Chapter 20 #2
When I finally manage to thaw my stiff limbs, I resume my path to the back door, moving at a brisker pace than before.
I’m possessed by the need to set eyes on her, as if to verify my memory of her is correct, and she hasn’t changed form since I left the office an hour ago.
It’s undoubtedly wrong, but a not-small part of me is praying to find she hasn’t done a single part of her homework.
Nevertheless, it’s impossible to shake the gnawing suspicion I’m forgetting something.
Before I’ve even made it back to the truck, my phone vibrating in my pocket has me coming to a halt yet again. Gritting my teeth, I pull it out, staring down at the name of the groundskeeper whom I’ve met only a few times, and has certainly never called me about anything.
Fucking hell.
“What?” I snap, taking the call even as I resume my stride to the truck.
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Mallory,” he tells me, clearing his throat loudly as I throw myself into the driver’s seat. “Ah, I just wanted to let you know I’ve let someone through the main gate to see you.”
My mind goes instantly to the tabloid reporter I sent off a few weeks ago. “What?” I snarl, not quite able to believe anyone would be so stupid. Why the fuck does he think we have the gate there? “Why would you do that?”
“Jeez, man, no need to get up in arms about it. I was leaving just as he was pulling up, and didn’t think he should wait—”
“So what if he has to wait? Let him! You are aware we had a break-in recently? Jesus. Did you get his name, at least?” If this man has let someone dangerous onto the property, I’ll have his job for it.
“Ah.” The groundskeeper lets out a quiet, uncomfortable chuckle. “That’s the thing. I didn’t need to get his name.”
I stare at the steering wheel of the truck, blood rushing in my ears. “You know him?”
“Everyone knows him, sir. It’s Prince Leopold. The Prince Leopold. He said he has urgent business with you. Don’t worry, I was real civilized and sent him right to the security office—”
I hang up before he can get another word in, and turn the keys in the ignition with a shaking hand, my heart thundering in my chest. The engine roars as I pull out of the little parking lot behind Thornhurst without pause, driving far faster than I should.
Fucking hell, Leo.
How he found out I’m here is anyone’s guess, but even as panicked and irritated as I am, I can’t exactly blame him for turning up. Not when I’ve been dodging his calls for months, and there is very little my youngest brother cares about more than his family, broken and dysfunctional as we may be.
My chest burns as I speed across the narrow service road which leads away from the main house and toward most of the estate’s secondary buildings, kicking up a cloud of dust in my wake.
I need to reach the security office—and Blair—before Leo does.
She’s already asked questions about my relationship with the Ashwells, and there isn’t an excuse in the world to justify the king’s brother turning up at my office for a chat.
For what feels like the first time in months, I get lucky.
The taillights of a gleaming, black luxury sedan are just rounding the corner to the office’s parking area as I approach, and my palms are damp as I skid the truck to a stop between it and the building, blocking us from view of the window.
I’m on my feet and striding around the hood before Leo has even opened his car door.
My brother’s familiar features, so like my own, are tense behind his wire-rimmed glasses as he steps out of his vehicle, searching my face.
“You’re alive, then,” Leo declares dryly, pushing his door closed behind himself. “I wasn’t entirely sure. Considering.”
All the air goes out of me. “What are you doing here?”
Leo’s nostrils flare. “Why am I here? That’s really all you have to say? Why do you think I’m here, Dam?”
I swallow with difficulty and glance past the truck toward the office. If Blair is where I left her—an admittedly unprecedented event—she won’t be able to see us, but I think I see movement beyond the rippling glass.
Dread is heavy in my gut as I look back to my brother. “Let’s go to my cottage to talk.”
With an absolutely disgusted look, Leo scoffs. “Last I checked, we don’t talk, so I don’t see how it should matter.”
“I don’t—” I scrub my hand over my face, gut twisting with panic and guilt. Even the thought of lying to him is like ash on my tongue. Regathering myself, I swallow. “I’m sorry. Things have been… busy.”
“Busy,” Leo echoes, and I can’t recall ever seeing my brother this angry before. “It’s been m-months.”
Of Fabian Ashwell’s four sons, Leo was always the quiet, reasonable one.
When Arthur, Ben, and I fought, it was Leo who called for peace, and even if it was never discussed, the three of us seemed to live by the unspoken agreement to shield him whenever possible. Not just because of his speech impediment, or his diagnosis, or even his being the baby of the family.
No, we protected him because he was the best of us.
My youngest brother isn’t a boy anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. Old habits die hard, though, and I would sooner hurt myself than hurt Leo. Which is, of course, what has made the last months so difficult.
I stare out at the familiar patch of trees which disguises the running path I take with Blair every morning. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“You damn well should be,” Leo snaps. “You leave the palace with no notice, there one day and gone the next. You’ve been ignoring my calls, and Zelda’s.
” His voice drops in furious disbelief at the mention of my sister-in-law, who is perhaps the kindest person either of us has ever encountered, and deserves far better.
“Then to find out you’re working for P-P-Porter of all p-people? What the fuck happened?”
His impediment worsening has always been a tell that Leo’s lost his hold on his emotions, and more than anything he’s said, the obvious effect my absence has had on him makes me feel worse than ever.
Hollow with regret, and staring into my brother’s furious, hurt expression, I have to force myself to respond. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” He lets out a harsh, impatient noise, staring at me in disbelief. “Just f-f-felt like a change? Decided to q-quit your job and shut out your only living family for the fun of it?”
“It wasn’t—” I break off, shaking my head.
Christ, I wasn’t prepared for this conversation.
For the past month, I’ve allowed myself to get lost in the storm that is Blair Porter, and a part of me welcomed it.
Easier to be angry at someone other than myself.
Easier to focus on hating Blair than trying to come to terms with why I’d done what I did.
Now, I’ve been backed into a corner, scrambling to think of some reasonable explanation for my behavior, something to tell my brother that isn’t the truth, and isn’t a lie.
A cold wind sweeps through the clearing, sending a flurry of brilliant foliage down around us and rustling the leaves already on the ground.
“I… did something,” I admit at last. “Something bad. It was a long time ago, but recently...” Again, my words falter, and I shake my head, helpless to say the words my brother deserves to hear; that it was only recently that the full impact of my terrible choice has come to light, and that I was too much of a coward to be reminded of it every day when I saw her face.
“Dam.” Leo stares at me, and his expression is impossibly grave. “What did you do?”
Again, I glance back at the security office, straining my vision for signs of Blair watching from the window. If she is, I can’t see any sign of it, and my chest has grown impossibly tight in the time it takes me to look back at my brother.
Finally, I can’t put off responding any longer. “I can’t tell you that, Leo. I’m sorry.” The admittance is hollow, and the apology even worse, but it’s the best I can do.
Leo doesn’t respond right away, and another gust of wind sweeps through the clearing, rustling the branches above our heads.
“So, this is how it will be, then?” he finally asks, a weariness to his voice I haven’t heard often.
“You hiding away from all of us for some crime we didn’t know you committed? ”
“No.” The denial sounds like a plea. “I just need...” Again, my words fail, the incomplete sentence hanging in the air before me.
More time? Some space? If only it were that simple. No, what I need is a way to put the burden of my actions on myself, rather than the people I love.
That isn’t possible, though. So, now, I need to find a way to live with myself.
“How’s Ben?” I ask, a little desperately.
Again, Leo pauses, considering. “Happy,” he assures me at last, his voice gentler than it was before.
“More so than I’ve ever seen him. He m-m-misses you, though.
” I feel those words like a physical blow, and something in my silence must suggest there is more to the inquiry than brotherly concern, because Leo’s next question hits me squarely in the chest. “Dam, this bad thing you say you did… was it to Ben?”
I close my eyes, focusing on the breath leaving and entering my lungs, a reminder that this hasn’t all killed me.
When I open them, I meet my youngest brother’s familiar, dark eyes.
Leo smiles weakly, seeming to sense I have exhausted my ability to explain.
He was always good about that, able to read between the lines.
A rare quality in a family of rich, powerful men who crashed forward without concern for who or what was upset in their wake.
I’d always thought I was different from them, that the nature of my parentage automatically excluded me from the less favorable characteristics often seen on my father’s side of the family. It’s only now, as a grown man, that I’m starting to realize how very not unlike them I have always been.
Bastard or not, at my core, I am Fabian Ashwell’s son.
“I’ll go,” offers Leo sadly, taking a step back.
Even after avoiding this moment for months and hating every second of our interaction, I’m gripped by the almost overwhelming impulse to ask him to stay. I push my hair off my face, watching helplessly as my youngest brother turns toward his car.
“Leo,” I call, and my throat aches as he pauses, turning cautiously to face me once again. Swallowing, I attempt a smile. “How’s the baby?”
My heart aches as I think of my niece, the tiny girl whom I ought to have protected with my life, but who will instead bear the full burden of my mistakes.
Leo smiles gently. “Getting big. She’s crawling now and pulling herself up on things. I swear she looks more like her mother every day.”
I let out a weak laugh. “Thank god.”
Reaching out, Leo rests a hand atop his car, and I know he’s trying to decide whether or not to tell me something. “Ben’s birthday is coming up,” he tells me, apparently making up his mind. “Z is putting together a party at Fernmoor that night. It will only be friends and family. You should come.”
“He’s angry at me.” I smile sadly. “It’s better if I stay away.”
A weary, exasperated look comes at this. “Surely you don’t really believe that.”
He’s right. I don’t. This would all be so much easier if I could.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve done, Dam, but this”—he gestures toward the main house with a pained grimace—“isn’t the answer. Sort it out.”
I stand back, watching as he gets into his car and pulls out onto the access road. He offers me one brief, pained smile before he’s gone, and I’m left staring at the space between two trees where I last glimpsed his taillights.
For all my panic about Leo being here, now that he’s gone…
Unable to stand being left alone with my own company, I turn toward the office. I’ll feel what I have to feel later, find a way to block off the chasm of grief and guilt yawning open inside me, but not now.
My chest is hollow as I step inside. Blair is where I left her, shoulders bunched up and staring miserably at her computer. If she got up at any point to peek out the window, she doesn’t give any indication of it.
“Let me see what you’ve done,” I grunt, careful to keep my eyes from her face as I cross the room and take her laptop in my hands, turning it so I can read from this side of the old metal desk, rather than get too close.
As I lean down to read through the question and answer portion of the lesson she’s working on, for a moment, I can’t understand what I’m seeing.
It’s been over an hour since I left her here, and in that time, Blair has only managed a single, clumsy attempt at one of the twelve questions on the reading assignment.
Even for someone who’s been away from school for years, it’s bad.
Much of her response is totally unreadable, words misspelled and mashed together with others, only to be repeated correctly later on.
There are sentences which look as though they’ve been copied and pasted from the internet, right beside others that might have been composed by someone who didn’t read the material at all.
Lifting my eyes from the screen to look at Blair, I find her staring at her lap. “What is this?” I hiss. For once, however, she has no witty retort.
The thing that rises inside me at her silence is ugly.
Disgusted, I shake my head, straightening to my full height. “Jesus, Porter. Are you too good to do the damn reading? What the hell is wrong—” But the sentence dies as, for the very first time since we’ve met, I watch my horrible, cruel words hit their mark.
A single tear falls from Blair’s downturned face to her lap, and in the quiet of the office, I swear I can hear it.
I can’t breathe. I’m not sure I can even think. Certainly not of anything other than the realization which has poured in, with the sudden, inescapable rush of a dam breaking.
It fits.
The voice notes, the lack of texting, the avoiding schoolwork… It fucking fits.
God help me, if everything I thought was wrong with her was really a symptom of something she could never help—Fuck.
I want to be wrong.
Please, let me be wrong.
“You’re not too good for it,” I croak, and the pressure on my chest is so intense it may break as another tear falls to her lap. “You can’t.”
She hisses, recoiling as if I’ve slapped her. And, before I can fully process what this means, or even begin considering the depths of my terrible behavior, she’s on her feet, rushing past me. The door slams behind her, and I’m left staring at the disjointed, misspelled words on her computer.
Words that were written that way because the woman I’ve called an idiot, and lazy, and an embarrassment, isn’t any of those things.
Blair is dyslexic.