Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle (251 page)

Scott

'Would you like to go inside?' Valerian offered.

'No, don't let me stop your work.' Beldon waved the offer away, pulling up a tall stool next to the long work table. 'I came to talk. Some things about our riddle were niggling at me,' he confessed.

Valerian nodded, pushing a wooden crate across the table. 'You can sort seeds while we talk.' He knew precisely what Beldon meant by the riddle and he could guess with approximate accuracy what Beldon had unravelled and what he hadn't.

Beldon grabbed a packet of seeds and starting sorting the menagerie by flower type. 'Good lord, what are all these for? There must be a hundred packets in here, Val.'

'They're all wildflowers. I want them for the south garden. Sort them by type, not colour,'

Valerian instructed.

'You're making plans. That must mean it feels good to be home again,' Beldon said.

Valerian looked up from his clipping and smiled gently at his friend. 'First, yes, it does feel wonderful to be home. I am finally starting on the plans I once had for this place. Second, you don't have to ease into it, Beldon. We've been friends a long time.

I'd like to think you could ask me anything and our friendship would not suffer for it.'

Beldon snorted at that and Valerian knew he was thinking of the irony of that statement, thinking that Valerian had not felt he could tell Beldon his own great secret years ago. 'Perhaps you'll think differently about why I didn't tell you, when you're done with your questions,' Valerian said softly, apologeti-

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The Viscount Claims His Bride

There was so much he had to account for.

Today would be a start.

Beldon drew a deep breath. 'All right-what do you plan to do about

now that you're

home to stay?'

Valerian chuckled, intent on the plant before him.

'It's not so easy as what I intend to do, Beldon.

Philippa's a stubborn woman. She'll do what she pleases and I am afraid she's not convinced I am in her best interest.'

Valerian looked up in time to see Beldon's brows furrow as he tried to work through his statement.

'I don't really understand the difficulty,' Beldon began. 'The two of you were in love once, she's free to pursue her own interests now and you're still in love with her. Beyond a little wooing, I don't see the problem.'

Poor Beldon, Valerian mused. He knew so much and yet so little of the details. Valerian took mercy on his friend. He set down his garden shears and leaned across the rough-hewn work table. 'Listen, Beldon. The night you found her crying in the garden, she wasn't crying because she had to forgo me and marry Cambourne. She was crying because I purposely broke her heart. She thought I was going to propose that evening.

'Instead, I told her I wanted her to marry Cambourne, that what we shared together was nothing more than a young man's dalliance.' Valerian winced at the last. Surely, Beldon would forsake his seed sorting and send him a rounder across the jaw. He deserved no less.

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Beldon stopped his sorting, his fists hardening into tight balls, white at the knuckles. 'Why would that?' His

was

an angry

brother. 'Philippa was never anything but good to you. She adored you and apparently in a way far deeper than I guessed. You were her hero.'

Valerian nodded his assent, countless images of as a young girl, hair still in braids and still short, tromping beside them during the long summers;

slightly older, still coltish

with her long legs, begging him to partner her during dance lessons.

Oh, yes, Beldon could not be more right. He'd been her hero. Once upon a time, he'd revelled in her adoration. There had been a type of strength in knowing that someone believed in him so thoroughly. The power of her young girl's adulation had got him through the darkest year of his life-the year his parents had suddenly died in a tragic hunting accident up in Scotland and he'd become the young Viscount St Just at the age of fifteen.

had been a rock, listening to him grieve when he gave in to his blacker moods. Beldon had been the consummate friend, just as Beldon's parents had been loyal to their son's young friend.

Valerian owed the family fiercely for what they'd done. They'd sheltered him, protected his inheritance when there had been concern over his young age, and, most of all, they had loved him. He'd no choice but to return that offering in when the

time came, even if it meant hurting

for the

larger good.

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The Viscount Claims His Bride

Valerian sighed, moving to a tomato plant he was growing indoors. He began

the leaves for

any fungus. 'I've felt guilty enough over the years for what happened. I've wondered if I should have handled it differently. Mostly, I blame myself for starting it in the

place.' It was easier to talk if he

kept busy.

'I am not so interested in how it started, Val, as to why it ended with a broken heart,' Beldon encouraged.

Valerian heard the unspoken message. Beldon understood how deuced awkward it was to talk about romancing one's best friend's sister. Those memories were too intimate, too private, memories that rightly should be only for him and Philippa.

'Philippa was not wrong. I had meant to propose that evening. She'd only been out a little over a month, but I'd known long before her

how I felt

about her. That afternoon, I went to speak to your father.' Valerian hazarded a quick glance at Beldon.

'My father refused you?' Beldon's reaction was incredulous. 'He loved you.' But something else was in Beldon's mind. 'The money,' Beldon said quietly. 'I came today because I spent most of last night going over the Pendennys's accounts. We would not have survived without the generous loan from Cambourne.'

Valerian gave a slight nod. 'Your father asked me to step aside. He said he was entertaining an offer from the duke.' He didn't need to say any more of the difficult words. Beldon was quickly piecing the rest of that interview together.