Always the Rival (Never the Bride Book 7)

mother, that was when…when everything went wrong. You think there cannot be anything worse than losing a child, but in a way, it was the beginning of the end for her. My father died not long after, broken heart, and my uncle –my mother’s brother – was lost at sea a week later. Three of the four most precious people to her, lost in three months.”
He could feel his jaw clenching as it always did when he was grieving, or frustrated, and angry. That year had begun with cheer and happiness with Uncle Howard back on land and his sister laughing as she performed on the pianoforte for the first time in public.
By Easter, that room had been emptied of all he loved, save his mother.
“I am so sorry,” Westray murmured, and Charles knew he was genuine. “I did not mean to offend. Damnit, Orrinshire, you know me better than that.”
“I know, do not worry, old thing. No offense was meant, and none was taken,” Charles said heavily. “But now it is just the two of us, and Mama and I are perhaps closer than most mothers and sons at my age. If Mary had lived…well. Everything would have been different.”
Silence fell between the two friends, but it was a silence of comfort and understanding. Westray was an orphan himself, Charles remembered. Parents lost at sea when he was a child. He had never known the closeness of a mother, the protection of a father. Who was to say that he, Charles, was the one to be most pitied?
“I saw, isn’t that your friend…Petunia, or something?”
Charles looked up, and a smile broke across his face. Priscilla, and once again, she had decided to raid her jewelry box. She was an absolute delight in a sea of Miss Nothings—an elegant, sloping gown in a yellow that was almost golden. There was more gold thread embroidered in that silk than in the Regent’s crown, he was sure of that, and a plume of gold feathers billowed from her hair.
Something lurched in his stomach, and his breathing faltered.
“Priscilla,” he whispered.
As though able to catch her own name from across a crowded room, she turned, and her eyes met his. She smiled, a smile that heated his body, and she began to walk toward them.
“Christ, Orrinshire, you never mentioned she was absolutely beautiful,” Westray breathed. “Is she attached to anyone, do you know?”
“I…I do not know,” said Charles, surprised to think he had never asked the question before. “And I have to admit, I never noticed before. Not in that way.”
Not in the way that sensational ladies become renowned for their beauty. As Priscilla wove through the crowd, her body moved in an alluring way that had a disconcerting effect on his own.
But this was Priscilla! Little Prissy Seton, as she had been when a child.
Charles swallowed. She was not a child any longer.
By this time, she had reached them and dropped into a low curtsey.
“Well, Orrinshire,” Westray said with an approving smile. “Won’t you introduce me?”
“Of course, of course. Lord Westray, Miss Priscilla Seton. Miss Seton, Jack Beauvale, Lord Westray. Jacob, sorry – we have known each other for too long.”
Westray bowed. “And may I say, Miss Seton, that you are incomparably beautiful this evening – and I would suppose every evening. How does it feel to know you are the most delectable woman in the room?”
Priscilla smiled and tilted her head as she replied, “Why, Lord Westray, how does it feel to trot out the same platitudes to every lady you meet? I would have hoped for originality, at the very least.”
They both laughed, and their conversation continued as Charles was overcome by an emotion he rarely felt. It tasted bitter, churned his stomach, and made him want to call out Westray immediately for a duel outside.
It took a few moments to realize what it was.
Jealousy.
He felt jealous, jealous of Priscilla! The bitter green emotion flooded through him as he was forced to watch Westray flirt with her, a possessiveness he had never known creeping through the veins of his heart and poisoning them.
What right had he to feel jealous? Priscilla was not his sister that he should act in such a controlling manner. But seeing her here, in that gown, with those feathers in her hair…the curve of her cheek, the way her chest moved as she laughed at Westray’s jests…
That laughter used to be for him. He could always make her laugh, even when in the doldrums, and now it was Westray, Westray, who was making her smile and glow.
Charles glanced at his friend and saw the telltale signs of desire. He leaned closer to her, lowering his voice so she would be forced to take a step closer.
The instinct to pull them apart and punch Westray in the mouth rose in Charles’s heart like an ocean, but he allowed it to flow away into nothingness. This was protectiveness, nothing more, surely. Priscilla was a friend, a close friend. It was natural to feel…protective.
Natural to feel like Westray should be torn limb from limb for speaking with her?
“And are you dancing with anyone, Miss Seton?”
Charles’s head twitched to stare at her, waiting for her response.
Priscilla smiled coquettishly. Where in God’s name did she learn to do that?
“No one at present,” she said lightly. “Why, Lord Westray, have you not noticed? I am talking to you.”
Westray chuckled. “Well, would you accept my hand?”
She glanced at Charles, and he felt heat rush to his cheeks as she asked, “If you have no objection?”
How was he supposed to answer a blasted question like that? To sweep Priscilla in his arms and –
No, he must not act on that particular whim.
“Of course. I mean, of course not,” he corrected hastily.
Westray offered his hand to Priscilla, who accepted it, and they moved away to join the dancers in the center of the room.
Charles watched them, feeling the bitterness and anger rising in his chest, unsure exactly what to do with the emotions. Where did they come from? Why were they