The Viscount's Veiled Lady (Whitby Weddings 3)

‘Actually it’s not...’ Lance jumped down from his horse with a determined expression ‘...and it’s about time you faced up to your responsibilities.’

‘You’re lecturing me on responsibility?’

‘Yes. I’ve become quite the staid gentleman in my old age.’

‘You’re still younger than me.’

‘But quite a bit more mature at this point, I’d say. You’ve been an absolute monster for the past month. Coincidentally since you ended your engagement to the woman you love.’

Arthur narrowed his eyes. ‘What about all the staff? What will happen to them?’

‘They’re your staff really, not mine. You’re the Viscount.’

‘Only in name. As for the rest, you know I don’t want it.’

‘Arthur—’ Lance sounded uncharacteristically sombre ‘—hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you need to go back there? Whatever demons you still have to confront, maybe they’re in that house.’

‘No! I can’t go back as if nothing ever happened. I can’t be the man Father wanted.’

‘Then go back and be yourself. Be your own man.’

‘I am my own man. Here on my own.’

‘Really? Because I think you’re stuck. You think you don’t deserve to go back because you feel guilty about what happened to Father, but you won’t back down from your last argument with him either. So you’re at an impasse. But tell me this, big Brother, what was the point of your running away if you refuse to move on? Make your peace with the past. You didn’t mean to hurt Father and you don’t have to be the man he wanted either, but you can still go back home. You are who you are, but who you are belongs at Amberton Castle and you can let yourself be happy, too. You can still marry Frances.’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘Why not?’

Arthur ran a hand over his newly cropped head in frustration. ‘Does Violet know that you’re here? I thought she might have forbidden you from speaking to me.’

‘Yes, she does and, no, she hasn’t and she’s not not speaking to you. She’s just upset for Frances, that’s all.’

‘Frances is the one who ended our engagement!’

‘Because?’

‘Because she said we’d been forced into it.’

‘Something that didn’t seem to bother her before.’ Lance lifted an eyebrow pointedly and Arthur sighed.

‘It did at first, only I thought we were past all that.’

‘What else did she say?’

‘Just that it was a mistake and that I ought to speak with Lydia. She was quite insistent about that.’

‘And have you?’

‘Spoken with Lydia? No.’

Lance rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘And that didn

’t strike you as odd, that she wanted you to speak with her sister?’

‘No, it struck me as what she wanted. That’s all there is to it.’

‘So you let her go that easily?’