Not the “get the hell out of here—I was merely taunting you” response Edwin had feared.
“Yes,” he said lamely, wishing for the camaraderie they’d once shared. The jovial laughter and bawdy jests between two who’d been as close as brothers.
“Won’t you sit? Please.” Charles motioned to the empty chair that Edwin hadn’t even realized he’d grabbed on to and now had a death grip upon.
A liveried servant, hovering in the wings, came over . . . then stopped. The young man glanced uncertainly from the owner of the table to Edwin’s still-tight hold on the chair.
All this, how very . . . foreign it all was. How peculiar it all felt.
The buzz of whispers generated around White’s swarmed his ears, like the hive of bees he and Charles had knocked loose from Edwin’s family’s country estate as boys.
Charles’s brows came together.
You’re in hiding no more, and you deserve to be out in the light.
Edwin forced himself to release the chair and stepped back.
The servant rushed to draw the seat out for him, and as Edwin slid into the comfortable folds and a glass was set before him, he forced a wry grin. “I forgot the whole expectation that we can’t manage to even seat ourselves.”
And just like that the tension broke.
Charles laughed, and retrieving his glass, he lifted it in salute. “Indeed.” Setting his brandy down once more, he proceeded to pour a snifter for Edwin. He pushed it across the table.
It was an offering.
An olive branch.
And bloody hell—before a room of strangers, servants, and once friends, Edwin’s throat flooded with emotion. Desperate for a drink, he gathered it and took a long sip. When he’d finished that swallow, Edwin contemplated the dark contents of the fine French stock. “I . . .” Gertrude had convinced him not even one day ago that he needed this reunion to occur. He’d resisted at first, and then he saw the truth in what she’d said . . . He’d known he was coming from that moment. He’d ridden his mount through the fashionable end of London. Strode up the steps and through the whole of the club, and hadn’t given a single proper thought to what he should say.
Simply being here had represented the impossible task.
He’d believed that . . . and he’d been wrong.
Finding any appropriate discourse with his best friend was the greatest struggle . . . and had he fixed on that before his journey here, it was likely a road he’d never have traveled.
Charles cleared his throat. “I’m happy you decided to join me.”
It was more than he deserved. “I thought about not coming,” he confessed, at last lifting his gaze. “I felt everything that needed to be said had been years ago.” When Lavinia had perished with her and Edwin’s babe, and Stephen also had been lost.
“There’s always more to say,” Charles said in grave tones. “There was never closure.”
No, there had been only raging fury and explosive agony. “Is that what this is about? Closure?”
A strained smile ghosted Charles’s lips. “No. It’s not about that. We were friends.” He paused and stared briefly into his drink. “Best friends.”
“Brothers until we die, Edwin! First—”
“Egads, what are you doing, Charles?”
“I’m cutting my palm. So we have a blood bond. We’ll be . . .”
“Blood brothers,” Edwin murmured.
“You remember that?” Charles stared past Edwin’s shoulder, his gaze distant, his eyes seeing that same long-ago memory. “A friendship that will not break. A devotion no one can ever shake. No person shall . . .” His words trailed off, and reality forced its way back in.
“Come between us,” Edwin made himself say for the benefit of both their remembrances.
“I blamed you,” Charles said suddenly, unexpectedly. “And I was wrong.”
Edwin stiffened. Of everything his brother-in-law might have said, those had certainly not been the words Edwin had thought would leave his lips.
Charles dragged his chair closer and, dropping his elbows on the table, framed his face so that the people to the left and right of them were shut out. “I needed to blame someone. It was never you. It was the rotted luck to bring into her employ that Devil in disguise. It could have been anyone.”
Only, it hadn’t been. It had been Edwin. Lavinia. Stephen. And another tiny babe who’d never entered the world.
A boy or girl, Edwin had never known and never would because of one ruthless act of violence committed against them. Had she been a little girl, one Stephen even now would be a protective older brother to?
This is too much . . .
Nothing these past years had destroyed him—this would.
“How is August?”
What . . . ? His head foggy, Edwin glanced over, having forgotten the man across from him.
“August?”
Charles frowned.
“My son. He is . . .” What was he, exactly? The answer he would have given Charles two weeks ago would have been very different from the one he considered now. Stephen now laughed and smiled and didn’t speak about splitting his stomach open or, worse, returning to Broderick Killoran’s clubs. But neither was the child one Charles would recognize or know how to speak with. “Stephen is settling in.” There, that wasn’t untrue.
“Stephen?” his brother-in-law asked, confusion heavy in his gaze and query.
A dull heat climbed Edwin’s cheeks. “That was August’s name when he was kidnapped. He’s faced so many changes, I thought it would be easier for him if he were to retain the name he’s gone by these past years.”
“You changed his name?”
“They changed his name.”
“And you’ve kept it.”
Edwin searched for judgment in Charles’s expression, for God knew it was all there in those four syllables. This was a mistake. He made to stand.
With a shake of his head, Charles tossed back his drink in one swallow that strained the muscles of his throat as they worked to down those spirits. When he’d finished, he grimaced and gave his head a shake. “Who’s to say what’s the right way to do any of this?” he muttered, and that calm forgiveness kept Edwin there. “They don’t prepare one for how to deal with this tragedy.”
“No, they don’t.”
“And one never is really happy again after it,” Charles whispered.
Yes, that was true. Again, that had been the case, but for Gertrude. She’d shown him that it was all right to live again . . . and that it was wrong for him as well as Stephen not to find happiness once more.
And I want it with her . . .
On the heels of that was another long-accustomed sentiment he’d come to know around Charles—guilt.
“Your parents want to see him.” Edwin searched his friend for some outward reaction.
“They’ve told me as much.” His brother-in-law grabbed the bottle of brandy and refilled his glass. “I told them it wasn’t their place to force a reunion, and perhaps in time there could be something, but you’d decided that this is not that time,” he murmured, topping off Edwin’s glass.
So that had not been the impetus behind Charles’s sudden appearance, a peace brokering so Lavinia’s family might have access to Stephen. Made a cynic by life and all its misery, those suspicions had been there at the back of his head.
“Will you send him on to Eton?”
An image flashed to mind of Stephen attending that school with distinguished boys of his same station, except so wholly different. He’d bloody them senseless. Nor could any good come from their own relationship as father and son if he were to send the boy away. “I don’t think that is wise.” Edwin picked up his glass. “Not at this time. Mayhap one day.” Or mayhap never.
“Governesses and tutors, then?”
“We are in the process of finding one that might be a good match for him.” You should hire Mrs. Upton . . .
Charles quirked a brow. “We?”
Ed
win started, and cursed his loose tongue.
“Miss Killoran.”
The air stirred around them like the dangerous charge right before a lightning strike. That name, Gertrude’s familial one, had once inspired a like response in him. “She’s a good woman.”
His brother-in-law stared back incredulously. “A good woman?” he whispered, surging forward in his chair. “Her family kidnapped August. Killed my sister.” My wife. “Your second babe. And you’d say she is a ‘good woman’?”
Just like that, the fragile truce fractured. Yet neither could he, in good conscience, blame Charles for that volatile response. It was a realistic one that he himself had had, and he still would have been mired in his hatred for Gertrude had he sent her away weeks earlier. “She took care of him. She kept him safe. And she is attempting to ease his way back into my household.” A task that he would have never accomplished without her assistance.
“And then she’ll go?”
I don’t want to leave, Edwin . . .
“And then she’ll go.”
The narrowing of his brother-in-law’s eyes indicated that he’d heard the hesitation there. A sad smile formed on hard lips. “You were always more trusting than was safe. And you’re trusting still. That woman . . . her blood is that bastard’s. She cannot be trusted.”
“You’re wrong,” he said automatically, and never had he more believed those two words.
“Am I?” Charles shot back. Once more, he dragged his chair closer. “But what if I’m not, Edwin? What if this is all some other ploy to steal him right back?”
At the back of his mind, for the first time, suspicion stirred.
What if that was the only reason she wished to stay? So she could be closer to Stephen?
As soon as the traitorous thought slipped in, he batted it back.
“I trust her.” And he wanted to go. Wanted to leave his club and all the icy stares and whispers and return to her side. To listen to whatever peculiar bit of information she was in possession of, or join her and one of those unconventional creatures she’d made pets.
Charles exhaled slowly through his clenched lips. “I heard the pause there. Mark my words, she isn’t to be trusted. Blood will tell, and hers flows with that bastard Mac Diggory’s. She’s as evil as her father.”
They were condemnations Edwin himself had uttered, too many times to remember. He’d been of a like opinion since he’d uncovered the treacherous act committed that night. Everything, however, had changed.
Fury pulsed in his veins. “You don’t know her.”
“I don’t want to know her,” Charles barked. The whispers around White’s grew to a frenzy. His brother-in-law grabbed his snifter and took a drink. “I didn’t ask you here to discuss a Diggory.” Reaching into his jacket, he withdrew a folded sheet with the marquess’s seal upon it. He tossed it across the table, and the page landed next to Edwin’s drink. “I wanted to host you and August as guests for dinner. My parents won’t be there,” he rushed to assure. “But I want to know my godson.”
That’s what this was about . . . Charles wished a reunion with him and his nephew. Edwin picked up that invitation and tucked it inside his jacket. “You want to know Stephen,” he murmured.
“I want to know August. That”—he jammed a fingertip at the surface of the table—“is his name, Edwin. Not Stephen. Not Killoran. August. My God, man, how can you cede any part of your son to that family?” he implored.
Edwin pushed back his chair. “This was a mistake.”
“Because I’m being honest with you?” Charles challenged. “Because I’m trying to protect you and my nephew?”
Because my judgment has been so flawed. Because I trusted where I oughtn’t too many times, which has brought me to this point in my life. And yet, he’d not have anyone looking after him like he was a damned babe, and certainly not the former best friend who’d been absent since Lavinia’s death. “I do not need protection.”
His brother-in-law arched a brow. “Just like you and Lavinia didn’t require it seven years ago?”
The barb found its intended mark.
Charles pounced. “This sudden weakness . . . does it have anything to do with Gertrude Killoran?”
“It’s not your business,” he gritted out.
Charles’s eyes rounded with horror. “My God, you care about her. A common street rat, thief, and murderer—”
Edwin shot a hand across the table and gripped his brother-in-law by the shirtfront. “Not another word,” he whispered. “Do not mention her name again.”
Silence blanketed the club, and the prickling along Edwin’s nape brought him back to the moment. He abruptly released Charles. The other man fell back in his chair. “I understand the reason for your hatred; I shared it. But I’ve come to know Gertrude Killoran, and she is nothing like Mac Diggory.”
Edwin turned to go.
“Edwin . . .” Keep walking. There was nothing left here to be said between them. Charles was too mired in his hatred to see reason. So why did Edwin stop? “You might resent me in this instant . . . but you’ll see I’m right about her. She is not to be trusted.”
And with that ominous warning reverberating in his mind, Edwin left.
Chapter 23
After the initial “Good God, what in ’ell are ya doin’ ’ere,” hurled in Cleopatra’s Cockney, had come a series of swift and very tight hugs from a sibling who’d never been given to any expressions of warmth . . . for both Gertrude and Stephen.
Positioned in the corner of her sister’s parlor at the edge of the floor-length windows overlooking the London streets below, Gertrude alternated between watching that pair deep in discussion and stealing nervous glances outside.
And then at the clock.
They could not remain long.
As it was, they’d been here almost forty minutes. If Edwin’s meeting with Charles proved a disaster, or if Edwin could not face the ton after all, he’d be home and likely find out that they were missing.
He might not notice. He’d have to be looking for her upon his return. And why should he?
Because you made love last night? Because he brought you pleasure you hadn’t believed possible, over and over?
A blush scorched her entire body, blazing a path from her toes to the roots of her hair.
Cleopatra chose that inopportune moment to glance her way.
Gertrude jerked her attention to the window and prayed for her skin to cool. What a pathetic fool, waxing on about what she and Edwin had shared. What had they shared? A virtuous lady would have had the naivete to believe that having made love as she and Edwin had signified intimacy greater than the physical act itself. But Gertrude was anything but an innocent young miss. The world she’d dwelled in had proven that sex was just another physical urge as common as eating and sleeping.
Only, it hadn’t felt that way. It had felt like something so very much more.
Her brother-in-law’s tall form reflected back in the visage of the crystal windowpane. She gasped, having been so absorbed in her musings that she’d failed to hear his approach. He’d been stealth of foot, but she never, ever failed to hear anyone coming upon her.
“I’m sorry to startle you,” he murmured.
“You didn’t. I was . . . woolgathering,” she confessed, which wasn’t a lie.
“You snuck off with him.”
For one horrifying moment that left her dizzy, she believed he spoke of a different “him.” “I didn’t sneak. I don’t know what—” Adair gave her an odd look. He’s talking about Stephen, you ninny. Why should Adair Thorne or . . . anyone gather that Gertrude had gone and fallen in love with the least likely person? Say something. Say anything. Her mind whirred. “Oh.” She winced. That is what she’d managed? Bloody useless, she was. Mac Diggory had proven correct after all. “I suppose one might call it sneaking,” she finished lamely, which only ushered in a fresh onslaught of guilt.
Adair leveled a stare on her, one that delved deep and saw too mu
ch.
Her cheeks burnt all the hotter. Why, oh, why hadn’t she, with the life she’d lived, lost the damned ability to blush? It was the curse of her pale-white English cheeks.
“I wanted to thank you,” her brother-in-law said in grave tones.
She fiddled with the fine lace trim along the edge of the curtain. “I didn’t do any—”
“You did. Despite the marquess’s clear warnings, you knew Cleopatra’s grief at never again seeing Stephen, and you made that reunion happen.” And risked so much along the way: her trust with Edwin. Her siblings’ establishment, should Edwin find out and exact revenge as he’d promised.
He won’t do that. He wouldn’t. But if he found out . . . nay, when he found out, he very well might toss her out on her arse and destroy her family along the way.
Gertrude’s stomach turned. In her mind, she’d rationalized her decision to come with the truth that Stephen had been determined to go, regardless of whether she’d gone with him. In accompanying him, she’d merely ensured he was safe journeying to Cleo’s. Would Edwin, however, see it that way? For the first time since she’d resolved to go with Stephen, misgivings reared in her mind. She and Edwin had forged a deep bond, but that relationship hadn’t and would never extend to her family. Or mayhap it could . . . That tantalizing hope whispered forward. Gertrude shoved the thought aside for now. “We have to go,” she said insistently. She stole another glance at the clock. Forty-six minutes. “We’ve already stayed longer than we should have.” Forty-six minutes too many.
“Yes.” He held a hand up, staying her before she could go. “You managed to bring my wife the one thing I’ve been unable to secure,” he interjected gruffly. They stared over at Cleo and Stephen side by side on the sofa, engrossed in whatever topic they now spoke on. “She’s been listless, silent.” His features contorted. “Sad.”
I know what it is to want to drive back another person’s misery. “I am happy that she and Stephen will have this goodbye that they were denied, but it cannot happen again. This meeting insisted upon by our brother? It’s wrong to his father, and it’s wrong for all of us to go against those wishes.” Edwin had already proven that with time he was capable of great forgiveness. It was not, however, their place or right to make that determination for him. “If you’ll excuse me?”
The Bluestocking Page 25