Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(52)

Ben had declined Devlin’s invitation to join them. He had insisted upon behaving like a guest, happy enough to be here, but not involved in any of the workings of the home where he had grown up.

Now, this morning, on their second full day at home, a beautiful, blue-skied early-autumn day, Ben had taken Joy out in the gig for a drive about the park. Stephanie, after appealing to Miss Field for time off from her lessons, had gone with them.

Devlin wandered outside for a while, noticing how a few of the leaves on the trees were beginning to change color and feeling unexpectedly cheered by the prospect of witnessing the whole glory of an English autumn this year—and winter after it. Winters on the Peninsula had been brutal. They had been responsible for the deaths of far too many of his men. He had not seen much of the park yet, but what he had seen was encouraging. There had been no neglect. Everything was looking pristine. Everything close to the house, of course, would have been spruced up for his homecoming. He would see the more distant parts of the park in the next few days, though probably not tomorrow. That was the day of the infernal tea.

He turned when he heard the front doors opening. Owen was running lightly down the steps. It was still a bit of a shock to see him as a man. A very young man, it was true, but definitely no longer a boy.

“I am off to the village to pick up some silks for Mama’s embroidery,” he explained when he saw Devlin. “I’ll call on Brad too while I am there. Mama is in no particular hurry for the silks.”

“Brad?” Devlin raised his eyebrows.

“Bradley Danver,” Owen said. “The vicar’s son. We have always been friends. Remember? I lent him a book about a month ago. Have you noticed how people never return books unless you prod them? I am going to do a bit of prodding. I like that book.”

“I’ll come with you if I may,” Devlin said on impulse. The thought of walking into the village for the first time was a bit daunting, but it had to be done. Now was as good a time as any.

“Brilliant,” Owen said cheerfully, and they fell into step beside each other. Once they were clear of the house and alone, Owen turned to him. It was the first time Devlin had been alone with any of his siblings, besides Ben, of course. “Tell me what happened, Dev. I have been itching to ask, but violence and warfare are something one cannot talk about when there are women present. They might swoon or turn green or even puke. It must be dashed uncomfortable being a woman, I would say. It looks to me as though the top of your head came damnably close to being sliced right off.”

“It was a glancing cut rather than a deliberate blow,” Devlin told him. “If it had been deliberate, I would not be here talking with you now. There was enough blood to fill a lake even so, and I really did think I was done for. I thought I was blind too for a while, until I realized everything was red rather than black. Ben worked his magic on me after a surgeon had patched me up, and here I am, intact except for an ugly scar.”

“I bet women don’t see it as ugly,” his brother said. “Women are funny that way. Though they would probably be prostrate on a couch with burned feathers being waved under their noses if they ever heard about that lake of blood. Better not tell ’em, Dev. Did you meet lots of them? Women, I mean. Ben obviously did.”

Devlin paused for a moment, grateful for the ease of his brother’s conversation. While his exuberance had been sometimes annoying when he was a boy, now it felt rather welcome. “Ben met one of them,” he told his brother. “He made her his wife and had a child with her. He mourned her without fuss when she died, but he did mourn. Very deeply. He is a good man, Owen. A brother to be proud of.”

“He always was,” Owen said. “I always thought it a dashed shame he was a— Well, that his mother was never married to Papa. Though that would have relegated you to the position of spare rather than heir—would it not?—and he would have been the earl now rather than you. Tell me what it was like out there, Dev. Nick’s letters have always been full of good cheer. One would swear he went there to enjoy some sort of Grand Tour. Ben’s letters, on the other hand, were always so dry, one half expected the paper to crumble to dust in one’s hand. And your letters were nonexistent.”

“Did you resent that?” Devlin asked. He had not written because he could not risk cracking the emotionless shell he had built to hold himself together. He had not thought of how his silence might hurt his siblings, who had loved him and whom he had loved. He had dared not think of it.

His brother thought. “I don’t know if resented is the right word,” he said. “Hated would be better. I hated that you did not write. Not even to Steph, who worshipped the ground you trod upon. As though none of us existed. As though you did not care. Not even when . . . Well, not even then.”

“Not even when our father died,” Devlin said, somehow getting his mouth about the words. And Stephanie . . . who worshipped the ground you trod upon. The very idea of it cut into him like a whip.

“It was awful,” Owen said. “He was in his cups. As usual. He fell and hit his head against the corner of the counter in the taproom at the inn.”

Good God! Devlin had always assumed it was a heart seizure. Had the letter from his father’s solicitor not specified that was the cause of his death? Or had he worded the letter in such a way that Devlin would make that assumption? His father had been drunk? As usual?