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All you can never have.
He pushed that aside.
He could not have her. Not like that. And he would not allow lingering memories of Serena, or of his father, to push him to violate his friendship with Hugh.
To put Beatrice at risk.
‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I do not.’
‘What did your father...?’
‘My father liked to humiliate. He liked those around him to feel small. Undone. And he could do so with a few well-placed words.’ And actions. His father had not hesitated to take away whatever Briggs had found himself obsessed with.
He would wait, though.
Until he had invested time and himself into it. Would wait until the loss of it had an exacting, heavy cost.
‘Briggs, I...’
‘I am not an object to be pitied. My father is rotting in the ground and I am the Duke of Brigham.’ He smiled, and he knew it did not reach his eyes. ‘I may not be perfect in regard to William but what I want is for him to avoid shame.’
‘I believe you. I do know that you only have his best interests at heart. I...’
‘You just don’t trust me. Because you’re a foolish girl who has seen nothing of the world and yet is convinced she knows the right way of it.’
He successfully cowed her then. But she rallied, and quickly. ‘Perhaps that is true. But my innocence has been forced upon me. I can learn. But what I see in William is not the product of inexperience. Quite the opposite. I recognise myself and it pains me.’
‘You see loneliness. Because it is what you felt. I did not feel lonely here.’
‘What did you feel?’
He felt a slow smile spread over his face. ‘Rage.’
Chapter Nine
Beatrice knew that she should be excited. They were headed to London just before the Season started, and Briggs had promised her new dresses.
She was not feeling excited.
Not after the way everything had happened between the two of them. She was still upset about William, and Briggs’s refusal to bring him. She was still upset about what had happened with James the day before, and still...
Deeply confused by the conversation they’d had after.
She was a jumble of feelings. None of which were sweet or strictly innocent.
Kiss him.
Her heart jolted. She did not wish to kiss him. She was angry at him.
For his heavy-handed behaviour. For the way he made her feel.
For what he made her want.
She was still ruminating on that, standing at the entry of the home, when William, Alice, and several more bags came down the stairs. ‘What is this?’ she asked Briggs, as he appeared alongside her.
‘I thought about what you said,’ he returned, his voice clipped.
‘You thought about what I said?’
