Eight years separated the ages of the brothers. Jack barely knew Ben. He’d been off to school when Ben was born and had rarely returned home afterward. The more he stayed away from their father, the happier Jack was.
He now held out his hand to Ben. “We have not seen each other in a good while.”
Before Ben could respond, Gavin said, “You offer your hand to Ben and for me, you had nothing?”
Ben shut the door as if he didn’t want Gavin to be overheard.
Letting his hand fall, Jack said to his twin, “There was a time we knew each other so well, we could read one another’s thoughts. Did I need to explain?”
Gavin took a sip of his drink and frowned as if it tasted bitter. “Yes, I believe I am owed an explanation. Perhaps even an apology. I would dare to suggest you owe both to all of us.”
God, he sounded the very image of their father.
A wildness that had always been inside Jack reared its ugly head. For the past several years, he’d tamped it down but now here it was—his pride, his independent spirit,allthe things their father had attempted to beat out of him.
“Mother is the one who deserves an apology but I don’t think I owe you anything, Your Grace. You seem to have fared well without me.”
“Perhaps the two of you wish to pound this out alone?” Ben suggested, placing his hand on the door handle.
“Don’tthink of going anywhere,” Gavin answered Ben. “The days of my knowing what my twin is thinking are long past. We are barely acquaintances now. Tell me, Jack, howhasyour life been?”
Jack had set off this evening aware that presenting himself to his family would not be easy. Hard questions would be asked and he was certain they would not like the answers. However, right now, he could just as happily rip off his twin’s head. If he could have accomplished his mission to his chosen country without him, he would have walked out the door.
Instead, he forced back his anger. “My life has been good,” Jack answered. “And yours?”
The corners of Gavin’s mouth tightened. “Father died.”
“I had heard.”
“Did you?When?”
Ben stood to the side, his body tense as if he wished he were anywhere else but here. However, now he, too, leveled his gaze on Jack.
Here was one of the answers that would damn him. “In 1808. He must have been dead for a year by then. A friend told me.”
The lines of Gavin’s face deepened, and then he walked behind his desk, setting his glass on the blotter in front of him. He sat, taking on the air of a judge ready to weigh evidence. He did not speak.
Ben shifted his weight. Was it Jack’s imagination, or did this younger brother that he barely knew seem to have some commiseration for him?
The truth. Clear the air and speak the truth. The voice inside Jack, that voice that had prodded him to run, to escape, now urged him to not flinch from this moment. Indeed, Gavin deserved to know Jack’s feelings... even if he would not like them.
“I felt no grief,” he admitted. “Our father was a tyrant. You might not recognize that fact. After all,youwere the chosen one.”
Gavin did not move, not even an eyelash.
Ben bowed his head, and yet Jack sensed again that his younger brother knew of what he spoke.
“I was second best, Gavin, and according to Father, a serious disappointment.”
“Therefore you ran away? Let all of us think you were dead?” There was no heat in Gavin’s voice but his words were tense.
The anger, the frustration, the bloody fear his fifteen-year-old self had harbored thatthiswould be all his life held welled inside Jack. “I needed to be free.” He paused and then confessed, “I meant to come back. I thought I’d be gone a month, maybe two.” He looked to Ben, to the sympathetic one. “Catering to Father’s demands, his expectations, and knowing I had no role other than as a backup in case something happened to the first born ate at my soul. I wanted more. Ideservedmore. I certainly didn’t want to be compared to you, Gavin. You were everything Father expected, all that a duke should be. Studies were effortless for you. You had the ability to spend hours inside poring over the most boring books when such endeavors were misery for me. I could think of nothing but escaping the library. You did everything well, Gavin. This role, being duke, was the reason you were the first out of the womb. I had no talent for it.”
As Jack spoke, his twin had brought the full force of his attention upon him. He leaned forward, his hands on the arms of the chair as if he would rise. “No one expected you to be anything other than what you were—my brother.”
“From your perspective,” Jack answered. “From mine, I felt trapped. Bloody trapped.”
“And so you bolted? You abandoned your family?”
