“Ah,” Ben said. “Well, that explains everything.”
“Ben?” Devlin squinted off to the hills in the distance. “Was there ever a letter from... our father?”
“Yes,” his brother said. “Once.”
“Addressed to you?”
“One to me,” Ben said. “One to you. Less than two months later news came that he was dead.”
Devlin did not ask why his letter had not been delivered to him. He would have refused to take it or have torn it to shreds, its seal unbroken. But he was feeling a bit now as though there were an iron band about his chest, squeezing off the beating of his heart.
“What did you do with mine?” he asked.
“Kept it. It is in a drawer in my room with all the others,” Ben told him.
Despite everything else he had needed to carry, especially after the death of his wife, Ben had kept all the old letters?
“I’ll go and fetch it,” Ben said, and turned away.
Owen rode up to the fence for a chat. He was excited at the prospect of university life, he admitted when Devlin asked.
“But I will look forward to Christmas too,” Owen told his brother. “More than I usually do. I am awfully glad you are marrying Gwyneth, Dev. I was very afraid you were going to choose someone horribly high in the instep who would be an excellent countess and a ghastly sister-in-law. You were gone from the breakfast table when I read Nick’s letter, weren’t you? He is still in Paris, but he is hoping to get leave to come home for Christmas. He does not know about the wedding, of course. It will be jolly if he is here, won’t it?”
“It will,” Devlin agreed, and he immediately wondered how Nick would feel about Gwyneth marryinghim.
“I’ll try to live up to your example, Dev,” Owen was saying. “Though it’s a bit of a daunting example, you must admit. You came down from Oxford with a degree and top marks in everything.”
“You do not have to live up to my example or anyone else’s, Owen,” Devlin told him. “And I am serious about this. You do not have to compare yourself withanyone, within the family or outside it. If there are some things about me or about Ben or Nick that you find admirable, well and good. It is always fine to have someone to look up to. But you can neverbethat person. You can only be yourself if you wish to be happy. That is your job as you grow up—in your case, as you come closer to completing the process during the next few years. Find whoyouare. Being Owen Ware is only part of the story. Find whatyouwant to do with your life, not what I or Mama or Grandpapa believe would suit you and make you worthy of your heritage. I will always... I will always hold you dear as my brother, no matter what.”
Good God. Where was it coming from? He hardly recognized himself these days. He was talking about Owen completing theprocess of growing up. When was it going to happen for him? Just a few months ago he would have said it was over and complete. But did oneevergrow up?
Owen was grinning. “I was wondering what sort of speech you would deliver as head of the family before I left,” he said. “I did not expect this. Are you going to deliver the stuffy version on Monday morning just before I hop into the post chaise?”
“The stuffiest one I can devise,” Devlin said. “The one about studying your head off in some lonely garret and avoiding wine, women, and companions who would lead you astray. Ah.”
Ben had returned and was holding out a bundle of letters neatly tied together with string. “I’ll ride with you along the bridle path to the lake and back if you wish,” Ben said, addressing Owen. “He looks a bit restless in that confined space.”
“I am a bit restless too,” Owen admitted. “Come on, then.”
Devlin took the bundle and strode away. He went into the courtyard to sit in the rose arbor even though the wind, hardly discernible outside, was swirling a bit in there. He took shelter on the seat behind one of the trellises and pulled up the collar of his coat.
There were letters from Idris, his uncle George, Philippa, Owen, and Stephanie, all of them addressed either just to him or to both him and Ben. All of them were dated in Ben’s hand—the date of their arrival, that was. Most of them had been sent during the first year. His father’s letter was on top. The date Ben had recorded, more than two years ago, was actually about one week after his father’s death and two weeks before the letters from the solicitor and his mother had been forced upon him.
The urge was strong to destroy the lot of them, to light the fire in his private sitting room and toss the bundle into the heart of it and watch it burn. The past was over and done with. There was nopoint in raking it up. Life was proceeding, and really it was not so bad. Not nearly as bad as he had anticipated, though he did wish that managing a home and a family and an earldom could be a little more like managing men under his command during a military campaign.
He knew he would not do it, though. Burn the letters unread, that was. The past must be looked into if he was to know any real peace. He took his father’s letter from the bundle before tying the string about the rest of the letters again lest the wind catch them and send them fluttering in all directions. He broke the seal on the letter and then gazed off to one corner of the courtyard. Where a fortune-teller had once set up her tent and made some disturbing predictions. Some very accurate ones too, he thought, remembering for the first time in a long while.
He opened his letter and swallowed at the familiarity of the bold handwriting. His father’s hand had written that. To him. Just a few weeks before his death.
Dear Devlin,he had written.
I am not sure I have ever quite understood you, my son, but I do know you. I know you well enough to understand that you are inflexible in your hostility to me and rejection of me. I know you well enough too to guess that you blame yourself for the suffering your public outburst caused your mother and your brothers and sisters and grandparents. The whole embarrassment of that incident was, of course, not your fault at all. You were right and I was wrong. I have always been a restless man and, yes, a weak man. Even the pleasures I had carved out for myself over the years since my marriage began to seem not quite exciting enough and I tried somethingmore daring and dangerous. I got caught and suffered the consequences. You were right to expose me.
I do not ask your forgiveness, Devlin. What I did, and the consequences to my family, including you—perhaps especially you—are all on my head. I regret the consequences, but am not sure I would change much if I could go back. I choose to be honest, you see, since honesty is what you understand—and you are right. You may not believe me when I tell you that I love your mother and that I love each of my children. It is the truth, but I cannot expect you to believe me just because I say it.
I ask only that you forgive yourself, Devlin. For doing what was right. For telling the truth and not compromising with it as most people do. I am proud of you even though I know my approval can mean little if anything to you. Or my love. Forgive yourself.
I am assured by those who have heard from Ben that you are a superb military officer. I would have expected no less even though I never anticipated that life for you.
