You will keep your distance.”
“I love her.”
The unreserved honesty in the words drew James up short. He shook it off, reminded himself it didn’t matter. The man had abandoned her once before. He had had his chance, and he had surrendered it. “I cannot see how that signifies,” James said. “If you loved her, you ought to have married her years ago. That you failed to do so was your mistake.”
“And I have paid for it every day since,” Kirkland said. He tossed back a good portion of his brandy, dragged his hand through his thick hair. “I would not expect you to understand—”
“I certainly won’t if you intend to provide no explanation,” James said. “So you may as well get on with it.” He poured himself a fresh brandy, took a sip, and let the glass dangle from his fingertips.
A muscle twitched in Kirkland’s jaw. “Marrying my late wife, Fiona, was the worst mistake I have ever made,” he said. “I loved Jil—Lady Jillian,” he corrected, as James tensed in his chair. “I love her still. But Fiona had been my first love. She grew up on the estate neighboring my own in Scotland, and she was well aware of her charms. Every single man between the ages of twelve and eighty fancied himself in love with her. I would have wed her then if she would have had me, but she said she could do better than a viscount, and so I came to London to find a wife instead.”
“And you found Jilly,” James said, somehow offended on Jilly’s behalf, that she had been the consolation that Kirkland had allowed himself after being refused by the woman he had loved since childhood.
“Yes,” Kirkland said, and for a moment his head dropped back against the chair, his jaw tight, as if the mere memory pained him. “Yes, I found her. And she was beautiful and kind and intelligent, and she loved me. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me.” His hand tightened on the brandy snifter, and James suspected that beneath the man’s gloves, his knuckles had gone white. “And then Fiona came to London. She had expected me to dance attendance upon her as I had some years before. She was just as spoiled and capricious as she had always been, only she had gotten better at hiding it. She didn’t want me—she simply didn’t want anyone else receiving the attention that she thought should have been hers.”
“She was jealous,” James said.
“God, yes.” Kirkland set his glass aside, rubbed his face with his hands. “And I was weak. Flattered that Fiona had seen me at last. I loved Jillian—but I had also once loved Fiona. She knew it, and launched an assault against my engagement, striving to steal me away. And she won.” He gave a bitter laugh. “She didn’t want me. She wanted only to win. It took less than a week of marriage for me to regret it.”
James swirled the amber liquid in his glass, contemplative.