“You are considering a divorce?” Lord Thomas continued to grin. “Imagine the scandal, Adam. Could you live with it?”
“There can be no question of divorce,” his grace said. “I would not do that to Sybil.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “There may be the possibility of an annulment. I would have to make inquiries.”
His brother came across the room to set both hands on the desk and lean across it. He looked closely at the duke. “An annulment?” he said. “There is only one really viable ground for an annulment, is there not?”
“Yes,” the duke said.
“Am I to understand …?” The grin was back on Lord Thomas’ face. “Am I to understand that in more than five years you have never enjoyed Sybil’s favors, Adam?” He laughed. “It’s true, isn’t it? Good Lord. Did you play the part of noble lover to the end as she pined for me? Or did she reject you? You weren’t unwise enough to display your wounds to her, were you?” He laughed again.
“Do you love her?” the duke asked.
“I have always had a soft spot for Sybil,” Lord Thomas said. “She is lovelier than almost any other woman I have clapped eyes on.”
“That is not what I asked,” his brother said. “Would you marry her if you had the chance to do so?”
Lord Thomas stood up and looked down at his brother assessingly. “You would do that for her sake?” he said. “Or would it be for your own?”
“I would do it,” the duke said, “or at least inquire into the possibility of doing it, if I were convinced that Sybil would have the happiness that you and I between us have deprived her of.”
“And Pamela?” Lord Thomas said. “If there were an annulment, the world would know that Pamela is not your child.”
His grace spread his hands palm-down on the desk and looked down at them. “Yes,” he said. “Could I have your answer?”
“This is sudden.” Lord Thomas strolled back to the fireplace and resumed his examination of the mosaic lion. “I will need some time to consider.”
“Of course,” his grace said. “Take it. But as long as you are in this house under present circumstances, Thomas, Sybil is my wife and I will punish any disrespect shown her.”
“Bent over the desk with the cane on the backside after all?” Lord Thomas said. “Have you perfected the art of swishing it in the air before bringing it down on target, Adam? That used to make me almost lose control of my bladder.”
“I will expect your answer within the next week,” the duke said. “If it is no, I will expect you to leave immediately—and forever.”
“I take it I am dismissed,” Lord Thomas said, turning to look in some amusement at his brother again. “Very well, Adam, I will take myself from your presence. I believe I am being awaited for a fishing trip anyway.”
The duke continued to stare at his hands after the door had closed behind his brother. And he was being seduced by his own bluff, he thought a few minutes later.
In his imagination he was living through the events that his words to his brother had seemed to make possible—a speedy annulment, Sybil gone, himself free. Free to explore his attraction to Fleur. He closed his eyes and clenched his hands on the desk.
It had been bluff, pure and simple. Never in a million years would Thomas agree to marry Sybil. Had he thought for one moment that Thomas would, his grace thought, then of course he would not even have made the mad suggestion that he had just made. For though such an arrangement would undoubtedly be as satisfactory to Sybil as it would be to himself, there was Pamela to consider. And Pamela must always come first, before her mother’s happiness and before his own. She was an innocent and defenseless child.
No, he knew Thomas well enough. He had always liked him when they were boys, when his younger brother’s mischievous ways and cheerful lack of principle had brought consequences no more drastic than a thrashing or a serious talking-to. But Thomas had never grown up. He had never passed beyond the irresponsibility of youth. In his one year as supposed Duke of Ridgeway he had put severe strains on Willoughby’s considerable resources so that it might well be ruined by now had he continued to be its owner.
Thomas, he firmly believed, was incapable of deep feeling. Doubtless he would have married Sybil had he remained duke, and perhaps it would have been a reasonably successful marriage, but he would never have loved her as she loved him. Had he loved her, even to some small degree, he could not have abandoned her when he knew her to be with child.
The duke knew that Thomas would continue to harass him and amuse himself with Sybil for as long as it pleased him to do so. And that might be a very long time. The only way to frighten him off was by making it seem possible that he could be stuck with his toy for a lifetime.