Warren was faintly aware that his hands were shaking, he slipped them in his pockets, pressing his back against the wall as an anchor. Without one, he might just lunge across this room and pummel the dashing sea captain into the floor. And Burke for good measure.
Fiancé?
Warren wasn’t the only one confused. Charles had nearly set his coat sleeve alight, gaping at the pair of them. Around the room the group was gasping out their surprise and offering rushed congratulations. Captain Renley still looked like he’d just been struck upside the head.
In fact, the only two people who weren’t confused about Burke’s declaration were Burke…and Madeline. Why wasn’t she crying out in dismay? Where was her indignation?
She was frozen for all of a moment before she rushed forward. He breathed a sigh of relief. She would tell him off. She would deny it.
“Ahh, here she comes, your blushing bride,” Mr. Burke teased, grabbing the captain by the shoulders, and shoving him forward. When he dared to glance across the room and wink at Charles, Warren knew he was going to bloody his hands tonight.
Charles flinched as if struck, and then Madeline was on him.
“Mr. Burke, may I speak with you,” she said in that quiet voice.
No denial. No sharp denouncement.
Warren curled his hands into fists.
Burke laughed. “Isn’t it Tom you wish to speak with—”
“Now,” she cried, grabbing him by the coat collar and all but dragging him from the room to the rest of the group’s confused laughter and murmuring.
“What the bloody hell just happened?” the captain muttered, peering out through the open doorway.
“We’ll explain when we get home,” said the duchess.
Warren was seeing red.
Why is no one denying this?
Why wasn’t the duchess laughing it off? Why wasn’t the duke calling Burke out? Had something possibly happened in the span of a single day since Madeline was naked in his arms? Since they’d shared a moment of truth? Was she already tired of waiting for Charles to make his choice?
Burke came back in moments, still wearing that wolfish grin. But Madeline didn’t return. Did he make her cry? Warren was going to kill him.
“You look done in, angel,” said the duke, a protective hand around his wife. “Shall we return to the house?”
“Yes,” she replied, suddenly feigning exhaustion when moments before she’d been the life of the party.
Warren pursed his lips. They weren’t fooling anybody.
Well…actually, they were rather adeptly fooling everyone.
Everyone except him and Madeline.
Where was she? Warren had to find her. He slipped along the wall, moving towards the doorway, as the duke and duchess took their leave of the other guests.
“Warren,” Charles called behind him.
He didn’t stop. He was finding Madeline. Charles could follow if he wished. Just as he slipped into the hallway, the front door shut. His gaze whipped down the hall as he spied the rack of coats. Madeline’s ruby red pelisse and fur-trimmed cape were gone.
“Goddamn it.” He snatched up his own coat, shoving his arms inside it, as he jerked open the front door.
“Let her go, Warren.”
He spun around, coming face to face with Burke. At last, the man seemed to have misplaced his smile. “What the hell did you do? Why did you embarrass her like that?”
“She already took me to task for it,” he replied. “And I apologized.”
“Not good enough,” he growled.
“She was the hurt party,” Burke countered with a raised brow. “I apologized and she accepted. What else can it possibly be to you, sir?”
He ignored his pointed jab. “Is it true?”
Burke stoically held his gaze. “Is what true?”
“Is she engaged to the captain?”
“That’s hardly your business—”
He lunged forward, grabbing the man by the cravat. “Goddamn it, Burke. I like you well enough, but I am in no mood for your endless games tonight. Answer me, before I make you choke on all your pretty teeth. Just try sucking your Renley’s cock with a broken jaw.”
Burke raised both his hands in surrender, but he didn’t pull away. “Warren, look at me,” he murmured.
Dark eyes met steely grey.
“She is not yours.”
The words chilled the air between them, sinking deep in Warren’s gut. Of course, she wasn’t his. Nothing ever belonged to Warren. He was wholly undeserving, unloved, unwanted—
No.
He groaned, hand loosening on Burke’s cravat as he tried to silence the voices of his past.
But then Burke had to lean in and say, “Regardless of whether she is Tom’s or Bray’s…she will never be yours. Not publicly,” he added, almost under his breath.
Warren tensed, his gaze dropping to the hand at Burke’s throat.
“Feel that?” Burke murmured, his storm eyes narrowing under dark brows. “That feeling of helplessness you have now? That feeling of knowing that you would burn the world for her…if only she would let you?”
Warren stiffened. Of course, he felt it. The feeling took hold somewhere under his left ribs from that very first night. He held her in his arms, feeling the way she trembled. She was so delicate, and yet so strong, daring to make her life her own. Like Warren, she wanted to be free. He wanted to fly with her. Birds of a feather.
But only in the dark of night. Only when there were no others around to see them fly.
“That’s the game, Warren,” Burke said, giving him a knowing look. “Go down the path you’ve chosen, and you will have to live with this feeling forever. Are you strong enough? Are you strong enough in the light of day to pretend that she’s not yours?”
Warren was still as stone, his mind racing as his heart pounded.
“Because if you are not,” Burke hedged. “Then you need to take off that coat and go rejoin the party.” He raised a hand and wrapped it around his wrist. “But if you can accept now that in society’s eyes she will always belong to another man, you can be free of the pain that it brings you.”
He stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”
Burke just gave him a knowing look. “She may walk in daylight on his arm,” he murmured. “But in the dark of night, she always comes running back to you. They both do.”
Warren let out the breath, his grip easing on Burke’s cravat. “Is that the great secret to your devil may care attitude? Placid acceptance that your wife belongs to another man?”
“Not quite,” he replied, the storm brewing brighter in those grey eyes.
“Well?”
His smile widened. “We have a rather strict rule in our house,” he replied. “She can belong to him and he to her…but they all belong to me. See, it’s easy to think she is the center, as the shared object of our affection. Or perhaps James, as the one with the highest rank and power. But I am the true center, Warren. They are mine,” he growled. “It does not matter that I cannot say it out loud, that I cannot show the world. They know they belong to me.”
Warren inched back, his mouth curled down in a grimace. “Why are you telling me all this?”
Burke just shrugged. “Because you and I are second sons, Warren. More than that, we’re bastards. But we deserve happy endings too. We deserve to win…in our way.”
Warren huffed a surprised laugh as the truth all but slapped him in the face. “You gave her the letters, didn’t you?”
Burke shook his head, lips pursed. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He leaned forward, giving Warren’s wrist a tap. “Now, if you’ll let me go, I must tend to my wife. I think if you check outside, you’ll find yours is waiting in the carriage.”
Warren blinked, letting go of Burke’s cravat. Not waiting for one more smart word to slip from the man’s lips, he turned and bolted out the front door.
He jogged across the dark front garden, already spying the outline of the duke’s carriage waiting at the end of the lane. The footman stood in his livery, his cheeks pink from the cold. “Madeline,” he called, jerking open the garden gate. His boots crunched in the snow. “Madeline—”
“She’s not within,” said the footman.
Warren slid to a stop. “What?”
“She said that the carriage was too full now that Captain Renley was back,” he replied. “She said she’d rather walk—”
“And you just let her go?” he growled, still itching to punching something bloody.
The young footman’s eyes went wide. “She-she said she liked to walk. Said she wanted the exercise—”
“God damn it, you fool. It’s nearly a mile back to Alcott, and it is dark outside!”
“She said she knew the way—”
Warren shoved past him, hearing his yelp of surprise as the lad tumbled into a snowbank. But Warren was already on the move, jogging down the lane in the direction of the house.
