Free Indiscreet by Mary Balogh Page B

few months before we received any confirmation by letter. Clarissa still swears it was all nonsense.”
    â€œThere was my sudden attack of anxiety in the Peninsula,” the viscount said. “It works both ways, you see. I thought something must have happened to the baby or to Clarissa. It was only a month or so before Juliana was born, was it not?”
    â€œMy hunting accident?” his brother said. “Almost to the day. I was still on crutches when she was born.”
    It felt good to be alone together again. Their business with the tenant did not take long, but the ride was a lengthy one. They talked about anything and everything as they always had done. Sometimes they were silent together without the necessity of talk. Lord Rawleigh could feel his brother’s contentment with being back home. He could feel, without the need of words, that the extended winter visits away from home were a concession to Clarissa but that she by no means ruled the roost. Somehow they had built a relationship of give-and-take, Claude and his wife.
    â€œYou are restless,” his brother told him when they were riding back to the house. “Anything you wish to talk about?”
    â€œRestless? Me?” the viscount said in some surprise. “I am enjoying the ride. And the visit.”
    â€œAre you going to town for the Season?” his brother asked.
    Lord Rawleigh shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “The lure of town in the late spring is always strong. But perhaps not.”
    â€œMiss Eckert will be there,” Claude told him. It was a statement, not a question.
    â€œWhat is that to me?” he asked.
    â€œYou were very fond of her,” his brother said. “You and I believed equally in love and romance, Rex. If you had not bought your commission and gone off fighting for so many years, you would have married as young as I did. You were badly hurt. Not just your pride or even just your heart. Your dreams and ideals were shattered, and for that I am sorry.”
    The viscount laughed rather harshly. “I grew up, Claude,” he said. “I learned that love and romance are for boys and very young men.”
    â€œAnd yet,” Claude said, “I am as old as you, Rex, give or take twenty minutes. Is what I still feel for Clarissa not love, then?”
    â€œI am sure it is,” the viscount said, chuckling and trying to lighten the tone of the conversation. “I would hate to get into one of our famous quarrels, Claude. We really have outgrown those, I hope.”
    â€œCopley would have none of Miss Eckert once she was free to marry him?” Claude said. “It amazes me that someone has not challenged him before now and blown his brains out. I even feared that you might do it.”
    â€œI was busy fighting another battle at the time,” LordRawleigh said. “Besides, I would not have had the right. Horatia released me from my obligation to her. And Copley
has
fought two duels, you know. He maimed both victims.”
    â€œWell,” his brother said, “I felt and feel sorry for the girl. I also hated her for what she had done to you. And continues to do.”
    â€œShe wants me back,” the viscount said abruptly. “She has had the effrontery to send two discreet messages via her brother. I suppose life is not easy for her under the circumstances, but the last thing I need or want is to have her sniveling all over me in the middle of some
ton
squeeze or other. I could offer her only more humiliation.”
    â€œAh,” Claude said sadly. “There is no chance of a reconciliation, then?”
    â€œGood Lord, no,” the viscount said.
    â€œI knew it, of course,” his brother said. “But I hoped. Oh, not necessarily for a reconciliation. But for some way out of the impasse you are in. I am afraid of one of two things for you.”
    Lord Rawleigh looked at him with raised eyebrows.
    â€œI am afraid,” Claude said,