Page 28 of Unforeseen Affairs (The Sedleys #6)

As if he hadn’t already taken further liberties than a mere caress.

But perhaps this meant she’d forgiven him.

He took the paper in both hands, unable to decide whether to read it again or throw the blasted thing into the fire.

He couldn’t trust himself around Miss Sedley and her dry observations, preternatural stillness, her rare half-smiles, and those wide, all-seeing eyes.

His mother’s words echoed through his thoughts: You are so dear to me. Perhaps if you were to marry, to set up your nursery, you would understand.

If he were to marry… Miss Sedley?

He’d a better chance of convincing Commodore Gearing to accept his choice of Miss Pearce and her family’s newly blackened name than him marrying a Sedley .

Although, truth be told, he could not recall anything in particular of a scandalous nature attached to their name that he’d witnessed firsthand.

Only that he’d picked up on the popular wisdom that Sedleys were mad and crass social climbers and had been thus for generations.

Frowning, and now even less sure of what his future might hold, he reached for Beaky’s letter, feeling almost comfortable now in the familiar shame and guilt of failure.

He welcomed any distraction from the excruciating unease of considering the possibility of Miss Sedley as his future bride.

He prayed Beaky would thoroughly and deservedly excoriate him.

At least shame was simple and straightforward, unlike this conflicted attraction to a young lady he ought not want.

Colin belonged with naval people. He would marry when he’d deemed his rank adequate. After all, he was a Gearing. A sailor. Not some morally loose philanderer.

Wasn’t he?

When he unfolded Beaky’s letter, another smaller note fell out, folded and sealed. Upon examination, Colin recognized Alice’s hand with dismay.

He could never offer for Alice now, having failed to restore Beaky’s reputation and having kissed Miss Sedley so… He frowned at the pair of letters, thinking. Having kissed Miss Sedley so… thoroughly .

He opened her letter first.

Dearest Colin,

I am very cross with you, for Abdon informs me I must be.

Did you not promise him you would sort things out and clear his name?

Usually you’re so dependable! But have no fear, for I am not that cross, not well and truly.

For Mama and Papa have begun to dine with three new families, all military.

It has been ever so refreshing to finally go out after all that turmoil over Abdon.

He, of course, is still rather upset over the whole matter, but I confess I’ve moved quite beyond it.

One of the young men, Captain Samuels, is quite knowledgeable about the Army and keen to teach me, although Abdon says he is only an engineer and comes from the Woolwich Academy.

But I do not care what my brother thinks, since it is because of him that our family in this terrible spot!

But that should not be a problem for much longer, for Abdon assures me you will act more quickly now that I’ve written.

She’d signed it, in her large, loose handwriting, with her full name.

Colin read it again, frowning. It ought to bother him, the mention of this Captain Samuels.

As well as the fact that nothing about her words suggested she was writing to the person it had always been assumed she would likely marry.

But what bothered Colin more was the blithe, entitled attitude she took toward the help he had agreed to provide them, as if his acquiescence and subsequent success was a foregone conclusion to her.

And there was something else he couldn’t quite describe… a foreboding that put him off the entire concept of their supposed feelings for one another. For the first time the idea felt, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong. He was glad to set the letter aside.

Beaky’s message was no better.

Where have you been, and what has been done?

My parents seem to have accepted our exile from all good company and have taken up with Army people.

Army people! Alice is moony over some bloody engineer, if you can imagine it.

I cannot bear this any longer. I need a placement, I wish to be gone from this country’s blasted shores, but no one will have me now.

Do you know what it is like, I wonder? To be friendless and alone?

Have you gone and abandoned me as well? At the urging of your father, no doubt.

You were always one to so easily fall in line.

A fair amount of space below that, as if Beaky had hesitated to write it, was the final line:

How rather like a spaniel.

And then, as if that were not insulting enough, there was a little drawing—crude, like that of a child—of a dog yapping, its lead held by a scowling, poorly proportioned man in what appeared to be naval uniform.

“What the devil?” Colin breathed to himself.

He tossed Beaky’s letter onto the table, anger threatening to boil over.

He’d wanted to be excoriated, to be taken to task for his failures. But this? Petulant entitlement, along with some juvenile illustration of a hated, pejorative nickname from their adolescence?

Colin fumed.

All worries about exacerbating his condition fell away. The concerns of what might happen were he to thrust himself back into Miss Sedley’s strange and magnetic presence, gone.

It seems he wasn’t just a na?ve naval hero, but also a na?ve friend.

An ill-used friend.

He recalled the look on Miss Sedley’s face that night in the alley.

Tell him to sling his hook , she’d said, as if Beaky were a nuisance, like a midge buzzing about his head and getting in his way.

Colin swallowed, boiling with anger. Why did he feel this way?

Was it because of Miss Sedley’s words? Or Beaky’s?

How rather like a spaniel.

The barb buried itself deep in his heart, the sting of betrayal growing the longer he considered it. Both Beaky and Alice demanding his help as if he were in their debt. Quick to upbraid him over his progress, yet never caring enough to inquire after him.

Colin had never told either of them of his problems with his head, and it now occurred to him that, rather than merely wishing not to burden his friends with his troubles, he had been afraid of how they might respond.

He could see it clearly now, though. Alice would look away uneasily and fiddle with her fan or the lace of her glove.

Beaky would probably laugh, if not outright mock him.

The realization fanned the flames of his anger.

He would see his task through. He would keep trying until he exposed Mr. Bass. But not for Beaky. And not for Alice.

Colin picked up Beaky’s letter once more and glared at the hateful words. His eyes then drifted back to Alice’s letter, looking so pathetic as it lay unfolded upon the table. Colin clenched his fist.

He no longer cared about the Pearce family’s reputation. They and the Gearings would never again be close. Beaky would no longer be a friend. He tightened his grip on Beaky’s letter, enjoying the way it crumpled under his fingers.

He stood, pausing to check if he felt dizzy; blessedly, he did not.

He crossed to the small fireplace and tossed the letters from Beaky and Alice into the flames, then watched them burn with a spite he hadn’t known to exist within him.

Returning to the table, he picked up Miss Sedley’s missive and read it again.

Charlotte , Miss Sedley had signed it. He studied each letter in her name individually as he idly fingered the edge of the paper.

Colin had done his best to be a decent and loyal friend. But, it was now apparent, to the wrong person.

Yes, he would continue to work to discredit Mr. Bass. But not for Beaky.

For Miss Sedley.

A tiny flame of hope flickered to life in his chest. A hiccup of excitement. All was not lost. He simply needed to change course. Follow the wind.

Colin frowned. He ought to see Beaky and inform him. For what sort of a person was he, if not honest and forthright?

Nowadays, he could not say.