During those days not a single mention was made of Devlin and Ben’s father. Yet his presence seemed to loom over every moment the family spent in company with one another. There was something about the atmosphere that was heavy with unspoken sentiment and unresolved issues. Yet no one showed any willingness to address any of them. Least of all Devlin. His father was like a yawning black hole in his memory.
In many ways nothing had changed. They had never spoken truth to one another, this family, though Devlin had not realized it until six years ago. They had lived with illusion and considered themselves happy. They did not speak truth now either. Not that they spoke falsehood. They said nothing at all that had real meaning, that addressed the great awkwardness that lived in their midst, almost like another family member. For the moment he was content to leave it that way. He did not want to stir up anything, leastof all emotion. There were other things upon which he could concentrate his attention.
He spent much of his first full day at home in consultation with John Mason, the steward his father had employed to replace Ben. He appeared to be a good man, about the same age as Ben, a bit dull and plodding, maybe, but he was not being judged on his personality. He kept clear, thorough records, and the estates had shown a decent profit for each of the past six years. Whether any of those profits had come at the expense of the workers remained to be seen, but the records did also show a slight increase in wages for three of the six years and evidence that repairs and general maintenance had been done on the laborers’ cottages in the village.
Ben had declined Devlin’s invitation to join them. He had insisted upon behaving like a guest, happy enough to be here, but not involved in any of the workings of the home where he had grown up.
Now, this morning, on their second full day at home, a beautiful, blue-skied early-autumn day, Ben had taken Joy out in the gig for a drive about the park. Stephanie, after appealing to Miss Field for time off from her lessons, had gone with them.
Devlin wandered outside for a while, noticing how a few of the leaves on the trees were beginning to change color and feeling unexpectedly cheered by the prospect of witnessing the whole glory of an English autumn this year—and winter after it. Winters on the Peninsula had been brutal. They had been responsible for the deaths of far too many of his men. He had not seen much of the park yet, but what he had seen was encouraging. There had been no neglect. Everything was looking pristine. Everything close to the house, of course, would have been spruced up for his homecoming. He would see the more distant parts of the park in the next few days, though probably not tomorrow. That was the day of the infernal tea.
He turned when he heard the front doors opening. Owen wasrunning lightly down the steps. It was still a bit of a shock to see him as a man. A very young man, it was true, but definitely no longer a boy.
“I am off to the village to pick up some silks for Mama’s embroidery,” he explained when he saw Devlin. “I’ll call on Brad too while I am there. Mama is in no particular hurry for the silks.”
“Brad?” Devlin raised his eyebrows.
“Bradley Danver,” Owen said. “The vicar’s son. We have always been friends. Remember? I lent him a book about a month ago. Have you noticed how people never return books unless you prod them? I am going to do a bit of prodding. Ilikethat book.”
“I’ll come with you if I may,” Devlin said on impulse. The thought of walking into the village for the first time was a bit daunting, but it had to be done. Now was as good a time as any.
“Brilliant,” Owen said cheerfully, and they fell into step beside each other. Once they were clear of the house and alone, Owen turned to him. It was the first time Devlin had been alone with any of his siblings, besides Ben, of course. “Tell me what happened, Dev. I have been itching to ask, but violence and warfare are something one cannot talk about when there are women present. They might swoon or turn green or even puke. It must be dashed uncomfortable being a woman, I would say. It looks to me as though the top of your head came damnably close to being sliced right off.”
“It was a glancing cut rather than a deliberate blow,” Devlin told him. “If it had been deliberate, I would not be here talking with you now. There was enough blood to fill a lake even so, and I really did think I was done for. I thought I was blind too for a while, until I realized everything was red rather than black. Ben worked his magic on me after a surgeon had patched me up, and here I am, intact except for an ugly scar.”
“I bet women don’t see it as ugly,” his brother said. “Women arefunny that way. Though they would probably be prostrate on a couch with burned feathers being waved under their noses if they ever heard about that lake of blood. Better not tell ’em, Dev. Did you meet lots of them? Women, I mean. Ben obviously did.”
Devlin paused for a moment, grateful for the ease of his brother’s conversation. While his exuberance had been sometimes annoying when he was a boy, now it felt rather welcome. “Ben metoneof them,” he told his brother. “He made her his wife and had a child with her. He mourned her without fuss when she died, but hedidmourn. Very deeply. He is a good man, Owen. A brother to be proud of.”
“He always was,” Owen said. “I always thought it a dashed shame he was a— Well, that his mother was never married to Papa. Though that would have relegated you to the position of spare rather than heir—would it not?—andhewould have been the earl now rather than you. Tell me what it was like out there, Dev. Nick’s letters have always been full of good cheer. One would swear he went there to enjoy some sort of Grand Tour. Ben’s letters, on the other hand, were always so dry, one half expected the paper to crumble to dust in one’s hand. And your letters were nonexistent.”
“Did you resent that?” Devlin asked. He had not written because he could not risk cracking the emotionless shell he had built to hold himself together. He had not thought of how his silence might hurt his siblings, who had loved him and whom he had loved. He haddarednot think of it.
His brother thought. “I don’t know ifresentedis the right word,” he said. “Hatedwould be better. I hated that you did not write. Not even to Steph, who worshipped the ground you trod upon. As though none of us existed. As though you did not care. Not even when... Well, not even then.”
“Not even when our father died,” Devlin said, somehow gettinghis mouth about the words. And Stephanie...who worshipped the ground you trod upon.The very idea of it cut into him like a whip.
“It wasawful,” Owen said. “He was in his cups. As usual. He fell and hit his head against the corner of the counter in the taproom at the inn.”
Good God! Devlin had always assumed it was a heart seizure. Had the letter from his father’s solicitor not specified that was the cause of his death? Or had he worded the letter in such a way that Devlin would make that assumption? His father had been drunk?As usual?
“The head at school told me he had had a heart seizure,” Owen said. “That is what everyone here believes too. Or pretends to believe. Everyone alwayspretends.Have you noticed that, Dev? Did they do that during the wars too? It is as if truth does not really matter, but only what you want to believe is the truth.”
Oh yes, that Devlin noticed right enough. The noticing had ended life as he knew it six years ago. It seemed that at the age of twenty-two he had been more naïve than Owen was now at eighteen. “Perhaps,” he said, “some people find it more comfortable to see their world the way they want it to be. Do you think?”
“Instead of the way it is,” Owen said, shrugging. “Look, Dev, I don’t know exactly what happened the night of that fete. You did not tell us before you left, and no one would tell us the next day or anytime after. But it must have been drastic for everything to change as it did. Not just everything, but everybody.I worked it out, of course. Twelve-year-olds are not stupid, and they have ears. I think I am almost certainly right. But I do notknow, and it irks me now that I am grown-up. Anyway. You will tell me one of these days. And you will tell me what it was like out on the Peninsula. But here we are coming up on the shop. Now, what did I do with that piece of paper Mama gave me? She will roll her eyes if I go backwith the wrong color silks and mutter darkly that she might have known to come herself. Ah, here it is.”
They were indeed in the village by then, and a few heads had turned their way. One woman whom Devlin did not recognize, someone’s servant by the look of her, curtsied hastily to him. The last thing he felt like doing was to go right into the Misses Millers’ shop. He would have preferred a bit more time alone with his brother, getting to know him, sharing thoughts and even perhaps some memories. But Owen plunged on inside and Devlin followed.
He was greeted by the sisters and their two customers with surprised curtsies and obsequiousness—no, perhaps that was unfair. He was addressed at least four times asLord Strattonand a few more times asmy lord.He tried to recall if that was what everyone had always called his father and supposed it was. How else would they have addressed him?
He went as far as the rectory with his brother, and stood at the gate watching him dash inside to join his friend after the vicar and his wife both came to the door to invite him in—and to greet him asLord Stratton.
“I will not come in, thank you,” Devlin told them. “But I hope I will see you both at Ravenswood tomorrow afternoon?”
He would indeed, they assured him.
“Is that Sir Ifor Rhys playing the organ in the church?” he asked.
