Never Fall for Your Fiancee

“Because the Standish male makes for an exceptionally bad husband.”

“At least I acknowledge my failings.”

“Is philandering such a glorious pastime? Is that why you cannot make promises?”

“I’ve told you why I cannot risk promises.” Vows were meant to last forever. “The Standish male has notoriously wandering eyes.”

“So you keep saying … although I only have your word on the matter.”

“Then allow me to enlighten you to justify my actions. My father was a philanderer, so was his father and his father before him.” Baring the soul was meant to be cathartic, yet all Hugh felt was anger, frustration, and shame admitting it.

“Aside from you, I’ve never heard a cross word said about your father.”

“That is because he could charm the birds from the trees, exactly as I can, and people only see what they want to see. Myself included. He used that dubious talent to his advantage but irrespective of the feelings of others.”

“He wasn’t a good man, then? Everyone else is wrong?”

“He was a good father. A good landlord. An excellent politician. He was forward thinking and liberal. He did a lot of good. To the whole wide world he was a good man. A great one, even, and certainly better than his father, who was universally hated. But behind closed doors, in his personal life, he was different from the public façade he cultivated and not that much different from his own father despite regularly listing that callous bastard’s many faults.”

Fifteen years of distance did nothing to prevent the bitterness rising to the surface. “Like my hideous grandfather, my father was also a liar who pursued his own pleasures to the detriment of everything and everyone else. He was unfaithful to my mother before he had even walked her up the aisle and continued to betray her throughout their marriage. Something I only learned in the weeks before his death because they both kept it from me!” When they had ripped the floor from beneath his feet, they also tore the rose-tinted veil from his eyes, and ever since he had vowed to himself he would never allow his hereditary defects to wreak such destruction.

“That doesn’t automatically mean you are of the same ilk.”

“I spent my formative years trying to emulate a man who wasn’t the man I thought he was! It is his voice in my head! His blood in my veins! By the time I realized I shouldn’t model myself on him, it was too late. The die was cast. I am more him than not.… Two peas in a pod. Isn’t that what everyone says?”

“They do, but…”

He didn’t want to hear empty platitudes. “You’ve seen all the pictures in the portrait gallery, Minerva. If you take away the clothes, the years, and the name plaques, those Standish faces are one and the same. Interchangeable, intrinsically selfish, and entirely incapable of falling in love or remaining faithful to one woman.” Deep affection wasn’t love. The constant ache in his chest wasn’t love either. The need to make her his didn’t guarantee forever.

“Have you ever tried?”

She wasn’t listening! “I know what I am, Minerva. Up until you came along, I avoided romantic attachments, knowing full well there was not enough within me to sustain them.”

“That sounds more like a convenient excuse for untangling yourself from unsavory entanglements!” Her nose was in the air, and she deigned to look at him down it. “Are you not in control of your own actions? Your own destiny?”

Her sudden resort to sarcasm galled. “I am in control of my own destiny.” Couldn’t she see that was the reason he was being so damn noble?

“Really? Then why do you continually fall back on your Standish blood to justify your terrible behavior?”

“While I am not justifying the huge mess I have made, this entire regrettably misguided charade came about because I absolutely refused to follow in my father’s footsteps.”

“Because you are incapable of falling in love or remaining faithful.”

“I never believed I was capable of either.” Although there was a good chance his deep affection might grow into love if nurtured, and he would have made a damn good attempt at remaining faithful if she had accepted his offer.

“What about Sarah?”

“Sarah!” He stopped dancing momentarily to stare at her, stunned.

“I have eyes, Hugh. Every time you see her, you behave peculiar.”

“Then clearly you need spectacles if you cannot see what everyone in this room does.”

“I see the way you look at her! Why don’t you just admit it. She broke your heart and that caused you to harden it. Perhaps you still love her—or perhaps you still feel guilty for disentangling yourself from her, too? Another unsavory entanglement which could never sully the impressive house of Standish. Because heaven forbid a common woman should taint that illustrious, noble, and tainted bloodline.”