There were entertainers all along the way: jugglers, torch swallowers, and musicians.
They passed by each in companionable silence, taking in the delights.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about that man,” she confessed at last, unable to shake him from her thoughts.
“Drexel?” he queried, his voice rough as if the man gave him a great deal of irritation.
“He’s extremely persistent, and I don’t want to marry him.”
“Nor should you,” he all but growled.“I do not think your brother would allow it.”
“It is not what my brother would or would not allow,” she admitted, worrying his sleeve without thinking. Once she realized her hand was working over his muscled arm, she forced herself to still.“I am more concerned that Drexel will attempt something which will put me into a position that…”
“You think he would force you or find a way to ruin you?”
“I do,” she admitted. “And I do not understand. I am no great catch. But gentlemen of that kind, they are quite willing to do anything in their power to get what they want.”
She shuddered and gazed up at Stone.“It would never occur to you to do something like that, but he’s vicious.”
“Yes,” Stone agreed somberly. “He is. We must find you a good husband and right away.”
Jack hated the necessity of it, but accepting reality was vital to her future. She hoped her brother would do the same.
“Do you think my brother will see sense? We’ve found him an excellent wife. I think it could be a triumph! Did you see how he asked her to dance?”
Stone frowned and drawled ruefully, “Alas, we do not know if it shall be a triumph yet. Some people can be most resistant to their own happiness, you know.”
“My brother is proving rather difficult,” she admitted with a long sigh. Why did people have to deny themselves joy, especially when it was right in front of them?
“I’m not surprised,” Stone lamented as they turned down another path lined with sculpted topiary.“He’s so determined to believe that he is unworthy, given recent events, but he is not. He is the best of men.” Stone was silent for a long moment before adding gravely,“He saved me, you know.”
She gasped and turned her head, studying his profile in the growing shadows. “My brother saved you?”
“Oh yes,” he affirmed, eyes ahead, as if he did not wish her to see his pain.“When everything was falling apart about me. When I thought that there was no recourse or hope, he pulled me out of the mire. He saved me at school, as well… The other boys… They were not kind to me.”
“To you?” she exclaimed, shocked. After all, he’d been born to immense privilege and wealth. “But you were the future Duke of Stone.”
“I was,” he agreed softly. But the tone belied the sudden hardening of his visage.“The rumors about my parents, especially my mother. Well, the boys at school, they took no end of delight in telling me about her scandalous antics.”
“I’m so sorry. People can be quite cruel. Especially those shedding childhood.” She’d been the brunt of gossip from other popular young ladies of theton.
But she imagined that the boys at his school might have been brutal regarding his mother. And her heart ached for his suffering.
“I don’t mind the stories about my mother, you know,” he said honestly.“She’s a remarkable woman and powerful, and I would not begrudge her anything. She bore a great deal while married to my father. Simply surviving that was a triumph in itself.” He swallowed and added quietly,“But it was a difficult time.”
“My childhood was so ideal,” she admitted.“I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you.”
“I’m glad you cannot imagine it,” he said, his voice deeper and rougher than usual.“I would not want anyone to.”
“Is that… Is that why you pair people? To avoid the sort of pain you witnessed?”
His chest expanded in a long breath before he gave the barest of nods.
“How noble of you to go to such lengths to protect people.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” he stated quickly.“The better society we live in, the better it is for me. For all of us,” he added.
“You are actually an idealist, aren’t you?”