Robert rolled his eyes. “Good to see you, too,” he muttered dryly and continued across the room to the liquor cabinet. He pulled out the bottle of whiskey and a glass. “What are you two doing here?”
“Do we need an excuse to drop in on our brother?” Quinn shoved himself out of the chair and held out his own glass for a pour.
“Yes.” Especially today, the second worst day of his life. With a grimace, he refilled Quinn’s glass. “Does Mother know you’re here?”
He jerked a thumb toward the front stairs. “She’s up with Annabelle right now, helping her get settled.”
“You brought your wives to London?” Robert glanced across the room at Sebastian, surprised that he’d allow his wife to travel. “In Miranda’s condition?”
“He didn’t,” Quinn answered for him. When Robert pulled the bottle away, Quinn gestured for him to keep filling his glass.
“She’s still in Islingham,” Sebastian explained.
Quinn grinned. “Which is why Seb’s in London.”
Sebastian interjected with a hand going to his heart, “I love my wife.” He defended himself smoothly enough for Robert to suspect that he’d been practicing his answer all the way from Lincolnshire. “She is the light of my life, and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for her.” Then he blew out a long-suffering sigh and reached for his own glass of cognac as he admitted, “But this pregnancy is going to kill me. She’s laughing one moment, bursting into tears the next—and the food she’s been craving…” He shook his head, a bewildered expression gripping his features. “Who eats salt-cured ham with sweet cream at three in the morning, for God’s sake?”
Robert cast him a knowing look. “So you fled Lincolnshire.”
“Like a scared rabbit,” Quinn laughed.
Sebastian slid a murderous glance at Quinton that only made him grin more broadly, then explained, “I’m here to collect Josephine and bring her home for Miranda’s confinement. And it’s a good thing I arrived when I did, too.” He lined up the cue for his second shot. “There was some misunderstanding among the servants. They thought they’d all been given the night off.”
Robert tensed.
“I said it couldn’t possibly be true,” he continued wryly with forced bafflement. “After all, why would my younger brother clear out the staff from my town house—”
“And his current bachelor’s residence,” Quinn interjected.
“Getting rid of all possible witnesses—”
“If he didn’t have plans to do anything scandalous—”
“Like spend the night with a woman,” Sebastian finished, no amusement on his face as he sank the second ball.
Robert replaced the bottle into the cabinet and dropped into the nearest chair. At times like these, he dearly wished he were an only child.
“I’m not spending the night with a woman,” he corrected. Not a lie, now that Mariah most likely never wanted to be alone with him again.
“I don’t believe him.” Quinn looped his arm over Sebastian’s shoulders and gestured at Robert with his glass. “Do you?”
Sebastian swept his gaze over him from head to boots. “No.”
“He’s lying.”
“Like a rug.”
“Like a lying rug.”
Robert rolled his eyes as a headache began to pound at the base of his skull. Not this. Not them. Not today of all days.
Sebastian laid his cue stick across the table, then leaned back against the railing and stared at Robert with that imperious expression he’d perfected since becoming duke. “You’re a bachelor and entitled to partake, but this isn’t the place to entertain mistresses or widows.”
“I’m not,” he snapped. His brother was unknowingly poking at a raw wound.
Not believing him, Sebastian arched a warning brow at Robert. “As long as it’s not some actress or singer determined to separate you from your blunt.”
“No one’s separating me from anything,” he half growled at their prying.
“Or trap you into marriage.”
The very last thing— Christ! “It’s Mariah Winslow,” he bit out, reaching the end of his patience and scrubbing his hand over his face in frustration. “She’s the woman I planned on seeing tonight, all right?”
His two brothers stared at him, stunned and wide-eyed. And for once, speechless.
Then Quinton blinked. “The Hellion?”
“Oh good Lord,” he muttered and tossed back the rest of his whiskey in a single gulp.
Sebastian and Quinn exchanged bewildered looks. Then Seb asked deliberately, as if he hadn’t heard correctly, “The woman Mother has been sponsoring this season? The same woman whose father wants to give you a partnership in his business?”
“Yes.” He pushed himself out of the chair to refill his glass but snatched up the bottle instead. A bottle’s worth of whiskey wasn’t such a bad idea, given how this day was going.
“Nodcock.” Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you and she—”
“Yes, damn it!” And damn the whole situation for having to admit this to his brothers. Although one look at his face would reveal everything about his feelings toward Mariah, as well as the torment of knowing how much she most likely hated him.
“Nodcock.”
He glared at Sebastian. “You are not helping.”
“But I thought…” Puzzled, Quinn frowned at Robert. “Does Mother know you’re planning on proposing to her?”
“No.” He refilled his glass and took a large swallow of whiskey. But even it didn’t dull the pain in his chest as he admitted, facing the horrible truth, “Because I’m not.”
“Nodcock,” both brothers said at the same time.
The glare Robert gave them was murderous. “Damnation, I can’t propose!”
Unable to remain still a moment longer, he began to pace, dragging his fingers through his hair. But the room wasn’t big enough to exorcise the frustrations, anger, and anguish from inside him. St James’s Palace wouldn’t have been big enough for that.
“Why not?” Sebastian challenged.
“Marriage isn’t an option.” Not anymore. He’d lost Mariah and was now on the verge of losing the partnership. The most he could hope for was that Mariah wouldn’t spend the rest of her life hating him.
“Seems like a fine one to me,” Quinn muttered, taking back his glass.
Robert glared at his younger brother. “Says the man with the doting wife.”
Quinn lifted the empty glass in a toast and grinned. “And a baby due in the fall.”
Robert stopped in mid-stride at the news. A baby? “You’re going to be a father?” His chest panged with something close to covetous longing as he offered quietly, “Congratulations.”
He was happy for Quinton, of course, but he also couldn’t help the fierce sting of envy. Or the unbidden image of Mariah, full with child and glowing happily. With his child.
But that future would never be his now.
Pacing once more, he snatched up his glass and took a gasping drink. With each turn of the room, and many swallows of whiskey, he told them what had happened between him and Mariah. And why.
Marriage must have mellowed his brothers, because they listened without interrupting, and when he finished, instead of laughing at him as they would have done in the past, both looked at him with solemn empathy. His shoulders slumped. For once, it was a relief to confide in them.
Sebastian studied the glowing tip of his cigar and asked quietly, “Does she know you’re in love with her?”
“No,” he admitted, rubbing his hand at the hard knot at his nape. “She doesn’t know.”
“You should start by telling her that, I think,” Quinn pressed sagely. “I’ve found that it smooths over quite a bit of female anger.”
Knowing Mariah, though, it might just cause her to kill him. Robert asked wryly, “When did you become so wise?”
“The moment I told Belle that I loved her.” Quinn’s grin faded into a solemn expression. “So what’s stopping you from doing the same?”
He bitterly quirked a brow. “The small problem that she hates me.”