An Inconvenient Arrangement (Inconvenient Matches Book #2)

A Father's Confession

1809

Raphael knew by the way his father was downing wine at dinner that this was going to be one of those nights. He should have known better than to come home this week, his father always grew melancholy this time of year and it was becoming increasingly difficult to watch him descend into the pit of grief every time the anniversary of his divorce came around. He would not have come if it had not been for the fact that Thomas was off to war, he had purchased a commission to join the army and he was to leave the next day.

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

"Not nearly enough," his father grinned at him, clearly already three sheets to the wind. Raphael took a breath to brace himself as his father raised a glass. "Salud."

Three full glasses later the Marquess of Lindsey was half drooping into his third course.

"I don't understand why you do this to yourself," Rafael snapped as he rounded the table and helped his father up, "making a spectacle of yourself in front of the servants, year after year. You've secluded yourself from society, how many years has it been since you were in London? Not since I can recall, in any case. If you're so damn lonely, remarry, for God's sake."

His father hiccupped and mumbled a reply as Rafe forced him to his feet and pushed him out the door and up the stairs to his suite. As Rafe entered the room, he saw his father's valet waiting to help him undress. Raphael dismissed him, not wanting yet another witness to his father's disgrace. He forced the Marquess to wash his face with the cold water in his basin and then to drink a glass of water. When he looked marginally more sober, he told him to get into bed and try and sleep his melancholic mood off.

His father settled beneath his covers and stared up at the ceiling.

"I would give anything in this world to hear her call me James again," his father sighed so dejectedly that Raphael felt his own heart twist.

"Why did you do it?"

"Hmm?"

"Divorce her. You had all the power. If seeing her married to another man hurts you this much, why did you do it?"

"Penance, I suppose," his father's smile was rueful and self-deprecating. "You see, son, when you refuse to cherish something infinitely precious, someone else will come along and do it instead."

"I don't understa-"

"We met when we were very young, she was the daughter of an Earl who lived in the property that used to border are lands, here in Carlisle. We had known each other since childhood, and it was always....understood that we would get married. It was never a conscious decision I made but neither can I say that we were forced; but there were expectations from both families. We had always been friends, gotten along well so I didn't particularly mind the prospect of having her as my wife or future Marchioness. When we began formally courting, our feelings for each other changed quickly from friendship to what I now see was love. She was always so loving and affectionate-"

His father fell into a melancholy silence as Raphael tried to reconcile the young woman he was describing and the frigid woman she was whenever she and his father were together. How was it possible for this to go from one extreme to the other?

"Every time we made love, she would hold me so sweetly," to Raphael's horror he heard his father begin to weep. The Marquess traced a finger across his collar, "and she would kiss me right across here, every time. It splayed me open in ways I had no idea how to deal with. It made me vulnerable in ways I hated so fiercely that I wronged her instead of letting her have all of me. People of our ilk rarely ever see our parents love one another, not when so many matches are made for some sort of gain, God knows I never saw my parents together save for when they had to make public appearances. I thought it was strange to be so taken with my wife, a belief that was further reinforced by people whom I called friends. I was young and stupid, one and twenty; just three years older than you are now. They told me the only way to cure myself of this malady was to find another woman who could entertain me. It was, after all, what men like us did. No one would bat an eye at a Viscount taking a mistress. It was not like a wife could do anything about it. It was only much later that I would see that these so-called friends were miserable in their own marriages, but I was not. At least not until I had lost your mother for good."