“Close the door,” James said.
William closed it.
He did not sit. He stood in front of the desk with his arms hanging at his sides and looked at James with the full attention he brought to things that mattered.
“Is it true?” he asked. “Caroline Pembley visited your townhouse?”
“She came uninvited,” James answered. “I sent her away within the hour. Nothing occurred.”
“Then why did my sister arrive at Blackmoor yesterday unable to stop crying?” William bit out.
The words landed hard. Not because James hadn’t known. Hehadknown, had known it since the moment the carriage disappeared down the drive, and he’d stood at the window looking out at the pale gravel and felt the full weight of what he had let happen.
Hearing it said aloud was different.
He opened his mouth. “William?—”
“No.” William lifted a hand. “Don’t even try.” His jaw tightened. “Do you know what it is like to watch your sister try not to cry because she doesn’t wish to burden anyone else?”
James heaved a sigh.
“How is she?” he asked.
“How is she?” William repeated flatly. “She was up until past midnight. She has not eaten properly. She spent the better part of yesterday evening trying to convince herself she had imagined everything that happened between you at Ashbourne so that it would hurt less.” His eyes flashed. “That is how she is.”
James remained silent.
“You know what’s making this so difficult? It’syou.”
He frowned slightly.
“If it were anyone else…” William’s voice hardened. “I’d have dragged him out into the courtyard. Instead, I’m standing here talking to my closest friend.”
James pressed his hand flat against the desk. “She didn’t imagine it.”
“I know she didn’t.”
“Then you know?—”
“What I know,” William spoke over him, taking a step forward, “is that my sister came home with tears she was trying to hideand told me she was in love with her husband and then told me it didn’t matter because her husband let her walk out the door without a word. Do you have any idea what it was like to hear that?”
James lowered his eyes.
“She kept apologizing.”
James looked back up.
William swallowed. “She apologized for crying.” His jaw tightened. “I told you… I told you plainly, James, that if you felt something and said nothing, I would not forgive it. It seems you did feel something and said nothing.”
“Yes,” James sighed.
“Yes,” William echoed, his hands tightening into fists. “That’s all you have?”
“What would you like me to say, William?”
“That you fought for her.” A pause. “That you stopped her. Anything except watching her leave.” William’s voice dropped. “I would really like to know why my closest friend, whom I have watched care for my sister over the course of several weeks, looked at her standing in his entrance hall and chose silence.”
The morning light filtered through the windows with the warm weather of August. James looked down at his hands. “Because she was crying,” he answered.
