Epilogue
Three Weeks Later
On the morning of his wedding, William found his mother cutting roses.
He stopped at the edge of the garden path and watched her for several moments before announcing himself.
His mother stood beneath the climbing roses with a small pair of shears in one hand and a basket hooked over her arm. She had already filled half of it with pale blossoms, though William suspected she had no earthly need for them.
His mother had always gardened when she wished to think.
William knew that now.
Three weeks earlier, when he had returned from Wales with a healing wound in his side and more questions than he knew how to ask, he had found her in almost precisely the same place.
She had taken one look at him and known.
Not everything, perhaps. But enough.
You know about Algernon.
William could still remember the weight of those words.
He had known then that he could no longer accept pieces of the truth. Their family had lived on pieces for too long, each person deciding what someone else ought to know and what could safely remain hidden.
So he had asked his mother for all of it.
And she had finally given it to him.
They had sat together beneath the old tree while she told him how his father had sent her away to one of his estates, keeping her from society long enough for everyone to believe she was confined.
Letters had been sent. Visitors discouraged.
By the time she returned, the world believed the Duchess of Aldermere had given birth to a healthy son.
Algernon.
In truth, he had been the child of William’s father and one of the maids.
His father had decided before ever speaking to his mother that the child would be acknowledged as hers.
William had asked the question that still made him ashamed whenever he remembered it.
And you agreed to this?
His mother had looked at him for a long moment.
I survived it.
He thought those three words might remain with him for the rest of his life.
The father William remembered had taught him to ride, laughed with him, praised him when he succeeded and occasionally looked the other way when William deserved punishment.
That man had existed.
So had the man who had frightened his wife into obedience and locked his eldest son away at Bryn Hir because a frightened child could not force words from his mouth quickly enough.
His mother had not asked William to choose between them.
I do not want you to hate him, she had said. The father you knew was real too. Edmund changed him in ways I had stopped believing possible. By the time you were old enough to remember him, much of the cruelty had gone.
Not all of it.
No. Not all.
Perhaps that had been the hardest truth of all.
People did not divide themselves neatly into monsters and good men. His father had been both the man William loved and the man Algernon feared.
Understanding one did not erase the other.
William had eventually asked about Algernon too. Not how he came to be acknowledged as her son. William understood that by then.
He wanted to know how she had loved him.
Her answer had nearly broken his heart.
At first, I did not know if I could.
Algernon had been another woman’s child, placed in her arms by the husband who had already taken away her choice in the matter. But then he had opened his eyes.
He had been a baby.
Whatever his father had done, none of it had belonged to him.
He needed someone to hold him.
So she had.
And he became yours, William had said.
His mother's answer had come without hesitation.
He was always mine.
William had embraced her then.
Before they parted that afternoon, his mother had held his face between her hands and told him there was one thing for which she would always be grateful.
He had become nothing like his father.
William had not been entirely certain he deserved that assessment. Whether he did was something he suspected he would spend the rest of his life proving.
“You are staring at me.”
His mother’s voice pulled him back into the garden. She stood several feet away with one brow raised and a freshly cut rose in her hand.
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous on your wedding day.”
His mother smiled, and William came farther along the path, nodding toward the basket. “What are the roses for?”
“The wedding.”
“We already have flowers.”
“One can never have too many.”
“I suspect the florist would agree with you.”
She snipped another bloom and added it to the basket while William watched her.
Three weeks had not made everything easier, and he doubted three years would.
Somewhere in the midst of everything that followed Bryn Hir, William had become the Duke of Aldermere, a title he had never wanted and still had not grown accustomed to hearing attached to his name.
But there was something different between them now. For the first time in his life, there were no carefully selected truths between them, no secrets kept in the name of protecting someone else.
“How is your side?” she asked.
“Perfectly healed.”
“That is not what the physician said yesterday.”
“The physician lacks imagination. He said I was healing very well, which is essentially the same thing.”
“It is not the same thing at all.”
He smiled and bent to kiss her cheek, but before he could straighten, her hand closed around his arm.
“You went to see Algernon last week.”
The humor between them faded.
William nodded. “I did.”
He had told her very little about the visit afterward. At first, that had been because he had not known what to say. Even now, several days later, he was not certain he had entirely made sense of it himself.
The doctors had warned him that Algernon’s condition had deteriorated since his arrest. He had become increasingly agitated and confused, sometimes violent and at other times scarcely responsive, until it had finally been decided that an asylum was more appropriate than an ordinary prison.
William had believed himself prepared for that.
He had not been prepared for his brother to look at him without recognition.
“He knew me for a little while,” William said. “At least, I think he did. Then he asked whether Father was coming.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Oh, William.”
“I told him no.”
Even now, he could not decide whether the answer had comforted Algernon or frightened him. Perhaps Algernon himself had not known.
“I mean to go again.”
His mother searched his face. “You know you do not have to.”
“I know.”
That was precisely why he would.
Nothing Algernon had suffered excused what he had done.
William would never forget that Rosalind’s father had been imprisoned because of him, or that Algernon had nearly killed Edmund rather than allow the truth to escape Bryn Hir.
But acknowledging the man his brother had become did not require William to forget every version of him that had existed before.
He still remembered the boy who had chased him through gardens and the young man who complained whenever William cheated at cards. He remembered the brother who, however misguidedly, had spent years trying to shield William from the ugliest parts of their family.
“He is still my brother,” William said.
She nodded, her eyes shining. After a moment, she asked, “And Augusta?”
William exhaled.
Two letters had arrived from New South Wales so far, both addressed to Algernon. He had taken the first with him on his visit and read part of it aloud.
“Did he understand?” she asked.
“I do not think so. When I told him Augusta had written, he asked who she was.”
Pain tightened his mother’s face.
William had once imagined that Augusta suffering some consequence for what she had done might bring him satisfaction. She had known Algernon was keeping Edmund prisoner, helped him conceal it, and lied to Rosalind when she came too close to the truth.
Yet when Algernon had asked who Augusta was, William had felt no satisfaction at all.
Only sadness.
“I will keep the letters,” he said. “Perhaps one day he will remember her.”
“And if he does not?”
William looked down at the roses in his mother’s basket. “Then I suppose I will remember for him.”
His mother was quiet for a moment before reaching up to touch his cheek. “My darling boy.”
William covered her hand with his. Some part of his heart might always be heavy when he thought of Algernon, but grief was no longer the only thing waiting for him.
Beyond the garden, the house had grown increasingly busy as servants hurried through the final preparations.
William glanced toward it. “In considerably happier news, I believe I am expected at a wedding.”
She laughed softly. “I believe you are.”
“I should hate to keep the bride waiting. She is already inclined to find fault with my courtship.”
“I cannot imagine why.”
“We have written a manual to prevent further mistakes.”
“That is reassuring.”
“It is remarkably comprehensive.”
She slipped her arm through his, and together they started toward the house. “Then perhaps you should go and marry her.”
William smiled. “That is precisely what I intend to do.”
***
The remainder of the morning seemed determined to disappear without consulting him.
One moment William was leaving the garden with his mother, and the next he was being pulled into conversations, redirected by servants, and informed repeatedly that there were places he was permitted to stand and places he absolutely was not.
Edmund caught him before the ceremony.
Three weeks of rest had restored much of the Earl of Eastmere’s color, though he remained thinner than before his captivity. William suspected Lady Eastmere had made it her personal mission to remedy that.
“William.”
“My lord.”
Edmund caught his arm before he could pass. “I wanted a word.”
William regarded him warily. “If this is about Rosalind, I should warn you that I have already survived one interview regarding my intentions.”
“It is.”
“Excellent.”
Edmund smiled. “I merely wanted to tell you that I could not have chosen a better man for my daughter.”
William’s humor disappeared.
For once, he had no clever answer waiting. “Thank you.”