Cameron dropped all expressions of excitement and lowered his voice. “What do you think your sister wanted to ask me at the market?”
“Ah.”
“You don’t know?”
“I do.”
“You don’t want to tell me.”
“It’s not that, exactly.”
“Never mind.” Cameron waved it away, flushing. He should have left it. If it’d been important Georgie would’ve brought it up again. “You two seem close.”
“Ten months apart, and basically twins.”
“Ten months?” Cameron studied the faintest lines at Henry’s mouth and between his brows. “Either you’ve not aged well, or she’s older than I thought.”
Henry rang out a laugh.
“Wait, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re vitality in very nice packaging.” Cameron winced. “I mean—”
Henry lightly touched his elbow. “It’s okay, Cameron. I know what you mean. Georgie is particularly baby-faced. A few years ago, you’d have believed me if I said she was fourteen. Takes after dad that way. He’s barely aged since turning thirty, either.” He smiled fondly toward Georgie. “My sister is my rock. She knows me better than I know myself, which perplexes my older brother.”
“There are more of you?”
“Just the three of us and dad. Fred, my brother, isn’t around too often. He’s in the army.”
Henry peeked at him and tucked his hands loosely in the pockets of his leather jacket. “It’s not that I don’t want her to ask you, or to ask you myself, Cameron. I do. Only . . .”
“Seriously, it’s fine.”
“I might believe you if you didn’t look away from me like that.”
Cameron forced himself to make eye contact.
Henry uttered a soft curse. “It’s the ball my dad holds every Halloween for his ‘very important clients.’ He lets us invite whomever we like. Georgie thought, since you seemed interested in me—our house—you’d like to attend.”
“A Halloween ball? At the haunted Tilney manse?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God she didn’t ask!”
Henry stopped walking. “What?”
“I might be persuaded to peek about—with constant guardianship—in the full light of day, but Halloween? Do you want to see me piss my pants? No, I’ve clocked in enough mortification, thanks.”
“It’s a ball.” Henry laughed. “There’ll be two hundred plus guests.”
“Did someone mention a ball? Like a real dress-up ball?”
Cameron nearly leaped off the boardwalk. Isabella hurried Brandon closer.
“Isabella, no.” Cameron hushed his voice, “It’s at the Tilney manse.”
“How spooky.” She smiled broadly at Henry. “After staring at my Cameron like you wanted to eat him, and then following him here, you wouldn’t tease him about a ball and not invite him and his friends, would you?”
“Isabella!”
Henry raised a brow. He was quiet a long moment, and then inclined his head. “You’re right. Cameron, I hope you and your friends will come.”
“Excellent. A week should be enough time to find a decent dress.” Isabella stretched her arm high and waved. “John, throw the keys, would you? Brandon and I want to . . . wait in the car.”
“Not a single scratch.” John threw his keys and Isabella snagged them.
“That’s as far as I go, too,” Georgie said, stopping on the platform at the end of the wooden walkway.
John nodded sympathetically and approached Cameron, keeping a keen eye on Henry. “Will you be following Cameron and me, or escorting your sister back like a gentleman?”
Henry’s mouth twitched at the edges. “It’s about to rain. Perhaps we all better head back?”
“Yes, good idea.” Cameron was already cold enough.
John looked baffled. “You know my sister and your brother are only leaving to make out in my car. Let’s give them a few minutes.”
Brandon and making out didn’t fit together in the same sentence.
Then again, his brother hadn’t been in a relationship for a long time. Maybe he had a youthful, vigorous side to him that Cameron didn’t know. A warming thought. His brother, joyful, happy. The giver finally getting.
“Just a wee way farther?” John said. “To see the penguins.”
Cameron relented reluctantly. For his brother. “Okay. Just a wee way.”
“Knew you’d fold.”
The phrase punched him in the stomach. “What?”
“You always do eventually.” John grinned.
“I—I—”
I can’t even stand up for myself.
Heat swamped his body until his gaze blurred. His profile prickled where Henry watched him.
Brown eyes flickered as all the puzzle pieces slotted together and he saw Cameron for what he was.
Spineless.
His throat stung, and he blinked out at the choppy sea, the darkening rocks.
Winds rushed to fill the suddenly disappointed silence. Each second stretched.
Then Henry rocked back on his feet and moved to his sister. “We should get going.”
There it was.
Henry was leaving. Probably praying Cameron didn’t show up at his ball. Cameron wouldn’t.
Henry would sigh in relief. Maybe meet someone else, someone unafraid of neo-Gothic architecture and asking for want he wants. Someone who made a better hero for an HEA.
“Um, goodbye, Henry.”
He couldn’t bear hearing Henry’s sincere goodbye and good luck.
He twisted on his heel, pushed past John, and rushed off the boardwalk and up the soggy dirt path.
He needed a bench and his book.