Page 34 of The Duke’s Return (Dukes of the Compass Rose #2)

“ S he’s not only beautiful, your duchess, but she’s obviously clever and kind, even brave to put up with the likes of you on any day. Better than any of us deserve. You run now, Julian, and you will lose her for good.”

Setting aside the brandy, Julian supposed there wasn’t a drink enough in the world that was going to block out his friend’s voice.

Nor the memory of Genevieve’s soft lips curving so neatly when she spoke sharply to him.

He picked up the decanter and grimaced before setting it back down. Already he’d filled his glass three times. The room didn’t spin but the warmth inside him wasn’t making tonight as easy as he hoped. He turned away from the side table and made his way over to the fire.

It was a surprisingly chilly evening for the summer. The window glass had been cold to his touch. Though the jacket had been removed, he kept the cravat loose at his neck and settled in for the heat of the flames, hoping they would relax him.

The velvet trim chair was a high back, allowing him to rest his head against it. This was supposed to help him relax. And yet it didn’t.

“Tristan, you old fool,” he murmured to himself. “Why do you always have to be right?”

But that was always the way of things. Tristan had the wisdom, Julian the charm, Sebastian the muscle, and Ronan…

well, he had helped them stay together. The peacekeeper of the four friends.

And the three of them together had kept Julian sane, giving him the space to be whomever he desired to become.

There was no need to wonder what they would say to him now.

“You’re being a namby-pamby sort of dunce,” Sebastian would drawl. “Isn’t it obvious? Pull yourself together. Do what needs to be done.”

What does that even mean, Sebastian? No one tells me what to do anymore. I don’t know. I don’t like it.

Then Tristan would be there to harrumph before muttering aloud, “While you may not have anticipated that you would ever find yourself a married man, it only matters what situation you are now confronting; I have never known you to back down from a fight. This isn’t even a battle.

It’s the opposite. The only one you’re fighting now is yourself. ”

You always say too much. Why do my friends speak in riddles?

“We’re only trying to help,” Ronan would be there to point out. “Life isn’t meant to be simple, is it? But sometimes we know the truth of what needs to happen even when we don’t want to say it. Don’t you know?”

No, you bloody fool, that’s why I’m talking to the lot of you inside my head. How abysmal this all is. I don’t want this. I never wanted any of this. There was never supposed to be a wife. There were never supposed to be complications.

But he sensed the doubts within.

Perhaps he was running. Perhaps he was afraid.

A bitter laugh tumbled free of his lips as he set his empty glass aside, not particularly certain when he had drained it. But the brandy was thick on his tongue. He didn’t mean to be drinking. The fuzzy sensations in his mind were clearly not going to be enough to help him deny the truth.

“I am,” he admitted to the empty room. He didn’t want to be afraid, but he was.

She was never supposed to matter.

The weight in his chest fluttered with an unfamiliar sensation.

Oh, he had begun to feel it more frequently of late, yes.

But he didn’t understand it. The feeling came and went.

All he knew was that it had to do with her.

His wife. This had all started as an intention to be a man of his word, to protect the family name as she had wished of him.

Since then, it had changed into something else, something more.

Sometimes it was a lovely sensation and other times it made him wish he were ill. So ill he couldn’t think about anything or anyone.

I don’t think I realized just how important the distance between us was, keeping us apart.

She was just another young lady, just pretty and smart and blue-blooded enough to fit the bill for what I needed at the time.

A necessary name on legal paper. But the distance between us is gone no matter what I try to do.

It was as though he couldn’t keep her away. Even when Genevieve pulled from him, he couldn’t keep his distance. Not for long.

Being a soldier meant following orders and helping people more than actually fighting or causing harm. A man relied on his battalion. But there was a heart to it that he had never understood.

The heartfelt closeness had opened something in him that he had put away for a long time, since his family had made him want to close it.

His return had kept it open, he worried.

Enough that part of him was still open when he saw Genevieve again.

He listened, he watched, and he understood. And now it was tearing him to bits.

“Life was easier when I cared less for everyone,” Julian told the fire. He groaned as he climbed up to rake the coals and put it out. “I wish it were as easy to light and then put out. How does one do it, really?”

He tried thinking about those he had cared about before. The women in his life and so on. But it didn’t seem as though he had really cared about any of them, not in a way that hurt.

The night was going nowhere. So Julian put out the flames, retired his glass to where it belonged, and decided it was best to take to his bedchamber. Around the corner he went, and paused when he looked up the stairs.

Light flickered through a door cracked open. The library, he noted, had to be hosting someone. Or someone had left a fire crackling alone.

Julian climbed the stairs quietly to investigate it for himself. His curiosity had a way of keeping him awake and he wasn’t exactly interested in sleeping. So he made it to the door, pausing as he carefully nudged it open enough to find a familiar figure.

The fireplace was as large as him in the far-left corner of the room. Though the shelves blocked a partial view of the chaise in front of the fires, there was a head that appeared just over the backing.

I should leave her be.

His feet ignored such thoughts, guiding him into the room before he knew what to say. He meant to open his mouth and say something aloud. But then his boot crossed over a creaking plank beneath the rug and did the job for him.

“Oh!” Genevieve clutched something to her chest and turned. “Julian.”

He swallowed. Found out, he forced himself to come around where he might properly face her and see her features not cast in shadow. There she sat with a book in her arms, a guileless look on her face and bare feet.

Always the bare feet. Does she not grow cold? Perhaps she doesn’t have slippers.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I only wished to be certain the library was not on fire,” he said after a moment’s pause.

She tilted her head. Setting the book down on her legs, Genevieve peered at him. “Our household is much too wise to let that happen. We were just talking this morning about more protections to consider. It’s expected to be a dry season.”

“So I have heard.”

“Very well.”

There was another pause. Not quite awkward, but… Julian shifted. He didn’t want to come any closer and yet he couldn’t quite catch the scent of her. For some reason, he was missing her perfume.

He sought a distraction. Using a teasing tone, he said to her, “I didn’t know you were the sort to also haunt libraries after midnight.”

It wasn’t enough to earn him a laugh, but he caught a ghost of a smile from Genevieve. “Perhaps my stomach isn’t always hungry, but my mind. I’m afraid I couldn’t sleep.” Her fingers drummed against the hardback book. “I found this one and thought I would see what treasures this library keeps.”

“Oh?” Stepping forward, Julian wondered what it was she read.

She helped by tilting the cover more in his direction. All he needed was a glance. His heart skipped a beat as his lips softened into an honest smile. The blue-green leather cover was faded around the edges from frequent reading and helpful cleanings.

“What a treasure you found. That was my favorite book as a boy,” he admitted. He was surprised by himself for speaking. When he started, he couldn’t stop. “I used to dream of being the sailor in that tale. The mythical seas sounded so wondrous. I wanted to escape the storms at home into something…”

“Something?” she prompted.

Trailing off, he let his gaze glance around the room. The thought of meeting her gaze felt like too much. There was a pounding in his chest that he supposed had to be his heart, though it wasn’t supposed to be so loud. So hard. So annoying.

“Julian? What storms do you mean?” she asked him as she set the book aside.

I should go.

Then Genevieve shifted so her feet slipped down to the rug and there was room on the chaise for him. The space was open, meant for him to take his place at her side. His body was drawn there. Moving without thinking, he began to close the distance between them.

He sat down, the cushion depressing beneath him. Down he went, then he leaned back. But it was too far back––so he leaned forward. Rubbing his face, he rested his elbows on his knees.

A heavy sigh the likes of which he had never known slipped through his lips.

All the while, Genevieve didn’t say a word. She watched him; he could feel her gaze studying him carefully. But she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even seem to judge him.

But she will, I’m sure. Of course she would. Why wouldn’t she?

“Southwick is beautiful, is it not?” He muttered. “That’s all everyone says. It’s all anyone ever says. The land, the gardens, the house… all of it is so beautiful. But beauty only gets us so far.

“That was a lesson I learned long before when I was a child. The storms weren’t there in the beginning. At least, not that I can recall. But my father found my mother lacking, apparently, and… they couldn’t stop arguing. They despised one another until they finally went their separate ways.”

Genevieve shifted a little closer. “I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been difficult for a young boy.”

“It was. I don’t think I understood it then.

The hatred. How much they both hurt. How they couldn’t…

I was only ever a pawn. The heir. There would be no spare.

All I ever was to them was a sacrifice so they could be apart.

I had my tutors until my father began firing them after every couple of months whenever he thought I was enjoying myself. He made this place miserable.

“Southwick was only beautiful to me when the rest of my family came to visit. They were there for me when I had no one else. Only I never realized that it was all a lie. It still is, I suppose. They don’t care. They just want what I can give them. What you can give them, too.”

Genevieve let out a quiet sound. “I wanted them to care, too.”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “It’s what we all want. And yet we can’t have it. I doubt it would even ever be enough. All I shall ever be is my title. I am here to perform. To charm. I will smile and lead and dance and be witty just as everyone needs me to be.”

And on the inside there is another part of me. Inside, I am a stranger to all––even myself.

He didn’t say the rest of what he thought, but he could sense it lingering in the air. And something told him she understood.

There was dryness in his mouth that made it difficult for Julian to swallow.

Staring at the flames, he reflected on his confessions.

It was harder to grapple with than he had expected.

Where the words had come from, he didn’t know.

But they were true. And the weight of acknowledging them was heavier than he expected.

Flames crackled quietly as a comfortable silence settled between them. Julian let go of the past for just a minute. And in that minute, he wondered what it would have meant to have a different future.