To Love a Lord (The Heart of a Duke #5)(2)

Alas, his sister was of an altogether different mind frame. “I’ve no intentions of wedding.”

His gut tightened. By the life they’d lived, the horrors she’d been subjected to, was it a wonder that she’d avow the marital state? “Surely you recognize you have to eventually wed.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t. I’ll be quite content as the spinsterish aunt who bounces my nieces and nephews upon my knee.” Chloe folded her arms across her chest. “Perhaps we’d both be better served by focusing our attentions on finding you a match.”

He blinked. “Me?”

She gave a vigorous nod. “You.”

Within the confines of his gloves, his palms grew moist and he dusted them along the sides of his breeches. “I don’t care to discuss my marital state,” he muttered and grabbed his snifter, particularly because there was no marital state for him, nor would there ever be. He took another swallow of the remaining contents and then set down the empty glass.

An inelegant snort escaped his sister. “Of course you don’t.” She paused. “Any more than I do. But,” she held a finger up and wagged it under his nose. “You are in far greater need of a spouse than I am.”

“Am I?” he drawled, feigning nonchalance.

Alas, by the triumphant glint in her gaze, his astute sister had already gathered his disquiet and pressed her advantage. God, she was ruthless. All of Boney’s forces would have been hopeless under her dogged tenacity. She waved her gloved fingertip once more. “Oh, yes. There is the matter of you producing an heir.”

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I will not discuss the matter of an heir with you.” Or anyone. Wisely his sister fell silent.

Alas, Chloe had never been one to stay quiet for long.

“I am merely pointing out that it is far more important that you wed.” A twinkle lit her eyes. “Particularly with your advancing years.”

For a long time he’d warred within himself about that obligation expected of him. To wed and produce an heir, he’d preserve a line once held by a monster. What an ultimate victory over that bastard who’d sired them, who’d loved the line more than anything and everything—to let it die and go to some distant, removed cousin. “There is Alex,” Gabriel pointed out. For with his brother wed, the line wouldn’t die with him.

She opened her mouth to continue her debate, but with glass in hand, he strode past her. “My marital state is neither here nor there,” he said in clipped tones, as he reclaimed his familiar seat behind his desk. He cradled his glass in his hands. “I am worried over your being alone since Imogen and Alex married.” Chloe had always been a rather lonely girl until she’d met Lady Imogen. Now since the wedding between her best friend and brother, Chloe had become that same solitary person. “Mother has written and is concerned about you and your Season.” Perhaps he had more of his bastard father in him than he’d ever suspected for he pounced on his sister’s weakness. “She will leave Philippa’s side if it means you require her presence.” It was a bold, blatant lie.

“No.” The denial sprung from his sister. Some of the fight drained from her shoulders. She stomped over to the desk and then sat in the leather winged back chair. A golden curl fell over her brow. “I would not dare take her from Philippa’s side.”

Guilt needled his conscience. He’d known that her unflinching sisterly devotion would quell all arguments on her behalf. He took solace in knowing he merely sought to do what he’d failed to do as a youth—protect her. “I expect one of Mrs. Belden’s instructors to arrive within a fortnight.”

Chloe groaned and sprawled in the chair. “Does it have to be one of Mrs. Belden’s instructors?” She flung an exaggerated hand over her brow. “I understand Imogen and Alex are otherwise pulled away from Society events,” she pointed her eyes to the ceiling to indicate just what she thought of her favorite brother and best friend’s subsequent abandonment. “But surely there is someone, anyone, other than one of those dour, frowning, miserable beings?”

Despite himself, his lips twitched with amusement. “I’m afraid not.” Seated thusly, she resembled more the dramatic girl who’d slipped from the nursery and sought sanctuary in hidden corners of this very home to craft magical kingdoms in which to escape. His smile withered. At what point had she ceased to believe in hope and magic? After all, a person dwelling in hell always knew that one particular moment to so shatter your illusions of hope and happiness.

A curl tumbled over her eye and she blew it back on a huff of annoyance. “All those dratted instructors speak on are matters of marriage and proper husbands and proper decorum and…” She waved her hand. “Everything proper.”

In short, the woman who’d be assigned to his sister for the next two months was bloody perfect and, God willing, would be able to rationalize with his sister when he’d never been able to. “It is temporary,” he assured her.

“I’ve agreed to your foisting me off on a companion so you can be free of me, I do not, however, want a Belden dragon.”

Guilt tugged once more. “Is that what you believe?” His siblings all possessed such a low opinion of him. Then how could they not when he’d so failed to care for them as he had?