Page 86 of The Undercover Duke
The two men faced Matthew and now it was his cheeks that filled with color. “I doubt I’m the one to tell him such, considering how long it’s been for me.”
Robert drew back. “Longer than nine months?”
Matthew cleared his throat. “I’m not sure this is a proper topic—”
“Ten months?” Robert pressed. “A year?”
“Honestly, Roseford, you are—”
“More than a year?” Robert nearly recoiled into the crowd.
Matthew let out a long sigh. He knew his bulldog of a friend, and there was no way he’d let this go until he had uncovered the number. “Fine. Three and a half years.”
Robert stared, unspeaking. Even Hugh jerked his face toward Matthew like he’d declared he had decided to take over Spain. Matthew pursed his lips and forced himself to remain impassive beneath their horrified expressions.
“How are you both not…dead?” Robert said. “You are dead, for that sounds like living in a grave.”
“Roseford,” Hugh said, voice heavy with warning.
Robert waved him off. “It’s settled, we’re going to the Donville Masquerade tonight. I have a membership and you two will come as my guests. I shall brook no refusals.”
With that, he turned on his heel and strode from the ballroom, likely to call for his carriage.
Matthew stared at Hugh and found him looking back. Brighthollow shrugged. “He isn’t entirely wrong, you know.”
“Of course he isn’t,” Matthew said. “He never is. Not entirely.”
“We probably both could use a break from our troubles. Nothing says you have to spend an evening with a lightskirt, after all.”
Matthew shifted. He rarely thought about sinful things anymore. Those thoughts had seemed so wrong after Angelica’s death. Eventually he’d just purged them from his mind and become the monk Robert had first accused Hugh of being.
“You’re right,” he said with a sigh. “And I’ll go, if only to keep him from having an apoplexy in the middle of James and Emma’s ballroom.”
They moved to say their goodbyes to their friends, but Hugh caught his arm before they could reach anyone. He tugged Matthew to face him and his expression was serious.
“You aren’t betraying her,” he said softly.
Matthew’s lips parted and he nodded. “I know.”
Except that wasn’t true. What Robert wanted from him felt exactly like a betrayal of the woman he had once loved, the one he’d lost. And that’s why he had no intention of doing it. Not even when surrounded by “temptation” at the wicked Donville Masquerade.
