permitted anyone else in here, making it my home away from home when I was at Weatherford Place. I was lying on the long sofa, legs dangling over the edge, my shoes slipped off, eyes shut.

This was supposed to be my sanctuary. Wooden paneling, leather sofa and armchair suite, a desk that had been my father’s. And his father’s. And probably his father’s as well.

The paintings on the walls were Restoration, my favorite period, though I had a few Gainsborough landscapes too, all chosen to help me stay calm and collected.

They weren’t working.

I should have said something. I should have just shared my ideas. The proposal was ready, and I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been able to?—

“There you are,” said a voice I knew. It was buoyant. “Your butler or someone said I shouldn’t come in here, but I told them?—”

“Get out,” I said quietly.

Peregrine’s footsteps moved toward me, but I didn’t open my eyes.

I didn’t want to see him. I couldn’t depend on him, of course I couldn’t.

What had I been thinking? This was the man who betrayed his own friends, for goodness sake.

It was ridiculous that I’d thought I could…

not change him. Find a part of him that was different.

More fool me.

“Get out? I wanted to hear how it went with the board,” came Peregrine’s cheeky voice. “Come on, spill!”

My eyes snapped open, and I glared at the man standing over me. “What about ‘get out’ do you not understand?”

“The general sentiment,” he said, that irritatingly handsome grin curling. “I thought you wanted to—hey!”

I ignored his yell as I suddenly sat up, pushed past him, and strode to the door. I opened it. “Get out.”

“I don’t get it—you’d put so much work into that proposal, I thought you’d be desperate to tell me all about how it went,” said Peregrine, rubbing at his chest where I’d shoved him.

I swallowed. Men like Peregrine shouldn’t be allowed to say words like ‘gagging’ in public. “I didn’t tell them about it, sorry to disappoint you. Go away, Peregrine.”

My voice faltered, but only slightly. I wasn’t going to let this man upset me. I wasn’t going to?—

“Why on earth didn’t you present it?” Peregrine said, leaning on the end of the sofa and folding his arms with a quizzical expression. “I thought you really believed it in. You put in all that work.”

The reminder of just how hard I’d worked stung, and I shut the door smartly before glaring. “Because I needed you there, you imbecile!”

I hadn’t actually meant to say those words. Though heat scalded my chest, I did everything I could to keep my glare focused.

On Peregrine, the Duke of Markham.

He was staring at me with wide eyes. “You—why on earth would you want me there?”

The truth wouldn’t be useful. I wasn’t going to tell him just how his lateness, his absence drove a wedge into my heart. Why my fingers had curled around my chair with every minute that ticked by and he hadn’t appeared. Why it was increasingly impossible to?—

“You were late!” I said, hating how my voice broke. “I told you ten o’clock, Peregrine, and you?—”

“I thought you were just informing me of when it was, Briar,” Peregrine said slowly, not moving from the sofa. “You never actually said that you wanted me there, did you?”

I opened my mouth, cast my memory back, then closed it again.

Well, bother. I hadn’t. I’d just…assumed.

“I thought something had happened to you,” I blurted out.

Hell’s bells.

Peregrine frowned, no ire in his expression. “You thought…why? Because I didn’t turn up to a meeting?”

It would be easy to brush this off—to pretend I’d just overreacted, that I was annoyed about something else. That it wasn’t a problem.

It was a problem.

And though I rarely revealed this to anyone, though it hurt with every fiber of my being to admit this, the truth I’d promised myself I wouldn’t reveal came tumbling out.

“My parents were late, once. They were often a few minutes late, but once they were…they were really late.”

The room was spinning, and I wanted to take back the words, but I couldn’t. Peregrine was staring at me like I was out of my mind. Perhaps I was.

“Come and sit,” he said quietly. He held out a hand.

It was strange to think that Peregrine and I had made love, but never held hands. That was a kind of intimacy I just didn’t do.

But I couldn’t ignore the gesture. Though I didn’t take his hand, I did walk away from the door and toward the sofa, dropping into it and hating how vulnerable I had just made myself.

And in front of Peregrine, of all people.

“They were late,” he said quietly, moving to sit beside me. “I'm sorry they hurt you by being late, but I don’t see why?—”

“They were late because they were dead.”

I cringed at my own words. Why did I just say that straight out, without any sort of explanation?

Peregrine’s face was a picture of horror. “What do you mean?—”

“They…there was an accident. They were both killed, and I waited for them for…for a while.”

For hours. I wouldn’t tell him just how long I waited. I still didn’t know to this day why it had taken so long for people to contact me—I had been eighteen.

Old enough to lose the only two people in the world who truly meant something to me.

“Oh, I hate that I'm telling you this,” I said with a dark laugh, brushing my hair out of my eyes then looking defiantly at Peregrine, whose face was impassive. “There, you’ve found another one of my weaknesses. When people are really late, it makes me…it takes me back to…” I swallowed. “I don’t like it.”

Silence hung between us in all its awkwardness. Botheration, I should never have said anything. I should have just thrown him out and?—

“I'm really glad you told me.”

I blinked. Peregrine looked…serious. “You can’t tell me that a morbid fear of being late is an attractive feature.”

“Not in a friend nor in a mistress,” Markham said with a wry chuckle. “You’re not the latter, and I'm not really sure if you’re the first. But you’re human. You’re allowed to have flaws, Briar.”

I tried to take a deep calming breath, but all that I managed was a jagged intake of air. “I have enough faults—and people assume the worst of me on top of that. You’d think a little tardiness wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

“After what you’ve suffered? I think you can be forgiven,” said Peregrine, his look sharp. “If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

Markham

“After what you’ve suffered? I think you can be forgiven,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

Just when I thought I’d managed to make up ground with this woman, I managed to destroy it all.

The night we’d shared at the Queen’s Head—it had opened my eyes to a part of Briar I had been foolish enough not to see. And now she’d revealed something to me that she should never have felt like she had to.

Just because I got a kick out of being late for everything.

When had it started? I didn’t know, honestly. Being late was something of a power move used by my friend Kineallen sometimes, but only with outsiders. We would never have tolerated that sort of behavior from him in the club.

They tolerated me, though. Never able to get anywhere on time, the idiot that got it wrong.

There were things inside me I didn’t even realize was there. And they all came spilling out when looking at Briar, her wrists crossed and her perfect finger nails chewed raw.

She’d been biting them. How come I’d never noticed that before?

“I'm…I'm so sorry,” I said lamely.

God, I was an idiot! What had I said to her at the restaurant, just days ago?

“At least you have friends. I'm an only child.”

“At least you don’t have anyone to disappoint.”

Oh, I was the worst kind of person. Did I honestly think I was the only one in the world who had ever suffered? What was wrong with me?

“It’s nothing,” Briar said, shaking her head.

“It’s not nothing—damnit, Briar, it’s not nothing,” I said fiercely, turning to her.

I hadn’t really noticed how close we were sitting. Until now. But though I was conscious of her beauty, of the way my body responded to her, I was surprised to find I didn’t want to act on that impulse.

Not in this moment. The last thing Briar needed was someone forcing intimacy upon her. She needed…I don’t know. Comfort.

Trouble was, she had me.

“You must miss them,” I said quietly.