“Yes—thank you.” Sebastian noticed the butler’s eyes flick to his bruised face. He looked away, uncomfortable.
“Sebastian?” Evelyn murmured. He turned to her at once.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind terribly if I rested awhile? I…I think I should not be underfoot while you meet with your family.”
“Of course,” he said softly. “Rest. I will go to Nicholas alone.”
She thanked him. He walked her to the bedchamber, fighting the vivid images that rose as he imagined her resting there, soft and unguarded. He kissed her hand, closed the door gently, and forced himself toward the drawing room.
Nicholas rose the instant he entered.
“Brother!” he exclaimed.
“Nicholas. Good morning.”
“Good grief—look at you! You need a physician,” Nicholas began, staring at his face in shock, but Sebastian shook his head impatiently.
Sebastian waved the concern aside. “Later. There is time for that. I wished first to thank you for your promptness yesterday. We would not have succeeded without you.”
A flush of pleasure crossed Nicholas’s face, quickly smothered under composure. “I am glad,” he said quietly. “Glad it ended as well as it did.”
He hesitated, then cleared his throat, his expression tightening with the memory of what he had meant to say the previous day.
“There was…something I wished to tell you at the club yesterday,” Nicholas said. His fingers twitched slightly at his sides. “And now that you are safely home, I believe you should hear it.”
Sebastian studied him, hearing the strain beneath his words. “What is it, brother?”
Nicholas’s dark eyes widened, and he looked around as though searching for courage in the carpet, the mantel, anywhere but his brother’s face.
“I don’t—well—I hardly know how to begin…” He faltered, breath catching, words scattering like startled birds.
Sebastian softened his tone, trying to make it easier for him. “Is aught amiss?
“It’s about Father’s will. The clause. Mama,” Nicholas said at last, each word more tense than the last.
“Mama can hardly object to that now. I fulfilled the clause admirably,” Sebastian began, but Nicholas shook his head at once.
“It is not that. Not an objection.” He swallowed. “Sebastian—Papa never wrote that clause. Mama added it later. She had Mr Wilton put it in. I overheard the man admit as much. It was never in Father’s hand. None of it.”
“What?” Sebastian stared at him, appalled. Rage—hot, unbounded—surged through him, colliding with disbelief. The depth of such deceit was staggering. And why? He dragged in a breath, fighting for calm. “Why would Mama do such a thing?”
Nicholas hesitated, visibly uncomfortable. “Mama wished for you to wed. That much we knew. What we did not realise was that she would go so far as to bribe a solicitor. That…I confess, I never imagined.”
“No,” Sebastian breathed. “No—nor I.”
He stood still, his thoughts a maelstrom: horror at his mother’s dishonesty; bewilderment; a sharp sting of betrayal. But rising through it, slow and undeniable, came a quieter truth.
If not for that clause, I would never have married at all.
He had been determined—stubbornly, irrationally determined—to avoid marriage entirely. It had taken nothingless than a forged obligation to force his hand. And yet, that very deception had led him to Evelyn.
From that moment on the London road, something in him had shifted toward her—drawn, despite himself, by her courage, her gentleness, the astonishing steadiness of her spirit. He would never have sought a bride, never have allowed himself to imagine a future with anyone. But fate—through his mother’s meddling—had maintained Evelyn in his path.
And he had chosen her. Even believing the clause to be real, he had been free to choose any suitable lady. His mother had made her preference for Belinda very clear. But he had not chosen Belinda.
He had chosen Evelyn.
