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‘You’re the Duke now,’ she’d said, her voice still soft from years of tiptoeing around his father. ‘You are no longer simply Philip.’
And he had not been Philip. Not once since.
He’d become the Duke of Brigham, wholly and completely. He had made a new man of himself. Briggs.
Ironically, that was what his father had wanted all along and it had taken the bastard dying for Briggs to accomplish it.
Still, he had not found school easy and the process hadn’t occurred overnight. When it came to friends...
In truth, he had precisely one.
And it was Hugh.
Hugh sighed and turned away from him, as if gathering his thoughts. Or just perhaps reining in his desire to punch Briggs in the face.
He imagined, had he been anyone else, Hugh would have attacked him on sight. It was only the strength of the connection between them that he didn’t. Hugh had been Briggs’s first friend, and in the end, he felt that Hugh was the only true friend he had even now.
While he might understand the rules to society now, while he did not require Hugh to act as a guide any
longer, he did not feel a connection to anyone else.
In truth, he knew Hugh felt the same. They’d both had the full weight of their titles thrust upon them far younger than they should have. They had navigated those dark waters where boys became men. And the rarer passages of boys becoming dukes. And they had done so together.
It was that history now which kept Briggs from certain death and he knew it.
Also what kept him back from challenging Hugh in return, a defence of his own honour justifiable under the circumstances.
It was not his fault Beatrice had thrown her body against his.
A body that was quite a bit softer than he had ever allowed himself to imagine...
‘Yes. Because I do believe that you are man of honour, and you would at least confess your sins, even if you had sinned in such a manner.’
‘If you will not believe that I would never compromise your sister, then please do believe that virgins have no interest for me. If you will recall, I have already had a lady wife who could not bear me.’ He did not speak of Serena. Ever. It was a mark of just how exceptional the situation was that he did so now.
‘What happened with Serena was not...’
‘I do not need your reassurance, Kendal, particularly not when I stand before you with the choice of marrying your sister or taking your bullet. It is rather duplicitous, do you not think?’
‘You’re my friend, even if I would like to shoot you at the moment.
‘Honour is everything,’ Kendal said.
‘I know. And you know I share your feeling. I understand why you must see the world as you do, given the way your father set about salting the earth of morality while he drew breath. But you must not think it would be a good thing for your sister to...’
‘A marriage in name only,’ Kendal said. ‘Society will never have to know of your arrangement. You have always been good to her. Protect her, as I wished to do.’
‘Do you not think your sister might have something to say about that? You consigning her to a marriage only in name?’
The alternative...well, Briggs could not see it. His father had died when Briggs was so young, he had been resolute in his need to marry and produce an heir as quickly as possible. He had married Serena when he was twenty-one. And had lost her at twenty-three.
He had been infatuated with Serena and he had been so certain...
He had been so certain love would grow between them. If not love, at least a friendship.
He had been naive.
He had interpreted her mercurial nature as something exciting. The scope and change of her moods like a tide. So stark was the ebb and flow of them that he could read them easily.
