Page 24 of All Duke and Bothered

For the sake of Mama’s memory, I’d like to stop fighting and become the brother you never had: the loving one.

Please come to the match in Portside as agreed tomorrow night.

Your loving brother,

Spencer

Penelope stared in confusion at the sleeping Preston. She had so many questions.

What did Preston take the fall for? Why did the two brothers argue about her? And who could have thought that Spencer felt something for her when she believed he was just being a rake?

The letter in her hand trembled. The memory of Spencer grabbed her, froze her to the core…the handsome, arrogant, powerfully built man with flawless manners. A perfect duke, they called him, and even his womanizing and his charming, rakish ways were overlooked by some. Eventually, it was assumed, he would settle down—once he satisfied his manly appetite, leaving dozens of ruined virgins and scandalized widows in his wake.

Spencer had always had something to say. With him, conversation had flowed easily. She’d found him to be a good friend and pleasant company, a seamless balance of respect and charm.

And with his approval of her art plans, she hadn’t felt quite so alone.

A dark shadow rose quickly, and her husband stood before her. She gasped. He tore the letter from her hand, all his earlier softness and peace gone.

Before her stood the awakened lion.

And he was enraged.

* * *

“What do you think you are doing?” Preston demanded.

His own voice came to him like a thunderclap. Spencer’s letter was in her hands. She had just read it, no doubt, the bloody minx.

Preston threw Spencer’s letter onto the desk’s cluttered surface.

This woman hadn’t just stood between him and Spencer as a constant cause of arguments for months—she had just invaded the last good thing that connected Preston and his brother.

Preston’s head pounded so hard, he couldn’t think straight. Nausea rose in his stomach; no doubt the result of all that brandy at Elysium.

“I’m sorry…” she said, her big blue eyes glistening.

Empathy stabbed at him, but he brushed it off. He wouldn’t let her manipulate him into feeling undeserved pity. If it wasn’t for her, Preston and Spencer wouldn’t have fought the night Spencer died. Spencer wouldn’t have gone to Portside alone—Preston should have insisted on joining his brother no matter how annoyed Spencer was with him. Then Preston would have been there to save his brother from the beating. And they would have become true brothers, like they were always supposed to be.

“How dare you look through my personal things?” he growled.

“I wasn’t looking for anything! I just…I didn’t know you argued about me. Why did you argue about me?”

Preston shook. Why did they argue about her? Rage seethed through him. And to add fuel to the fire, she was dressed in an almost transparent nightdress. Her skin shone through the fine lace on her chest. She wore no corset—of course she wouldn’t wear a corset for sleep—and he could see her beautiful nipples through the fabric, rosy and tight and puckered. His gaze dropped down the straight cut of the nightgown. No petticoats. She wore nothing underneath, just her warm flesh.

He could run his fingers up her legs and come to the apex of her thighs, and there she would be, bare and free…for him. Would her skin feel warm and smooth? He clenched his fists to stop himself from reaching and finding out for himself.

This was wrong. He should never feel this desire, this hunger for her. Spencer had loved Penelope. Marrying her was nothing more or less than Preston’s desperate attempt to do right by his brother and avenge his death.

That was all she could ever be to him.

The memory of the last night they had fought over her pierced his mind like lightning. Spencer had been right to point out Preston’s pride.

“You’re your own worst enemy,” Spencer had said. “Your quick judgment and your stubborn unwillingness to change your opinions. Your pride will drive away all who would love you. Do not come to my fight tonight.”

So Preston’s pride had driven away the brother who would love him. In the end, he was the reason Spencer went to the docks alone. The reason he died.

“Leave!” he roared so loudly she blinked, visibly shrinking.