Then what? Nothing came.
But he was in rags. So, not Raleigh.
And—he grimaced—Hurtheven had saidheir.
He was certain he hadn’t been heir, which meant... “My brother?”
“Devil take it. I’d forgotten you wouldn’t know.” Hurtheven gripped Chev’s shoulder and bowed his head. “Piers is gone.”
“How?”
“Nasty bit of bad luck.” Hurtheven winced. “He was wandering through the woods at Ithwick and stepped into a nest of adders, poor chap. Two days passed before they found him. Coroner wasn’t sure if it was the snake bites or the cold damp that got him—likely a bit of both. I am sorry, Chev.”
Loss settled over Cheverley.Ah, Piers.His brother had loved his woodland rambles.
How could it be Chev had survived war and disaster while Piers had been killed by something so common in Cornwall as a few snakes and a bit of rain?
“Her Grace, the Duchess of Ithwick,” Hurtheven continued, “passed away last year. Grief, the physician said, as if such a thing were possible.”
Chev swallowed, roughly.
“The duke lives, though he is, I understand, not well. In the absence of an adult heir, your cousins have become”—Hurtheven cleared his throat—“quite solicitous.”
Both his brother and his mother were dead? He finally grasped Hurtheven’s meaning.Hemust have been declared dead, too.
He wasn’tdead.He’d been lost at sea.
That’swhat had happened. He’d been lost at sea for... Months? Years? More? Anyway, he’d been desperate to get home from...?
He shook his head, coming back to the idea that his wife and son believed him to be dead.
Lost was an unfinished sentence; Dead, a conclusive period. The end to one sentence so that another one could begin. If he were dead, his belongings would have been disbursed and his wife...
Good God.Was Pen still his wife? “Penelope?”
“Alive.” Hurtheven’s gaze slid away. “Hale, the last time we met.”
“But is she...is she...?”
Hurtheven grimaced. “I judged it impertinent to ask if she’d been faithful. But she is unwed.” He flashed a look. “At present.”
At present?Chev coughed. “And what of my son?”
“Thaddeus”—Hurtheven’s expression softened—“is a healthy lad. If you can call a young man of thirteen a lad.”
Thirteen?Chev grasped his head between his thumb and forefinger. He’d been apart from his family for thirteen years?
Impossible, but true.
He was not a lost man found, but a dead man resurrected. His mother and brother, gone. His father dying. A son he did not know on the cusp of manhood. And a wife...
Not wed.Yet.
His whole being hung fromyet,swaying like fresh kill on a gamekeeper’s hook. He massaged his temples.
Had he really believed, even for a moment, she could have been pining for him all this time?
“Better I hadn’t returned.”
