“Oh, for God’s sake,” Richard snapped. “How was I supposed to know you were keeping so ridiculous a secret from your own brother?”
Ash took another step forward. “Why does Dalrymple know your secrets and I don’t?”
Smite glanced at Richard once more, accusation wafting from him in waves of anger. God, the unfairness of it all—of holding Richard accountable for mentioning something so little to his brother, when Smite had betrayed everything.
“Ask Dalrymple,” Smite said savagely. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to explain it all.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ash reached out. “I don’t want to hear it from Dalrymple. I want—”
Smite looked around the room and shook his head. “I have to leave now.”
Everyone else might have thought him unfeeling. Richard didn’t want to notice it—that extra blink of Smite’s eyes, the harsh grating of his breath. Even after all these years, he still knew the signs.
“Smite…” Ash reached out.
A mistake. Richard knew it was a mistake, which meant that Ash knew hardly any of Smite’s secrets.
Smite flinched back. “I’m sorry.” At his side, Smite’s hand twitched again, jerking a few inches toward his brother. “I’m truly sorry.” He swallowed. But he didn’t reach any farther. Instead, he tucked his hand into his pocket. “I must be going.” And with that, he turned and left.
THE MEAL STAGGERED TO A PAINFUL CLOSE. The party laughed and spoke, determined to prove that nothing was amiss. And if Ash glanced at Richard a few times over the course of the evening, he didn’t approach and ask any inconvenient questions.
No. Those were left for later.
It was late at night when Richard found himself alone with Margaret—and of course, Little Anna. Anna had just fed, and she was gradually falling asleep, lashes drifting shut and then coming open. Down below, people were still conversing, a dull murmur of noise.
“So,” Margaret said, rocking Anna gently from side to side. “Today was…interesting.”
Richard glanced over at her.
“I keep hoping that you and Smite will somehow tolerate one another,” Margaret said. “Then I might see the two of you together from time to time.”
“Impossible,” Richard finally said. “And…impossible.”
Margaret waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, she sighed. “I don’t think he’s cold, exactly. I know he cares about Ash. And he’s gone out of his way to make me feel welcome.” She sighed. “But I really don’t understand anything about him.” She glanced at Richard. “I was really hoping you might help. Just a little.”
The hell of it was that Richard understood practically everything. He looked away. “I would say that he was a cold bastard, but the truth is, he’s just never had any warmth, and he has no use for people who need it.” He folded his arms around himself. “Neither has he any use for people who make mistakes.”
“That still doesn’t make sense,” Margaret said. “Now, do I get an explanation or do I have to threaten you with holding the baby?”
“Oh no.” Richard held up his hands. “Not that. It’s really not that difficult. We were once friends,” Richard told her. “A very long time ago. Excellent friends, really. And then Mark and Edmund got in a tussle. Mark broke Edmund’s arm. I tried to get him sent down, and Smite, well. He’s ridiculously loyal. He was furious with me.” And perhaps…perhaps now, Richard could understand that fury. It had been the mirror of his own—he’d needed to protect his brother. But Richard shrugged that aside. “When he’s angry, he’s the most ruthless, unforgiving opponent. He hit me. He insulted me.” Richard swallowed and looked away. “So I happened to tell the other boys that he sneaked out by himself to have a good cry on occasion.”
“Cry?” Margaret stared at him. “Smite cried?”
“He missed his sister. She had passed away, and…” Richard shifted uncomfortably. Even now it didn’t feel right to tell this story. It was as if he could sense Smite’s accusing eyes on him still.
Margaret blinked at him.
“He didn’t take kindly to that disclosure.” Richard looked away. “That…that thing he does? That thing where he freezes you out and pretends he cares about nothing? It’s a bit of an act.” Richard sighed. “He does it to fool himself—pardon me, his words are, ‘practice discipline.’ I probably should not have revealed even that. We argued. And he threatened to reveal my secrets in turn.”
“Your secrets.” Margaret shook her head. “Is that all that this strutting contest between the two of you is about? Spilling childhood confidences? God, I could knock your heads together. You big, arrogant, stupid babies.” She glanced down, and bit her lip. “No, far stupider than that. Babies are clever, aren’t they?”
Richard shut his eyes. “Margaret, I told him our parents’ marriage was invalid.”
She looked up, her eyes wide.
“I told him. I didn’t even think about it. I…I finally had someone I could trust, someone I could share that burden with. I didn’t think what it had meant. His own damned brother was next in line for the dukedom, and I just blurted it out to him like it was nothing.”
His sister’s eyes were brilliant. They had never talked of their family’s almost-ruin, not since her marriage.
“I gave him the means to destroy me—to destroy all of us, you and me and Edmund alike. I trusted him. I was so, so stupid.”
Margaret shook her head. “No. You were young, and you were friends…”
“He promised he would punish me for my disclosure. He…he has this cold anger, one that never ends. Every month I hoped that he’d forgotten. But I’d look at him and know that he could ruin me at any moment. He told me that one day, I would figure out what he intended to do to me. And that when I knew, I should come and let him know. To beg, I suppose.”
Margaret shook her head. “He’s hard, yes, but he’s always been fair with me. I can scarcely imagine him making such threats.”
“Oh, imagine it, all right.” Richard dug his fingernails into his palm. “I remember it clear as day. And you don’t need any imagination to know what happened. He bided his time for years, and when he was ready to dole out my punishment, Ash brought suit. Father’s marriage was declared void, and—”
Margaret brought up a hand. “What? You think Smite was responsible for that?”
Richard stared at his sister in disbelief. “Of course he was. Who else knew?”
“Lilliette Collins.”
He didn’t understand those syllables. He didn’t know what they were doing in his sister’s mouth.
“Lilliette Collins,” Margaret repeated. “Father’s first wife. She’s the one who approached Ash and told him. Smite never said a word. I’m sure of it.”
Richard’s hands felt like ice. “No. You’re wrong.”
“I would know,” Margaret said urgently. “I’ve heard Ash talk about his brothers often enough. Smite never tells him anything. Least of all…that.”
Richard couldn’t move. It had been years since his hatred and hurt had crystallized into envious, bitter rage. Years while he’d been feeling robbed. Years since he’d cursed himself for trusting anyone, for thinking that he had a friend.
“Smite told.” His hands shook. “He told. He had to have told.”
“Richard, I don’t think Ash even knows you and he were once friends.”
Richard stood, strode to the window. The back garden was cloaked in darkness; only the elms in the distance made dark silhouettes against an already darkened horizon.
Fuck, Richard thought. Shite. Damn it all.
He didn’t say any of those words, though. Not in front of the baby.
Instead, he simply repeated himself. “Smite told.” It sounded feeble to him. “I was sure he did.” He swallowed and steadied himself against the wall. “I was sure, so sure, Margaret. Sure that the suit to declare Father a bigamist was just the beginning. That soon he’d be telling more. That the worst was yet to come—”<
br />
He looked over and caught his sister’s befuddled expression.
“There’s worse?” she asked.
There was worse. He was shaking all over now, the cold from deep inside him covering him. He wasn’t ever going to be warm again.
He turned away. “I told everyone that Smite was engaged in an illicit relationship with a friend of his—a barrister.”
Margaret gasped.
“I know.” Richard looked away. “But, Margaret, that was only after Ash had revealed the bigamy. I thought…I thought…”
He’d been too scared to think, too angry to keep quiet. He waited at the window, waited for the tremors in his hands to come to a halt. But they didn’t.
“How could you say such a thing?” Margaret finally whispered. “Accusing him of something so unnatural.”
His hands shook harder.
“It’s a felony, Richard. They hang people for…that. And to say such things in mistaken revenge.” She swallowed and looked away. “I would never have thought you would do something so vicious, so wrong.”
“I was desperate.”
She looked up at him, and he saw that same accusation in her eyes that he’d seen in Smite’s visage earlier.
God, Smite had it right all along. He hadn’t needed to say anything. Richard had savaged himself. He’d destroyed everything that mattered.
“I have spent so long trying to tell Ash that you…” She swallowed. “I’ve taken your side, Richard. Smoothed things over. Hoped, and hoped. And now I find out that you…that you… I thought I knew you.”
“No.” He turned away and pressed his hands together. “You never did.”
“Edmund, now… Edmund, I knew was capable of true viciousness. But you?”
“I was scared. Desperate. Margaret, you must understand. I was so sure he would…” But even he couldn’t understand. How could she?
Her chin went up. “I don’t understand anything. If people had believed you, you might have had him hanged. Or ostracized. Desperation is one thing, but that would have been murder. It’s criminal, that’s what it is.”
“Yes,” Richard heard himself say, looking away. “It was criminal. But that’s the thing, Margaret. I am a criminal. I have been for a very long time.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve done this before, then? Accused people like this?”
“No. No.” He swallowed. He wrapped his arms about himself. “Margaret. Smite knew—knows—something about me. Something worse than a few nightmares. I’ve been so scared, so sure that he was waiting to reveal it all. It’s…it’s…” He couldn’t say it. “It’s no topic for mixed company. If I can’t say damn in front of Anna, I can’t—”
“Richard,” Margaret hissed, “if you don’t calm down and speak sense, I’ll smack you.”
“You don’t want to know, Margaret. You don’t want to know what I’ve done.”
“Richard.”
“That time I was gone for three months, on that sailing trip with Davies? We weren’t fishing.”
She blinked at him in confusion.
“You told me once that I was straitlaced—that you’d never even heard of me with a mistress. There’s a reason for that. I’ve never had a woman.”
She looked dubious. “You’re a virgin?”
Richard swallowed. “No. I’ve never been with a woman. I’ve tried, and…it just hasn’t worked. Men, on the other hand…” He made a fist. “Men… I really like men.”
She stood and walked across the room, turning away from him as she did.
“I know,” he said. “You can’t tell me anything I haven’t told myself. I’m unnatural. What I’ve done…it’s unspeakable. I don’t know how I face myself some days. For the last decade, I’ve lived with the certainty that one day, one day…” His fists clenched. “That one day, Smite would tell everyone. I only spread a rumor. I hoped that it would make everyone think that his accusation, when it came, was pure pettiness. Maybe if I sowed doubt, they wouldn’t believe him.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I know I was wrong. It was over the line. It was…it was awful.”
Margaret turned back to him. “Oh, God. Richard.”
“Don’t blaspheme in front of the baby,” he said weakly.
Margaret glanced down. “She’s asleep, and sometimes only blasphemy will do.”
Richard followed her gaze. “So here we are. Of course he hates me. He’s not wrong to do it. And now you tell me he didn’t even snitch about Father’s marriage. Of course he didn’t. He kept my secrets close so he could revel in my hypocrisy. He couldn’t even give me the satisfaction of feeling right. He is such a jackass.”
Margaret gave him a tight smile.
“But it’s my fault.” He looked away. “It’s always been my fault. I’ve always been this way. I understand. I’ll leave tomorrow. It’ll make everything so easy; he’ll visit again, for as long as Smite ever does such things, and you won’t have to see me.”
“Richard.”
“I would apologize to you. To him. But I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard.” And it wouldn’t do any good. It had all always been an illusion—family, home, inheritance. Nobody had ever taken it from him. Richard had never had any enemies except himself. He shut his eyes and accepted it: He’d lost everything after all.
And then warmth brushed his arm. He opened his eyes and looked into his sister’s face. She was still carrying Anna.
“I don’t pretend to understand everything,” she said. “But I can tell you’re hurting.” She leaned against him.
And afraid. God, he was tired of being afraid.
“But Richard.” She swallowed. “I love you. I don’t want you to go.”
He tried to speak, but his throat wasn’t working.
“You said I didn’t know you, but I know that you taught me to swim when I was six, despite Nurse’s protests.”
Richard smiled in spite of himself.
“I know you punched Harry when he pushed me down. I know you’ve swallowed your pride and your anger and made peace with my husband, when you’ve had every reason to resent him. And me.”
His eyes stung. His hands were still shaking.
“Here,” Margaret said. And before Richard knew what his sister was doing, she’d pressed little Anna into his arms. She was so small—and so heavy—a warm bundle of infant. She squirmed briefly in her sleep, but then grew quiet once again.
“Hold her,” his sister ordered.
“But—I’ve never—”
“So I can do this.” She put her arms around him.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted that. How much he’d needed it. And because he couldn’t move—because he didn’t dare disturb the infant in his arms—he inclined his head to hers. They stood together for a very long time.
“Are you going to tell me about Smite’s nightmares?” she finally asked.
He smiled. “No. After this? It seems churlish to tell his secrets after all.”
“Drat.”
“But maybe I should tell him…” He sighed, and thought of the cutting look that Smite had given him. Of the way he’d so assiduously avoided him.
And he remembered what Smite had told him on that day so long ago. Once you figure out what I intend, come let me know.
“Maybe,” Richard said, “I should tell him I’m sorry.”
Unveiled Enhanced Content
Q. Where did you get the idea for Unveiled?
A. I’m going to let Tessa Dare explain that.
Your eBook reader software does not support the playing of audio. If you’d like to play this audio clip on your computer or read a transcript, please visit http://www.courtneymilan.com/enhanced/unveiled.php
Interview with Tessa Dare (1:37)
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Parford Manor
I used Montacute House in Somerset as my guide for Parford Manor. In particular, I described Parford Manor as being built with stone from the same quarry—a gorge
ous honey gold stone that shines in the sunlight.
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The Long Gallery
In Parford Manor, there’s a gallery mentioned—a long room where portraits hang. I modeled this after the long gallery in Montacute—it takes up much of the top floor.
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The Gardens
I mentioned that I modeled Parford Manor after Montacute house. I’d always imagined that Parford Manor had more extensive gardens than the one at Montacute house, but there are some parts in back where roses mix with garden paths and adorable little structures.
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About Ash’s fortune
Q. How exactly did Ash make all that money?
A. Ash made the first part of his fortune—a few thousand pounds—in India. He built the rest of his empire once he got back with that seed money.
The only thing I say in the book itself is that he traded rubies. I always imagined that Ash built his empire by learning to speak the local languages and getting a reputation for trading fairly… Which I very quickly figured out was my attempt to sanitize the getting of his wealth as much as I could. How fairly can you trade with people when your fellow countrymen are forcibly occupying their territory? Doesn’t matter how nice you are about it. It’s still money made on someone else’s spilled blood.
There are very few ways to make money in the nineteenth century that aren’t plain horrible in some fashion. Anyone who made money in international dealings was exploiting imperial positions and/or the slave trade. (Even if they didn’t traffic in slaves personally, trading indigo, sugar, rum, cotton…anything created by slave labor, really, would be problematic.)
Making money against the backdrop of the British Empire—however you sanitize it—almost certainly involved some degree of highly problematic behavior.
So the answer to the question is that Ash made money the way many of his countrymen did. He was nice about it, and never personally killed anyone, but he doesn’t deserve cookies for that.
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