“As you wish,” Vincent replied, realizing he was insulting the man in implying that he couldn’t handle the situation on his own. “I merely didn’t want you to have to be bothered correcting what I set in motion, if I have overlooked any other effects it might have had.”

“If you wish to make amends, do so by staying away from me and my family, so we can forget that you exist. What you did to me is moot, even somewhat understandable. What you did to my daughter—”

“Had nothing to do with this.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true only that had I not begun this, I wouldn’t have met Larissa. But from the moment I saw her, I was smitten beyond anything in my experience. I’ll admit I lied to myself. She was off-limits to me by normal means. I couldn’t marry her because she was your daughter, the daughter of an enemy. Yet I couldn’t not try to make her mine. So revenge became merely an excuse for me to ignore my own conscience in the matter.”

“You’re talking about an innocent child that you took advantage of!”

“I’m talking about the woman I love. She’s a child only in your mind, sir. And had you not returned when you did, I would have tossed all my efforts to the wind to obtain the only goal that has any meaning for me now—I would have begged her to marry me.”

George snorted his skepticism. “Convenient to say when you know she won’t have you, that she despises you for what you did to her.”

Vincent sighed. “Not convenient, merely late in the discovery. Even on Christmas eve, I hadn’t yet realized just how much I love her. I had done everything possible to keep her in my house. I lied to her, misled her, just to keep her from leaving me.”

“You admit that?”

“Yes. I was still convinced that marriage was out of the question, a betrayal, as it were, to my brother. But on Christmas morning she finally demanded to know if my intentions were honorable as she’d assumed or not, and if not, she was leaving me. I knew then that revenge was meaningless in comparison to losing her. But before I could let her know that, you arrived.”

“You hardly sounded as if you had just come to that realization during our discourse.”

“My anger with you got in the way.”

“I will consider that fortunate for my family,” George replied stiffly. “Now if you are finished, Lord Everett, I don’t believe we have anything further to say.”

“Will you allow me to see your daughter? She is owed an apology as well—”

“She is owed some peace over this matter, or don’t you realize how devastated she was by your revelations. She is only just beginning to recover. Stay away from her.”