Free Storming the Castle by Eloisa James

conventions that would likely keep them apart, when he felt a touch on his shoulder, turned his head, and found his brother at his side. As brothers do, they understood each other without a word; Gabriel was squinting at him in a way that conveyed to Wick that his private kisses were no longer private.
    “Damnation,” he said flatly.
    “Hmm,” Gabriel said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Philippa is a lovely girl. Kate adores her.”
    “I can’t marry her.”
    “Why not?”
    It took a moment before Wick could compose himself and look over at his oblivious brother without rage in his eyes. He prided himself on never showing emotion of that sort. “I’m in your service,” he said, finally. “As a butler.”
    “Only because you chose to be so,” Gabriel responded.
    “Once that choice was made, the decision was irrevocable.”
    “Rubbish. I can hire another majordomo in London. You only took over because we had no money, don’t you remember? Well, now we have Kate’s unexpectedly lavish inheritance, not to mention the payment I received for my book on Greek archaeology. In fact, I just bought Kate’s father’s estate from her stepmother. We could—”
    “You could what ? Make me legitimate? Make me the proper spouse for Philippa?” Wick couldn’t help it. The calm front he was so proud of maintaining cracked along with his heart, and bitterness poured like acid into his voice. “You can’t give me what I most need: a father who didn’t bed a dairymaid and impregnate her. You can’t give my mother her marriage lines, nor myself the pedigree that Philippa deserves.”
    He saw his arguments hit home. “I’m no husband for a lady, Gabe,” he said more quietly.
    “Philippa loves you,” Gabriel said rallying. “A blind man could see that. She doesn’t care about your pedigree.”
    Wick’s throat was too tight to answer. He knew that his brother could see raw despair in his eyes because he pulled him into a rough embrace. “She couldn’t do better than you,” Gabriel said a moment later, thumping him on the back.
    He just shook his head. “Bollocks.”
    “There’s just one way in which you fall short.”
    It didn’t seem like merely one way to Wick, but he waited for Gabriel to elaborate.
    “You’re a coward.”
    At this slur, a flush of hot rage, the kind that only his brother could inspire, surged up Wick’s chest. “You dare not say that to me,” he said between clenched teeth.
    “You’ve got the balls to love her, but not the balls to take her,” Gabriel said. “And do you want to know why I know that?”
    “No.” Wick’s hands were curling into fists.
    “Because I was the same with Kate. I was trapped, thinking that I had to be as rich as Croesus before I could marry. You’re not responsible for our father’s idiocy. You’re afraid to just reach out and take her, even though she wants you.”
    “I’m no coward,” Wick said between clenched teeth.
    Gabriel actually laughed. “Luckily for Philippa, she’s beautiful enough that another man will come along who has the balls to accept what she’s offering.”
    A muted roar erupted from Wick’s throat, and he threw himself at his brother. They fell to the ground with a thump, rolled over in a flurry of blows, rolled over again. Wick found himself on top. “She may want me now but—”
    His sentence was derailed by a deft move by Gabriel who managed to flip him on the ground, and knock the wind out of him. It wasn’t until they were both lying on their backs panting and gingerly feeling their knuckles, that Wick said it. He said it flatly, because he’d examined it, night after night turning the facts over and over in his mind, and he knew it was true. “Years from now, she will wish she had a man who could take his place next to her in society.”
    His brother pushed himself to his feet. “How do you know? Maybe she just wants a braver you, a man with the balls to stand up and say he’s as good as