The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)(91)

“It’s not your fault.”

“It most certainly is. My brother is awaiting trial for an act that I committed, for no reason except that they can’t get at me. If that isn’t my fault, I don’t know what is.” He contemplated the walls. “But I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to him. I won’t.”

She stood before him a few moments longer. He kept his head down, aware of her every breath.

And then, very slowly, she brushed her skirts to the side and sat gingerly on the stone bench next to him. Six inches away, but still next to him. “You’ve been a good friend to my son.”

“I’ve been his brother.” He still didn’t look at her.

“He talked about you all the time when he was home from school. You and Sebastian Malheur—but especially you. Needless to say, Mr. Marshall and I found it rather alarming. But he didn’t talk about a boy who seemed like a younger version of your father. You sounded thoughtful and quiet, two things that the Duke of Clermont never managed to be. I always wished I had been better prepared all those years ago. When Oliver spoke of you, you sounded so sweet that I had envisioned a completely different boy. To walk in the room and see you looking at me—with his eyes, and his nose, and his mouth—I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t even really come back to myself until I was half a mile away.”

“There’s no need to explain. I know what my father did. If I were you, I wouldn’t be able to look at me, either.”

“Oliver said after, he thought I’d hurt your feelings.”

Robert shook his head. “There is no room for my feelings in this. You were wronged. It’s not your responsibility to extend the olive branch, but mine, to get out of your way. To give to you what little comfort you can find.”

“Maybe,” she said slowly. “Maybe. But what I can’t help thinking is this.”

The sky was blue overhead, without a single cloud in it. It seemed impossible at this time of year, and yet there it was. Robert tilted his head back and shut his eyes.

“We told Oliver the truth about his birth when he was quite young. Or, I should say, Hugo told him. Not everything, you understand, but a child’s version. There was a bad man. He hurt me. Some people might say that other man was his father, but we loved him, and it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to say anything at all, but Hugo convinced me.” She sighed.

Robert tried to imagine what it would be like to have parents who actually considered what to tell their children, who cared about these details. Who assured him that they loved him.

I want to be that kind of parent. His fists clenched.

“Hugo was very matter-of-fact about it, and so Oliver took it in stride. Until he found out about you. Then he had nightmares.”

“About me?” Robert repeated.

“Yes. He woke up crying one night, and wouldn’t stop. When I asked what was wrong, he said that the bad man had his brother, and we had to go get him.”

Robert felt a lump form in his throat. “Ah,” he managed carefully.

“I thought it was sweet, actually, and that stage passed. But…” She turned to look at him directly. “But now, it has been almost thirty years since I saw your father. What he did to me took all of ten minutes, and I still remember it.” She paused and then reached over and tapped him on the knee.

He looked over into her eyes. This time, she didn’t flinch from him.

“You,” she said quietly, “you grew up with him. That must have been awful.”

For a second, Robert saw his father looming over him, so much taller back then, so much bigger.

What kind of a son are you? He’d thrown up his hands in aggravation. Any other boy, and things would be so much better. Even your mother doesn’t want you enough to stay.

“Oh,” Robert said quietly. “It wasn’t so bad. Most of the time, my father didn’t even remember I was there.”

And perhaps Mrs. Marshall heard that tiny catch in his voice, because ever so slowly, she put her arm around him.

“You poor, poor boy,” she said.

Robert’s duty for the afternoon did not promise to be so enlightening as his morning.

“I have no idea what to think of you, Your Grace.”

Robert stood in the entry to the Charingfords’ home. It seemed a comfortable enough place, papered in cream and blue, the entry itself bright and cheerful. But Mr. Charingford, who stood across from him, looked neither bright nor happy. His hair was graying and thin, and he’d folded his arms over his chest.

“I’ve agreed to this,” the other man said, “because you showed good sense on precisely one occasion.”

“One occasion?” Robert raised an eyebrow. “When was that?”

“When you married Miss Pur—I suppose I cannot call her that now, can I?” Charingford tilted his head and almost smiled. “When you married your wife. I tried to convince my son to have a look at her, but he never could get past that scar. Her friendship with my daughter… We spent four months together in Cornwall on a journey, and I think I know her better than anyone in town besides her great-aunts. She was a good choice.”

She had been. Robert ached to think of what would come tomorrow.

“I can only hope that some of her sense has begun to seep into your consciousness. I cannot know what you were thinking to write those handbills. To come here and try to convince people like me to support voting reform.” Charingford gave him a look under lowered eyebrows.