The last time Silas had seen his middle sibling had not been pleasant. It was the morning after their father’s death. There had been thrown blows and angry words, so when he stepped into the parlor, Arabella on his heels, his heart was pounding.
Reggie was standing at the window, looking out onto the street he’d come in on. When he turned, Silas caught his breath. He didn’t know why he felt so surprised that his brothers had aged. It had been six years, after all, and all his siblings were at least ten years his senior. But still, seeing Reggie with the gray in his temples, the heavier lines on his face, was startling. So much had changed.
Then his brother pursed his lips and Silas realized nothing had changed at all, actually. It seemed Reggie’s annoyance picked up just where he’d left off.
“Silas,” Reggie said softly, and stepped toward him, hand outstretched.
Silas met him halfway and they shook briefly. “Reginald.”
His brother’s gaze flitted past him toward Arabella, still in the doorway, giving this reunion space. Silas turned toward her slightly. “May I present Miss?—”
“I know who Arabella Comerford is,” Reggie interrupted.
Arabella stepped up then, casting Silas anI-told-you-solook and then she extended a hand to his brother. “Good afternoon, Lord Reginald. What a pleasure to meet you.”
“Miss Comerford,” Reggie managed to grind out past what were obviously clenched teeth as he briefly shook her hand. His gaze didn’t linger on her but narrowed on Silas again. “Is this what you do instead of having supper with yourdyingbrother?”
Silas flinched at the plainly stated question and the deep disappointment that laced it. He’d been hearing that tone from his father’s side of the family for years and years. Somehow his first reaction of guilt and shame was never muted.
He could feel Arabella staring at him even though he didn’t look in her direction. He did hear her though when she whispered, “Dying?”
Silas pushed aside all the weaker emotions that crowded in his chest and shook his head. “He’s not dying. And I never said I was coming to supper.”
“No, you never said anything at all, did you?” Reggie threw up his hands. “You didn’t bother to answer the invitation, like some petulant child who?—”
Silas stepped up to him. “I’m not a child, though, am I, Reg? And what you’re really angry about is that you can’t make me dance to some drum anymore. I don’t give a damn about your opinions about me.”
That wasn’t entirely true, no matter how he wished it were.
Reggie shook his head. “Then why come back?”
“Why ask me back?” he shot back.
“Ididn’t!” They stared at each other for a long moment and then his brother shoved a hand through his hair. “Fuck, you are impossible.” He let out his breath slowly and then smoothed himself. The high emotion fled and there was nothing but coldness and formality to him when he said, “Whatever you’re going to do, Silas, just figure it out. I have children of my own, I don’t need to spend time chasing around one that’s thirty. Good day.”
He pivoted on his heel and stalked from the room. In the distance he heard the murmurs of Poole speaking and then the slam of the door as his brother left.
It was in that charged moment that Arabella touched his arm. He felt every warm finger fold over him, even through the layers of propriety they’d put on him earlier. He drew a shaky breath and forced himself to look at her, somehow expecting her to be captivated by this encounter. After all, that was the currency she collected for her own protection.
And yet there was no prurient interest in his family dramas or his pain. There was nothing but gentle understanding in her stare and he was surprised that a sense of peace moved over him as he lost himself, albeit briefly, in the endless blue of her eyes.
“Silas,” she said softly after that moment passed. “Is your brother truly dying?”
* * *
Arabella could see the unspoken and always had. It was something she’d nurtured in the years since she’d entered the game as a courtesan. After all, to be able to tell a man’s mood was one way to avoid being harmed, either physically or emotionally. And it also helped her preemptively provide for her lovers, which was part of her charm, she supposed.
Right now she felt Silas’s pain radiating off of him in long, sharp waves. Oh, he showed none of it on his handsome face, in fact he looked angry in that moment, not at her but at the world. But the pain was there, pulsing below the surface. And she wanted to ease it, not as part of a seduction, not because it was expected of her…but because she truly wished to help.
He let out a long sigh. “He’s not…dying,” he said, repeating the words he’d said to his brother a few moments before. But now he didn’t sound as certain in that statement. “Well, it’s not entirely clear, actually.”
“How so?”
“He’s been ill for a while now. It has gotten worse in the last six months, he was on the brink a few times.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s why you came home.”
“Home,” he repeated, and she wasn’t certain he knew he’d done that. He shook his head slightly. “Y-yes. My sister Phoebe asked me to return. I’m closer to her than to either Reg or Charlie.”
