“You will not offend me if you do not eat,” he told her. “I thought you might be hungry.”
She was still sensitive about her weight, he thought. And about the possibility that other people thrust rich foods at her on the assumption that she was a glutton. Almost unwillingly he felt the old ache of love for her and the impotent longing to be able to release her from her insecurities. He had not expected this pull back to the family he had deliberately cut from his thoughts and emotions years ago. First Owen, then Pippa, now Steph.
“And I did not mean to bite your head off,” she said with a sigh. “Thank you for thinking of me. Howwasthe tea?”
“I think our mother had the right idea,” he said. “Let them all come at once and gawk their fill. Let me face them all in one ghastly hour.”
“Dev,” she said. “Mama is very badly hurt.”
Is, notwas.
“By me?” He rested his forearms across his thighs and dangled his hands between his knees.
“I do not know exactly what happened,” she said. “No one ever told us—Owen and me, that is. You did not when you said goodbye to us. Pippa would not after you left, though I cried and had tantrums and swore I would never speak to her again. No one else would even admit anythingwaswrong. We were told that you and Ben had left because you were young men and needed some time away on your own.As if we were going to believe that of either one of you!Of course it was not hard to guess what had happened, even though I was onlynine.Papa fancied that woman, Mrs. Shaw, did he not? I saw it that day, and a few times I wanted to go and kick her in the shins and tell her toleave my papa alone.But I would have been banished to the nursery for a week on bread and water if I had done anything so rag-mannered.Youpresumablydidkick her or do something just as outrageous and very public, and you got banished for years.”
“Perhaps it would be best—” Devlin began.
“Though whyyouwere the one who was sent away, I do not know,” she said. “You were not the one misbehaving with Mrs. Shaw. Perhaps it was because Papa could not very well be banished. But oh, Dev. You took all the light with you—you and Ben both.Allof it. Everything changed. No more balls or parties or... oranythingat Ravenswood, and some people seemed to avoid us for awhile. I can remember Pippa pretending not to be upset when soon after you left she learned of a birthday party for one of her so-called friends to which she had not been invited. It was downright cruel. I swore I would never,everforgive you for not going to Mama when I begged you to and working something out with her and setting everything right again. Though I suppose it would have been too late for that anyway. But if only you had gone to talk it all out with her when I begged you to. I know you were hurting too, though, and we do not always think straight when we are in pain. Oh, Dev, Mama wassosad after you were gone. So very, very sad. I sometimes try to remember the way she used to be, but it is hard.”
Devlin had been gazing at the floor between his feet, but he looked up at her now. Their mother was not the only one who had been badly hurt, he thought. “Steph,” he said. “Ididgo to her room. She would not talk to me. Or see me. So I left.” He paused. “But... the world kept turning, and here we are. Tell me about you. Tell me about the missing years. Tell me what I can do for you now.”
She gazed at him for a long time before answering. Her eyes welled with tears, but she blinked them away. “I wanted you to come home,” she said. “I wanted you to write. But you never came and you never wrote. I wanted to hate you. But I never could. I was lonely, Dev. I was lonely for you and for Ben and Nick. I was even lonely for Mama and Papa as they had always been, though they were here. But nothing ever stays the same, does it? I just wish I could have grown up before I had to learn that. Then Papadied.It was so, so horrible. And still you did not come.”
“Steph,” he said softly. He gripped his hands hard between his spread knees.
“And now you are back and I want you not to have changed,” she said. “But youhavechanged. You do notwantto be here. Yousee your life here as one of strict duty and service. I do not doubt you will perform both quite conscientiously. But I do not want you toserveme, Dev. I want you toloveme as you always used to do. You more than anyone. Youlooka bit like my brother who went away. But you do notfeellike him, and if my heart was not already broken, it would break now.”
He stared at her, appalled.What the devil had he done?
“I never stopped loving you, Steph,” he told her, “though during all those years I dared not think of you. I was all broken up. Into a million pieces. The only way I could survive was by cutting all ties, quelling all feeling, and doing my duty.”
He got abruptly to his feet, drew her to hers, and wrapped his arms about her.
“I am here now,” he murmured against the top of her head. “And you were always my favorite sister, Steph—coequal with Pippa.”
“Thereareonly the two of us, silly,” she said into his shoulder. “Would you have survived, Dev, if Ben had not gone with you? Or did you quell all feeling for him too?”
They were perceptive questions. He considered them.
“Ben kept me alive,” he said.
“And me too,” she told him. “Hedidwrite in answer to my letters. And each time he told me you were alive and well. I kept all his letters.”
“Forgive me?” he said. “Can you, Steph?”
“Yes,” she said, drawing back her head to gaze up at him. “I can and I do. I keep seeing you now in a million pieces of pain but looking and behaving like a tough, ruthless military officer. That is what youdid, I think, and what youwere.It is what you still look like now.”
“The scar does not help,” he said.
“It actually makes you look rather dashing,” she said. “Thank you for thinking about me this afternoon, Dev. For bringing me the food.”
“Do you feel like getting some fresh air?” he asked her. “Down by the lake, maybe?”
“I do,” she said. “May we take out a boat? Will you let me row?”
“In this chill weather?” he said. “But at least if you are at the oars I will be able to crouch down and take shelter from the wind.”
“Poor Dev.” She laughed with some of the glee from her childhood. “Let me go and put on something warm. Ten minutes?”
