examination of a pair of grey eyes that suddenly looked as if they were determined to see into the very depths of a man’s soul wasn’t the most comfortable experience of Edmund’s life, but he held his ground and managed not to sigh with relief when Ben sat back in his chair and watched him blandly instead of reaching for his neckcloth and attempting to strangle him with it. ‘Because?’ was all Ben said while considering this new state of affairs.
‘I can’t imagine a worse fate than being in love with a woman who merely tolerates me, especially if we were to be bound inextricably together for life, can you?’ Edmund replied, thinking of the Tedintons and barely managing to hide a shudder at the idea of being trapped inside a marriage like that one.
‘No,’ Ben admitted, ‘but it beats me why you’ve now decided she won’t do when last time you were in town you were so madly in love with her you couldn’t even consider wedding anyone else.’
‘Beats me as well, but maybe I finally saw the truth of the matter, before she got so bored with turning me down that she decided to accept me just for a change of scenery.’
‘I think you would have discovered you had underestimated her if she did so,’ Ben said sagely and Edmund wondered if the unconventional giant did indeed know Kate Alstone far better than he did. He’d once lavished such minute attention on her every mood and gesture that it seemed a sad reflection on Edmund’s judgement and so-called powers of observation if he’d failed to understand her after all that effort.
‘No, for I won’t ask her again, so the situation will not arise,’ he insisted, denying himself the luxury to hope that he was wrong about her after all. ‘I lost my taste for being a tame lapdog to her some time over these last three years.’
‘Then if she weds another man, you’ll be entirely indifferent?’
No! The certainty of it roared through him like a sudden bitter tempest on a summer day. He’d hate her, and the cur she married, until his dying day.
‘Not entirely,’ he admitted out loud.
‘Not in the least, you young fool,’ Ben informed him roughly. ‘Had my Charlotte even threatened to promise herself to another man, I’d have torn him apart limb by limb and danced on his lousy body, then taken her to bed and loved her until she saw some sense. So either you don’t love Kate and never have, or you still do and owe it to yourself and her not to end your life in Newgate dangling on the end of a hangman’s rope. Although, I suppose in your case, my lord, it would be a jury of your peers and a silken noose at Tyburn instead of a hempen collar.’
Despite Ben’s mockery of his rank and what he’d make of the stern resolution Edmund had made to find himself a suitable wife this year and forget Kate Alstone if he ever found out about it, Edmund didn’t feel excluded from the select ranks of Ben Shaw’s friends. Either the unconventional giant didn’t believe Edmund could turn his back on his passion for the wretched female he’d once thought so firmly lodged in his heart he’d never shift her, or Ben was determined to stand his friend, irrespective of those other loyalties.
‘I’ve no taste for martyrdom,’ he admitted at last.
‘As well Kit Alstone’s occupied elsewhere, then, for he’s a damned idiot when it comes to his precious family and those he truly loves. He might decide you’ve dishonoured Kate’s good name and challenge you to a duel if you don’t wed her after all, for if ever I met a hot-headed fool when he’s in a temper, it’s my lord Carnwood.’
‘She’s the one who turned me down time and again, not the other way around,’ Edmund protested.
‘Well, I did say he was a damned fool, didn’t I?’
‘And you think me one as well?’
‘I never claimed to understand any of you great lords of creation and I can’t say that a closer acquaintanceship with the two of you has improved what I already had very much.’
‘And I don’t see how you intend to get away with that hackneyed line any more, considering we all know who your father is now,’ Edmund said with rash courage, for it was also common knowledge that Ben Shaw was no respecter of titles and ancient privilege.
‘Let’s hope the Marquis of Pemberley stays so busy with his new wife that he won’t interfere with your plans then, whatever they are, for he’s devilish fond of Kate as well,’ Ben warned, discussing his natural father with an ease neither of them had ever thought to hear when he’d still been so convinced he hated his lordly sire.
‘Aye, it’s bad enough having his wife’s attention fully fixed on me, without adding Lord Pemberley’s eagle-eyed scrutiny to the mix—along with Lord and Lady Carnwoods’ thrown in for good measure,’ Edmund admitted ruefully.
‘Don’t delude yourself I’m too busy to interfere myself, will you?’
‘I never delude myself that badly, but what beats me is why,’ Edmund said.
‘Because I don’t believe you can really turn your back on the headstrong minx after you fell in love with the little devil at first sight, and don’t forget I was there to see you behaving like a mooncalf when it happened, so don’t try to deny it. I’ve met men who could cut themselves off from a woman they once cared for like that, as if she’d never existed or was cold in her grave, but you’re not one of them. Kate cares for you more than either of you seem to know, and I don’t think you’re fool enough to turn aside from the magnificent female she’ll become if she weds the right man, if only she’ll just throw caution to the wind and accept you at long last.’
‘Thank you for thinking I am that man, but I’d have to be fool enough to ask her first. So what holds her back from being that woman anyway then, Ben?’
‘And you once claimed to be in love with her?’ Ben said with a hint of scorn in his deep voice that made Edmund flinch, despite knowing it was Kate who had been so set against falling in love once upon a time rather than he. ‘I can’t but marvel at fine young gentlemen who call infatuation love, then flit from girl to girl, like strutting peacocks waving their tail feathers, with not a worthwhile thought in their silly heads.’
‘I certainly thought myself in love with her three years ago, until she convinced me it was hopeless; if that makes me vain and idle, then so be it.’
Ben gave Edmund another of those searching glances, then nodded as if making up his mind about something. ‘I never really thought you guilty of those vices, so Kate obviously made a fine fist of whistling your mutual happiness down the wind, but have you ever stopped being furious with her long enough to wonder why?’
‘No, I just realised my one-sided love would make our lives a farce, even if I managed to persuade her to say yes instead of no in some moment of weakness.’
‘If you really loved her, you wouldn’t have given up at the first hurdle.’
‘Hardly that.’ Edmund was stung into justifying himself as he looked back over that wild springtide when they’d both been painfully young and he’d been alternately effervescent with hope and cast into the depths of despair by Kate’s inability to see how finely suited they could be, in bed and out, if only she’d open her eyes and see the rich possibilities of it all.
‘I grant you she’s stubborn and can be damnably difficult to either drive or lead at times,’ Ben conceded.
‘Difficult? She’s nigh impossible,’
