The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,51
Fortescue a short time ago. The dog was far less judgmental than his sister. He refused to give her the satisfaction of telling her. “I’m in control, Selina. That’s all I’ll say.”
She snorted in a most unladylike fashion and it forced him to look at her. Her arms were folded across her chest and one fine brow was arched in accusation.
“You liar,” she said with a laugh. “The worst part is I can see you’re lying to yourself as much as to me or anyone else.”
He tried to speak but couldn’t find words. After all, she wasn’t wrong. There were a great many things he was trying not to face, trying not to focus on, and his sister was now throwing all of them up in front of him like a set of barricades in a foot race.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.
To his surprise, for once she didn’t laugh or tease him. Instead she reached out and took his hand. She looked truly concerned as she said, “You don’t want to say it. I understand. I didn’t want to say it either, when it became painfully clear with Derrick. I didn’t want to be so vulnerable to another person. Especially one who would blow apart my world.”
“Selina,” he said, tugging at his hand, but she didn’t release him.
“You loved Aurora,” Selina said, and those words froze him in place. “Probably you loved her even longer than you knew you did. Children are like that. Friendships blur sometimes. You thought you had a future with her and she threw you over for a title instead like a fool.”
Now he did pull his hand away. “Derrick?” he breathed. “Derrick told you about that?”
“No.” Now she did smile. “My husband, good man that he is, is silent as the grave when it comes to your secrets. I figured it out myself. I’m clever, if you recall.”
“So it seems,” he said, and tugged his hand away to run it through his hair. She let him be silent for what felt like forever, not intruding on what he was processing in his mind. Not pushing, even though that was her way.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine, I’m right?”
He nodded without looking at her. “Yes. I wanted to marry her. I…I actually thought that was the plan until she threw me over for that title. And so I went to the army.”
“How could she?” He looked and was surprised at how angry Selina looked. Her blue eyes flashed fire on his behalf. “Nasty cow.”
“No,” he insisted, invested, somehow, in keeping Selina from hating Aurora. He didn’t want that. He wanted quite the opposite. “Please don’t say that. We were young. I don’t know the circumstances that led to it.”
“The circumstances were greed and position, obviously,” Selina huffed. “Things their kind are obsessed with.”
“Their kind, like Roseford? Or Lizzie?”
That took some of the heat from her face, and she sighed as if there were a great concession to come. “Fine. Not all of them. Robert is…better than I gave him credit for. And Lizzie is lovely, daughter of a duke or no. She never gave Morgan’s lack of position a thought, it seems.”
“No, she is truly dedicated to him,” Nicholas agreed, and felt a frisson of jealousy at the difference in the outcome of their disparate positions.
“Why do you care if I hate Aurora?” Selina asked.
He shrugged. “Because I don’t hate Aurora. I know you think I should. Maybe even I know I should. But I don’t.”
“No, you follow her from the room like her lost puppy.” Selina shook her head. “You want to put a smile on her face and keep her from harm. But do you really know she’s any truer now than she was before?”
He wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean?”
“You’re about to have a title, Nicholas. I’m sure they’ll give it to you in the end, after they make you jump through their ridiculous hoops like a circus animal. Marquess is far higher than viscount, isn’t it?”
He flinched at that thought. One he hadn’t allowed into his mind last night or any moment they’d been together. “You’re saying Aurora might be…open to what I want because she wants something in return.”
“If you married her, it would save her from her scandal. Or at least soften it. And if you had that title, it would make her more powerful than ever.”
That concept stung, even though Nicholas hadn’t seen any indications that Aurora was title hunting. But then his complicated feelings had always