Page 72 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

“I knew I shouldn't have taken him, before I did it. I took him anyway because he was the fastest one there, and you always seem so solid on him… Seraphina says I'm going to kill myself before I'm thirty.”

Evander tried to smile but it wouldn’t come.

“She's probably right,” Frederick continued, the words raw and too real. “I know she is not easy. You don’t need to tell me. We fight more than I expected – more than I thought two people who loved each other were supposed to fight. She is difficult, and she is sometimes unkind. But…” He paused to breathe. “But I love her, don’t I? I have loved her for too long. Lying here, the only thing I keep thinking about is whether she is all right. Is someone with her?”

“Aurelia.”

Frederick closed his eyes. “Good.”

Just then, the door opened. And Seraphina came in.

If Evander were being honest, she looked terrible. He had never thought he would think that about Seraphina, but it was true. Her hair was loose, her eyes swollen, and she was still in yesterday's dress. She took a moment to brace herself, he saw, before she took in the sight of Frederick where he lay.

“Freddy,” she said. Her voice cracked on the name.

“My darling,” he said.

She crossed the room to him and sat carefully on the edge of the sofa. She took his hand in both of hers and pressed her face to it and held on. Frederick's eyes closed, and his free hand came up to her hair.

Evander knew he had to leave. He looked at Seraphina once, a warning look. But she was entirely elsewhere, with Frederick, and there was nothing left to say. He went to the door and shut it quietly behind him.

He stood there for a moment, thinking. He could hear the staff in the kitchen below, that sound of Carrstone beginning its day. Moore was talking to someone in the entrance hall, asking to prepare another room.

He thought about Aurelia upstairs, or wherever she was, with her smile and the way she had said she loved him with so much certainty it had undone him.

He pushed off the wall where he had been thinking, and he went to find his wife, willing himself not to think about Frederick, about what would happen to him, to all of them.

Aurelia was standing by the window in their shared sitting room, when he found her, a hand pressed against the glass. When she turned, his heart squeezed. He loved her, this woman. He was so glad he could finally admit it to himself and to her.

“Is he…?” she asked nervously, biting her lip.

“Seraphina is with him,” Evander said, not wanting to talk about Frederick’s condition for the time being. He would tell her later.

“Heavens… Who knows how that conversation will go? I only hope she thinks about your brother, and about what’s best for him.”

“Even if she does not, I will.”

Aurelia smiled and came away from the window. “You are a good brother.”

“What were you thinking about?” he asked as she stepped into his open arms. “When you were staring out of that window?”

“I was trying to imagine the grounds at the height of summer. I was thinking what changes I would make.”

“You may change what you like.”

She drew back and looked at him, thunderstruck. “You cannot mean that, Evander. You love this house. You will not let my butcher it.”

“This house…” He ran his hands down her arms, taking her hands and bringing them to his lips. “This house is second in my esteem, my heart, to you, now. Butcher it. Tear down the walls. Rip up the foundations, if it pleases you.”

Aurelia laughed breathily, shaking her head. “How could I do that to this house that reminds me so much of you? I love it. I love you. I will protect both so long as I live.”

“Which will be a very long time, with me,” he whispered, kissing her forehead.

“Yes,” she agreed. “So let’s start not with a sledgehammer but with some seeds. I am thinking… a rhododendron garden, built around that crumbling southern wall?”

“That sounds lovely.”

“We could take walks there in late spring when the trees will bloom. You and me… Our family… Freddy when he is well.” She held him tight. “Yes, I think that sounds lovely. All these things that will happen to us… The things that will grow…”