A Gentleman Revealed

by Cooper Davis

  “Show us to your private study,” Sam demanded, tone imperious. “Unless you prefer your private business laundered in this more public area.”

  Dryden blinked. “If you’ve delivered Finley to me, it’s not my personal interests at hand. But rather a matter of”—Dryden eyed him reprovingly—“well, apparently much less monumental proportions than when last I met Finley.”

  Sam surged forward. “You shriveled prickwit, don’t you—“

  Alistair restrained his cousin by the arm. “Thank you, Samuel, but please allow me to speak for myself.” Then, stepping into Dryden’s space, far too close for anyone’s comfort, Alistair said, “The truth has been told—all the secrets you bound me with, disclosed. You’ve no more power over me, sir.”

  Dryden’s aged eyes widened for the briefest moment, color draining from his face. And then he stepped closer to Alistair. “Then all you own is now forfeit. I’m sure the ignoble truth of you broke your betrothal to Lord Marcus. And now? The rest shall be lost to you, as well. You’ll be a pauper, Finley, and I shall see it done.”

  “I think, simpering fool that you are,” Sam interjected, rapping his cane on the hardwood, “you’re to discover that all is lost to you. Now show us to your study. Posthaste, fellow.”

  Dryden’s upper lip curled. “Your Grace, you may be a peer, but even you shan’t command me about my own offices.”

  “No, but I believe I shall.” The deep, familiar voice practically sang through the room. Alistair’s whole body tensed, relief flooding him, his stomach fluttering wildly as he turned to face his king. His brother.

  Arend strode into the parlor breezily, exuding regal disdain and power. “You’re my subject, Dryden. And you’ve betrayed the crown and our realm. This man”—Arend’s hand came down warmly on Alistair’s nape—“is a prince. You’ve blackmailed him, threatened him, and by circumventing our sire’s wishes for his youngest son, you’ve committed treason.”

  Dryden bowed, remaining thus as he stammered at Arend breathlessly. “I—I, Your Majesty, please. You must give me a hearing. ’Tis not at all what you seem to think.” Dryden straightened, entreating Arend with both hands. “This man was never meant to be acknowledged, if you but read the letters from your sire, then—“

  “This man is my brother. He is a prince of this realm, third in line to the throne. You denied him his birthright and me the truth. I won’t hear your insipid excuses.” Arend’s hand tightened on Alistair’s nape, and his brother pulled him closer to his side. “Not when I’ve proof of what you did.”

  “Proof?” Dryden’s hand clutched at his belly.

  Sam reached within his greatcoat, and produced a tightly bound sheaf of letters. Dryden’s gaze fell upon the bundle, tied off with a magenta ribbon, the royal crest sealing the knot. If the color had drained from the man’s face moments ago, it returned now as he became positively puce. “I believe,” Sam said, “you were nattering some nonsense about ruining my cousin.” Sam lifted the packet, dangling it closer to Dryden’s eye-level.

  “Thank you, Samuel,” Arend said, taking the parcel from Sam. Their king stepped closer to Dryden, who he positively eclipsed with his regal mien and substantial height. “Dryden, I shan’t ask if you recognize these, as you’d only dissemble and scuttle. Suffice it to say,” Arend said, “you likely regret returning King Norman’s correspondence at whichever point you did. Likely done in anger, no doubt. But a grave miscalculation on your part nonetheless.”

  Dryden dropped to his knees, supplicating with his hands. “Your Majesty, I beg of you, please . . . please allow me to . . .” The words died on the old man’s lips.

  Arend stared down at him disdainfully. “We already know what you’ve done, so there’s nothing for you to explain. Not the blackmailing you did of my brother, nor the decades-long illicit affair you had with our sire. All is known, Dryden. Including your scheming attempts to force King Norman to disown Alistair, when he wished to honor his youngest son from the start.”

  Dryden’s shoulders hunched, and he huddled there on the floor, trembling. Alistair stared down at the man, and didn’t experience the triumph he’d always imagined. He was too awash in liberation—and too shocked, hearing his sire had not been ashamed of him. Had wanted him.

  Arend stepped forward. “I’ve given much thought as to how you should be punished. Dryden, I’ll either try you for highest treason against the crown—and we know the likely punishment for that. Or,” Arend continued, watching Dryden shudder, “you may leave for the Continent, permanently. Your citizenship revoked. You’ve one week to make your choice.”

  Then, Arend pressed a hand to Alistair’s back and escorted him from the offices.

  When the carriage was brought around, the footman fussed over their king, assisting him up into the coach first. Sam descended the office steps after them. Alistair had been too eager to escape Dryden to even wonder why his cousin had lingered behind, although presumably he’d delivered some legal writ from the palace.

  Sam approached him, twirling his cane. “I left the bastard-codger in the parlor, wrinkling up into a ball of disgrace. But not before procuring this.” Sam dangled a chain from his fingertips, a pocket watch swinging from it. “It’s King Norman’s pocket watch, and, Alistair, he wished you to have it. ’Twas to have been but one part of your inheritance, but Arend shall explain the rest.”

  Sam dropped the watch into his palm, the chain pooling about it. Alistair opened the watch, examining the diamond-and-sapphire-encrusted face. The royal crest was engraved on the inside. And his sire had wished him to have the watch.

  He glanced up at his cousin, his heart warmed. “Thank you, Sam. Truly. You’ve done much for me today.”

  Arend leaned out the door of the coach. “Not just today, Alistair, but we shall talk about that.”

  “And that’s my cue to bid you both farewell.” Sam tossed and caught his cane, then drolly announced, “I’ve clubs to visit, libations to consume—not all of us are newly minted teetotalers.”

  Their cousin moved down the walk, and Alistair was seen inside the coach. Once settled he fairly slumped against the leather bench, still shaky from confronting Dryden, but perhaps even more so to find himself alone with Arend after so many months.

  “Here,” Arend told Alistair, handing over the letters. “These belong to you. They’re the truth of your lineage, of what Dryden actually did to you.”

  Alistair accepted the packet, his hands trembling so badly he could barely make work of the ribbon. He recognized the handwriting on the top missive, that of his dead sire.

  “I found those after you left for the north. I knew there had to be something locked away, something that might speak truth to the secrets imprisoning you. And I was correct.”

  Alistair held the letters as he might a newborn babe, cradling them within his big palms. “What do these say?”

  Arend retrieved the letter from the top and, reaching for his spectacles, began to read.

  “ . . . Alistair is my son and I will make a place for him at court. If that spells the end of our affair—if you see it as betrayal—then so be it. I cannot take back what happened with Olivia, but with her death, I won’t abandon my own child. Nor shall I disown him for you.”

  Alistair had to look away. To hear that his sire had loved him, had refused to disown him, nearly undid him.

  Arend adjusted his spectacles and continued, “Alistair shall always have a place here at the palace, in mine and his brother’s lives. That you’d ask me to do otherwise proves the supposed love you feel for me is, perhaps, not as authentic as I once believed.”

  Dryden had, the letters revealed, continued his affair with Norman for years. Long after that one missive, and up until the king’s death, at which point Dryden circumvented Norman’s final wishes for Alistair. He was to have been acknowledged as prince upon their sire’s passing. But to the bitter end, Dryden ha
d manipulated the late king, vascilating between threatening to remove his affections or to reveal the affair and scandalize their sire. So, in the end, King Norman chose to keep Alistair’s bloodline a secret, even in death.

  “He loved you, Alistair,” Arend said gently. “But he was a difficult man, and often withheld affection from us both. But reading these letters, it became clear that our father was so standoffish—at least in part—because of the power Dryden wielded over him. The cunning threats of abandonment, wrapped inside more threats of revealing their decades-long affair. I don’t understand the sway the fellow had over Father, but hold it he did. Now I realize that perhaps it was even because of Dryden that Father forced me to break things off with Prince Darien in my youth.”

  “I don’t understand why so much of it centered on me.” Alistair opened the watch again, staring at its glittering face. “Dryden hounded me for years. Utterly despised me. Taunted and—“

  “Because, Alistair, you were the living proof of our father being unfaithful to Dryden. It’s in the letters.” Arend gave him an apologetic smile. “I wish you’d not had to battle him on your own. I wish, so deeply, that you’d had me at your back.”

  Alistair dropped his gaze. His heart had begun to pound, his throat tightened; this, he knew, was about to be the moment. Where the conversation turned to the most difficult topic of all: what had gone wrong betwixt the two of them. “The carriage isn’t moving. You should advise them to drop me at my townhome.” He kept his gaze down.

  Arend nudged his boot. “Fin, this is me. Same as I’ve ever been. You’ve avoided me for half a year now.”

  He lowered his hand from his brow, slowly meeting his brother’s searching gaze. “Because I was ashamed, Arend. Horrified by my behavior that last night. I never meant you to learn the truth that way, of my being your half brother.”

  Arend leaned forward, seizing Alistair’s hands in his own gloved ones. “You are my brother, Fin. It matters not who your mother was, nor how you came to be my own flesh and blood.” Arend squeezed his hands. “I will not rest until the populace knows you are a true prince of the realm. Calls you their prince.”

  Alistair shook his head, sluggishly rousing his secretary’s mind. “Terrible idea, that. You cannot acknowledge me. I will not allow it.”

  Arend laughed but not unkindly. “See? You’re already taking this role of prince quite to heart! However, I remain both your king and eldest brother. And ’tis I who sit upon the throne. And ’tis I who shall acknowledge you, my dearest Alistair. Please tell me you always knew I considered you brother?”

  Alistair stared at the carriage floor, face heating. “Yes, my lord. My king. My brother. I always knew.”

  Arend squeezed his hands once more, then released his grasp. “I am glad, for it makes you so much less likely to resist the gift I have for you now.” His king delved within his greatcoat pocket, and retrieved a ring box. “It’s the betrothal ring I gave Prince Darien, all those years ago. It would mean a great deal to me if you’d consider placing it upon Marcus’s hand.”

  Alistair stared down at the box before flicking it open. Inset within royal magenta velvet nested a beautiful golden band, encrusted with diamonds and rubies. The rubies would be perfect for Marcus, his beautiful redhead. He glanced up at Arend. “You’re assuming Lord Marcus shall accept my hand.”

  “I don’t believe you’ll meet any objections, Alistair. He loves you quite dearly.”

  He shook his head, fingering the band thoughtfully. “He did. He certainly did, but that was . . . before. The future is now frighteningly unknown.”

  Arend reached and clasped his knee. “That kind of love—the truest, most heartfelt sort—neither fades nor tarnishes. You’ve undergone a great effort to prove yourself worthy. He will be awed by the transformation in you, and how you sought to better yourself out of love for him. Thank you, Brother, for choosing to live, that we might have you around until we are old and gray. I need you, you know.”

  Alistair’s throat tightened at the realization that Arend saw him. Saw all of it. The struggles, the sheer white-knuckling he’d done to become sober. Whole.

  And yes, he was deeply moved to hear that his brother approved of him. Loved him, still.

  “Thank you, Arend,” he murmured. “For everything.” Alistair snapped the jewelry box shut. “But are you certain you wish to part with this ring? I know it’s precious to you.”

  “I’m with the love of my life now. But when I gave Darien that ring, he was my beloved—just as Marcus is now your own. You two share a youthful, almost innocent love—“

  “Even with me pushing closer to forty?” Alistair laughed. “And a thoroughly confirmed spinster?”

  “Stop it.” Arend nudged his boot. “Your spinsterhood was ruined when you fell for one dashing young lord. Besides, Fin, my point is that this band—the one I gave my own first love—makes the perfect betrothal ring for Marcus.”

  Alistair cradled the box against his breast, imagining the moment he would bestow the ring upon Marcus. “I’m to see him at Lady Elsevier’s tomorrow evening. That is, if he chooses to show. I wrote to him and asked him to attend, to meet me there. If he does so, and if events proceed as I hope? Then I shall place this band upon Marcus’s finger tomorrow night.”

  And he dearly prayed that he’d have such a hearing, much less enough of an audience, to go down upon a knee and beg for another chance, the opportunity to be the fine, upright husband he now knew himself capable of being.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Marcus had been pressed and pushed for the first hour of Lady Elsevier’s ball. Every year, yet more eligible gentleman attended the gala, and certainly a fair share of females, most all of them hungry to form an attachment with their own gender. There were certainly males and females who waltzed together, but even then, Marcus always wondered if their doing so wasn’t merely a polite cover for their true inclinations.

  He’d been stunned when, the past several years, Alistair had dared attend, with his nose for propriety. Of course, that impression had been shattered for Marcus at last summer’s engagement party, for any gentleman that caring of his reputation wouldn’t have struck his fiancé.

  Marcus stared out over the dancing throng, heartsick, trying his level best not to search for a head of black hair, moving slightly above almost all the other gentleman. He’d no reason to believe that the vanished Alistair Finley would finally appear this evening. It hardly signified that it was their anniversary of sorts, nor that it would be the most romantic stage possible upon which Alistair might sweep in, fall to his knees, and humbly apologize.

  As if, after half a year, Marcus would even entertain such apologies—no matter how often in the past several days Ethan had admonished him to keep an open mind. Whyever would Ethan champion a man who had scandalized Marcus, broken their betrothal, and blackened his eye in the process? Who had further lacked the grace to simply pen him another letter after that first cryptic one, announcing he was heading to the Continent to “rehabilitate” himself.

  If Finley had cared a whit about him, truly, he’d have penned missives near daily. Would have poured out his hopes, dreams, and his heart. Instead, Marcus had received nothing.

  He scowled, daring to lift his gaze for a quick sweep about the ballroom, and wasn’t sure if he was grateful or bereft not to spy Alistair in the aristocratic crowd.

  A lord barely in his majority touched Marcus’s sleeve. His bobbing chestnut curls rendered him more cherubic than dashing. “My lord,” the young man said, a trembling smile upon his lips, “I hoped I might have the honor of seeing your dance card?”

  Marcus inclined his head. “Lord Preston, lovely of you. Certainly.” Marcus delved his fingertips in his pocket, but scowled to find he’d somehow lost the ivory fan. “Dear heavens . . . I seem—“

  “I think,” came a husky, damningly familiar voice, “that perchance you’re
seeking this?”

  Marcus spun to find Alistair directly in front of him. He had to blink, as for a long moment, he didn’t even recognize his former lover. The man before him was hale and beautiful and trimmed. Marcus blinked again; for a disconcerting heartbeat, he wondered if the man before him was actually King Arend.

  But that voice. And those midnight eyes and the dimples. Alistair Finley it was, presenting himself as a man dramatically transformed. And there, dangling from his elegantly gloved fingertips, was Marcus’s missing dance card.

  A flashing memory overcame him. A carriage-house key likewise jauntily dangled, confidently revealed.

  But no. This night wasn’t that evening of the house party, and Marcus hadn’t even given Alistair his card. “You purloined my bloody . . . my . . .” he sputtered, furiously snatching it out of Alistair’s grasp. “You sod!”

  Alistair’s playfully confident expression slipped. He bowed to Marcus deferentially. “I’m relieved to inform you that I did not engage in thievery. Ethan handed me your card a few moments ago.”

  Marcus’s ire only stoked hotter. His brother’s given name had tumbled casually from Alistair’s lips as if the pair of them were bloody confidants. But of course that was impossible, so what had been Alistair’s infuriating point in using Ethan’s given name?

  He stormed a little closer to Alistair, patently ignoring the fact that Lord Preston wasn’t owning the social common sense to walk away. The lord stood beside them both, apparently intent on playing party to the scene unfolding between them.

  “Mr. Finley. Please enlighten me.” Marcus jabbed a finger into his onetime lover’s chest for emphasis, but found himself derailed by the brawny muscle his finger met. No softness at all. Marcus must have literally gaped, his gaze locked on said firm, strong chest, for finally Alistair cleared his throat.

  “I am eager to enlighten,” Alistair answered solemnly.

  “Then explain how”—Marcus tried the chest-jabbing tactic again, poking the man hard—“you and my brother are on such familiar terms. Ethan? Not Lord Dunshire?”