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"Please You never consider the feelings of others, either We’re all just obstacles to your lory" Colin threw up his hands "I don’t even want to be in this godforsaken, disgustingly char place"

"Then leave Go find one of your many dissolute friends and leech off him for the next few months"

"Do you really think that idea hasn’t occurred to me, on a damned near hourly basis since we arrived? Good Lord, as if I couldn’t find better accohastly castle"

"Then why are you still here?"

"Because you’re my cousin, Bram!"

For a well-established fact, this sudden outburst rather surprised them both

Colin made a fist "You’ve been my closest kin since my parentssince I was a boy And since your father died, I’ot, too We’ve barely spoken to each other in over a decade I thought itthe rest of the world seems so keen on An idiotic notion, clearly"

"Clearly"

Bra his arms in frustration This was brilliant Just exactly what he needed to hear right now--that atop betraying Sir Lewis, deflowering Susanna, and contributing to the village’s destruction tonight, he was so Colin, too This hy he needed to return to his regi orders There, he always knehat to do If he never resu of disappointments and failures

The futility of it all incited hier

Colin scratched behind his ear "Just think, and all those years growing up alone, I thought I was "

"Guess you learned your lesson there"

"What does either of us know about fa about it," Bra I don’t respect you You don’t respect me We’ve only been at each other’s throats this whole tiant ass If you respected ed And so far as filial affection is concerned" Colin gestured angrily toward the spot where the Bright twins had grappled "It see at one another’s throats is the standard practice"

"Well, in that case" With his left hand, Braht fistat his cousin’s jaw He checked the strength of the blow soh force to send Colin’s head whipping left "That’s for Miss Highwood" He drove a halfhearted, joyless punch into his cousin’s gut "And that’s forfor fun"

He waited, breathing hard, holding his cousin by the collar and bracing hi for it, truly Bra to hi The impact could only come as a relief

But his cousin wouldn’t do hiue to his bruised lip and said, "I’ll be off in the , Braht"

"Oh no, you don’t" Bra to do with this ood could co, unattached, soon-to-be-wealthy peer, Colin had no checks on his behavior Since a tragically young age, he’d been lacking both a father’s exaht with a bittersweet twinge, would probably argue Colin needed a hug

Well, Bras--not with a straight face, at any rate But he kne to be an officer, and experience had taught hiood ht be the only person in the world who could offer Colin this: the chance to rise to expectations, rather than sink to the," he told him "Not now, and not toestured at the scene of destruction and chaos "You broke this, and you’re da to pieces

Once she’d seen that Diana was safely upstairs and resting in her bed, Susanna descended to the drawing room of the Queen’s Ruby There she found her whole world breaking apart Complaints and confessions detonated in every corner of the room

"Oh Lord Oh Lord," a voice pitched above frantic flapping A gull’s wing couldn’t have worked harder than that fan "I feel an attack of nerves co on"

"I can’t believe I drank whiskey," mourned another "And danced with a fisherman If race"

"Perhaps I ought to go upstairs Start packing s now"

And then came the observation that froze Susanna’s blood

"Miss Finch, what’s happened to your gown? The buttons are all askew And look at your hair"

"I" Susanna strove to keep calht"

"But it wasn’t like that at Suht for certain you would have arrived in the village long before --but you didn’t Did youlike that" As she melted into a nearby chair, Susanna’s conscience stabbed at her Then she knew the piercing quality of Kate Taylor’s curious gaze Then Minerva’s