Instead, just his twin entered. Baynton was still in evening dress, his expression one of annoyance.
He shut the door without looking at Jack. “Could you have chosen a more dramatic way to let us know you have returned?” He walked over to the cabinet holding the whisky decanter. He poured himself a generous measure. “Do you want one?”
“No.”
With a lift of one brow, an expression so reminiscent of their father Jack had endeavored never to use it, Gavin set the decanter down. He took his glass but didn’t drink.
Silence stretched between them.
Jack broke it. “How is Mother?”
“Shocked.”
“I’d like to see her.” Years ago when he’d left, he’d not given a thought to what she would think or feel. His goal had been to escape.
Even when he’d walked into the house this evening he’d been more focused on Gavin than on the woman who had given birth to him—until she’d fainted. Then he’d noticed. Then he’d started to gain some idea of what his disappearance had cost her.
She’d aged. The fact had surprised him and it shouldn’t have. After all,hewas no longer fifteen. Why could he not have anticipated his mother would advance in years as well?
Still, he had not expected her wrinkles or the silver in her hair. He’d pictured her the way she’d been when he’d left. She had once been very important to him, but he’d callously tossed her aside.
Doubt was an uncomfortable emotion.
“So,” Gavin said, “are you going to tell me?”
“Why I have presented myself to you?”
“Why youleft.” Gavin set his drink down on his desk without having taken a taste. “You walked into this house this evening as if we’d only seen you yesterday. It has been almost seventeen years. Where the bloody hell have you been?”
Jack had always assumed that someday there would be an accounting. The knowledge did not make this any easier.
However, Gavin was not waiting for a response. Instead, in typical style, he charged ahead. “We searched for you for years. Father hired the very best men. They combed England, the face of the earth.They said you were dead.”
The raw emotion in his brother’s voice caught Jack off guard. “And how did you feel about that, Gavin? My being dead?”
For a second, his brother’s stare hardened as if he could not believe what he’d just heard... and then he spoke. “Devastated.”
The word rose in the air to take shape in the form of tiny daggers, a willing betrayal.
Jack had his reasons for leaving, reasons that now, he realized, years later, had been foolish—or had they? What sort of man would he have been if he stayed?
And yet, in the face of Gavin’s honesty, he owed his twin something. “I had to leave,” he said.
“By all that is holy, why?”
“Because.”
Again, his brother’s brows came together. He leaned back as if rejecting what he’d heard, and then suddenly he began laughing. He laughed loud, hard. He sounded half mad.
Jack saw nothing funny, and then he noticed the tears in his twin’s eyes. He took a step toward him, uncertain of what he could say. This reaction was not expected—
A knock on the door interrupted them. “Your Grace, it is Ben.” Ben, their brother.
Gavin underwent a transformation. His shoulders straightened. Had there been tears? Jack could see no sign of them.
“Come in,” Gavin said. He reached for his drink.
Ben entered the room. He had the broad shoulders and strong nose of the Whitridges. However, he was a few inches taller than both Jack and Gavin and leaner in build.
