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“Hmm,” Marsden said, finishing his own drink. “Just remember—some games change the rules the moment you sit down.”

Marsden watched him with that infuriating ease of his, with one leg slung over the other, hands steepled, dark eyes alive with curiosity.

He might have been sitting in a gaming hall instead of the oldest gentlemen’s club in London, and Nathaniel suddenly loathed him for how lightly he seemed to carry himself.

“Well, I’ll just have to make sure to change the rules so that they suit me,” Nathaniel said, but there was little conviction in his voice.

“What exactly is bothering you, old boy?” Marsden asked.

“I’m not …” Nathaniel began, then exhaled harshly and leaned back. “It’s not the resistance that unsettles me. It’s that … part of me doesn’t mind the idea.”

“Of marrying her?” Marsden asked mildly.

“Of being challenged,” Nathaniel muttered.

He stared into the flames, the gold light catching on the angles of his face, shadowing the hollows beneath his eyes. “She’ll demand things. She’ll want answers. She’ll ask why I do what I do, why I think the way I think. And I … I don’t know that I can be that man.”

Marsden raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you care about being that man?”

“I don’t,” Nathaniel snapped. Then, after a beat, more quietly: “Or I thought I didn’t.”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, jaw tight. The firelight made the brandy in his glass glint blood-red.

“I swore to myself years ago, after my uncle fell in love with a woman who left him in pieces, that I would never become that. That I would never allow a woman to have so much control over me.”

Marsden lifted an eyebrow. “So, in other words, all you want is a marriage of convenience … exactly what your father has arranged for?”

“No,” Nathaniel’s brows furrowed. “I don’t want marriage, period, Marsden. I just want to be left alone.”

Marsden clicked his lips together. “That might not be a possibility for the son of a duke. You know that far better than I do.”

Nathaniel sighed. “I do.”

“Or perhaps you are intrigued by this lady, and intrigue is sometimes halfway to being in love,” Marsden teased.

Nathaniel shot him a look that could have frozen the Thames. “I should throw this drink at your face.”

Marsden smirked. “You could. But I’d only say I told you so. Besides,” he added, swirling the last of his brandy, “you were always going to care. That’s your problem, Loxley. You pretend you don’t feel things but underneath, you feel everything. And you’re terrified of it.”

Nathaniel rose to his feet, restless. The club felt suddenly too close, the heat too thick. His shoulders ached from the tension he hadn’t noticed building.

“I need air.”

“Of course, you do. Go walk in the park. Brood at a duck.”

Nathaniel didn’t bother replying. He tugged on his gloves with short, sharp motions and strode towards the door, his coat flaring behind him. But even as he pushed through the heavy oak and into the cool, bracing London air, her name whispered through his mind again.

By the time Nathaniel returned to Loxley House, the grey of morning had sharpened into the clear, brisk brightness of late spring. The staff parted around him like water, their eyes averted, their movements well-rehearsed. No one spoke.

No one asked why the marquess had returned earlier than usual, or why his jaw was locked tight enough to crack molars.

He went straight to his rooms.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, a familiar grunt met his ears, and it was immediately followed by the rapid, snuffling thud of tiny paws on polished oak.

“Percival,” he muttered, too tired to be stern.

The pug hurtled towards him with all the dignity of a well-fed footstool. His squashed face was wrinkled in gleeful expectation, stubby legs pumping like bellows, tail wagging in tight, furious circles.

He snorted just once but loudly enough and then launched himself with absurd ambition at Nathaniel’s boot.

“Down,” Nathaniel said, kneeling with a sigh. Percival immediately clambered into his lap, his whole body vibrating with joy. “You are utterly without pride.”

In return, Percival licked his chin, sneezed in his cravat, and promptly settled into a loaf of warm, smug contentment on Nathaniel’s thigh.

It was ridiculous. Embarrassing, even.

And oddly comforting.

Nathaniel exhaled and scratched behind the pug’s ears, his shoulders easing a fraction for the first time since his father had uttered the words Lady Eleanor Henshaw.

“She’ll hate you,” he muttered into Percival’s fur. “You’re spoiled, loud, and partial to sugar biscuits.”

Percival sneezed again and wheezed with what might have been pride.

With a resigned groan, Nathaniel stood and set the dog gently down.

He crossed to the wardrobe and rang for his valet, issuing clipped instructions: his dark riding coat, doeskin breeches, high polished boots.

Hyde Park might already be full this time of day, but he needed the movement.

The illusion of choice. Of forward momentum.

When he descended to the stables, his black gelding was already being saddled. Percival was tucked under his arm like a scandalous accessory.

He mounted with practiced grace, then tucked the pug into the shallow saddlebag he had fitted especially for such outings. In reality, it was a compromise between dignity and affection that he still refused to speak of aloud.

He turned towards the Row.

The wind picked up, crisp and bracing, and Nathaniel leaned into it, reins loose in hand. Behind him, Percival snorted once in approval, then promptly fell asleep, as always.

And in front of him, somewhere amid the rustling trees and bright chatter of Hyde Park, was a world he no longer controlled.

And a woman whose name … damn her … he could not stop thinking about.