“Do you know what she said?”
He glanced at Lord Dalrymple again and shook his head.
“Pish pash. Stop being so silly.” Dalrymple huffed a laugh. “She couldn’t understand why I was so upset about it.” His face twisted. “Oh, God, my own son.”
Alexander reached out and touched Lord Dalrymple’s arm. “Sir . . .”
Lord Dalrymple managed a smile. He laid his hand over Alexander’s. “The point I’m trying to make, Alexander, is that sometimes it’s easier to accept flaws in other people than it is in oneself. You’re afraid of the dark, and you find that hard to accept, but I want you to know that we accept it, and we don’t think any the less of you because of it.”
Alexander’s throat grew very tight.
“Do you understand?” Lord Dalrymple asked.
“Yes,” he managed to say.
“Good.” Dalrymple smiled, and patted his hand. “I’ve known you since you were seven years old. I think of you almost as my own son. Sometimes I forget that I don’t know you as well as I think I do. I’m sorry about this afternoon.”
“Don’t be, sir.” Alexander’s throat was still tight. He hesitated, and then blurted: “I think of you almost as my father, too.”
Lord Dalrymple was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Thank you.”
“I hadn’t realized all that you’ve done for me until I read my father’s diaries. He said . . . you didn’t send Oliver to school because of me.”
“Is that what he said?” Dalrymple smiled. “It’s not quite true. I didn’t want to send Oliver to school. Your father’s proposal suited me perfectly.” His smile faded. “Do you know what school taught me? It taught me about bullying. It wasn’t a lesson I wanted Oliver to learn—and he would have learned it, believe me. And you would have, too.” Dalrymple grimaced faintly. “You’re so big now that it’s hard to believe you were the child you were. But you were that child, Alexander. I remember the first time I saw you—so small and thin and pale and . . . and fragile. You would have been bullied, duke’s son or not, and Oliver would have, too, for his quietness, and I was glad to accept Leonard’s offer and have Oliver tutored alongside you. And you can believe Cathcart was glad, too—there’s no way he could have afforded to educate Hubert properly—so don’t think that Cathcart or I made choices we regretted for our sons. What suited Leonard suited us.”
Alexander stared at him, and then said, “Was it that bad for you? School?”
Dalrymple grimaced again. “It was an ordeal.”
“I’m sorry.” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Such a banal offering.
Dalrymple shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
Even so. Thought of this quiet, intelligent man being bullied made Alexander’s throat tighten again. He looked away, and stared across the graveyard. “That’s not the only time you altered my life. I read Father’s diary from 1804. Maria Brougham.”
Dalrymple said nothing.
“I should thank you,” Alexander said. “I came very close to offering for her. I might be married to her if you hadn’t . . . intervened.”
“Meddled is the word you’re looking for,” Dalrymple told him.
“Meddled, then,” Alexander conceded. “And if I’d known at the time I’d have been furious. But now . . . God, I almost offered for her!” He rubbed his face. His nose hurt. “I wasn’t very wise when I was nineteen.”
“None of us are,” Dalrymple said.
“I almost fought a duel over her. Did you know? With Harry Honeycourt of all people.” He grunted a sour laugh, rubbed his face painfully again. “Oh, God.”
“You were nineteen,” Dalrymple said. “And she was very beautiful.”
“She wanted a duke. Any duke.”
Dalrymple said nothing.
“Thank you for telling Father to get me out of London.”
“You’re welcome,” Dalrymple said.
They sat silently for several minutes, while the shadows lengthened on the ground. The last of the day’s sunlight was mellow and golden, looking almost thick enough to touch. Alexander thought about Maria Brougham, beautiful and poisonous, and then he thought about Georgiana, who was pretty rather than beautiful, and who was funny and sweet and thoughtful and wise and perfect.
Regret gathered in his chest.
The light changed, became duller, less golden. The sun had set. Darkness would soon descend.
Lord Dalrymple rose to his feet. “You’ll dine with us?”
Alexander hesitated. He could wash the sweat and dirt and blood off, but . . . “I’ve had too much to drink. I don’t want Georgiana to see me like this.” And then, because he owed Lord Dalrymple the truth, he blurted: “I know I asked your permission to propose to her, but I can’t. I can’t marry her.”
“No?” Lord Dalrymple looked down at him gravely. “Because of this afternoon?”
That was part of it, but not the whole. “Because of everything,” Alexander said. “Because of this.” He gestured at the graveyard. “Because I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore.”
“Do? About what?”
Alexander looked away from those too-acute eyes. He kneaded his hands together. “Maybe I’m better being Charley Prowse. Maybe I should give the dukedom to my cousin.”
“You can’t give it to him. You are the Duke of Vickery. The House of Lords can’t reverse peerage decisions.”
“Only because it hasn’t been done before. Maybe I could be the precedent.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Is that what you want?” Lord Dalrymple asked. “To not be a duke?”
“I don’t know.” Alexander rubbed his face roughly. “I don’t know anything anymore. Except that I can’t ask her. I just can’t.”
Another long moment of silence limped past. Alexander stared down at his scuffed, dirty boots, acutely aware of Lord Dalrymple standing in front of him.
“Have your feelings for Georgiana changed?” Dalrymple asked finally.
“No.”
“Well, then,” Dalrymple said. “No need to make any decisions tonight. Come along, let’s get back to the inn. You look in need of a bath.”
Chapter Ten
The inn was so small that it didn’t have a private parlor, but it had a coffee room with a low, beamed ceiling and a sturdy trestle table and a scattering of stools and chairs. It appeared that the locals preferred ale to coffee; Georgie had the room to herself. She paced, trying not to wring her hands, while outside the sky darkened.
When her father entered the room, she practically pounced on him. “How’s Vic?”
“He’s . . .” Her father hesitated.
“What?” she said, alarmed. “He’s not hurt, is he?”
Her father laughed and pulled her into a quick hug. “Relax, love. He’s not hurt. He’s just . . . unhappy. Confused.”
“Confused? About what?”
Her father hesitated again, and then said, “He has some decisions to make.”