Page 24 of Wicked By Design

Ah, and he had finally made Gideon lose his temper. Huzzah.

“You think I don’t know? Me, of all people?” Gideon exclaimed.

Damian snorted. “Ah, but you got the magic potion, Deon. All your troubles miraculously went away. I don’t have a cure. You know as well as I do, we agreed it would be for the best if we never married, if the line ended with us. No children, no cosy little family… you agreed with me, Deon.”

Gideon fell silent. He could hardly argue the truth of it. “I know. I know we did, but you said yourself, Damian, there’s no reason not to marry, not… not to have a proper marriage. You don’t have to produce children, if—”

“And as you pointed out to me, brother dear, such precautions are not foolproof. Besides which, it would give Celia hope, something I am not cruel enough to do. If she wants a child so badly, she’ll have to find some other poor fool to provide her with one.”

The words tasted bitter in his mouth, but he told himself he did not regret saying them. One must face the ugliness of one’s future with open eyes. Celia might pretend she was at peace with his refusal to have a family whilst things were so raw, but in time she would realise there were other options open to her. She was kind and loving and she would need more than he could give her. It would not take long for her to realise he was unreachable. He’d be a fool not to consider that.

Gideon gaped at him. “You can’t be serious?”

Damian shrugged. “Why not? It is a marriage of convenience, nothing more. I don’t have the slightest intention of being faithful to a woman I’m not bedding. I’m not a damned saint, Deon, as I think we have established.”

“And it wouldn’t bother you…. You wouldn’t care if she took a lover?”

“Why the hell should I care?” Damian snapped, feeling increasingly irritable. It had been a mistake to come here. He could not now remember why he had done so, except that he was feeling all at sea and he had not known where else to go. His usual response to such a dilemma would be to get drunk or behave appallingly, or both, but Celia had one thing right. He no longer wanted that life.

Absurdly, he had almost gone to visit Celia until he’d remembered that she was the source of all his aggravation.

Gideon laughed softly and shook his head. “I see I am going to get nowhere with you in this mood. Have it your own way, Damian, you always do. Except this time, I think things might not go quite as you expect them to.”

Damian glared at him, at the smug look on his happily married face—damn him.

“When do they ever?” he demanded and showed himself out.

Muddel’s Rented Rooms over the Cheese Shop, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 7th September 1816

Damian was still seething by the time he got back to his vile rooms. The sight of the patchy ceiling and walls that looked like that had some contagious disease growing in the corners did nothing to ease his temper.

“Finch!”

“I’m right here, there’s no need to deafen me,” Finch muttered, peering around the bedroom door, one of Damian’s second-best boots in his hand.

“Where’s the brandy?”

Finch jerked his head. “I left it in the chest.”

Damian nodded and went and fetched it, pulling the cork with his teeth.

“Good visit with your brother, was it?” Finch remarked, a snide comment which earned him a baleful glare from Damian. “You had a visitor while you were out, by the way. Reverend Honeywell. You just missed him.”

Finch looked positively gleeful at this pronouncement. Damian lifted the brandy to his lips and took a fortifying swallow. “If I don’t murder someone before this day is over, it will be a bloody miracle,” he warned Finch, pushing the cork back into the neck of the bottle before the temptation to drink the whole thing won out. “What did he want?”

Finch shrugged. “He said he thought you were in need of his services.”

“The last rites?” Damian suggested.

Finch chuckled and shook his head. “You ain’t dead yet, my lord, and marrying a pretty girl with a fortune don’t seem the worst fate a fellow could have inflicted on him.”

Damian let out a huff of laughter. If only it were that simple. “Was he going to call upon Lady Cecilia?”

“No idea. Didn’t say so.”

Damian frowned. Celia shouldn’t have to deal with the fellow by herself. Though, of course, she had her grandmother, and Hawkney, come to that. But it might be embarrassing for her to speak of her impending marriage without her husband, what with all the gossip flying about.

He pushed to his feet. “I’m going out.”