"We can't go back to Dunworthy Manor either," Ellen fretted.
"Can't we? No. I suppose we can't." He cleared his throat.
"Edmund. Do something," Ellen pleaded. The child had begun to whimper in her arms.
Edmund shook himself, then opened the carriage window. "There's been a change of plans," he called to the coachman. "The child is ill. Take the next turn for Penwick Park. Send a rider ahead first. They need to be informed of our arrival, I suppose."
Ellen looked at him with wide eyes. "Penwick Park?"
He nodded briefly.
Ellen looked at him gratefully. "Thank you."
"Lord help me," she thought she heard Edmund murmur as the carriage turned into a wide lane leading up to the grand manor house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Edmund closed his eyes, praying he'd not just made a monumental mistake.
It was too late. His mother came hurrying towards them long before their carriage reached the house. Behind her emerged the tall figure of a gentleman, who remained standing by the door.
He gulped.
"Edmund!" His mother moved to embrace him, but Edmund extended a hand to keep her at a distance. She stopped with a stricken expression on her face.
"Forgive the intrusion, but we come with an unwanted companion: some childhood illness that may very well be contagious." He turned to help Ellen lift Noni out of the carriage.
His mother stepped toward him with determination, purposefully misunderstanding him. “I'll not bid you welcome in your own home, son, where you will never be an intrusion. And there are no unwanted companions or guests. Even if they come with an illness." She stepped up to Ellen and looked at the child. "Poor little mite. We shall call the doctor immediately."
Seeing Ellen struggle with Noni's weight, Edmund lifted the child out of her arms and carried him easily up the stairs.
Where his brother waited.
It was certainly strange,Edmund thought wearily afterwards, as Edward, his twin brother, poured him a glass of brandy. Here they were, talking politely in the very drawing room where they'd fought so bitterly a decade earlier, his brother playing host in a house that was actually his.
"Drink." Edward handed him the glass. "I think you need it."
He certainly did. He downed the glass in one gulp.
His brother stood by the fire with his arms crossed. They did not look alike, Edward and he, for they were not identical twins. Edward's hair was lighter and was receding at the hairline. He also had blue eyes, whereas his own were brown; and he was slightly shorter. Edward was the spitting image of his father, whose portrait hung on the wall above the fireplace. They had the same eagle's nose, the same proud chin.
Edward wore the plain, sober clothes of the country squire, whereas he looked like a parrot next to him.
Edmund curled his lips into a thin line and looked away from his father's portrait.
"I say. You've grown into a middle-aged squire," he tried to joke weakly, and for the life of him he could think of nothing more constructive to say.
The corners of Edward's lips turned up. "And you've grown into a hothouse flower, I see. A real tulip."
"I'm married."
"So am I."
The two brothers studied each other.
For the first time, Edmund felt uncomfortable in his pistachio trousers, orange and burgundy-striped waistcoat.
"And the boy, Mama says, is not really your child, but your ward?" asked Edward.
