Sending her a regretful look, Nicholas instructed the footman to ride back to the house with news of their imminent arrival.
A quarter of an hour later, Riverside Court came into view.
Nicholas entered ahead of Amelia, searching furiously for the butler to provide some sort of explanation. The entrance hall was warm but empty, his determined footsteps echoing against the marble floor, leaving a trail to the woods behind him.
Suddenly, by the door, Amelia gasped.
Nicholas turned, his body going rigid at the sound of her frightened cry.
A young man stood beneath the archway leading to the western wing. He wore a dark brown traveling costume, his chestnut hair tied into a queue behind him. A short beard decorated his jaw. Dark bags hung under his eyes, holding the look of a man who had returned from many months of travel.
Amelia stepped toward the stranger. She covered her mouth with trembling hands, tears misting her eyes.
She whispered, “No, this cannot be.”
And Nicholas’s heart sank to his stomach.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Amelia barely heard Nicholas’s question when it came, asking for the identity of the intruder waiting in front of them. Her mind was spinning, half convincing herself that she had imagined her brother standing there.
But it was him.
He had aged in the last two years. Her heart panged with guilt at his tired, nervous countenance. His cheeks were ruddy from traveling in early winter. His clothes travel-worn and modest.
Had she forgotten that he was coming home? That seemed plausible. But no, this was something else. He had returned of his own accord.
“Oh, Freddy!” she cried, running into her brother’s arms. “It really is you.”
Freddy’s body was cold and stiff as he took Amelia into a brotherly embrace, holding her against his chest as tears streamed down her face. He stroked her hair and pressed a kiss onto her crown, smelling of home and foreign places at the same time.
“Darling sister,” he whispered. The sound of his voice took her back to a place before he had left, before she had ever met Nicholas. He took her gently by the shoulders to inspect her. “How time has changed you.”
“How time has changed us both!” she replied, running her fingers over Freddy’s beard. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I have come back for you.” He paused, then looked somewhere behind them.
At Nicholas.
Her husband stood rigidly behind them, wearing an unreadable expression. He looked so tall and serious compared to Freddy, staring at her brother with eyes that bore indirectly into her soul.
Somewhere in the distance, rainclouds approached, and the entrance hall darkened in response.
Disentangling herself, Amelia gestured meekly toward her husband. “This is—”
“I know who this is,” Freddy cut in, scowling. “I came directly from Uncle’s home. He told me I would find you here. Though I should have remembered Riverside Court as the Avon lair. My mistake, and my surprise. How do you do, Your Grace?”
His question was laced with barely concealed disdain. Nicholas visibly bristled, nostrils flaring.
“You are the vagabond brother, Viscount Frederick Tate,” Nicholas said coolly. “Returned here now to what end?”
“Vagabond? Mine was a necessary trip. One from which I have returned above all to ensure my sister’s safety. That has always been my primary concern in this life. When she wrote me that she had married…”
Freddy’s hand flexed at his side, startling her.
“I hoped she had written wrong,” he continued. “But this is true, all of it. You have taken my sister as your wife without even asking her brother for his blessing.”
Nicholas smiled politely, keeping his composure in the face of Freddy’s visible anger. “That blessing was not yours to give but Baron Spencer’s. What followed was legal and moral. Your sister is the Duchess of Avon, and I am her husband.”
