You are not brave, his uncle had declared the very day he was knighted. You are simply a fool whose irresponsible behavior happened to save a few lives this time. But such folly must cease, Arthur, if you are to be my heir.
He had never liked the viscount. Not as a lad, and certainly not when the man cast a shadow on what ought to have been his proudest moment. Not when he insisted Arthur sell his commission and stay in England to familiarize himself with the estates, though all he had wanted, once healed from his wound, was to rejoin his comrades. But duty was ingrained too deep. Staying was a necessity, not an option. Though still he had tried to argue the point of his folly.
And still his uncle’s reply was burned into his mind. Face the facts, boy.
Face the facts.
One—he had charged into a situation with a reckless abandon.
Two—it was nothing but good-fortune that turned the tide in his favor and won him accolade rather than death and dishonor.
Three—his happy acceptance into society had been more due to his cousin’s death and his presumed inheritance of a title than his own earning of a knighthood.
Four—he had apparently charged in without reason yet again when it came to Gwyneth.
He was a fool. A fool who had chased an illusion halfway around the world and now would face the consequences for it. Those were the facts.
“Have you finished brooding yet?” Gates’s voice came quiet as a ghost, his form but a shadow as he settled beside Arthur on the log.
He shot the man a glare.
Gates deflected it with the arch of a single brow. “I have given you two days. Now remember yourself and move on. This petulance does not become you.”
Petulance? Arthur’s fingers dug into the cloth of his breeches. “How very generous of you to ‘give me’ two days, sir, while you have been off visiting with your son.”
Gates’s low laugh sounded menacing in the heavy night air. “You will judge me? Judge me for doing what all men do when they are strapped to a cold, unfeeling wife?”
Arthur kept his gaze on the dancing fire. If he were to describe either of the Gateses as cold and unfeeling, it would not have been the missus. “I will judge you, sir, for your hypocrisy. You, who say you despise all Americans, yet—”
“I never said they did not have their purposes, just that they ought not be governing themselves. But my son is not the one with whom you take issue. ’Tis my niece who has you so riled.”
“Because she is no more constant than you!” He clamped his lips shut, grateful he had at least had the wherewithal to make his accusation quiet, if ill-advised. Frustrated and angry as he might be, these days in camp had proven that Gates was held in a rather fearful respect. Those great men, the men to whom Arthur had been trained to listen above all, listened in turn to him.
Gates’s chuckle grated on his every nerve. “She is nineteen, Sir Arthur. An impressionable young woman with a brain filled with nothing but images of pretty things. Is it so shocking that her head was turned when she was without proper guardianship?”
Arthur kept his mouth sealed tight.
Gates leaned forward, as if seeking the heat from the fire, though the night had scarcely cooled to livable. “Your anger is understandable, but do not give up so easily. She will soon realize her error.”
“And what will it matter if she does? She is married.” Married! To think of her in the arms of that man, to see her looking at Thaddeus Lane as she ought to have been looking at him…
“Again, I would remind you that she is nineteen. Not one-and-twenty. She can make no such decisions on her own. That marriage is not legal and can easily be annulled as soon as we can wrest her free of them.” His gaze now bore into Arthur. “The question is, are you going to fight for her or roll over and let them kick you like a mutt?”
Arthur sprang to his feet and strode away, out of the circle of firelight and into the towering shadows of trees. Seething, storming, stewing. And wishing, wishing he could let go the reins of his temper and rage. Wishing he could be every inch as irresponsible as his uncle had accused him of being. That he could do something stupid with no thought as to the consequences.
That he could—what? Fight for her? Why should he? Why should he want to? She wasn’t worth it.
“If you will give up so easily, then you are no more constant than you accuse her of being.” Gates’s voice came somewhere from the shroud of trees, from somewhere in the enclosing darkness. “She was vulnerable, alone, and obviously grieving after the news reached her. Lane took advantage. Will you hold that against her?”