Trey snorted. “He’s a doctor with a full roster of patients. However, there was a time shortly before our father died that he was never home in the evenings. I assume that was due to seeing you?” When heat infused her cheeks, he nodded. “There was the assumption he had a lady bird; I just never thought it would be you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why, because I’m not his societal equal?”
“What has that to do with anything? I never thought he’d chase after a woman who had no wish to keep gossip to a minimum.”
That wasn’t far from the truth. “When we first came together, neither of us had concerns or responsibilities. It was heady and wicked, and the affair carried us away. He actually paid attention to me when no one else would.” She twisted the handkerchief in her fingers. “Now, he’s rather unavailable to me; he’s changing. I… I’m finding that difficult to acclimate to.”
“We all change, Miss Storme. It’s called maturity.” When she kept silent, he continued. “Besides, from what little he’s managed to share, you haven’t given him a reason to call on you that doesn’t smack of clandestine scandal.”
Oh, those were harsh words indeed! She stared at him, this man who was so much like Royce it hurt her heart to talk candidly with him. “I have been… confused in recent days. And now he’s an earl.”
Trey frowned. “Why does that matter? Don’t most women aspire to snare a man with a title?”
“Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help,” she shot off with a hint of annoyance snapping in her tones. “I’m not that sort of woman. And I certainly don’t want a titled gentleman for any purpose.”
“Why?”
“The ton put too much pressure upon my family’s shoulders with its insistence on proper deportment, among other things. Being a part of the beau monde has doomed my family and brought on the premature deaths of my father and uncle. Their expectations had much to do with splitting the Stormes asunder. I will not invite that into my personal life.”
“Royce is hardly like other titled men.”
“I cannot take that risk,” she admitted in a soft voice and hoped he’d offer some sort of comfort to ease the still-swirling emotions in her chest.
“Yet you came here to the clinic today to see him, seek comfort from him.” Trey lifted a red eyebrow in question. “You must feel something for my brother, have a connection with him that lead you here… for him.”
Heat slapped at her cheeks. Was she so easy to read, then? How much had Royce shared with his brother? “How could I not, Trey? Despite everything, I… I care for him. I think.”
“Ah.” He sat back on the chair and rested an ankle upon a knee. “Perhaps we’ve arrived at the crux of your mental anguish.”
Talking with him made her stretch her brain, dig deep to analyze what exactly the battering emotions meant, and that terrified more than everything else. “It was only natural a certain… fondness would occur after spending so much time with him.”
“The attraction or connection between you two has grown, changed though. Yes?”
She nodded. “It’s frightening, especially in light of his holding a title.”
“Again, I ask why it matters?”
“Because I’m afraid I’ll fail him at every level. I’ve failed at being a proper lady of the ton, regardless of practicing on and off for the last few weeks.” Isobel heaved a sigh and focused her gaze on her lap. “I’ve made no secret of the fact I’d rather chase scandal than respectability. If Royce was intelligent, he’d see that sooner rather than later.”
“Yet, from your own admission, you don’t want him now that he’s an earl.”
“I know I said that!” She blew out a breath. “It’s why I’m at sixes and sevens around him. A person can’t want one thing and then want the exact opposite, can they?”
A grin tugged at the corners of Trey’s lips. “That depends on what the end goal is.” When she didn’t answer, he asked a different question. “Why do you feel you need to suddenly begin deporting yourself in a proper manner? You’re a woman grown, Miss Storme. Your irreverent personality is one of the things that makes you unique.”
Another round of heat went through her cheeks, from her thoughts or his slight praise, she didn’t know. “I assumed Royce would want that in whomever he will chose as his countess. We both know these new responsibilities that come with the title cannot be ignored, and he’s too much an upstanding gentleman to ignore them.”
“True.” Surprise sprang into Trey’s hazel eyes. “You know him well.”
“I’m not a prostitute, Mr. Marsden. I do have the capacity for becoming emotionally involved with a man regardless of how wickedly we come together.”
It was his turn to blush, and the mottled redness crept over his collar and into his cheeks. “Except you don’t want Royce due to his holding a title. While I understand that you perhaps don’t wish for domestication, I didn’t think you’d be so heartless as to play with his affections in such a manner.”
Was that what she was doing? Only wanting him in the physical sense, and would push him away merely due to him coming into a title? But the alternative was terrifying. She simply didn’t have it in her to aspire to the title of countess and would doom him besides. Everyone in London knew what sort of woman she was and that she’d long washed her hands of the ton or their ridiculous dictates. Then Trey’s words sank into her brain. She gasped. “Does he have feelings for me?”
“Who can say. Perhaps you should ask him that.”
“Even if he does, he’s a noble sort and would push them aside because the title would demand it.”