Twelfth Night with the Earl (The Sutherland Sisters #3)(29)

“How?” Grief and the old pain made her voice too loud in the quiet room. “He had a fit, fell down the stairs and hit his head on the marble floor. It was over before you even understood what had happened. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I was right there, right beside him—”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? His fits had become more frequent and more severe long before that fall. He was . . .” Thea choked back a sob. “He was never going to live long. Andrew knew it. He’d known it for a long time, and he’d accepted it.”

They all had, even the old earl, who’d at last made peace with it all after Andrew’s death. The only one who hadn’t accepted it was Ethan. If his father hadn’t sent Ethan off to school after Lady Isabel died, and then kept him from his brother for all those years, it might have been different, but he had. The old earl insisted his second son spend all his school holidays in London, and when Ethan left Oxford, his father sent him on a two-year tour of the Continent.

For reasons Thea didn’t understand, the old earl had been determined to keep Ethan away from Cleves Court, and away from his brother. Perhaps Ethan’s father blamed Andrew, or perhaps in his ignorance the old earl had believed Ethan would turn “mad” if he spent any time with Andrew, as if his brother’s illness were contagious. Whatever the reason, Ethan had been sent away, and his father had kept him away for ten long years.

And Andrew . . . there’d never been any question of Andrew going to London. His father wouldn’t hear of it. He’d been left behind in Cornwall with an army of servants to tend to him.

Ethan had returned at last, after ten long years, but he’d come back to Cleves Court only to witness his brother die right before his eyes.

They never found out who started the rumor Ethan pushed Andrew down the stairs. When Andrew fell, Ethan must have made some noise—a shout, or a cry, because servants had come pouring into the entryway, and as soon as they saw Andrew lifeless on the floor, chaos erupted. One of the housemaids had screamed, and footmen had rushed forward to help . . .

Later, after Andrew was buried and Ethan had returned to London, Ethan’s father dismissed most of the servants. Perhaps one of them, angry at losing their place, was responsible for the rumor, or perhaps one of them actually believed Ethan had pushed Andrew.

It hardly mattered now. The damage was done.

“Ethan, look at me.”

He’d let his head fall into his hands as if he were suddenly too weary to hold it up. Thea closed her fingers around his wrists and gently brought his hands away from his face, and dear God, the pain in his eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at him.

But she would look at him, and she’d talk to him, because she was the only one who could, and she’d never leave him to suffer such pain alone.

“Your mother used to spend entire afternoons in her garden. Do you remember?” She gripped his hands in hers. “In the summer she’d bring in bunches of her roses, and Mrs. Hopkins would put them in a vase, and no matter where we went on the first floor, we could smell them. Do you remember how sweet they were?”

His gaze was fixed on her face, but he didn’t answer.

“All those Christmases we had here, Ethan? We used to hunt for mistletoe together as children, just as we did the other day, and your mother would make kissing balls for us. We were happy—you, me and Andrew. You must remember.”

“I remember the last Christmas my father ever spent with us,” he whispered, so low she had to lean forward to hear him. “We were to have a Twelfth Night party that year. Andrew must have been anxious to please Father—anxiety and stress always brought on his fits.”

Thea wanted to interrupt him, to stop him from saying it, but she pressed her lips together and remained silent, because he needed to say it.

“Andrew had a fit that night, right in the entryway, minutes before the guests were due to start arriving. They were difficult to watch, his fits—I’m sure you remember that. The convulsions, the jerking limbs, the way he cried out, the sweating. And that night, my father . . . he just stood there, watching, a look of utter disgust on his face, and then he turned and walked away, and left Andrew lying on the floor. He didn’t even try to help him, he . . . he refused to touch him.”

Thea didn’t interrupt him, but touched her palms to his face, and his hands came up to grip her arms. “He was ashamed of Andrew. Ashamed of his own son. He abandoned us after that, left us here in this house alone, went off to London, and never looked back. My mother died here—died of a broken heart, and Andrew . . .”

He released her suddenly, and covered his eyes with one hand, his chest heaving with emotion.

Agony gripped Thea, crushing the breath from her.

Dear God, what would become of him?

If he couldn’t lay his demons to rest, he’d be left with nothing but regrets, just as his father had been. John Fortescue had learned that lesson after years of trying to drown himself in drink, gaming, and one mistress after another, and by the time he realized there was no escape from the pain, it was too late for him. When he returned to Cleves Court at last, Andrew and Lady Isabel were dead, and Ethan . . .

Ethan was broken.

Broken, and running from it, just as his father had. If he went back to London next week, he’d never come back here again. She knew it, as surely as she knew he’d spend the rest of his life trying to escape the ghosts that haunted him.