Jack complied and they picked the phaeton up and over the low wall. For a few coins more, the boys pulled the lightweight vehicle to the inn as well.
About twenty stones had been knocked over. Jack started stacking them back into place. Gavin came over and helped.
On the tip of Jack’s tongue was a comment about the duke dirtying his hands... and then he realized that wasn’t what he wanted to say to his brother. Yes, he was angry at his twin. Furious, even.
But he was also tired of resentment between them. He would have been crazed with fury if Gavin had won Charlene. Loving her had filled an emptiness inside him, a longing he’d not been willing to recognize until she’d shaken him up.
Perhaps Gavin had hoped she would fill in the same way. Disappointment was always a bitter pill and, for Gavin, this one came with the humiliation of knowing all his contemporaries had watched his courtship and would know he’d been rejected.
Both he and Gavin reached for the last stone at the same time. They found themselves practically eyeball to eyeball. Jack stood.
Gavin placed the stone. He looked to the disgruntled cottager. “Is this correct?”
She took her time reviewing their work and then said, “It will be good enough.” On those words she marched back into her home and shut the door.
“Well,” Gavin said, imitating her manner with a bit of humor. “We shall keep this incident between us.”
Jack laughingly agreed.
The two of them faced each other. They did not move.
Gavin’s gaze drifted back to the smithy. “Lady Charlene is a true pearl.”
“Aye, she is, but she is also a willful lass. I don’t doubt for a second that she will play me a merry tune and yet I love her. I’d do anything for her.”
“Even lock up your own blood?” The humor had left Gavin’s eyes. A tight muscle worked in his jaw.
Jack braced himself, not knowing what to expect.
“The trip up here has given me time to think,” Gavin said. “I’m not proud of what I did.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I felt betrayed. I wanted to hurt you the way you wounded me. I wanted to break you. I’d opened myself to you, Jack. I shared what I would not tell anyone.”
“Are you speaking about telling me you haven’t slept with a woman—”
Gavin took a step back, tensing as if he didn’t even want mention of the subject. “It is an odd place to be, my age and not having experienced what almost every other man from the rat catcher to the king has.”
“It is nothing to be ashamed of and easily remedied.”
Gavin ignored him. Instead, he continued. “When I found out she preferred you, it raised old emotions. And it was like when you left years ago. I was shocked then, Jack. I’d always thought you shared everything and then you just left. For a while I wanted to believe you were dead because then there was an explanation. However, I knew in that way we have that you were alive.”
“Did you tell Father?”
Gavin shook his head. “No.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to feel uneasy. To explain. And how does one put into words rash behavior and make it sound palatable? Especially when he had no regrets.
“I have no explanation for why I left, Gavin, other than a belief I’d go mad if I had to spend more time with books and being under Father’s thumb. I hated being the cupbearer. You are the one he valued. Ben and I were just spares in case something happened to you. And he was a hard taskmaster. I will say he was more demanding of you than he was with us.”
“He had to be with me. His standards were high.”
“Maybe, or maybe not. You don’t want to be a paragon, Gavin. There is no breathing room there. You can’t live your life meeting a dead man’s expectations.” He paused a moment and then added, “Any more than I discovered I could spend mine in your shadow. Our wills are too strong, brother.”
“But to give up your country?”
“I’ve lived out of it longer than I’ve lived in it. However, the adventure of carving my own reputation suits me. And here is my advice to you, live the life you want.”
