Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Jane scarcely remembered crossing the distance. One heartbeat she stood beside Hector. The next, she was on her knees before her brother, her skirts pooling across the dusty warehouse floor.
“Colin.” Her voice broke around his name.
He looked even worse up close.
Bruises painted nearly every inch of his face. One cheekbone had swollen so badly that his eye was almost forced shut. Dried blood crusted along his temple and disappeared beneath his dark hair, which had become tangled and filthy after several days of captivity.
His normally immaculate cravat was gone. His waistcoat had been ripped. Dark rope burns circled both wrists.
Jane’s vision blurred. She had spent every waking moment imagining what might have happened to him. None of those imaginings had been cruel enough.
“Oh, Colin…” Her fingers trembled as she reached for the ropes binding his chest. “Hector.”
“I have them.” He was already cutting through the thicker knots securing the chair.
Jane worked on the ropes around Colin’s wrists with frantic fingers while Hector sliced through those around his ankles. The coarse hemp scraped her skin, refusing to loosen.
“Come loose…” She swallowed hard, pulling harder. “Please…”
Finally, one knot slipped. The rope fell away. Another followed. Hector cut through the final binding around Colin’s chest.
The earl sagged forward immediately. Jane caught him before he could collapse.
“Careful.”
Together, she and Hector eased him upright. His head lolled against her shoulder. His skin felt frighteningly cold despite the warmth of the summer night. Jane brushed the tangled hair away from his forehead.
“Colin?”
No response.
She touched his cheek. “Colin. Colin, wake up.” His brow twitched. Encouraged, she leaned closer. “You must wake.”
His lips moved. Nothing intelligible emerged. She squeezed his hand.
“It’s Jane.”
Slowly, his eyelids fluttered open, just once, before they closed again. Jane smiled through tears.
“That’s it.” She stroked his arm. “Come back to us.”
Several long moments passed. Then his eyes opened again, cloudy and unfocused. He stared somewhere over her shoulder, blinking slowly, as though struggling to understand what he was seeing.
Jane offered the smallest smile she could manage. “It’s all right.”
His gaze drifted toward her face. Confusion crossed his bruised features. He frowned. “…Jane?”
“Yes.”
His expression remained bewildered. “No...” His voice emerged hoarse enough to sound almost unrecognizable. “No...”
Jane leaned closer. “It is.”
He continued staring. “You…” He gave a weak, disbelieving laugh that nearly became a cough. “I’ve finally gone mad.”
Jane’s heart shattered. He truly believed he was imagining her. She carefully slid one arm around his shoulders.
“No.” Her own tears spilled freely now. “You are not imagining me.”
She hugged him as gently as she dared, terrified of worsening whatever injuries lay beneath his ruined clothing.
“It’s over.” Her cheek rested lightly against his battered temple. “I’m here.”
She felt him freeze. Then, slowly, almost fearfully, his arms lifted. He was shaking as he wrapped them around her.
Jane closed her eyes. For the first time since the kidnapping, her brother embraced her. He buried his face against her shoulder.
“I thought…” His voice cracked. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“You shall see me every day until you tire of me.”
A broken laugh escaped him. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
She held him a little longer before easing back enough to study him. “You frightened us terribly.”
“I imagine I did.”
“You are never permitted to do this again.”
“I shall endeavor not to be kidnapped another time.”
Despite herself, she laughed through her tears. “There is my brother.”
A deep voice spoke nearby. “Can you stand?”
Jane looked up. Hector had remained respectfully several paces away while she reunited with Colin. Only now did he step closer.
Colin slowly lifted his head. His vision still wandered uncertainly. He squinted. His swollen eye struggled to focus. Hector knelt beside them.
“We must leave.”
Colin stared at him. Something softened across his bruised face. A smile, small and tender, utterly unlike anything Jane had expected, curved across her brother’s lips.
“Evan?”
Jane froze. Beside her, Hector became perfectly still.
Colin’s smile widened faintly. “Evan, my love…” Colin blinked again. “…Is that you?”
Jane felt every muscle in her body go rigid.
Hector’s face revealed nothing. Only his eyes betrayed him. Shock, raw and unmistakable. Jane found her voice first.
“No.” She spoke gently. “Colin.” Jane reached for his face. “No.” She turned him slightly toward her. “This is not Evan. It’s his brother, the Duke of Sunderford.”
“Oh?” Colin blinked several times.
Jane unfolded her handkerchief. The pristine linen immediately stained red as she dampened it with water from the flask Hector handed her.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Hector inclined his head silently. Jane carefully began cleaning the dried blood from Colin’s face. He winced.
“I know. I’m sorry.” She worked slowly. Removing enough dirt and blood for his eyes to open more comfortably. “There.”
She wiped beneath the swollen eye. “Try now.”
Colin blinked repeatedly. He looked toward Hector once more. Recognition gradually replaced confusion. His face drained of what little color remained.
“Your Grace.” The words came barely above a whisper.
Hector nodded once. “Lord Wynten.”
Colin shut his eyes briefly. “I…” His brow furrowed. “I thought…”
Jane offered a reassuring smile. “You mistook him.”
“I did.” He looked embarrassed despite everything. “I’m sorry, I…”
“You’ve suffered a terrible ordeal.” Jane folded the bloodstained handkerchief. “You needn’t apologize.”
Jane couldn’t help noticing how intently the duke studied her brother now.
One simple, delirious sentence had raised a hundred impossible questions—questions Jane herself could scarcely begin to understand.
Why had Colin spoken to Hector as though he were Evan?
Why ‘my love?’ She pushed the thought away almost immediately.
He had been unconscious, beaten, half-delirious. Surely he had spoken nonsense. People recovering from fevers mistook strangers for relatives all the time. That had to be all this was. It had to be.
Even so, when she looked between the two men, her brother avoiding the duke’s eyes and Hector watching Colin with newfound intensity, an uneasy feeling settled deep inside her chest.
Jane folded the bloodstained handkerchief into her palm, though there was little use in trying to keep it clean now. The linen was streaked with crimson and dust, much like the rest of the warehouse around them.
Jane looked at Colin carefully. His gaze remained lowered, fixed upon his scraped hands. He knew what he had said.
“Colin,” she said softly. He flinched. “Look at me.”
Slowly, he raised his head. His eyes were rimmed with fatigue, but there was something else there now. Fear. Not fear of Strachan. Not fear of his injuries. Fear of them. Fear of what they now suspected.
Jane reached over and rested her hand lightly atop his. “You needn’t be afraid of me.”
“I…” His voice failed.
Hector spoke quietly. “Tell us the truth.”
Colin closed his eyes. Silence stretched between them. Jane watched him struggle with something far greater than pain.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was scarcely above a whisper. “We were never enemies.”
Jane frowned. “What?”
He swallowed. “Evan and me.” Another silence.
“Our arguments…” A bitter smile crossed his bruised mouth. “They were performances.”
Jane stared.
“The fights. The shouting. The insults.” He laughed softly, though it held no humor. “We became rather convincing after a while.”
Jane’s thoughts raced. Every public disagreement. Every whispered scandal. Every story she’d heard over the years.
“You hated each other.”
“No.” He looked toward Hector. “We needed everyone to believe we did.”
Hector remained perfectly still. Jane could not read his expression. Colin continued before either of them could interrupt.
Jane blinked. Understanding came slowly. “You…” Her words caught. “You were protecting something.”
Colin nodded once. “Someone.” He drew a shaky breath. “I love him.” The confession echoed through the warehouse. No one moved. “I love Evan.”
Jane felt as though the floor shifted beneath her.
Her brother lowered his head. “I do.” His shoulders trembled. “I always shall.”
For several heartbeats she could think of nothing to say.
She simply looked at him. He was the little boy who had taught her to climb trees despite their governess’s horror…
the young man who had danced with her after their father’s funeral because she had forgotten how to smile…
the brother who had devoted every waking hour to restoring the earldom after inheriting it far too young.
He was still Colin. Nothing about him had changed, except her understanding.
He glanced at her uncertainly. “I know what this means. If this became known… I couldn’t let anyone know. You may hate me—”
Jane cut him off by throwing her arms around him, being careful to be mindful of his injuries. But firmly enough that he could feel there was no hesitation. He stiffened in surprise.
“You are my brother,” she whispered. His breathing caught. “You have always been my brother.”
Tears spilled freely down his battered face. “I thought…”
“You thought I would stop loving you?” Jane drew back only enough to look into his eyes. “There is nothing you could tell me that would make you cease being my brother.”
A sob escaped him. “I wanted to tell you. So many times. But I couldn’t.”
She brushed another strand of filthy hair from his forehead. “You were protecting him.”
“And protecting you.” He looked away. “If anyone suspected…”
Jane understood. She truly did. The scandal would have destroyed them all.
Hector finally spoke. “When did it begin?”
Colin lifted his eyes. “Nearly four years ago.”
Hector’s brow furrowed. “So long?”