Chapter Thirty-Three
The butler showed him in with the particular quality of deference that suggested he had been expected and was not, at present, welcome.
“His Grace is in the study, Your Grace.”
Anthony nodded and walked the familiar corridor to Lewis’s study with the steady, measured pace of a man who had decided, sometime in the early hours of the morning, that he was not going to apologize for what he had done. He had protected Caroline. He had fallen in love with her. He was going to marry her. Lewis could be furious about the sequence of events, but he could not change them, and Anthony was not going to pretend otherwise.
The door was open. Lewis sat behind his desk, his posture rigid, his hands flat on the surface in front of him. He looked up when Anthony entered, and the expression on his face was not the oneAnthony had been prepared for. It was not anger, precisely. It was colder than that. More controlled.
Anthony closed the door behind him and stood where he was. “Lewis.”
“You have a great deal of nerve,” Lewis said quietly, “coming to my house.”
“I came to ask for Caroline’s hand.”
The words landed in the space between them with the weight of something final. Lewis did not move. His eyes stayed on Anthony’s face, reading him with the particular attention he brought to estate ledgers when the numbers did not match the expenditure.
“You came to ask,” he repeated. “After you compromised her. After you dragged her through London’s underbelly for weeks. After you nearly got her killed.”
“I saved her life,” Anthony said, and his voice came out harder than he had intended. “Powell would have killed her. If I had not been there?—”
“If you had not been there, she would never have been in danger in the first place.” Lewis stood, his chair scraping against the floor. “You involved her in your world, Anthony. You took her to boxing matches and gaming hells and God knows where else,and you made her believe that was acceptable. That it was safe. And then Powell nearly put a knife through her because of it.”
Anthony felt his jaw tighten. “Powell was your choice, not mine. You invited him into your home. You presented him to her as a suitable match. I looked into him. I warned you. And you ignored me.”
“Because I did not know that you had your own designs on her!”
The shout echoed in the study. Lewis was breathing hard now, his composure cracking, and Anthony saw beneath it the thing he had been trying to avoid seeing: not anger, but betrayal. Lewis felt betrayed. By him. By his closest friend. And that, Anthony realized, was the actual problem.
He took a breath. “I did not have designs on her. Not at first. She told me about a list of things she wanted to experience before she married. Before you married her off to someone who would never let her be more than an ornament. I was determined to protect her, but I knew I couldn’t stop her from doing what she wished. So, I helped her complete her list.”
“And fell in love with her in the process.”
Anthony glanced over at her, smiled, then met his eyes. “Yes.”
Lewis stared at him for a long moment. Then he turned away, his hand coming up to rub at his face. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long have you been in love with my sister?”
Anthony did not hesitate; he was tired of pretending…and managing the distance between what he felt and what he allowed himself to show.
“Since the night she walked into my house with her ridiculous list and refused to be dismissed,” he said. “Since she looked at me like I was more than the rake everyone expected. Since she made me feel like I was worth something beyond the title I inherited.”
Lewis was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, more controlled. “She is my little sister, Anthony. I have spent years trying to protect her. Trying to find someone who would be good to her. Who would not—” He stopped. “And you are telling me that person is you. A man who boxes in basements. Who spends his evenings in gaming hells. Who has made a career out of avoiding any attachment that might require him to feel something.”
“Yes,” Anthony said simply. “I am telling you that person is me. Because she changed me. Because she saw through every wall I built and refused to let me hide behind them. Because I would rather die than see her hurt. And because, whether you approve or not, she has already said yes.”
The door opened.
Caroline stood in the doorway, still in her morning dress, her hair pinned up, her chin level.
She looked at Lewis, then at Anthony, and when she spoke, her voice was calm. “He asked me to marry him last night. And I accepted.”
Lewis turned to her slowly. “Caroline?—”
“I love him,” she said. “And I am going to marry him. With or without your blessing. If we have to run to Gretna Green, we will. But I would rather have your support.”