“Kate, look at me. Do you suppose I would look like this if it wasn’t important?”
Her gaze flicked over me. “Right. I’ll go ask—shall I?”
“Please.”
“Kate?”Damn. “Tom? What on earth happened?”
I turned to face my brother for the first time in days. “Hugh.”
“Are you well?”
“I believe he’s physically unharmed. He said something about a letter, I’ll go check with the maids,” Kate supplied.
“Letter? Is it Michael?”
Unwilling to repeat the entire conversation a second time, I added, “I wrote it. I’m physically fine. As far as I am aware, Michael, Juliet, and the babe are all perfectly well.”
“Good, then you and I have a few moments to speak.” Neither his expression, somewhere in the vicinity of his usual frown, nor his tone, indicated his mood.
I could have chosen to be difficult, avoided the conversation as I wished, but frankly, avoiding my brother was exhausting. I trailed after him, dragging my feet all the way to his study.
Inside, he gestured toward the chair across the desk from his own while he filled two glasses with a generous pour of the scotch he favored.
The leather was cool against my overheated back and thighs—so much so that it would have been a relief were I not faced with the stony visage of my father. Something about his portraits, which still hung in the studies of both the London home and the Kent estate, never failed to leave me weary and on edge.
Whether either of my brothers or I matched my father’s precise coloring would forever remain a mystery, but there were pieces of him to be found in each of us. The way he stared down, however, his haughty expression cast in oil—an insect in amber—was entirely his own.
“I was considering commissioning something new,” Hugh said conversationally, nodding toward the painting.
“Yes?”
“I thought, if you were willing—and Michael, of course—the three of us.” That was enough to rip my gaze from the painting.
“You want to include Michael?”
“Heisour brother.”
“Iknow that.Yourefused to admit it for years.”
Hugh shrugged. “He belongs up there, beside us.”
I took a moment to consider my brother, truly observe him, as I hadn’t in years. The Hugh I once knew never would have included Michael in our ranks—our baseborn brother, in spite of everything he’d done for the family, hadn’t been considered worthy of the name. Now, Hugh wanted a portrait of the man.
“You’ve changed.”
He held the glass of scotch up to the candlelight, turning it first one way, then the next, considering it. For an impossibly long moment, I wondered if he would dignify my observation with a reply. At last, he settled on. “For the better, I hope.”
I nodded. Hugh wasn’t perfect, no one was. But hetriedin a way he hadn’t before. Something about that realization made me want to be brave, vulnerable—honest.
“Do you have questions?” I asked.
Hugh gave me the honor of responding truthfully himself, offering no confusion as to my meaning in his shrug.
“I assume this letter has something to do with Rosehill?”
I nodded again, overgrown curls brushing against the rumpled collar of my shirt.
“I am trying to understand, Tom. Truly, I am. I need you to know that above all else.”
