Chapter Eighteen

“—and before I truly knew what was happening, which to be honest started far before that, I was pointing out that the whole thing had been a farce anyway,” said Frederick wretchedly, standing by the fireplace at Cothrom House with his hand against the mantel. “And before I had a chance to explain, or even think, she was gone. Edie, she… she just walked out.”

He was not sure what he had expected after he had explained the whole debacle. Not applause, certainly, but something. A pat on the back, maybe, or a clearing of the throat, or a sigh before a speech about how he had done the best he could, and it was unfathomable how the whole thing had come to a sticky end.

Instead, Frederick was met with silence. Silence, save for the cracking of the fire.

He turned around, his spine stiff, as it always was when with his brothers. “Any thoughts?”

The two words were almost spat out into the air.

It had taken a great deal of courage to write to all three of his brothers and request that they meet him here. Frederick had never… They could come to him for aid and support, and over the years, they had. Even George.

But he, go to them?

No. He had no wish to be indebted to a trio of men whom he could never repay. It wasn’t in his nature.

Yet whom else was there to turn to? He had no other family, no friends in the ton , thanks to their distaste of his position. There was no one else to ask.

Of course, based on the response he had received to date, he may as well have not asked a single person.

William, Duke of Cothrom, was shaking his head as he sat in the window seat, one leg crossed over his knee. John, Marquess of Aylesbury, was blowing out his cheeks slowly as he sat in an armchair. Most unusually, George, Earl of Lindow, was pacing. That kept his eyes away from Frederick.

Precisely what I would have expected , Frederick tried but failed not to think. The bitterness rose as frustration mingled with pain.

He had never asked for much. Could have demanded money, jewels, property. He could have demanded his due as a full brother, recognized as he had been by their father.

He had never requested the title of Viscount Pernrith. He would never have claimed it had William not urged him to.

Here he was, asking for help with the one thing that truly mattered… and all they could do was stay silent?

“Do you not have anything to say?” Frederick said aloud, his voice testy as his hands clenched into fists by his side. “You three—well, two of you—have come to me with your problems, and I’ve always sought to guide you. Can you not offer me the same compassion?”

John cleared his throat. “Well… I mean, it’s a lot to take in.”

“I had no idea the initial engagement was a hoax,” William said quietly. “I am sure we would not have interfered, had had dinner with the young lady and her father, if we had known.”

Despite himself, despite every fiber of his being knowing it was a bad decision, Frederick glanced at George.

Who scowled as he continued his pacing. “I knew.”

“You knew—” William started.

“Yes, I knew,” George muttered darkly. “But what did I care what the man did? It’s not up to me to decide what a man does with his time.”

The retort was cold, precisely what Frederick would have expected from the man.

There had never been any love lost between himself and George, and in a way, he didn’t think there ever would be. There was such a thing as too much water under the bridge.

Still. He had hoped the man would at least attempt to be civil.

Doing everything he could to retain the calm and unruffled disguise that had been his automatic response with his brothers, Frederick inclined his head. “I apologize for not informing you all on the true nature of—”

“I don’t see how that matters,” interjected John with a curious expression. “How the engagement started is not relevant. The point is, you wished it to become true.”

Frederick’s jaw tightened and he turned to the fire, unable to meet the eyes of his brothers. “Yes.”

Yes, he had wanted it to become true. He had been desperate to know the woman he had fallen in love with felt anything for him in return.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Frederick could hardly lie to himself. More than marriage, he’d wanted Edie to adore him, to love him, to crave him—to desire him as deeply as he desired her.

And now…

“You hypocrite—you said you didn’t want to be treated just as someone beautiful!”

“There must be a way to rectify this.” Frederick was astonished to find the seemingly calm and almost cheerful voice was his own. “This cannot just end. It can’t.”

“I thought it was the rest of my life I was offering you. I must agree—it isn’t a small thing!”

“Well, I must say, I am not sure what we can do,” came William’s voice behind him.

The eldest Chance brother always saw disaster and scandal in their midst, and most of the time, he was right. It did little to help Frederick’s confidence that William believed nothing could be done.

“It does sound… Well, forgive the phrasing, but like a mess of your own making,” John said apologetically.

Turning, Frederick saw the second Chance flushing—actually flushing.

“I am not saying she acted perfectly,” John added hastily. “More that… Well. Did you not expect such a response? At all? Considering… Considering how Society treats you?”

Considering how Society treated him… Yes, Frederick supposed he should have considered that it would be a rare woman, indeed, who would happily join him in that particular flavor of ostracization.

But he had thought Edie Stewart to be that rare woman. Believed she’d understood, that she had taken the time to get to know the man behind the scandal. She was one of the few people with whom he had been open. He’d thought he’d known that she too, in a small way, loathed the way Society adored some and ignored others.

“I just offered you my heart, and you said nothing!”

“I didn’t. I just wasn’t sure if you… I cannot just immediately—”

“Why not?”

Frederick pulled a hand over his face as he remembered the words from their argument the day before. Oh, hell.

“I must apologize.”

His hand fell away as his eyes widened. Surely, he could not have heard those words from—

George, Earl of Lindow, tensed his shoulders. He had ceased his pacing just before Frederick, and his eyes were serious for the first time in Frederick’s memory.

“‘Apologize’?” Frederick repeated stiffly.

This was unprecedented. Lindow hardly spoke to him at all, if he could help it. When he did, it was usually a cutting remark or unpleasant quip.

And now he was going to apologize? What the devil for?

George nodded. “I should not have sent you that letter.”

Frederick blinked. “Letter?” What on earth was the man talking about?

“About Miss Quintrell. It was an honest mistake, and by that I mean, I did not intend harm,” said George stiffly, not quite meeting his eye. “Which I know is a difficult thing to believe when it comes to you… you and me.”

Frederick’s jaw tightened. He was certainly correct about that. Most of his childhood had been spent in fear of the youngest full-blooded Chance. Fear of retribution. Fear of reprisal. Fear of rage.

And now here he was, admitting he was wrong… and most irritatingly, Frederick did not agree.

“The letter caused no direct harm,” he said tautly. “It was I who brought up Miss Quintrell to Edie, I who—”

“But if I had not sent the letter in the first place, her name would not have been available for you to speak,” insisted George in an unbending voice.

Frederick could hardly believe it. Would the man not relent? “But if I hadn’t—”

“Will you just accept the damned apology, man,” George said with a glare far more reminiscent of the man he knew. “You’re not likely to get another.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Frederick could see both William and John staring at the pair of them. There was a look on the elder’s face, almost as if—

He tried not to groan. Oh, God, it’s hope. They were hoping this terse scene would lead to a renewal—not even a renewal, a beginning of a friendship between the two of them. Between himself and Lindow.

Dear Lord.

Frederick sighed, then forced himself to meet George’s eye. “Look. I don’t hold any ill will toward you, Lindow. In truth, I never have. Not directly.”

The youngest Chance met his eye and swallowed, the crease in his brow deepening.

Then George resumed his pacing. “Good.”

Somehow, a great deal of tension had managed to lock itself into Frederick’s shoulder blades. As he forced out a long, slow sigh, some of it melted away without the bulk of the pressure at his temples diminishing.

“You have lived like this your whole life, I know. You have no idea what it is to—”

“To be accepted? To be a part of Society?”

Edie.

Try as he might, it was impossible to force her from his mind. He could not stop thinking about her from one minute to the next. Everything reminded him of her. The glitter of sunlight on water—she was the flourishing rose. The warmth of the sun—the hit to his stomach whenever he saw her. Any of those damned scandal sheets—how much Edie loved them.

Perhaps loved them too much.

If he cared about her less, Frederick was certain it wouldn’t hurt. But how did you turn off your heart? How could you remove the person you thought about every single moment from your thoughts? Was it even possible to get your heart back?

“The question is,” Frederick said aloud, half to himself and half to the room at large, “what do I do now?”

There was a slight thump somewhere else in the house. All four men turned in that direction, then glanced at William.

He shrugged. “When Pernrith said he wanted to talk, I asked Alice to entertain Florence and Dodo with a game of cards.”

Just for a moment, there was a flicker of mirth on George’s face. “In that case, that sound was probably one of the wives getting irritated at Dodo’s expertise.”

“The wives know better than to get involved with Dodo and cards, surely?” John’s eyes blinked rapidly. “You think they’re actually playing?”

The conversation washed over Frederick. It hardly concerned him, and more, it did not interest him. But it did tug his emotions in a way he could not have expected.

The wives.

For a few hours—almost a whole day—he had believed Edie would join that group. That there would be four of them, and he would somehow be a part of the family in a way he never had been before.

It certainly wasn’t the reason he’d wished to marry Edie. If marrying her meant being snubbed forever from Society and spending the rest of their days at Wickacre Hall, he would have done it, and gladly.

But Frederick could not deny to himself, at least, that something else had thawed his heart.

A way into the Chance family. An opportunity to be a part of it as an equal, to see his wife… his wife be a part of it.

Frederick swallowed. Now that opportunity was gone. Perhaps forever.

“—told her not to win every time, but that’s Dodo’s way,” George was saying, his chin high. There was a strange sort of look on his face. One of pride. “And when she wins—”

“I think we should be focusing on Pernrith and his lady troubles,” William cut across him with a meaningful look.

Frederick groaned. ‘Lady troubles’? Dear Lord, that sounded awful . “I wondered what you all thought I should do. What each of you thought, I mean.”

For some reason, his three half-brothers were staring in complete astonishment.

“You… You’re asking us?” George prompted curtly. “Each of us? You care?”

The aggressive tone could not be hidden, and Frederick felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise in response.

It had always been this way. William made him feel inadequate, like he was always fighting to be considered a Chance. John made him feel as though he were on his second chance with the family, and that any slip would precipitate his removal from their good graces. And George… Well. George made him feel like an outsider, someone who would never truly belong.

When it came to facing all three of them together, Frederick slipped into his defensive strategy of saying little and remaining as stiff and polite as possible.

And now here he was, baring his soul and asking for their help.

Perhaps I should not have asked them , Frederick could not help but think, hopes sinking. Perhaps I’ve taken a liberty, going directly to them.

He was only half a Chance. Yet here he was, bothering a duke, a marquess, and an earl—merely because he had not convinced a woman to marry him. As he had known he never would.

“Do not worry about it. I should never have asked… It was foolish.” The tightness around his torso was painful, making each word a challenge. But still, he spoke. “I apologize for bothering you.”

If he had hosted his three half-brothers, Frederick would have been able to stride across the drawing room in four steps and would have already reached the door to usher them out. But as it was William who had insisted on hosting, his drawing room was quite a bit larger than his own.

That was why he had only managed to get halfway across the room when the most unexpected thing happened.

George put out an arm.

Frederick walked into it. He halted, then looked in unconcealed astonishment at the gesture his half-brother— that half-brother had made.

“We… Oh, hell.” George sighed. “We may not have behaved the best in the past—”

“Speak for yourself,” cut in John with a grin.

Both Frederick and George turned to glare.

The Marquess of Aylesbury put his hands up in mock surrender. “Just a jest. Merely a jest… “

Frederick turned back to George, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. Was his brother… was the Earl of Lindow, the brother who had so actively hated him for so many years, actually attempting to be nice ?

George cleared his throat. “We have definitely not behaved in the best way in the past. I more than the others, you know that. But… damn it. It doesn’t mean we’re not brothers. Of a sort. And it doesn’t mean we won’t try to act in the best way now. So sit down.”

“‘Sit… Sit down’?” Frederick repeated.

He was surely dreaming. There was no possibility the gruff, angry man he had known for decades was actually trying something different—something new?

“Sit down,” George repeated gruffly. “We can fix this.”

Frederick’s eyes widened. “We can?”

“I hope so,” said William, rising from the window seat and walking over to them. He clapped a hand on each brother’s shoulder while John remained seated. “And I hope to God this will be the last time I save one of you boys from a mess of your own—”

“‘Boys’?” said John and George together.

“‘Last time’?” repeated Frederick, who had never received—as far as he was aware—much help from William.

“‘Mess’?” said new three voices.

Frederick hesitated. “‘Mess’?”

The door to the hall opened and the three wives poured in. From their positions, Frederick rather suspected they had been leaning against the door for some time. Listening. Listening to their conversation.

He recalled the thump the Chance brothers had heard minutes ago as the wives burst into hysterical laughter at the looks on their husbands’ faces. Perhaps it had not been a passionate round of cards…

“Dear God,” Frederick muttered, face burning.

How long had they been standing there? Had they heard everything—had they been doing so merely to laugh?

But as his pulse raced with the embarrassment and shame of it all, he saw to his surprise that it was his brothers who looked mortified. It appeared, by the tenor of their groans and the way William was shaking his head ruefully, that this was not a new occurrence.

Which I would know , Frederick thought with an awful lurch of his stomach, if I were truly a part of this family.

“What have I said,” said William heavily, sighing all the while, “about listening at doors?”

His wife, Alice, grinned as she slipped an arm around his waist and kissed him lightly on the nose. “You said a great deal, though I have to say, I thought it was for Maudy’s benefit more than anyone else’s.”

Despite himself, Frederick grinned. His niece, Maude, was a complete handful, and like his two half-brothers, he doted on the little girl. She was a treasure, and if she grew up anything like her mother, she was going to be a rascal.

“D-Don’t complain t-too much,” said Florence, embracing her husband, John, swiftly before releasing him. “You should be th-thanking us on bended knee!”

And Frederick’s spirits rose. There was a look of confident delight on the three wives’ faces, each one of them—a confidence that could surely only mean one thing…

“I hope you have decided to come with solutions,” he said formally. “Good day, ladies.”

“And that’s the first kind word offered, and of course it’s from Lord Pernrith,” said Alice with a nudge of her elbow against her husband’s side.

“Ouch!”

“He always was the best gentleman of the four of you,” said Dodo severely to her husband.

Frederick cast a worried look at George to see how he would take this remark coming from the woman he had so recently married. It was hardly the most politic thing anyone could say.

Apparently, however, George was happy to take criticism from his wife. “Undoubtedly.”

“Solutions,” Frederick repeated, his pulse starting to race. The sudden influx of people into the drawing room had ceased to be a concern—how could it? If these ladies could help him win Edie’s heart…

“Of c-course we have s-solutions,” Florence said, drawing herself up.

Dodo was grinning and she exchanged a look with her two sisters-in-law before jerking her head to the husbands and saying calmly, “What, you thought you were going to get actual help from these dolts?”