The Duke I'm Going to Marry(22)
“I didn’t do all that much. Ewan and his Bow Street runners were the ones who saved her.”
“What you did was important,” Graelem insisted, getting that stubborn look about him. “Lily’s parents, not to mention Dillie, were in unbearable pain. Those twins practically share one heart, and when they were forced apart, Dillie felt every painful rip. You stayed beside them the entire time, gave them hope that Lily would be found alive.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Never realized I was quite that magnificent.”
Gabriel punched him on the shoulder. “You aren’t. But the Farthingales think you are.”
Ian cuffed him back with a laugh. “I’m sure I can count on both of you to assure them that I’m an utter ass.”
Several of the older members ruffled their newspapers and let out angry harrumphs.
Gabriel glanced around and caught the attention of a club steward. He pointed to the glass Ian had set down when they’d first walked in. “This is a woman’s drink. We need a bottle of fine aged whiskey. Your best. Spare no expense. And three glasses sent to the billiards room. Put it on the duke’s account.”
Ian let out a laughing groan.
“Make that two bottles,” Graelem added, but his grin faded once the ancient steward slowly shuffled off to do their bidding. “We have another matter to discuss with you. It concerns Dillie.”
Ian’s laughter faded. Had someone hurt her? He’d rip the blackguard apart with his bare hands.
“She has a suitor,” Gabriel said once they’d reached the privacy of the billiards room and shut the door behind them. “Lord Ealing’s eldest son, Charles. The Farthingales believe he’ll ask for her hand in marriage soon.”
Ian said nothing, for his body had just taken a hard slam to the ground. It was ridiculous, of course. He didn’t plan to marry. He didn’t want Dillie. So why didn’t he want anyone else to have her? He was like the dog in Aesop’s fable who didn’t want the food in the stable trough, but wouldn’t let the other animals have it either.
He ought to have been overjoyed for Dillie. Charles Ealing was a good man. A decent man. A simple man. Too bad Dillie would be bored to tears within a month of their marriage. “Give her my congratulations. I’m sure she’ll make him a fine wife.”
Graelem frowned. “She would, but he’d make her a terrible husband. We need your help to stop the wedding.”
Ian had been in ill humor all day. The news about Dillie only put him in fouler temper. Dillie in love and getting married? He couldn’t wrap his brain around it. He didn’t want to think of the girl in another man’s arms. He didn’t wish to think of the girl at all. “There’s nothing to stop. He hasn’t asked her yet. Right?”
“That’s right,” Graelem said.
Ian lifted a cue off the rack and pretended to study it. In truth, he had the violent urge to break it over Ealing’s head. Good thing the clunch wasn’t at White’s. Ian wasn’t sure he’d let him escape this stodgy establishment alive. “Why are you two so eager to meddle in Dillie’s affairs?”
“Bugger,” Graelem muttered. “It isn’t us. It’s our wives. Dillie’s sisters. They’ve got it into their heads that Dillie can’t possibly love him. They’re worried that she’s feeling lonely because they’re all married and out of the house. They don’t want her to make a mistake she’ll regret for the rest of her life.”
“She’s a clever girl, not likely to make such a blunder.” But he’d seen the way Dillie had looked at little Ivy, the way she’d lovingly held her and inhaled her baby scent. Dillie was all about love and nurturing. She must have felt terribly alone these past few months, rattling about the empty halls now that all her sisters were gone.
He understood about loneliness. He’d spent most of his life feeling as though he were entombed in a coffin, trapped in a breath-stealing nothingness while everyone around him went about with their lives.
Dillie’s sisters were busy leading their own lives, raising their own families. Dillie no longer knew how she fit in.
But how could he help? He wanted Dillie out of his life, out of his thoughts. How else would he ever regain control of his traitorous body? “There’s a simple solution. Buy her a dog.”
“Dillie needs a husband. The right husband,” Graelem said, “not a damn dog.”
“You’re wrong. Dillie needs something to occupy her attention. A pet will do the trick.” But Ian’s heart was a pounding, thrumming riot as they stood glowering at each other in the private gaming room. The steward chose that moment to enter with their drinks. It was about time. Why couldn’t he have come a little sooner, preferably before the conversation had turned to Dillie?