Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

" D o you realize what you have done?" Max whirled around, dropping Caroline's hand as if it were white hot.

He had remained silent until he had found a room where they might have some privacy. A well-kept study that likely belonged to Daniel, judging by the quantity of ledgers and papers on the desk. But he could hear nothing of the party that was getting into full swing, which he hoped meant no one would hear what was going on within.

Caroline clasped her hands to her chest, her golden eyes so big and innocent that it would be a challenge to remain cross with her. "I was trying to help," she urged. "I could not bear to hear them talk to you or about you like that when you have done nothing wrong! There is no one more honorable than you, and people should know that!"

"I do not care what people think about me, Caroline!" He fought to keep control of his temper, pacing back and forth in front of the desk. "That should have been obvious! Do you think I would have put that story out into the scandal sheets if I did care what people think about me?"

"But… but it is not fair!" Caroline insisted. "I have let you do so much for me, and I have not always been grateful, but I saw an opportunity to do something for you and I will not apologize for that."

He swept a hand through his hair. "What you have done was not helpful, nor was it what I wanted. I did what I did to protect you and Dickie, to defend your reputations, and you have just unraveled it all. Do you understand that? Those women out there will spread what they have just heard faster than influenza at a summer ball!"

Do you not understand that I would take every insult and morsel of scorn if it meant your reputation was safe?

He could not say that, unable to admit that he cared more about her than he would ever care about himself. Or Dickie, for that matter.

"Dickie must find a wife," Max continued, trying to hide the true reason for his frustration. "He will struggle now. I know he thinks his reputation is invincible, and I know he has weathered plenty of scandals before, but he will not weather this. No mother will want to risk their daughter being jilted. You have… obliterated his chances, and I have not the faintest notion of how I can fix this."

People will judge you, Caro. People will be unkind, people will withhold invitations, people will look at you as if you are dirt on their shoe, and it was my honor to shield you from that.

But he could not shield her anymore, now that she had revealed the truth. People would pity him and respect him for his actions, but he wanted neither; he just wanted her to be happy and cherished by the society that she loved so much.

Caroline narrowed her eyes at him. "You care so much for your brother that you are quite content to protect his reputation at the expense of yours? You would allow people to disrespect you, as long as they do not disrespect him?"

"Yes!" Max replied, shaking his head. "Have you not listened to anything I have said? I am responsible for those who are dearest to me. I do not care what happens to me as long as those I adore are safe and happy."

"I maintain that what occurred between me and your brother was stupid. I still believe that it is foolish for society to leap to marriage, simply because two friends were talking, but it should not be your responsibility to be scorned and spurned because two other people made a mistake in society's eyes," Caroline said vehemently.

"It was my duty, Caro! It was my duty to you, and you went against my wishes."

"And what of my wishes?" Caroline shot back, straightening up. "In truth, I agree that Dickie does not deserve to face any consequences, but I do. I was the one who decided what would happen that day. I was the one who chose to go against society, believing that I would get my way. Dickie was willing to do what was right, but I was not. He did not truly jilt me, Max—he was told not to come!"

Max took a step back as if he had been struck, the air rushing out of his lungs. He had heard every word, but it was as if she was speaking a foreign language, the meaning muddling in his mind.

"What?" he said, squinting as if that might give him a better picture of what he was hearing.

Caroline heaved a sigh. "I was so fixated on my dream of love, Max." She lowered her gaze, her chin dropping to her chest. "Dickie and I would have lived more separate lives than you and I had planned to, if we had married. And I did not want that. He did not want that. So, on the day that you made him propose marriage to me, I hatched a plan. When I spoke with him alone, I told him not to come to the wedding. I told him to jilt me. I insisted.

"He was not convinced at first. He did not want to disappoint you or have you hate him but I, in my stubbornness, proved to be very persuasive. I got him to agree, though even on the morning of the wedding, I was not certain if he would proceed as planned. I was terrified that he would show up, but he did not… and it was the best thing he could have done."

If she had struck Max, it might have stung less. He had lost count of the times he had cursed his brother's name over the past weeks and cringed at the things that he had written to Dickie. His letters to his brother had flitted between furious and desperate for reconciliation, often in the same paragraph, so to realize that Dickie was never to blame stuck like a barb in his throat. Indeed, to hear that Dickie had wanted to do the right thing was a punch to the gut.

For so many years, Max had tried to get Dickie to show some responsibility and maturity. When Dickie had not shown up at the church, Max had blamed himself, considering himself an utter failure as a father figure and a brother. Now, Max understood that Dickie had not been hiding from him to avoid the berating of his life, but because he had been ashamed, aware that by heeding Caroline's wishes he would be disappointing his brother.

"Why would you do that?" Max asked thickly. "He understood what was expected. Why would you tell him to run when, for the first time in his life, he was willing to be responsible?"

"If you do not understand that , then you have not been listening," Caroline replied coldly, her lip trembling. "Did you not hear me say that his absence was the best thing that could have happened?"

Max held up his hands. "I cannot speak to you right now." He clenched his jaw. "I can barely look at you. You have made a mockery of him and of me, and… I think it would be best if I took my leave."

He did not want to say something that he would later regret, and the anger rising in him would do neither of them any favors. He had never wanted to be married, but he had made peace with it because he had thought he was saving Caroline on that fateful wedding day. His actions had a noble purpose. To hear that she had conjured a deceitful scheme that had gone awry, willingly hurling Dickie's reputation into the mud, was not something he could process at that moment.

In truth, he felt like a complete fool.

"I need to find Dickie. I need to fix what you have broken," he said, heading for the door.

"Max, wait," Caroline urged, taking a step forward.

He shook his head. "Do not follow me, Caroline." He opened the door. "Enjoy the party. Your friends ought to be here by now."

With that, he left, fully intending to search the entirety of London if he had to, to find his brother. As for his wife—he did not know when he would be ready to face her again, knowing that their entire marriage was built on a mistake. And just when he had begun to accept that he was falling in love with her, too.

Max sat in a smoky corner of Dalton's Gentlemen's Club, nursing a measure of brandy. His eyes itched with fatigue, his heart heavy, his shoulders slumped as he struggled to ignore the chatter all around him. He had searched London for hours, visiting all the friends of Dickie he could think of, but no one had seen him. Either that, or they were keeping his whereabouts a secret.

It was all a ruse. She really did want to face the scandal, and I blundered in with my righteous attitude…

He leaned forward, holding his head in his hands.

Was it any wonder that Caroline had been so frosty with him at the very beginning? Was it any wonder that she had seemed so furious, and had resembled a cornered animal when he had proposed to take Dickie's place? Max had ruined her plans. Max had judged Dickie so fiercely for not doing his duty. Max had not stopped to think that there might have been something more to the wedding situation. Now, it had all become a tangled mess, and he could not even begin to unravel it.

"Max?" a nervous voice spoke.

Max lifted his head, rubbing his bleary eyes to make sure that he was not seeing things.

Dickie stood on the other side of the small, circular table, his arms behind his back, his head bowed, the very portrait of contrition. He looked tired and had lost some weight, but otherwise himself.

"I heard you might be looking for me," Dickie said. "Rather, I heard what happened and figured it might be time for me to show my face."

Max cleared his throat. "How did you know I would be here?"

"A friend sent word that you were searching for me, so I assumed you would pay this place a visit," Dickie replied. "I had intended to wait here, but you arrived ahead of me."

"What friend?"

Dickie shook his head. "That is not important. All that is important is that they said I ought to talk to you."

Clearly, one of the friends that Max had visited had not wanted to reveal the secret of where Dickie had been residing, but at least—whoever they were—they had spared Max from any further searching.

Max nodded slowly. "What did you hear exactly?"

"That the truth has come out," Dickie replied, finally taking the seat opposite his brother. "I am relieved, in all honesty. I could not bear reading all of the lies in the scandal sheets, knowing that you were not at fault. I doubt I have ever felt guilt like it, though I know I have plenty to feel guilty about."

Max raised his glass of brandy. "Congratulations, Dickie. You are once again the greatest rake in England, despite my best attempts to keep your name out of the mud."

"Max, if I had known that you would marry Caroline in my stead, I would have been there," Dickie said in earnest, his tone more solemn than Max had ever heard it. "I suppose I should have known that you would step in, but I was not thinking. I was only thinking of myself and how glad I was to have escaped marriage. It was not until afterward, when the news came out, that I realized what I had set in motion. And I could not face you, Max."

Max sniffed. "Caroline told me that you were willing to proceed with it. She said you protested against her plan."

"She is too generous," Dickie replied with an awkward laugh. "I did not protest nearly enough. But… I did agree in the end because I thought I was doing what was best for my friend. I never meant to hurt the two of you. I never meant to put you both in that position."

Max shrugged and took a sip of his drink as he leaned back in his chair. "It cannot be undone now. None of it can. I have been sitting here thinking of ways to fix everything, and I cannot think of anything. It is a new feeling, and I do not care for it."

Dickie's explanation of the events sounded more like what Max would have expected, but that did not lessen the fact that Dickie had tried to do the dutiful, responsible thing. It was Caroline who had stopped Dickie, and it was Max who had turned everything upside down, thinking he knew best. And, in the end, it did not matter—Caroline was back in the same place she would have been if he had not married her.

" I have a solution," Dickie said, squirming in his seat. " I have a way to make things right again. It cannot save my reputation or Caroline's, but it might ease the derision we receive."

Max downed what was left in his glass. "I am listening."

"I will do what I should have done in the first place," Dickie said, his head bowed. "If you get an annulment from the archbishop, I will marry Caroline myself. I doubt you will have any trouble gaining the annulment, considering the gossip that will undoubtedly be in the papers tomorrow. I am ready to take this burden for you, Max. I am sorry it took me so long to be the brother you raised me to be."

She is not a burden, Max wanted to say. She is… a rare and precious bird that I foolishly caged.

But he could not speak that aloud. He could not show that he cared when Dickie was offering the best possible solution. If she married Dickie, she would be married to a friend who would do anything to fulfill her wishes, instead of someone who could not even admit that he loved her. More than that, Dickie would be able to guide her through the storm of scorn to come, in a way that Max was ill-equipped to do.

It is the only way to save them both… And that was the most important factor of all, regardless of what it meant for him.

"I will seek out the papers in the morning," Max said quietly, a crack opening up in his heart that he feared would never close again.