“I’ve had an idea for a while now, but I think I’ll take action on it. I’m hiring a matchmaker. There’s a woman in Edinburgh with an excellent reputation. I’ve contacted her already.”
“Why would you do that?”
“So she can focus on marrying off my sisters, and I can focus on… being your brother. And finding a bride.”
If she’d not already used up all her tears, that would have turned her into a watering pot.
He elbowed her in the ribs. “Tell me something about Isabella, something I don’t know.”
“I’m in love.” The words fairly popped out of her mouth, and sheslammed her hands down on top of her lips, hoping to block the tide rising up in her from further escaping.
It came out of her eyes instead, and her brother wrapped her in his arms.
It seemed, after everything, she still possessed more tears to shed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rowan was rotting. Whether from the outside in or the inside out, he could not tell. It didn't matter which way it happened as long as it rotted away his brain first. Take the memories. Take the damn yearning. Take, please God, the knowledge that he was an ass. A fool of royal proportions. Divine proportions even. The clock in the hallway chimed twelve times, and according to the lines of light glowing around the edges of the closed curtains, those twelve chimes meant noon, not midnight.
He reached for the bottle of whisky on the table next to the chair he’d placed to face the windows he’d closed. Did it make sense? Not a bit. But it seemed to hurt the most, facing those closed curtains, remembering how she’d flung them open so easily. Seemed the best way to torture himself since his return from the ball two nights previous.
Chair, table, the curtains, the whiskey, and himself—the only remaining objects in the sitting room Isabella had so prettily decorated. No. His fingers twitched. Three other things on the table besides the bottle of whisky.
The flower he’d plucked from her hair that night.
Her hair pin.
And her stocking ribbon.
If only he could conjure an Isabella from her three possessions.
A knock on the door behind him.
“Go away, Poppins,” he groaned. “I’m busy.”
But Poppins did not go away. The door opened.
“Busy?” the admiral barked behind him. “Busy rotting?”
Rowan didn’t even flinch a muscle to face him. “Why, yes, in fact. Excellent guess.” Rowan fluttered his hand in the air above the almost empty whiskey decanter.
“No guessing about it. It reeks in here. How many days have you been pouring liquor into your body and brooding? If it’s as long as I think, not even fully two.Two, Rowan. And you’ve already sunk so damn low. Imagine what will happen once a week's gone by. Your guests will leave in droves, unable to stand the stench any longer.”
“Don't worry. I have allotted myself two point five days to wallow. At noon tomorrow, I will bathe, shave, dress, and rejoin life.” And more importantly, he'd put Isabella firmly behind him. Throw away the flower, the hair pin, the ribbon.
“I would pull up a chair and lend an ear, but there are none here but for yours. Bathe now, shave now, and come with me. The shaving is optional, but the bathing required. I know a coffeehouse where we can talk.”
“No.” Rowan downed the rest of his whiskey and snapped the glass to the table.
Heavy bootsteps, fast and loud, then the admiral was standing in front of him. “I do not particularly care for your insubordination. You will dress and come with me.”
“I'm not one of your sailors who must jump at your command.”
“You're not. You are my son, and while that does not mean you must obey me, I would hope you trust me enough to listen when I’ve your best interests at heart.”
“I'm not your son,” Rowan mumbled, hating the way the words sounded—petulant, childish, wrong.
“Of course you are. My blood may not run through your veins, and the man whose eyes you share was a good one. Brave and kind and he loved you well. But I defy the world to tell me I love you any less.” Theadmiral knelt in front Rowan, and it startled Rowan out of his haze of self-pity. Never had he seen the admiral kneel before another man. He'd knelt before his wife, a gesture of adoration and loyalty.
