"Ines?" he managed to say. His voice, to his own surprise, was perfectly, utterly, calmly neutral. It cost him everything to make it so.
"Yes, Ines," Rowan said, his voice a sigh of pure, bitter, frustration. He did not seem to notice Carcel’s sudden, terrifying stillness. He was too lost in his own.
"She will soon be turning twenty-two."
Carcel... blinked.
This was... this was not what he had expected.
He realized, with a lurch, that Rowan was not talking about them.
Rowan, oblivious to the fact that his best friend had just, in his own mind, prepared for his own, immediate, and well-deserved death, continued. He was not angry. He was... miserable.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut again.
"Twenty-two," he repeated, as if the number itself were a curse. "Other ladies... other, normal ladies... they marry as early as sixteen. No later than twenty. But Ines... Ines had her debut at sixteen."
He let out another long, tired, sigh. "Six seasons, Carcel. Six."
He let his hand fall, his gaze, full of a deep, hopeless regret, finding Carcel’s.
"I should have stopped her," he whispered, his voice full of self-loathing. "I should have... I should have burned them."
"Burned what?" Carcel asked, his voice still quiet.
"Her books," Rowan said, his voice full of a sudden, sharp, bitter anger. "I should have stopped her from reading those damned... books."
Carcel’s hands, which had been resting, calmly, on the arms of his chair, clenched.
The books.
"To be honest," Rowan continued, his voice flat, "even though she is... getting to that age... her prospects aren’t bad."
Carcel felt a new, strange, and deeply unpleasant sensation. A cold, sharp, jolt in his gut.
"Despite her... her cold demeanor," Rowan said, "her reputation as the ’Icy Lady’... her dowry is... well. You know. It is one of the largest in England. A few men... a few very suitable men... have proposed."
Carcel was very, very still. He had not known this. Proposed? he thought. Men? Who? When?
He had a sudden, violent, and entirely un-brotherly image of a Lord, a Baron, an Earl or even a Duke, his hand on her arm. He felt his own hands, his large, capable hands, clench on the arms of his chair.
Rowan, lost in his own misery, did not notice.
"But Ines..." he groaned, his head falling back against the chair. "Is Infatuated. She is infatuated with those... those books. She read them, and she... she declared she wouldn’t marry."
He paused. "Unless... unless it was for ’true love.’"
He said the words, "true love," as if they were a fantasy. As if they were non existent.
"And she has been unwavering," he said, his voice a low, bitter, and defeated sound. "Since she was sixteen. She has said ’no.’ To everyone. To everything."
He relaxed on the chair, a gesture of pure, abject, surrender. He ran his fingers, his shaking, exhausted fingers, through his messy hair.
"All those useless, stupid, romance novels," he hissed. "They ruined her. They have... they have addled her brain. She is a twenty-one-year-old woman, but she has the mind of a child. She... she can’t differentiate between reality... and fiction."
Carcel just... sat.
He sat, and he listened.
And he felt... he felt a strange, cold, calm settle over him.
Rowan, his best friend, was sitting three feet away from him, describing, in perfect, painful detail, a problem that Carcel himself was... solving.
Rowan was wrong.
Ines wasn’t ruined by those books. She was... curious. She wasn’t a child. She was, he knew, with a certainty that was bone-deep, a brilliant, passionate, and brave woman, who was, quite logically, testing her fiction against reality.
Rowan, his eyes still closed, his voice a low, tired, defeated murmur, delivered the final, devastating, blow.
"So I have been looking," he whispered with a smile, his voice so quiet, Carcel had to lean in to hear it.
"Looking?" Carcel asked, his own voice a low, careful, dangerous sound.
"At the clubs," Rowan said, his voice full of a weary, self-hating disgust. "At the... the card tables. At the parties. I have been... I have been looking around. For a suitable groom. A... a man who is not a fool. A man who is... kind. A man who is patient."
He opened his eyes. They were haunted.
"A man," he finished, his voice breaking, just a fraction, "she might... she might fall for."
The silence in the room was absolute.
Carcel’s expression, which had been a mask of calm, brotherly concern, of neutral, friendly inquiry, did not change.
It did not, outwardly, change at all.
But inside... inside, he hardened.
It was not a hardening of anger. It was a hardening of... resolve.
He was watching his best friend. His oldest, dearest, and most beloved friend. A man he loved like a brother. And he was listening to this man, in his exhaustion, and his grief, describe, in perfect, painful detail, a plan.
A plan to find a man. A "suitable groom." A man for Ines to fall for.
And Carcel, who had, only hours ago, held Ines in his arms... who had felt her shatter... who had, in the cold, clear, light of day, praised her writing...was just sitting , listening to all these words.
A... a groom?
He was... groom-hunting.
"You are... interviewing suitors?" he asked. His voice was low. It was cold. It was, he noted, from a very, very, great distance, shaking, just slightly, with a rage he did not know he was capable of.
"Of course not," Rowan scoffed, oblivious. "I am... I am observing. I am... I am listening to gossip. I am finding men of good character, and good title, who are not... profligates. It is... it is exhausting. But I must."
"And," Carcel said, his voice flat, each word a piece of glass in his mouth, "have you... found... anyone?"
"There are... possibilities," Rowan admitted, rubbing his tired eyes. "Lord Alvington. He is... quiet. Very quiet. But his estate is sound. No debts. And... and Viscount Grayson."
Carcel went still. Grayson.
"Grayson," he said, his voice no longer just cold, but flat, and dead, and final, "is an idiot."
Rowan looked up, startled by his friend’s sudden, sharp, venom. "He is not an idiot, Carcel, he is just... he is quiet. And he is... he is interested. He asked after her, at the hunt. He would be... he would be a good choice."
Carcel thought to his himself. " Rowan wanted to lock her in a "safe" cage. With a boring, idiot. A man who would... who would never... understand her. A man who would see her "diary" and have her committed. A man who would...
He frowned.