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“It’s my nose, you dolt,” Ernest snapped, though he couldn’t help but laugh with his friend. “Fine, and other things. I feel as though… I don’t know. As though I ruined something wonderful when I argued with Gwen in that hallway. It’s tainted now, that time between us. We can never—”

“So you discovered what every couple does eventually, which is that their sweetheart or spouse isn’t perfect,” Michael interrupted with a knowing look on his face. “That you aren’t blameless in all things. Damn it, man, this is the good bit!”

Ernest gingerly prodded his own nose and winced. “And when does the good bit start?”

“Now!” His friend looked utterly incandescent with joy as he leaned back in his hair and crossed his arms together behind his head. “Anyone can be happy when the times are good. Everyone enjoys the laughter—it’s what happens when the laughter stops and times get hard that you realize there is only one other person you want to face those times with.”

Gwen.

“Phylis,” said the man cheerfully.

“Gwen.”

“Oh, absolutely not. She’s a nightmare to be around at the best of times, always insisting she’s just as grown as the rest of us,” shot back her brother with a roll of his eyes. “But she’s somehow bewitched you—and more, she wants you. The harpy wants to argue with you for the rest of her life, apparently.”

Those words, at least, made him smile. “I don’t deserve her,” Ernest said with a sigh.

“I know,” Michael said sharply.

Oh. That was hardly the encouragement he had been looking for.

“No one does. No one deserves any of my sisters,” continued his friend with a scowl. “The day Teddy finds a willing victim will be a sorry day, indeed. I might not like them all the time, but I do want my sisters to be happy.”

Ernest grinned. “You’re a good brother, Michael.”

“I’m a terrible brother, and you should be thanking me for that on bended knee,” his friend said with a chuckle. “My frequent mistakes will make you look an excellent husband.”

A husband.

With Gwen, for the second time in his life, Ernest considered a future as a husband.

Somehow, it was completely different this time. Husband to Laura? It had been all their families had wanted, and he had never met anyone who made his pulse leap and soul cry out. What harm would it have been, to marry Laura?

But marry Gwen?

That was an entirely different matter. That thought didn’t just make his heart leap and soul cry out; Ernest’s whole being knew that being Gwen’s husband was the only state he wanted to be in for the rest of his life. Being without her… It was unthinkable.

“Besides, I need you around for the celebration next Tuesday,” Michael said cheerfully.

Ernest was wrenched from his reverie and looked up, blinking. “‘Celebration’?”

His friend beamed. “Celebration. Phylis is with child.”

‘With—With child’? “Congratulations!” he said heartily before adding—because he could not help it, “And you want to advertise that fact? I mean, is that not a little soon? You were only wed a few months ago—”

“Oh, and you can talk, Mr. Bedding My Sister and Then Running Away From Her?” asked Michael with a raised eyebrow.

Guilt once again seared through Ernest. “Right. Right.”

And he was going to make it right. The only way he knew how.

Then his spirits sank. “Gwen isn’t going to take me back.”

Her brother snorted. “She will!”

Ernest thought back to the argument they’d had, the strong words he’d thrown at her in the hallway of her parents’ home. “I don’t know about that. I was a mite…unfair. And direct.”

But despite his words, Michael was pursing his lips, clearly holding back a smile. “Oh, and Gwen never is? Besides, I have a plan…”