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He stared at her blankly for a moment and then sighed. “He said he told her.”

“He lied.”

“Coward.” Justin pivoted, as if ready to chase after Melissa . . . then must have thought better of it. “She saw it in the paper? And that was the first she knew of it?”

Brook wanted to ask him about his cousin’s motives. She wanted to ask him how he could support him. She wanted to ask him if his affections could be trusted.

She moved her arms down, over her stomach, and bit it all back. “I thought you were riding with him today.”

Justin looked her way again, conflict in his eyes. “I am. James was going to fetch Miss Rosten first, though, and as I’ve no desire to be a third wheel . . . I thought you might join us. But that was when I thought you knew already. I understand if you would rather not. Your cousin—”

“Would not thank me if I passed up the chance to meet this Miss Rosten.” Brook looked to her father, who nodded his permission. “Are you on Alabaster?”

“In a landau.”

No need for her to change into her riding habit, then—which was good, since her aunt had insisted on one with a skirt, which would necessitate the dreaded sidesaddle. “I’ll fetch my hat and wrap.”

Justin was vaguely aware of the sun shining. Of birds flitting from tree to tree. Of the scads of people walking, riding, driving along the paths through London’s largest park. He
wanted
to focus on the woman beside him, on the sweet smell of lilacs that drifted from her hair.

But Brook was focused on Cayton’s landau. She had been the epitome of polite during the introductions, but now her lips were pressed together, and her fingers gripped the edge of her kimono coat. She didn’t even mention the suffragettes shouting from their soapboxes as she turned a hard gaze on Justin. “Is it catching?”

He expelled a bitter breath. Miss Adelaide Rosten was not what he had expected, to say the least. “I know little about her, except that she is my neighbor in Gloucestershire. They knew each other as children.”

“Tell me he met her again and fell in love and doesn’t see
the obvious. Tell me
that
is why he tossed over my cousin for her.”

If only he could. Ahead of them, Miss Rosten presented her profile as she looked to Cayton. She smiled, and it looked so sincere. So sweet. So . . . hopeful. But could do nothing to fill the hollow cheeks or lighten the shadows under her eyes. “She is an heiress. He is strapped.”

Brook shook her head. “She is
ill
. She looks . . . she looks like Maman did at the end.”

His hands tightened on the reins. “I know.”

“
Mon ami
.” Her fingers landed on his arm, though they didn’t stay there. “Tell me your cousin is not so low as to marry a dying woman for her money, knowing well she hasn’t long to live, knowing well he can soon move on.”

“I . . . don’t know.” He didn’t want to think so. Cayton, as he confessed his engagement at Azerley Hall, had seemed honest about his reasoning, and he certainly hadn’t mentioned any illness. “Perhaps it is a childhood malady that she still bears the marks of. But perhaps she is well now.”

She didn’t look well. But Brook didn’t point it out again. “Look at how she watches him.”

“She cares for him.” Which raised more questions in Justin’s mind. Did Miss Rosten know Cayton’s reasons for proposing, or had he spoken words of love to her? Had he misled her? “Perhaps he knew of her feelings. Perhaps . . . perhaps he wanted to give her some happiness.”

A delicate snort slipped from Brook’s lips. “Forgive me for doubting Cayton’s pure heart. Perhaps they’ll be happy, though—it seems unions built on love always end miserably, so perhaps one arranged for pragmatic reasons will have better luck.”

Surely she jested. “Let us hope, for Regan and Thate’s sake, that you’re mistaken.”

The fleeting smile she managed didn’t make it to her eyes. “If anyone can defy statistics, it is they.”

He studied her profile, shaking his head. “When did you get so cynical on the subject of love, Baroness Beauty?”

Brook winced. “Saw that, did you?”

“It wasn’t so bad.” Even if it
had
exaggerated her relationship with Worthing—and even if she did dodge his question about love.

“The Lost Heiress. That’s what they’ll all know me as now.”

Her eyes went distant, and the fingers of one hand had abandoned her kimono’s hem in favor of twisting the pearls on her necklace.

He bumped his shoulder into hers. “You
are
an heiress, Brooklet. You can’t expect society not to notice.”

“But for most of my life I was just . . . lost.” She drew in a breath and twisted the pearls the other direction. “If you hadn’t found Papa for me . . .”

“Let us praise the Lord that I did, that the crest was enough.”

She looked up at him, dropping her hand back to her lap. “And what if I had been a lost nobody, instead of a lost heiress?” The question turned her eyes to flame. “I would have come, Justin. I would have shown up at Ralin one day and demanded that tour you always promised. Then what would you have done?”

“I would have given you the tour.” And likely drawn her into his arms and kissed her and . . . what? Even Father, who had eschewed all ducal responsibilities, claimed Justin couldn’t marry her so long as she was only the illegitimate child of an opera singer. Though Grandfather had accused him of wanting to marry her even if it brought disgrace to Stafford. Which of them knew him better?

Brook shook her head and looked away. “You asked me at the funeral to say your name. Say mine.”

The demand was unfair—
his
name hadn’t changed, only his
title. Hers . . . “Elizabeth Brook. Sabatini or Eden, it doesn’t matter. You are my Brooklet.”

“I am your friend.”

“You are . . .”
My heart. My soul.
“So much more.”

Now anger sparked in the eyes she turned on him. “If I were still Brook Sabatini?”

“You’re
not
. Why are you dwelling on hypotheticals?” He motioned to the Ramsey barouche that crossed their path, to Melissa with her chin held high and Worthing with a laugh on his lips. “Do you think
he
would be your friend if you were still Brook Sabatini?”

Her words changed to Monegasque as they rose in volume. “I think I never would have
known
him!
You
 . . . you are the only one I could carry from one life to another. The only one who
ought
to know me and love me for my past, not just my present!”

“I do.” He swallowed, held her sparking gaze. “That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for the way things
are
.”

“It isn’t enough.” Looking away again, she pulled her kimono tighter, even though the sun was gaining in warmth. “I need to know, Justin. You are trying to change everything—I need to know why. I need to know you would have pursued me in the same way even had you discovered my father was a penniless nobody instead of the Earl of Whitby.”

“Well, of course it wouldn’t have been in the same way!” How could it have been? He would have had to fight his family every step of the way, would have exchanged one set of difficulties for another. He certainly wouldn’t have rejected the idea of an engagement months ago in order to prove to her he wasn’t after her fortune.

Brook slid to the opposite side of the bench. “Take me home. Now.”

Blast.
That probably hadn’t sounded the way he’d meant.
“Brook—I didn’t mean I wouldn’t have pursued you, just that it would have been different.”

How could she look so dratted beautiful even as she snorted and folded her arms over her chest. “Oh, I’m sure, Duke. You would have found some
suitable
girl to court, and I would have been . . . What? Dismissed from your life? Or would you have tried to make a mistress of me?”

His blood ignited, and he gripped the reins tight. “How could you say that? You know me better than—”

“I know it’s how things are done in your family! Even your sainted Uncle Edward—”

“Don’t compare me to him.” His words sounded, oddly, cold rather than hot, despite the roar in his veins.

Turning her face toward him again, she lifted a brow. “And why not? You always idolized him. ‘If the shoe fits . . .’ as the saying goes. . . .”

He all but jerked the horses toward the nearest exit from the park. “I am not like him.”

“You are exactly like him!”

“He raped my mother!” He didn’t, couldn’t look at her as the words, still in Monegasque, pulsed around them. His nostrils flared. “Got her with child on purpose, thinking to make Aunt Caro raise me. I am
not
like him.”

“Justin.” Her voice went soft, filled with sympathy that did nothing to make his fists relax around the reins. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t know.” He directed the horses back toward her aunt’s, the fire only building. His words slipped back into English. “How could you? That would have required granting me ten whole minutes to speak of something other than
you
, wouldn’t it? Something other than
your
problems,
your
mysteries. Oh, but this is your turn. Your time. My apologies.”

Her fingers landed on his arm, though the touch was brief, quickly gone. “Justin . . .”

“Don’t.” For an eternity, he said nothing. He couldn’t work any words past his clenched teeth. Couldn’t dislodge those months of doubt, of wondering if she even cared or if she’d fallen for Worthing.

And now here she was, saying his feelings didn’t even matter. That what he may have done if she weren’t who she was outweighed what he had actually done to protect her.

He turned onto her aunt’s street and forced a swallow. “I love you.” The words, so long unsaid, nearly choked him. “Take your time. Decide if that’s enough. And let me know when you’ve figured it out.”

He pulled to a halt in front of Lady Ramsey’s and glanced her way. She stared at him, mouth agape, incredulity shifting to irritation before his eyes. “
That
is how you choose to tell me you love me? In the middle of an argument, followed by a statement that yet again you’ll retreat behind your wall?”

“When better? But if it’s charm and smooth words you want, then I guess we know where your heart inclines.”

“You’re an imbecile.” Gathering her skirt into hand, she leaped down from the landau. Stomped toward the door, but then halted at the base of the stairs and spun back to him, fury flashing in her eyes. “I’m not in love with Brice.”

For a moment, hope sprouted. But she didn’t follow it with anything, didn’t say she
was
in love with
him
. He breathed a laugh and lifted the reins. “At the risk of sounding like an echo, my lady—that isn’t enough.”

He was halfway down the street by the time he heard the door’s slam.

Twenty-Three

D
eirdre handed the baroness the book she had fetched from her bedchamber, smiling at the yawn the lady tried to cover with a hand. “Perhaps you would adjust easier to the late nights, my lady, if you were consistent about them.”

Lady Berkeley sent her a tired scowl. “You sound like Aunt Mary, O’Malley. I have been to three balls and a soiree. That is surely enough for two weeks’ time.”

Lady Ramsey didn’t seem to think so—she and Lady Melissa had been out each and every night to something or another. Not that Deirdre could blame Lord Whitby and the baroness for staying in whenever they could finagle it.

And if the papers were any indication, her absences only increased her fame. Deirdre made no attempt to keep track of the flood of young ladies and gentlemen who swarmed the parlor and drawing room for Ladies Berkeley and Melissa. Which would be why Lord Whitby and his daughter were now hidden away here in the upstairs salon.

His lordship’s paper rustled as he turned another page. “We can go home whenever you’re ready, my dear. I have verified that the House of Lords cares no more for my opinion now than they ever did, so I’ve nothing to keep me here.”

Deirdre took a seat near to the baroness’s, to be at hand when next she needed something, and picked up last night’s ball gown. Some clumsy oaf had stepped on the train and caused a tear, and it would take all Deirdre’s skill with a needle to mend it without it being noticeable. She opened her case of thread and selected the closest match to the lavender silk.