In The Devil's Stables (Spirited #1)

Chapter 27

Greyson awoke the next morning with a splitting headache and the urge to gouge out his bloody eyes. Did the sun have to be so damned cheerful?

He burrowed further beneath his feather pillows, murmuring curse words as his mind returned to last evening's events.

They knew.

His mother. His sister.

They knew he had a woman in his bloody stables.

Not only that, but his sister had dropped a grenade at his feet and insisted he either pick it up or let it blow.

Four little words, Greyson thought now. That was all it had taken to break through his shoddy equilibrium.

"I wish to marry."

They had barely settled into the drawing room last evening, his mother, Lady Marianne, and his sister, Georgie, having taken a seat on the settee across from Greyson. The room had been decorated by his mother, and it glimmered with a distinctly feminine touch. A cream settee sat on the far left of the room with a Persian rug beneath. Two high-backed pink and yellow floral print chairs were set across from the settee, two matching ottomans strategically placed about the delicate pale pink walls. A fire crackled merrily in the grate. The room's chandelier swayed gently, sparkling the room with tiny, sporadic diamonds.

Greyson had been blind to it all. And he had done something quite dastardly, indeed. He allowed his eyes to fall onto the red and shiny skin of his sister's left cheek.

Guilt pierced his chest, swiftly and efficiently.

Not because she was ugly for the burns, far from it. His sister was the most gentle, well-bred lady of his acquaintance, even if her facade could burn down with her sharp wit and fiery temper.

Those burns reminded Greyson of his most dismal failure.

The fire had started quickly above stairs in their Mayfair town home, a candle that had burned, forgotten. The drawing room had gone up in flames, and his sister had awoken too late or so he had been told. A board had barricaded his sister in her bedchamber. Her screams could be heard three stories up.

Greyson hadn't been there. He had been with Thorne. Knee deep in drink and honoring his father with what had been his own downfall. A game of cards.

Greyson and Thorne had made it back only after the whispers had finally reached them in the gaming hall. He had dismounted Maximums, to find the fire had been put out above stairs, only ruining a few rooms. His sister hadn't been able to escape unscathed, the fire having spread too quickly. His footman had told Greyson of the beating of her fists on her bedchamber door, the strength of her keening cries.

It was a sound Greyson hadn't heard, but that had haunted his dreams nevertheless. And then the one with Charlie...

Greyson always appeared one moment too late.

He had cradled his sister in his arms then, her ruined cheek flaming red and her thin nightdress riddled with holes and smoke. It had wafted to his nostrils as he buried his face in her neck, mumbling drunken apologies.

"My apologies, my lordship," his footman had mumbled. "We didn't know," Georgie's weight had settled more firmly in his arms.

We didn't know.

"Did you hear me?"

His sister's voice had broken through his remembrance and Greyson felt the sweat dotting his brow, the shaking of his hands. He had also been staring at her face. Scowling at it, in fact.

Greyson cleared his throat, glancing into his sister's emerald gaze. She didn't look horrified by his perusal. Instead, she looked resigned. As if that was all that people saw. As if it was all that mattered.