determined the course of his life; this belief had made him distrustful, even resentful at times. But West, as the heir, had suffered their father’s attention; James, as the spare, had suffered just the opposite. The first time his father had tried to truly meddle in his life—with his arrangement of James being discovered upon that balcony in a compromising situation with Violet—James had been sent into a fury upon learning of it. He tried—and failed—to imagine what his life would have been like if his father had always paid him such attention.
He was certain he would not have liked it, whatever the result.
Furthermore, he was coming to realize, he had only himself to blame for the shambles he had made of his marriage. His father had meddled, it was true, but James couldn’t argue with the results—he had, after all, been besotted with Violet from almost the moment he’d first seen her. It was he who had cocked everything up upon learning of his father’s involvement in arranging their marriage—and why? All because any mention of his father made him lose all sense and reason.
He hadn’t trusted her. It was true. If Violet said she’d not known of the schemes surrounding their courtship, no doubt it was true; Lady Worthington was certainly conniving enough to hatch such a plan with James’s father without letting her daughter in on the plot.
So why had James been so quick to disbelieve her? Why had he not trusted Violet, his wife, the person he loved above all others?
Because in some part of his heart he was still the small boy watching from a window as his father and brother went out for rides without him. He was still that boy, unable to trust that anyone’s love for him was unconditional and true. And yet, James realized, he had not been that boy for a very long time. He had gone to school, met Jeremy and Penvale, discovered what a difference true friendship could make in a life. He had come down to London after university and had begun to forge a relationship with his brother outside of their father’s shadow. He had met Violet.
And yet, at the first whisper of doubt, he had become that boy once more—a boy in a large house full of rooms and no one within them to pay him any mind. A boy who at the first possibility someone might have betrayed him instantly believed it to be the case.
But that was not his life anymore. He would be damned if he allowed the distrust wrought in him by a childhood of neglect to write the course of his future. It was time he corrected the damage he had done, once and for all.
“I’ll thank you to not interfere in my affairs again,” James said shortly, his mind still working, weary of his father’s presence. “I’ve nothing further to say to you about this, or about anything else, really.” He gathered the reins in his hand, preparing to spur his horse to movement.
“If you’re still so upset about this,” the duke said before James could ride away, “I’m surprised you keep company with the Marquess of Willingham.” James froze, and a triumphant gleam appeared in his father’s eyes; the duke knew he had struck gold. “Next time you see him you might ask him how, precisely, it was that he so conveniently had lured the erstwhile Lady Violet Grey out onto a balcony just in time for you to rescue her.”
His father smiled his infuriating smile at him, and then nudged his horse into a trot, leaving James, gaping like a fool, sitting atop his stationary horse in the middle of Rotten Row.
The only thing to do was to take himself home, and so James did just that. The insinuation about Jeremy had been shocking, no doubt—he had always tried his hardest not to think about Jeremy and Violet together on that balcony, but when the memory did spring to mind, he waved it off as Jeremy being Jeremy. Now, however, James realized that it was in fact not at all like Jeremy. Say what you liked about the man—and people had on occasion had cause to say quite a bit—but he was careful in his selection of ladies. He tended to limit himself to opera dancers, actresses, widows, and unhappily married ladies with inattentive husbands. James had never seen him panting after an unmarried miss before or after that evening with Violet.