Tangled Read Free Page B

himself that his outrage was purely over the use that had been made of his room. His anger was justified.
    Julian was reclining on his untidy bed, only half dressed, his hands clasped behind his head. He grinned. "Are those orders from a superior officer?" he asked. "Sorry, old chap, that scene was not in the best of good taste, was it? I was not expecting you."

    "She is a married woman," David said. Though that was not the real cause of his fury at all just as the fact that they had used his room for their bedding was not.
    "I suppose that is better than carrying on with someone's virgin daughter," Julian said. "Come on, Dave, you have to admit the truth of that.''
    "It would not be the first time," David said, unbuck-
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    ling his sword belt and setting it and his sword on the table.
    "A low blow," Julian said, grimacing. "I have always regretted that mistake. You know that, Dave. It happened in a moment of thoughtless passion. I wish you wouldn't keep reminding me."
    "Your life has been made up of moments of thoughtless passion,"
    David said coldly. "I thought perhaps you would grow up, Julian. I thought perhaps marriage to Rebecca would mature you. You seemed fond enough of her. But you have been married for more than two years and you are twenty-four years old and there is no sign yet of any change for the better.''
    He sounded like a moralizing, killjoy judge, David thought, and resented the fact that Julian always seemed to bring out that side of him—and cursed himself for not having walked away from the sight of Julian and Lady Scherer in bed together.
    Julian swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his shirt. "Your trouble, Dave," he said, stung, "is that you never learned that life is to be enjoyed. I honestly don't know how you can handle celibacy—you are celibate, I assume? I certainly wouldn't recommend any of the whores hereabouts unless you want an alternative to dying from cholera or dysentery or battle wounds."
    "People can be hurt while you are selfishly enjoying life," David said. "Scherer, for example. Rebecca. Flora Ellis."
    "Cynthia is bored," Julian said. "I am bored. We are not in love, Dave. This is no grand passion. Becka will not be hurt because she will never know about it. And it makes no iota of difference to my feelings for her. I miss her, if you want to know the truth. I wish she were here instead of Cynthia. God, how I wish it. But she isn't so I have to make the best of what there is."
    David sat down on his own bed to pull off his boots. He would not call his servant. There was too much of a strained atmosphere in the room to be shared with an outsider.
    "The silent treatment," Julian said. "It always comes to this and you have always been expert at it." He smiled

    22 Mary Balogh winningly. "Look, Dave, I know you think I treat Becka rottenly, and you are right, damn you. She is everything a man could ask for and more, isn't she? And she loves me. It never ceases to amaze me that she loves me. But she is not always available. Either she is ill or—or she is a thousand miles away. What am I expected to do?''
    There was no point in arguing further with Julian. It would not even be an argument. Julian would capitulate almost immediately and be contrite and charming and full of good resolutions. He really had not changed. And the trouble was that David loved him now as he had always loved him—from the moment of Julian's arrival at Cray bourne at the age of five. The seven-year-old David had welcomed this new brother into his lonely life with open arms and a yearning heart. He had felt instantly protective of the smaller, younger Julian, with his rumpled fair curls and big gray eyes and mischievous grin.
    Even as a young child Julian had had a natural charm.
    In those days David had been afraid of his father, whose hand could feel remarkably heavy after some wrongdoing. Oh, he had loved his father too and felt that love returned in full measure. But he had been