Meg started and she frowned at him. “Ballocks,” she said.
It surprised her when he threw back his head and laughed. “Do you speak that way to my daughters?”
“Only when the three of us are alone.” My, this whisky was something. She lifted the tumbler and observed the colors. “Does one always tell the truth when one drinks this?”
He nodded. “Pretty much.”
They sat in silence and sipped whisky and stared at the fire, until Meg recalled what he’d said earlier and asked, “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Ah yes.” He sighed heavily and scrubbed his face with his palm and she had a flash of worry.
“What is it?” What was so difficult to say?
“I just wanted to ask you…”
“Yes?” Now her curiosity was running wild.
“I… Just…” He turned to her, his expression sincere and unbearably adorable. “Are you happy?”
What?
“Am I happy?” She gaped at him. “Of course I’m happy. Whatever do you mean?”
“When I told you that Mother was planning to find you a husband, you seemed aghast. Do you not want a husband? Are you happy as a companion?”
Oh dear. How to answer this?
She stared down at her lap for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “There was a time when my fate was to marry.”
“Technically, that is not an answer, just a statement of fact.” Blast. She’d never been able to cousin him. “What do you want, Meg?”
“I…”
“Is it so hard a question to answer?”
Another sip was in order. It was going down much more smoothly.
“Meg?”
“No. Jonathan, it’s not a difficult question to answer. But no one’s ever asked it of me before. And for the past two years, since George died, it was a moot point. What I’ve wanted since then was to have food to eat and a roof over my head. Am I happy with those things? Yes.”
“But you want more?”
Oh, did she.
She tried to look away, but couldn’t. He’d captured her in his warm brown gaze. They shared a moment, one simple moment, where she didn’t hide anything, where she let him see exactly the truth.
“I want more, yes. I want a husband to love me. A home that is more than a mere house. I want to belong somewhere. I want choices. Options.” Annoying tears pricked at her lids. Oh, ballocks. She’d had too much whisky. She set the glass down on the table, a little too hard, as it happened.
“And children?”
Blast him for seeing her so clearly. His gentle query triggered the waterworks she was so sure she could hold back. It dredged up the deepest pain, her greatest loss in all this. She angrily swiped at her cheeks.
“Meg.” He sighed her name, which was painful in itself, but then he—the bastard—stood, took her hand, and pulled her into his arms. He was in shirtsleeves and his chest was firm against hers. He wrapped himself around her and held her. Just held her there, in that warm haven, bolstering her with his strength as she wept. “We’ll get you a husband,” he whispered into her hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll find someone.”
To which she had to rear back and wail, “I don’t want just any husband.”
Yes. That was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? She didn’t want just any husband.
She wanted him.
And she could never tell him that, because it would thrust a wedge between them that would destroy their friendship. It would make things awkward.
Not that they weren’t awkward now.
Especially when, from the doorway, Susana clucked her tongue. “What is this?” she asked in a far too theatrical lilt.
Naturally, Jonathan and Meg leaped apart and whirled to face her.
“Nothing,” they both said at the same time, which only made her smirk.
“We were just talking about life,” Jonathan said in a defensive tone.
“And marriage,” Meg added.
Susana looked them up and down. “And Meg started crying? And you gave her a hug?”
“Exactly!” Jonathan crowed.
“Of course.” Susana smiled. “Just what I surmised. The two of you don’t look guilty in the least.”
Meg’s cheeks flared. “Guilty?” It had been terribly nice, being held by him. But they’d done nothing wrong. Not in the slightest. She glanced at Jonathan. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Of course not,” he averred.
Susana’s smile widened. “Well, you might want to get these late night meetings out of your system before the guests arrive. If you’re not careful, you may find yourselves thoroughly compromised.” She seemed gleeful when she said it, which was a trifle mortifying, but Meg ignored that.
Jonathan frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Meg is family.”
“She is.” Susana nodded. “And she isn’t, if you know what I mean.” The wink didn’t help.
“I, in fact, do not know what you mean.” He seemed disturbed.
Meg wondered idly if there was any whisky left in her glass.
“You and I know Meg is family. That we all grew up together in the wilds of Devon. But the mavens of high society don’t know or care. All they will see is that she is a single woman and you are a roguish duke.”
“I’m hardly roguish.”
“Not according to gossip.”
“That is entirely unfair.”
“Is it?” His sister fixed him with a too-knowing glance. “My point is, when the guests arrive, you will both have to behave.”
Well really! “We were behaving!” Meg sputtered.
Susana gave her the once over. “You’re in your nightgown.” Her gaze reached Meg’s feet. “And you’re barefoot.”
“She couldn’t sleep,” Jonathan said, which didn’t help at all.
Meg stepped forward. “I came down for a book.”
“And ended up in my brother’s arms?”
All right. Perhaps it didn’t look all that innocent—
“I didn’t kiss her.”
Oh dear. Granted, he was defending his honor, but did he have to shout it quite so stridently, with such…distaste? What was she, a hideous un-kissable hag? Apparently so. Fury, pain, and humiliation whipped through her. She couldn’t help it. She whirled on him and smacked his shoulder.
His nostrils flared. “Whatever was that for?”
But Meg couldn’t answer. Her throat was clogged and her vision slightly blurred.
Susana shook her head. “You, Jonathan Pembroke, are hopeless,” she said, wrapping her arm around Meg’s shoulder and guiding her from the room, leaving the duke sputtering in their wake.
THE NEXT MORNING, Jonathan still had no idea what had transpired in the library the night before. Most specifically, what had made Meg cry.
Not the first time. He totally understood that bit.
It was the second time.
Dear God, it had ripped at his heart to see her expression collapse, to see tears well in her eyes, to see her lips tremble.
He’d only insisted that he hadn’t done anything inappropriate. He hadn’t kissed her.
Granted, the thought had crossed his mind. She’d been so sweet and soft in his arms, and her scent, something lemony, had teased at his nostrils and made him…hungry.
But he’d batted the thought away like an annoying gnat, just like every time he had it about Meg.
Meg was different.
She was like a sister.
He’d always thought of her as such, from the first time he’d rescued her from the old elm in the meadow she liked to climb, even though she could never get herself down. She’d been five then. The same age his daughters were now. Was it any wonder he’d always thought of her as someone he needed to protect?
But she wasn’t five now. Now she was a grown woman, and a damned beautiful one. Yes, he’d had, ahem, thoughts about her, but they’d felt wrong. They’d felt like he was betraying George.
His mind flittered back to the way it had felt, holding her against his body in the library, and against his will, his passion stirred. He groaned and buried his face in his hands. It was wrong to think of her like that.