Jonathan signaled a waiter for a brandy, pulling a pack of cards from his pockets. “The entire town is gossiping about your wedding kiss. I didn’t think such a lack of decorum was in you, brother. I still cannot believe I missed your wedding. Rumor has it that the priest had to clear his throat to get your tongue out of your bride’s mouth.”
“I was thrown off balance,” Ambrose muttered into his glass. “I reacted strangely.”
“You’ve been thrown off balance for ten years, old chap, and you never reacted like that.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Jonathan said, shuffling the deck. “Celia died, Ambrose. Sometimes people just die, and you don’t get to carry that on your shoulders for the rest of your life.”
“I have made my peace with her death,” Ambrose bit out.
“Have you? It seems to me you erected walls—thick ones—around you. And the weight of her death is burying you into the ground. How is that peace?”
“And what would you know about that?”
“Like you, I carried her death on my shoulders. I thought I could have done more to help her, to protect her. I thought I could’ve doneanythingother than to allow her to live her life as she wished. It took me two years to realize Celia wanted her life exactly as she had it and that she would not have wanted that guilt for us. She’d have wanted us to live our lives to the fullest, like she did.”
“I sat beside her bed for hours, waiting, watching, as she passed on to the next life, Jonathan. It tore my heart to shreds. Don’t talk to me about what you think she wanted. All that matters is that I could have saved her. That I should have saved her.”
“No, you couldn’t have saved her, Ambrose. At best, you might have prolonged her life but not saved it. Neither of us could have done that.”
Ambrose said nothing.
“And as a result of that weight of guilt, you decided that caring for anyone beyond mere acquaintanceship was not a risk you were willing to take. You erected your walls and isolated yourself behind them.”
Ambrose did not want his brother to be right. But it was hard to deny the truth of his words. For the past ten years, things that had once brought him pleasure slowly lost all flavor and taste. Each year, with the weight of her death on him, he engaged less and less with the world as it was and instead, worked hard to shape it into what it should be. Worked on it until he had become a cold, controlling bastard with little else but his sense of control.
At least, some might say that.
“So I’m still to be married off?” Jonathan asked offhandedly, shuffling the cards.
Ambrose threw back his brandy. “Holly Middleton betrayed me.”
“Only because you made her believe you fancied her.”
Ambrose lifted his eyes to glare at his brother. Jonathan knew him better than anyone. He had always possessed the uncanny ability to see straight through him. “She wanted that fairytale. I gave it to her. At least, I did until I needed to explain what her new life required. And look at where catering to her fantasy got me! She ran off. What an impractical creature.”
Willow isn’t so impractical.
But Ambrose didn’t want to admit that there was no need to pretend to be infatuated with his wife when he was quickly becoming obsessed with kissing her.
Jonathan chuckled, dealing them a hand, and pulling Ambrose from his thoughts. “Holly Middleton ran off because she had thought the fantasywasthe reality. Your rules overwhelmed her.” Jonathan glanced up at him, a contemplative look entering his eyes. “It is a curious position you find yourself in. One that suits you, I think.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You are too tightly contained, brother. You need to unwind.”
“I’m contained just right,” Ambrose snapped, signaling for a refill. “And besides, how exactly does unwinding suit me?”
Jonathan arched a brow in response. “Well, for one, I can only imagine your lovely wife does not follow all your little house rules. I imagine some unwinding would help ease what must be constant frustration for you otherwise.”
Ambrose cut him a glance. “My wife will follow the rules. Eventually.”
If she ever bloody reads them.
Unlikely, that.
Jonathan smiled at him. “Does she know she is the only one subjected to them, that not even mother follows your rules?”
