Kissing the Rake (Howertys #2)

Chapter 22: The Night Before (pt 1)

"I can't believe you snatched her up right in front of my eyes."

"For the love of..." Jacob gave Gowthorpe a disgusted look. "Are you really making an issue out of this?"

Gowthorpe looked rather disgruntled, giving him the impression that he was going to make an issue out of it, indeed. "I tell you I think Jessica is an excellent match, and a few weeks later you're marrying her," his friend said. "It's not the first time you've decided to best me, though admittedly you've never done it in such poor taste before."

Leaning his shoulder against the wall of the Davenhall house where they stood in the garden, he couldn't do much but stare at Gowthorpe. "I know you turn into a dimwit when you've had a few drinks," he drawled. "But this beats all."

"Are you denying you like to steal my women?"

He grinned. "No. I have done that," he happily agreed, then sobered up instantly. "However, this is an entirely different issue. I'm actually marrying Jessica, in case you haven't noticed. Do you really think I would take it this far if all I wanted to do was beat you to it?"

Sighing, Gowthorpe ran a hand through his blond hair. "No, I suppose not. It just took me by surprise. I could hardly believe it when Angel sent a note to me in London saying I should come here for your wedding."

Jacob shrugged and took a sip from the brandy snifter he'd brought outside with him. "It took me quite by surprise as well," he admitted. "It wasn't really something I was planning on."

Gowthorpe snickered. "I've heard you were... er, coerced into it."

"That's one way of putting it." He didn't really want to go into detail on how Pensington had wanted to smash his face in and likely would have challenged him to a duel if he'd not agreed.

Truth was, he would have married her, anyway. Despite what people thought about him, he didn't go around ruining innocent ladies and then refuse to marry them. Definitely not when they carried his child. While she deserved better than him, he doubted he would have been able to watch her marry another man. Child or no child. He'd just needed to find the courage to return after running away like a bloody coward.

"You don't really want to get married yet anyway," he reminded his friend.

"I'm getting older," Gowthorpe said with a shrug. "It might be time to at least consider my possibilities."

"Good luck," he muttered, but he wasn't really taking the other man seriously. Every other year his friend started talking about settling down, but he never did more than talk.

They were both silent for a moment, contemplating their drinks, lost in their own thoughts. Then Gowthorpe finally spoke. "It won't be the same, will it?"

Jacob gave him a querying look. "What do you mean?"

"When Pensington got married, you and I still spent a lot of time about town. Chasing women. Drinking." Gowthorpe shrugged. "Enjoying being bachelors. I'll be the last one out of the three of us to get married."

"Well, get out there and find yourself a wife then."

Gowthorpe scoffed. "Hardly. I think I will enjoy my freedom a short while longer."

Putting a hand on his friend's shoulder, he said, "Do that. Enjoy it while you can, because there will come a day when you're trapped, just like the rest of us." With that, he went inside.

It was the evening before the wedding, and he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. He wasn't nervous, not exactly. It wasn't as if he didn't know what to expect the next day. It was just... That was it. He'd never expected to get married yet, and after tomorrow he would be a married man. Jessica Howerty would be his wife. His wife. What puzzled him the most might be the fact that he didn't seem to mind as much as he thought he would. For having spent almost the entire past decade saying he would not marry, he felt surprisingly complacent about the whole ordeal.