Forbidden by Nicola Cornick

would be left to him. His lost inheritance would be the talk of the ton, at
least until the next scandal came along. He did not particularly mind; society’s
gossip had always been a matter of supreme indifference to him. What he did mind
was losing Templemore, not from pride but because he loved it.
    “Henry!” His cousin Garrick Farne was waiting for him. Garrick
was eight years his senior, his cousin on his mother’s side. He pushed out a
chair with one lazy foot, gesturing to Henry to join him at a table scattered
with the day’s newspapers and adorned with a half-full bottle of brandy and two
glasses. “I had almost given up on you,” Garrick said. “Not that I am
complaining. Our appointment saved me the tedium of Lady Dewhurst’s rout.”
    “My apologies for keeping you waiting,” Henry said. He shook
his cousin’s hand.
    Garrick made a dismissive gesture. “Always a pleasure, Henry,
late or not.” His dark eyes appraised him. “We see far too little of you, but I
know that you dislike Town.”
    Henry settled in the chair and accepted the glass of brandy
Garrick proffered. “I hope that Merryn is well?” he said. He liked Garrick’s
wife. She was a bluestocking with an intelligence as sharp as Garrick’s own.
    Garrick smiled. “Merryn is very well, thank you,” he said. “She
is enceinte .”
    “Congratulations,” Henry said. He knew how much Merryn wanted a
child. She and Garrick had been wed several years and there had been much
speculation on when they might set up their nursery.
    “Thank you.” Garrick inclined his head. “Merryn is very
relieved. I think she was afraid we might never have an heir for Farne.”
    One of Garrick’s sisters had died in childbirth. The provision
of an heir for a grand estate was often a dangerous affair and the pressure to
provide one was huge.
    “I imagine that you would rather have Merryn than any number of
heirs,” Henry said.
    It was a well-known fact in the ton that Garrick’s second
marriage had been a love match. Many people thought Garrick odd for it. Some
pitied him. Garrick did not give a damn and Henry admired him for that.
    Garrick shrugged. There was a ghost of a smile about his lips.
“How perceptive of you, Henry,” he said lightly. “As long as Merryn is in good
health I am sure all will be well.”
    The silence settled between them, comfortable as it often was
between old friends. There was no sound but for the tick of the clock on the
mantel and the hiss of a log falling in the grate. A servant passed by,
soft-footed.
    “I have news for you, too,” Henry said, after a moment.
    Garrick raised a brow. “You’re getting married. I heard the
rumors.”
    “Not anymore,” Henry said. “Your rumors lag behind the
times.”
    “Thank God,” Garrick said. “Better to embrace holy orders than
Lady Antonia Gristwood.”
    “Don’t preach,” Henry begged. “It is not given to us all to
marry for love.”
    “You made one mistake,” Garrick said mildly.
    “A colossal one,” Henry said, “given that my father was one of
many men enjoying my wife.”
    He took a mouthful of the brandy. It did not wash away the
taste of betrayal. Drink had not helped at the time, although he had tried to
lose himself in it. It did not help now.
    “Your father was a first-class cad,” Garrick said with
unimpaired calm. “And Isobel was somewhat indiscriminate in her affections.”
    Henry laughed. Indiscriminate did
not even start to cover the licentious abandon with which his wife had indulged
herself. Which was why he had been determined that the second time he married it
would be to a cold-blooded aristocrat who understood the meaning of duty. The
emotional chaos of his first choice would never be repeated.
    He moved his shoulders uncomfortably against the high velvet
back of the chair. He seldom thought about Isobel these days. Revisiting the
mistakes of his youth was a pointless exercise. Regretting the past achieved
nothing.
    Suddenly restless,