Page 30 of In With a Chance

“Am I the reasonable one?” Ernest asked as his friend left his wife and sister and instead came to walk beside him.

“More reasonable than that oaf.”

“I heard that!”

“You were meant to!” called out Michael, as Miss Gwendoline glared over her shoulder at the pair of them.

Ernest fought the urge to step away from his friend so he was not paired with Michael when the man was irritating his sister. It was not Ernest’s job to entertain or delight Miss Gwendoline Chance. Even if he wanted to.

“So, tell me,” said Michael quietly, lowering his voice and giving his friend a look that was far too knowing, “when were you going to tell me that you had feelings for my sister?”

Ernest almost tripped over his own foot. “What? No, I don’t. What a thing to—how?”

His friend smirked. “I knew it.”

Bother. How, precisely, his friend had guessed, he did not know. Ernest had attempted to be circumspect in the number of times and the duration of his stares in the direction of Miss Gwendoline, but evidently, there were just some things one could not hide from a man you’d known for a decade.

And the desire to wildly kiss his sister was one of them.

Still, he had to at least make some effort to deny it. Ernest raised himself up and said, in as confident a manner as possible, “I have no idea what you mean. Miss Chance and I have hardly spoken.”

“I’m not talking about Teddy and you know I’m not.” Michael snorted, shaking his head even as he glanced at Miss Gwendoline, walking arm in arm with his wife ahead of them. “Does she know?”

Does she know?

She had to know. Miss Gwendoline Chance was no fool; Ernest had realized that within moments of meeting her. There was a brilliance in her sparkling mind he had found with no other woman.

And that was precisely the problem.

No other woman. The whole reason he’d left Yorkshire in the first place was because he was supposed to be trying to find a bride.

A wealthy bride.

A wealthy bride not already engaged to a man with a more important title and a bigger purse than him.

Ernest sighed. “Tell her what? I’m attracted to her, Chance—”

“Yuck!”

“Yes, I thought you’d say that.” Ernest grinned despite himself as the pair of ladies before them turned a corner and started to make their way back to the park gate. “Look, I’m no fool. I know she’s engaged. I know your family won’t want anything to happen to prevent this marriage of hers to Lord Ravenshurst—”

“Are you mad?” Michael interrupted, blinking rapidly. “We don’t want her to marry this blasted the Marquess of Ravenshurst!”

Ernest halted in his footsteps. “What?”

No. Surely, that was not possible.

A marquess! The title was second only to that of a duke, and it was remarkable, indeed, that a woman of her status… Well, Ernest could see her beauty and wit, but he was no fool. He knew that on the marriage mart, it was name and rank and fortune that made all the difference.

For the ladies, as well as the gentlemen.

Catching the eye and then the hand of a marquess was no mean feat. Ernest had just presumed, despite the family’s initial lackluster response, that they were delighted their penniless daughter had managed to claim the notice of such a man.

Michael snorted. “No, he’s dull as ditchwater and even I can admit that he has no real interest in Gwen. I might not like the woman, but she is my sister. I do love her.”

Ernest couldn’t help but smile at that. “You are odd, aren’t you?”

“It’s a brother thing,” his friend said wryly. “And you’re much more interesting than dreary Ravenshurst, and taller—”