Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
A Brother’s Concern
The day after the legislative session, I visited the Caledonian Club in hopes of finding several members of the committee. I found two of them in the dining room—Weatherby and Denholm—settled before generous plates of beefsteak and glasses of claret.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked.
Weatherby glanced up, his expression tightening as though I’d asked to share his plate. “If you must,” he said, before returning to the business of carving his meat.
I took the empty chair. “I wanted to continue our discussion on the proposed bill—”
“Good God, Steele,” Denholm groaned, setting down his fork. “We come here to get away from all that. The club is for peace, not politics.”
Weatherby snorted into his wine. “Indeed. I’ve no wish to have my luncheon spoiled with talk of broken limbs and factory smoke. Leave all that to the radicals.”
Their dismissal was as swift as it was complete.
I would never make men like Denholm and Weatherby understand that fewer injuries meant fewer widows and orphans for the parish to support, fewer lost days of labor, and a stronger and more reliable workforce.
I was a fool to think otherwise. To them, a broken arm or a crushed foot was merely the price of doing business, and no amount of reason could persuade them otherwise.
We needed a majority to advance the proposal to a full vote of the House. At present, I could rely on only four supporters. Three more votes were required—difficult, yes, but not beyond reach.
Offering a tight smile, neither man bothered to return, I rose and left them to their comfort.
I returned to Steele House in the midst of a raging storm. As a cold, driving rain beat hard against the city, water streamed from rooftops and coursed through gutters, leaving the air thick with the stench of soot and wet stone. The foul weather suited my sour mood.
Milford relieved me of my dripping coat and sodden hat with his customary silence. As he handed the garments to a footman, his eyes lingered on me. He had no trouble reading my temper with the same surety he read the day’s weather.
“Would Your Grace like a tray in the library?” he asked, voice low and steady.
“If you would,” I said, the edge still in my voice. “Roast beef, and some bread to go with it. Cheese as well, if Cook will part with a wedge. And a glass of ale.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Milford inclined his head and withdrew to see it done.
In my study, the fire had burned low, but the desk was just as I had left it—piled with drafts, notes, and letters from buyers who cursed my name in one breath and begged concessions in the next.
I sat heavily and tugged a sheaf toward me—the factory safety legislation I had submitted to the committee.
I read the clause on machinery guards for the hundredth time, seeing the faces behind every word—men with missing fingers, children with lungs spoiled by dust, women whose hair had caught in cogs never meant to tangle with human life.
It all seemed so hopeless now. Still, I had to try.
My father would have called me a fool for wasting my breath on the working class.
He believed a man’s worth was measured by the size of his estate ledger, not the weight of his conscience.
I’d never thought much of his opinion. But perhaps it was that very scorn that kept me at this work long after others would have grown weary.
Once Milford served my meal, I set about satisfying my appetite, all while perusing the bundle of papers. I had to find something in there that would help me convince the Lords to vote my way.
I had just made a notation in the margin when Milford tapped discreetly and opened the door. “Lord Nicholas, Your Grace.”
I set aside the documents. My brother would provide a welcome distraction.
He swept in with all the ease of a man who never worried about the mud on his boots or the shadows on his conscience. Younger than me by five years, he’d been my constant companion in my youth, something I’d enjoyed tremendously. Until I was shipped off to Eton.
By the time I returned to Thornburn Abbey the following summer, a great distance had been carved between us.
I had learned to keep my back straight, my words measured, my face impassive.
Nicholas, still a child, had not. He ran to me with open arms, laughing, eager to tell me all that I had missed.
I remember holding him, stiff as a soldier on parade, uncertain how to answer his joy.
Something in his eyes dimmed when he realized I was no longer the same brother who had chased him across the lawns and whispered secrets by the fire.
That distance, once set, had never wholly closed.
“Nicky,” I said, rising to greet him.
He pointed to my desk. “Wedded as ever to your papers, I see.”
“Goes along with the title,” I shot back, more sharply than I intended. I regretted them almost at once. In a softer voice, I gestured toward the chairs before the fire. “Please, take a seat.”
As he settled, I added, “Shall I have something brought in? Tea, perhaps?”
Nicky gave a short laugh and shook his head. “Spare me, Warwick. After traveling through that beastly storm, only whiskey will do.”
I allowed myself the faintest smile. “Whiskey it is, then.” I crossed to the sideboard, drew out the decanter, and poured two measures. I handed him a glass before lowering myself into the chair opposite his.
“Now that we’ve observed the niceties, tell me, what brought you out today. You didn’t come all this way just to sample my liquor.”
Nicky took a long sip, savoring the warmth before he answered. “It is mighty fine whiskey, Brother.”
“My own private reserve. Now, talk.”
Nicky stretched out his legs and leaned back, cradling the glass against his chest. “I’ve had a letter from Phillip.”
Our younger brother, the black sheep of the family. “What did he have to say?”
“He’s bored.”
My temper rose swift and hot. “There’s plenty to do at Thornburn Abbey—fishing, horseback riding, reading. Our library is filled with books.”
“He doesn’t enjoy reading, Warwick, and horseback riding and fishing can only occupy him for so long.” He paused, his expression turning rueful. “The staff has hidden the spirits from him.”
“On my orders. Last thing we need is for him to turn to the bottle again. You know what Father was like.”
Nicky’s smile faltered. Our father had been drunk more often than not. When he was, he took it out on Mother—and us. Even Phillip, at eight years old, had suffered from those rages.
“Phillip is not like him,” Nicky said at last. “He’s a … happy drunk.”
“He gambles, Nicky. And womanizes. Last time I saw him, there was a woman in his bed—not the kind that gives love freely, the kind you pay to entertain you.”
“Which makes it all the more important that you find something for him to do. If he doesn’t have a worthwhile occupation, he’ll run off to the village to find some willing wench.
And he’ll have no trouble finding one. Last thing we need is an irate father storming Thornburn Abbey, demanding a pound of flesh from a certain part of his anatomy. ”
I barked out a laugh. “That might not be a bad thing. We might be spared a bastard or two.”
Nicky sat up sharply, his face darkening. “You can’t mean that.”
The humor drained from me in a heartbeat. “No,” I said, meeting his gaze squarely. “I don’t.” I gulped down the rest of the whiskey. “So what do you suggest?”
“He could ride the estate, see to the tenant farms. The people like him, Warwick. You know they do. They’d welcome him.
Let him inspect the cottages and pitch in with repairs.
He doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.
He never has. When the harvest comes, he could lend a hand there as well.
Give him honest work, and he might yet steady himself. ”
“You make it sound so simple,” I said, rising to pour myself another dram. “Give him a plow, and he will turn farmer; a hammer, and he will become a carpenter.”
Nicholas’s smile softened. “Not a farmer, nor a carpenter. But he has a good heart, for all his blunders. He wants to be useful. Give him a task, and he may surprise you.”
I took a slow sip of the whiskey while I weighed his suggestion. “Very well. So long as he keeps clear of the women. Otherwise, they might put torches to Thornburn Abbey.”
Nicky chuckled. “It’s made from stone, Warwick.”
“But the furnishings aren’t.” I set my glass aside and stared at the papers on my desk.
Phillip supervising factory reforms—absurd.
Phillip managing tenants’ disputes—he would end up drinking with them instead.
And yet, Nicholas was not wrong. My brother’s heart was too large to waste on idleness, and too reckless to be left unguarded.
“I’ll write to Phillip and the estate manager. He’ll get the wheels rolling. Better Phillip mend walls and roofs than make mischief in the village and the countryside.”
A silence stretched between us, broken only by the hiss of the fire. I could not help thinking Nicholas, for all his easy nature, saw things more clearly than I did. Or maybe it was because of it.
“Stay for supper. I would love to hear how your season has gone.” It’d been too long since we’d truly talked.
“Sadly, I’ll have to decline,” Nicky said, rising to his feet. “I have a prior engagement.”
Something of which I knew nothing, but then we no longer shared everything.
He clapped me lightly on the shoulder as he passed. “Do not spend the rest of the day buried in papers. You will make yourself old before your time.”
“Too late,” I said.
He chuckled as he took his leave.
After the door closed, I sat staring into the fire until it blurred into a red haze.
I found myself wondering, too late, where Nicholas was bound, and with whom—what tables he would sit at, what confidences he would trade so easily with others and not with me.
The thought settled, unspoken and useless.
I couldn’t force him to share such things with me.
Phillip’s face rose in its place—smiling, reckless, too dear to me for all my frustration. Nicholas’s advice rang in my ears: Find him a spark that does not burn down the house.
With the weight of responsibility pressing on me, I turned back to my papers. The factory clauses seemed suddenly thin against the burden of family. Duty tugged me in every direction—Parliament, tenants, brothers. And beyond all of it, Rosalynd.
The memory of our midnight supper rose unbidden—her soft laughter over Petunia’s antics, the warmth of conversation shared without pretense, the quiet moments in which she listened with genuine interest as I spoke of the legislation.
For a brief hour, peace—true, unguarded peace—had settled around us.
It had been so long since I felt anything of the sort that it startled me.
And frightened me.
Because such peace belonged to a man free to hope for a future, free to marry again, free to believe he might build a life with a woman he admired.
I was not that man. I could not be. Not after watching my wife slip from life, not after holding a child who drew but a few breaths.
I would not subject another woman to that risk—ever again.
I pressed my pen to the margin and forced myself back to work.