resolutely. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think you’d do well to listen to your grandfather for once. Grow up. Be a man.”
If they weren’t driving through crowded streets, Quin would draw Jonas’s cork for that comment. “I’m as much a man as my father ever was.”
“Precisely the problem. What happened to wanting to be better than him?” Jonas navigated the phaeton around a sharp turn, nodding and tipping his hat to a passing carriage. “Why are you content to live the same life he did—only perhaps to a greater extent? I wonder what your mother must think of you these days.”
Blast. Quin hated it with a blinding passion when Jonas was right. “Mother is none of your concern. She is perfectly content in her new marriage, and thoroughly oblivious to my pursuits.” Thank God. He would hate himself more than he already did if she could see what a wastrel he’d become. “It’s better this way.”
“Better how? Better that you never see her? She loves you. She wants you to finally be happy. Like I do. And what of your sister? Nia wouldn’t recognize you if she saw you.” Jonas shook his head and looked away.
Quin ground his jaw. Nia was far better off without him in her life. Jonas should leave her out of this.
The phaeton rolled over a deep rut in the road, bumping them against each other even more than they already were. “Can’t you see that it would hurt your family to see you acting like this?” Jonas asked after a protracted silence.
“Acting like what? Like a gentleman who is doing the right thing? Like a bloody dandy about to tie myself irrevocably to some silly chit I’ve known for less than a day?”
“Like a wounded bear, acting out against everyone around you, Quin,” Jonas muttered. “You’re acting out against me, against Rotheby, and now you’ve gone and drawn Miss Hyatt into your mess. When are you going to accept the fact that you can’t change the past, you can’t change the man your father was, but you can damned well change who you are?”
“I can’t. I am who my father made me.”
And he would bloody well stay that way until he died.
Chapter Eight
2 April, 1811
Marriage — real, true marriage — is not something I’ve ever really allowed myself to contemplate. After seeing what happened between Mother and Father for so many years, it is the last thing in the world I wanted. Yet now, I will be married whether I want it or not. Tomorrow, in fact. Oh, dear good Lord. How did I end up in this mess? Still, Lord Quinton does look to be quite the pirate. Perhaps at least a marriage to him will be adventurous. Do I want adventure? I’m not certain. I simply do not want boredom. So I shall hope that my pirate will not bore me to tears. And perhaps someday we will learn to love one another. I can always hope. Lust, at least, appears to be in no short supply.
~From the journal of Miss Aurora Hyatt
Everything felt numb.
Aurora couldn’t afford to feel. If she allowed herself to feel, then she would collapse beneath the enormity of it all.
Father had kept to himself in his study since Lord Quinton left that morning. When she did see him, the look upon his face was so pitiful she wanted to toss herself kicking and screaming upon her bed. She was the cause of his despair. He hadn’t appeared so despondent since the days when her mother was still alive.
Rose continued to check on her, asking if Aurora needed anything. Aurora wanted to wail each time her maid asked such a question, because it only reminded her of how fast it was all to happen. How the wedding she had once hoped never to have at all would not take place at St. George’s and be attended by all and sundry, but instead would be held at some tiny parish church, with only those who absolutely must attend present. How, within such a short breadth of time, she’d made the one mistake that would mean leaving her father—the one person in the world she held the most dear. But if she
If they weren’t driving through crowded streets, Quin would draw Jonas’s cork for that comment. “I’m as much a man as my father ever was.”
“Precisely the problem. What happened to wanting to be better than him?” Jonas navigated the phaeton around a sharp turn, nodding and tipping his hat to a passing carriage. “Why are you content to live the same life he did—only perhaps to a greater extent? I wonder what your mother must think of you these days.”
Blast. Quin hated it with a blinding passion when Jonas was right. “Mother is none of your concern. She is perfectly content in her new marriage, and thoroughly oblivious to my pursuits.” Thank God. He would hate himself more than he already did if she could see what a wastrel he’d become. “It’s better this way.”
“Better how? Better that you never see her? She loves you. She wants you to finally be happy. Like I do. And what of your sister? Nia wouldn’t recognize you if she saw you.” Jonas shook his head and looked away.
Quin ground his jaw. Nia was far better off without him in her life. Jonas should leave her out of this.
The phaeton rolled over a deep rut in the road, bumping them against each other even more than they already were. “Can’t you see that it would hurt your family to see you acting like this?” Jonas asked after a protracted silence.
“Acting like what? Like a gentleman who is doing the right thing? Like a bloody dandy about to tie myself irrevocably to some silly chit I’ve known for less than a day?”
“Like a wounded bear, acting out against everyone around you, Quin,” Jonas muttered. “You’re acting out against me, against Rotheby, and now you’ve gone and drawn Miss Hyatt into your mess. When are you going to accept the fact that you can’t change the past, you can’t change the man your father was, but you can damned well change who you are?”
“I can’t. I am who my father made me.”
And he would bloody well stay that way until he died.
Chapter Eight
2 April, 1811
Marriage — real, true marriage — is not something I’ve ever really allowed myself to contemplate. After seeing what happened between Mother and Father for so many years, it is the last thing in the world I wanted. Yet now, I will be married whether I want it or not. Tomorrow, in fact. Oh, dear good Lord. How did I end up in this mess? Still, Lord Quinton does look to be quite the pirate. Perhaps at least a marriage to him will be adventurous. Do I want adventure? I’m not certain. I simply do not want boredom. So I shall hope that my pirate will not bore me to tears. And perhaps someday we will learn to love one another. I can always hope. Lust, at least, appears to be in no short supply.
~From the journal of Miss Aurora Hyatt
Everything felt numb.
Aurora couldn’t afford to feel. If she allowed herself to feel, then she would collapse beneath the enormity of it all.
Father had kept to himself in his study since Lord Quinton left that morning. When she did see him, the look upon his face was so pitiful she wanted to toss herself kicking and screaming upon her bed. She was the cause of his despair. He hadn’t appeared so despondent since the days when her mother was still alive.
Rose continued to check on her, asking if Aurora needed anything. Aurora wanted to wail each time her maid asked such a question, because it only reminded her of how fast it was all to happen. How the wedding she had once hoped never to have at all would not take place at St. George’s and be attended by all and sundry, but instead would be held at some tiny parish church, with only those who absolutely must attend present. How, within such a short breadth of time, she’d made the one mistake that would mean leaving her father—the one person in the world she held the most dear. But if she
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