Chapter 20
Sybil rushed to Everett the moment she had finished washing all the soot from her skin and hair.
She had places where she had suffered scrapes and bruises, but she was otherwise miraculously unscathed.
She had no burns, and the worst of her symptoms was a cough that the physician who had tended her said would prevail for a few days before ultimately fading.
In all, she was fortunate to be alive. But she hadn’t been able to shake the picture of her sister-in-law, lifeless and dangling from the Duke of Kingham’s arms whilst her blood dripped on the pavements, from her mind. Verity had saved Emma.
But in so doing, she had placed herself in grave danger.
After being directed by the housekeeper, Sybil found her husband ensconced in the library. He was pacing the Axminster, his long legs striding from one end of the room to the next.
He stopped when he saw her, his expression softening. “Sybil.”
Days ago, she would have given anything for him to look at her that way.
Now, she wasn’t certain what to make of his unfettered emotion.
She had almost convinced herself that she had imagined him telling her that he loved her.
Their carriage ride back to the town house had been frantic and cramped, with little Emma, Kingham, Verity, and both Sybil and Everett within.
They had all been silent, sick with worry over Verity, who had moaned and shifted slightly on her own, seemingly in pain, but whose eyes had remained closed for the duration.
Everett moved toward her now, eating up the distance between them as he took her into his arms. Like her, he had bathed and been attended by the doctor who had seen to Verity first. The scent of his soap filled her nostrils, a welcome change. She never wanted to smell smoke again in her life.
“How is Verity?” Sybil asked, clinging to him.
The fear that had gripped her during those interminable moments when she had been alone on the pavements, knowing that he was within the burning orphanage and that there was every possibility he wouldn’t survive, was only just beginning to ease. He was solid, warm, and real. Alive.
“She is resting,” he said, burying his face in her neck and inhaling. “The doctor has given her something to help her sleep and to ease her pain.”
It occurred to her that he was doing what she was—reassuring himself that she was safe. That she was real and not an illusion. They had come so close to losing each other.
“Has she awoken?” Sybil asked, for Verity’s lack of consciousness had been terribly worrisome.
“Not yet, and the doctor says that it is for the best. Time will tell. All we can do is pray and tend to her. Maman is sitting with her now.” Everett drew back to look down at her, studying her face. “How are you, my darling? Are you hurt?”
Her stomach tightened with worry for Verity. Everett’s somber tone was far from promising.
“A few scrapes and bruises, and nothing more,” she reassured him. “What of you?”
He coughed, having inhaled far too much smoke during his rescue of Verity and little Emma. “The doctor applied some salve to a burn I received on my right forearm and wrapped it. Aside from that, I am well.”
She disentangled herself from his embrace. “You must be in pain. You mustn’t hold me like this.”
“I’d never be in too much pain to hold you.”
She searched his pale gaze, seeking answers. “Did you mean what you said at the Children’s Foundling Hospital before you went in after Verity?”
He was solemn. “That I love you?”
Sybil nodded, swallowing against a knot of emotion threatening to rise, unable to speak.
“Yes.” He cupped her cheek. “I meant it. And I know you are in love with another, but I hope you will at least grant me a chance. It was my intention to speak with you at the Children’s Foundling Hospital.
After you left my study, I realized I couldn’t bear to let you go.
Not without fighting for you. I couldn’t let him win you. ”
Confusion washed over her.
“In love with another?”
“Your footman,” he bit out, as if the words themselves were epithets.
“My footman? I don’t… You mean Henry?”
It occurred to her that Verity had spoken similarly on their way to the Children’s Foundling Hospital what now seemed a lifetime ago. Does this have to do with the footman of yours?
Understanding hit her with the clarity of the sun emerging from behind a cloud.
“You think I’m in love with Henry?” she asked, incredulous.
Everett’s jaw tightened. “Before you try to convince me otherwise, you should know that I saw you embracing him after our wedding breakfast, and I overheard you telling him that you loved him and would miss him.”
Suddenly, everything made awful, perfect sense.
Everett’s shift from charming suitor to cold, sullen husband who abandoned her on their wedding day.
The reason he had left. The reason he had been so furious with her when she had gone to his room at Wingfield Hall—aside from the water she’d poured on his head.
The reason his nature was so inconstant, going from tender and passionate lover to brooding, aloof stranger.
He believed she had betrayed their marriage vows. That she was in love with someone else.
“I do love Henry,” she said. “But as my brother. Because that is what he is.”
Everett’s brows drew together. “I beg your pardon?”
“The footman you saw me embracing after our wedding breakfast is my illegitimate half brother,” she explained.
“He is the product of a liaison between my father and one of the chambermaids at Eastlake Hall. When we were children, we had the same nursemaid. My mother insisted upon it. But when he was old enough for service, my father decided that he must earn his bread, as he phrased it. My mother wasn’t given any choice in the matter.
It was either obey—or suffer the consequences. ”
“My God.” He raked his fingers through his damp, dark hair, leaving it in an unusual state of disarray. “The footman is your half brother. Not your lover?”
She shook her head, a tickling in her throat forcing her to cough before she could continue. “If you don’t believe me, you can ask my mother. She loves Henry like he is her own, despite the unusual circumstance of his birth.”
“When you came to me, looking for a situation for him here or at Riverdale Abbey, why did you not tell me who he was then?”
“I supposed you knew. Henry was a poorly kept secret. Most of the servants at Eastlake Hall were aware that he is my father’s by-blow, born on the wrong side of the blanket.
I believed that word must have traveled to you somehow, knowing how tongues love to wag when it comes to gossip. You called him a bastard.”
“Bloody hell,” Everett breathed, then coughed, the sound a rattling reminder of what they had all just endured.
“But you didn’t know, did you?” she asked softly, tears blurring her vision.
“I didn’t know. If I had…”
Her heart ached. For Verity. For the children of the orphanage. For poor Mr. Gritton and any others who had perished, losing their lives to the flames. For Everett. For herself.
Perhaps it was the weight of what had happened that day or the worry still curdling her stomach for her sister-in-law. Perhaps it was the miserable months she and Everett had spent at odds, each thinking the worst of the other.
The tears came, swiftly and steadily. She sobbed with a soul-deep sorrow, and he took her back into his arms, holding her close. So close that she could feel the steady, reassuring thump of Everett’s heart. She held him tightly, staining his fresh shirt and waistcoat with her tears.
“If you had known who Henry truly was, would things have been different between us?” Sybil dared to ask.
“Without doubt.” She felt him press his cheek to the top of her head, his arms tightening around her, though she knew it must pain his burned flesh.
“I’m so sorry, Sybil. If I’d had an inkling, I would have asked you at once.
But I knew nothing of an illegitimate sibling, and you never mentioned him to me. ”
She sniffled. “Everything between us moved so quickly. It was a mere span of weeks between our first meeting and the day we wed.”
“I shouldn’t have jumped to judgment so quickly.” His voice was grim.
She well understood why. They had lost so much time. Had hurt each other so desperately. And it had all been for naught.
“I am to blame as well,” she said, tilting her head back to hold his gaze. “If I had told you about Henry, all of this could have been avoided.”
“No.” His voice was firm and hoarse, bordering on harsh. “I am solely to blame. If I had confronted you the moment that I saw you embracing him, then I would have known he was your half brother instead of your lover.”
How she wished he had.
Months of anguish.
It had taken nearly losing him to unlock the truth.
“Why did you not?”
He shook his head, a muscle clenching in his jaw.
“I had convinced myself that your father had denied a match between the two of you because of the potential scandal of a marquess’s daughter marrying a footman, and that you had decided to marry me instead, even if your heart belonged to another.
” He closed his eyes for a moment, looking as if he were in pain, before he continued.
“I am sorry, Sybil. So very sorry for what I’ve done.
I have no good excuse, save that I’m a fool and that I allowed something that happened in my past to unduly influence me. ”
“What do you mean, something in your past?”
His countenance hardened. “I was to be married once, years ago. She was a widow with far more experience than I had. She swore to me that she loved me, and I fancied myself in love with her… Until I discovered her in bed with one of my supposed friends.”
She gasped. “How horrible. You must have been devastated.”