He thought grimly of the night before. Unable to sleep himself, he had done something he rarely did. He had gone into his wife’s room very late. He had half-expected to find the room empty and the bed unslept in.
But she had been both there and awake. And feverish and coughing. She had watched him listlessly as he approached the bed.
“You are not well?” he had asked, touching his fingers to her cheek and finding it dry and burning. He brought her a cool cloth from the washstand, folded it, and laid it over her forehead.
“It is nothing,” she had said, turning her face from him.
He had stood looking down at her for a long silent moment. “Sybil,” he had asked quietly, “shall I send him away? Will it be less painful for you if he is gone?”
Her eyes had been open. She had been staring away from him. And he had watched one tear roll diagonally across her cheek and nose and drip onto the sheet. “No,” she had said.
Nothing more. Just the one word. He had turned away after a while and left the room.
Her maid had reported to him that morning that her grace had recovered from her fever.
He fully expected that after a journey of a few days his brother would be still asleep. But he came wandering into the library fifteen minutes after being summoned, his customary half-smile on his lips.
“This brings back memories,” he said, looking about him. “Many was the time we were summoned here, Adam, for a thrashing.” He laughed. “I more than you, I must confess. Is that why I have been summoned here this morning?”
“Why did you return?” the duke asked.
“The fatted calf is supposed to be killed for the prodigal’s return,” Lord Thomas said with a laugh. “You have not learned your Bible lessons well enough, Adam.”
“Why did you return?”
Lord Thomas shrugged. “It is home, I suppose,” he said. “When I was in India, England was home. And when I returned to England, then Willoughby was home—even if I am not welcome here. Sometimes it is not a good thing to be just a half-brother.”
“You know that has nothing to do with anything,” his grace said harshly. “We were scarcely aware of the half-relationship when we were growing up, Thomas. We were simply brothers.”
“But at that time one of us was not duke and afraid the other might waste some of his vast substance,” the other said.
“And you know that that was never my concern either,” the duke said. “I tried to persuade you to stay. I wanted you to stay.I wanted to share Willoughby with you. You belonged here. You were my brother. But when you insisted on leaving, then I told you you must not return. I meant ever.”
“Ever is a long time,” Lord Thomas said, strolling to the fireplace and examining the mosaic lion on the overmantel. “It’s strange how I could not even picture this room clearly in my mind when I was in India. But it all comes back now. Nothing ever changes at Willoughby, does it?”
“You couldn’t leave her in peace, could you?” the duke said.
“In peace?” Lord Thomas turned around with a laugh. “You mean she has been in peace married to you for the past five and a half years? She does not appear to me like a woman living in wedded bliss, Adam. Haven’t you seen that? Are you still besotted with her?”
“She had accepted the fact that you were gone,” the duke said, “that you would never return.”
“Well.” His brother sank into a leather chair and draped a leg over one of its arms. “She does not seem unduly unhappy at my return, either, Adam. She is not as niggardly in her welcome as you are.”
“And what is she to do when you leave again?” his brother asked.
“Have I said anything about leaving?” Lord Thomas spread his hands. “Perhaps I will stay this time. Perhaps she will not have to do anything.”
“It is too late for you to stay,” the duke said curtly. “She is married to me.”
“Yes.” Lord Thomas laughed. “She is, isn’t she? Poor Adam. Perhaps I will take her from you.”
“No,” the duke said. “Never that. I doubt that would serve your purpose at all, Thomas. You will merely take her heart again. You will convince her again that you love her, that for you the sun rises and sets on her. And then, when you tire of the game, you will leave her. She will not guard her heartagainst such an ending because she will believe in you as she did before and as she has done ever since you left.”
“I gather you must have played the gallant and taken all the blame.” Lord Thomas was laughing again. “She did not rain blows at my head as I half-expected her to do. You are a fool, Adam.”
“I happened to love her most dearly,” his brother said quietly. “I would have given my life to save her from pain. I knew she could no longer love me—if she ever had—and so I allowed her to think me the villain. But perhaps she already thought that. I came back alive, after all, and spoiled everything.”
“And you also married her,” Lord Thomas said. “You were rather fortunate, I suppose, that Pamela was not born with my mother’s red hair. You would have been the laughingstock. As it is, I suppose people only smile behind their hands to think that you came home like an impatient stallion to mount her in the hay without even pausing to change out of the clothes you traveled in or to remove your boots.”
