A Gentleman’s Position(8)

He kept his voice as calm as he could. “I don’t know why. Enlighten me.”

“Father,” Philip said, and Richard blinked.

“Father? I don’t follow you.”

“Need I spell it out?” Philip demanded. “Our father married late in life. Do you think I wish to see you wed as our parents were?”

Richard had to take a few seconds to suit his mind to this turn of the conversation, unwelcome but so much better than he’d feared. “You think I intend to follow Father’s example? Wait until my declining years and then wed a girl from the schoolroom? Philip, really. I am not in my dotage, and I have no need to marry, thanks to that well-stocked nursery of yours. If I cannot find a lady with whom I can suit, I shall leave my fortune to my namesake, just as our Uncle Richard did me.”

“Dickie would doubtless appreciate it. But…” Philip picked up a pen and turned it in his fingers as if considering it with close attention. “Eustacia is concerned. She wonders if you are becoming addicted to bachelorhood.”

“I bow to none except you in my affection for your wife,” Richard said. “However, on this matter…”

“You are set in your ways. When a man is too used to being his own master in his own household, can it be easy to change his state?”

“I dare say I shall find out when a lady makes it necessary for me to do so.”

“Good heavens, Richard. You are sentimental.”

“I, sentimental? You are the most devoted husband alive.”

Philip flushed. “Nonsense.”

“Yes, you are, and with reason. If I had the good fortune to find a helpmeet like Eustacia, I should secure her at once. If I could,” Richard added, to make it less of a lie.

“Of course you could. Don’t be absurd. And Eustacia and I met only once before our engagement and no more than a dozen times before the wedding,” Philip pointed out. “Neither of us had more than a tolerable liking for each other at the time of our marriage. You cannot expect affection and loyalty to arise from nowhere; that is youthful fancy. They develop.”

“Not in our parents.”

Philip’s brows drew together. Richard turned up his palms. “It’s the truth. Your marriage would be a matter of envy to me were I not so happy for you. Our parents’ marriage…But both sprang from the same beginnings, a practical arrangement.”

“Eustacia thought you would say that.” Philip sounded grave. “She fears that you will deprive yourself of the chance of companionship and family because you will not risk a mistake.”

“A bad marriage is more than a mistake. And I may not be married, but I don’t lack companionship.” Philip’s brows shot up, and Richard grinned at him. “Not that sort. I have good friends; I have you and Eustacia and a number of children to indulge. I count myself a very fortunate man. On the topic of your children,” he went on before Philip could reply, “I have a paper of sweetmeats to smuggle up in the teeth of Nanny’s disapproval and a wish to see my namesake. May I pay a visit?”

“I see you’re determined to change the subject. As you wish, but if you would consider it, brother? We are only concerned for your happiness.”

Philip’s words nagged at Richard as he headed up the stairs, pausing to examine a new portrait of his eldest nephew and give himself a moment’s respite. He had spoken the truth to Philip, more or less, with the trifling exception of gender. If Richard had such a partner as his brother had, that loving, unflinching ally, he would count himself the happiest of men.

Once, he had. He remembered Philip’s wedding day. Richard had been just twenty-one years old and so overwhelmingly in love with Dominic that he could imagine no other state. He had stood with his remote, solitary older brother as he married a horse-faced woman he barely knew and looked down the great church to where his dearest friend and lover sat smiling at him, and he had pitied Philip with all his heart.

Fourteen months later, as Eustacia and Philip were glowing with passionate joy over their first son, Dominic had left him because Richard had refused to inflict abuse in the guise of love.

Or so he had thought. So he had felt for years, with a raw humiliation that he had mattered so little that Dominic could turn from him to seek degradation in back alleys. Until he had been forced to see the situation from another perspective and had not liked what he saw of himself.

Dominic had been lost, confused, frightened by his own desires, and as devastated by the gap growing between them as Richard had been. Dominic had been in desperate need of friendship, and instead Richard had spent years condemning him, holding on to his own shame and pain without considering how much it added to his best friend’s burden. Their love affair had been doomed, without question, but if he had just accepted Dominic as he was all those years ago…