Chapter Two #2
He was hardly one to throw the elderly onto the street. Henry’s father, the previous vicar at St Elsbeth’s, would never have approved. So the Lodge continued, and Henry tried to make his deceased father proud, and ignored the mortgages on the estate and the debts piling in.
‘Distracted again, poor boy,’ Avril said lightly. ‘Be off with you, Your Grace.’
And so he did—only within fifteen minutes he was already groaning.
It probably wasn’t fair of him to groan, but he couldn’t help it.
After finally deciding to return to the groundskeeper’s cottage—the repair of which had taken all his immediate funds last year—Henry had thought he would gain himself some peace and quiet as he ran through the place’s ledges.
That moment had ended the instant his horse slowed to a trot and entered his stables, the dog cart behind it squeaking terribly—he really should get the contraption examined—and he saw it.
His brother’s fancy new chaise and four.
What was Charles doing here?
Henry had to shove a brace back into position on his dog cart twice before it held, and when he dismounted, something did not sound good. He really needed to get the man at the Brexley Staging Post to take a look at it. Trouble was, he didn’t have the coin to really get it fixed.
Henry rubbed his jaw as he closed the stable door with a creak, and turned to look at his home.
‘There you are!’ Charles grinned as he stepped out of Henry’s cottage and waved. ‘I’ve been waiting an hour! Do you know how much that time’s worth?’
Henry chuckled as he strode up the short path. ‘You charging your own brother now?’
He clapped the younger man on the back and grinned as they strode into his pokey hall.
‘You know I’d always give you preferential rates,’ Charles winked. ‘But when you’re a lawyer—’
‘You dullard,’ teased Henry, shrugging off his greatcoat and hanging it on the stand before beckoning his brother into the dingy kitchen. ‘I assume you are here for a drink. Tea?’
‘Always,’ groaned Charles.
As the kettle was placed on a newly lit fire, Henry distracted himself from the unexpected visit by bustling about the place, choosing two cups and taking the milk from the pitcher by the back door, the wintery weather keeping it cool.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like playing host to his brother.
Charles was pleasant, as brothers went. He was wealthy, a man of his own making—and he had never crowed about it, always taken care of their mother, and was courting a young lady who’d received their mother’s seal of approval, a difficult task.
But still. Henry’s bones ached from the fourteen hours he’d just spent at the Lodge.
If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Fixing the broken cistern in one of the outhouses.
Checking up on their four seriously ill patients, reviewing the medication for all sixty residents, arbitrating the arguments between Avril and Mavis.
All he wanted was a long bath, a strong pot of tea and one of those horrid dry pies that one of the sellers from the market always dropped by of an evening.
Charles grinned. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’
Henry snorted as he poured the tea. ‘You only come to call when you want something, little brother.’
‘Now, that is not true!’ protested Charles. ‘At least, not entirely.’
They had the same scruffy dark hair, the same lopsided grins and the same inability to tell a falsehood. It was part and parcel of being the vicar’s children, he had always thought.
‘So what do you want?’ Henry pressed, slipping onto a chair by the table.
Charles grinned. ‘I wanted to tell you something. Something important.’
Despite himself, Henry leaned forward. ‘Something important?’
Charles nodded, and only then did Henry notice the nervous excitement radiating off him. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet. It was the sort of thing their mother did when she had a secret she was bursting to tell.
She never managed to keep hold of it.
‘Well?’ Henry pressed, knowing his brother wouldn’t be able to hold it in for long. ‘If it’s something to do with work, you know you cannot tell me—’
‘It’s Miss Yorke,’ Charles blurted out. ‘We’re getting married.’
Henry stared. Getting married?
He had known Charles was courting Miss Yorke. They had done so for almost three months. She had even moved with her father to Brexley, which their mother had seen as the ultimate sign of interest.
Truth be told, sometimes Henry almost forgot she and Charles weren’t married.
‘You—what?’
‘We’re getting married,’ said his brother happily. ‘I’m getting me a wife!’
Just in time, Henry remembered that what he was being told was something he should be excited about. He rose from his seat and stepped around the counter. ‘Why, Charlie, that’s—that’s great!’
He pulled his younger brother into an embrace and found much to his consternation that tears were prickling in the corners of his eyes.
This isn’t about you, Henry told himself firmly. This was about his brother—about Charles and Miss Yorke. Their happiness. Not about your loneliness.
‘That’s…that’s great, such great news,’ Henry said aloud as he pulled away from his brother.
Charles evidently saw the brightness of his eyes, but thankfully mistook the emotion. ‘I know, if only Father was here. But Mother is delighted, absolutely ecstatic. I think if Miss Yorke isn’t too careful, she’ll be moving in with us.’
Henry snorted and brushed at his eyes as he returned to his chair and coffee. ‘Now, that I would pay good money to see. So, tell me all about it,’ he tried to say as graciously as possible. ‘How did you propose?’
And that was when Henry knew something had gone wrong. At least, not wrong. Different. Far different to what he had expected.
‘Oh, I haven’t proposed yet,’ Charles said easily.
Henry blinked. ‘You—what?’
His brother sipped his tea. ‘Oh, this is the stuff. You know I’ve been trying to cut down on tea, I read in a newspaper that it may not be the cure-all some think it is. You as my doctor should know all about that, but I can’t help but—’
‘Charles,’ said Henry firmly, hating to interrupt his brother but needing to work out precisely what had happened. ‘What do you mean, you haven’t proposed yet?’
‘Of course I haven’t proposed yet,’ Charles said slowly. ‘What, you think I can just concoct something like that on my own? No, I’ve hired a proposal planner.’
Henry burst out laughing, but his laughter swiftly faded away as his brother looked at him steadily, with no hint of mirth in his eyes. ‘You…you cannot be serious?’
‘Why not?’ Charles shrugged. ‘Just because I have found a match, doesn’t mean that I don’t recognise the importance of getting this proposal right.
You wouldn’t have a baby without a doctor or midwife, would you?
You wouldn’t buy a house without a solicitor.
Why would I not bring in the professionals for this? ’
Henry’s jaw fell open.
Well…it sounded so logical when his brother said it like that.
But what on earth was he thinking? Couldn’t he just summon up the right words for Miss Yorke and ask her to marry him? Was a proposal planner really necessary?
‘A proposal planner. To plan your proposal,’ he repeated, testing the waters.
Charles nodded.
Henry simply could not get his head around it. The idea someone who barely knew you could create such a special, important moment…
It did not bear thinking about.
A very small cruel voice at the back of his mind wondered whether having a proposal planner would have made any difference with—
No, Henry told himself sternly. No, he could not think that way.
His brother was frowning. ‘You’re not excited.’
‘No, no, I am,’ Henry said hastily. ‘At least, I will be. Once you’ve proposed, and Miss Yorke has said yes.’
‘Oh, she will.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Henry with a dry laugh. ‘But still…a proposal planner.’
‘You’re judging me,’ said Charles accusingly.
Henry bit his lip before replying, but the hesitation was more than enough. ‘I—’
‘You are!’ Charles sighed, putting down the teacup on the table. ‘I should have known not to tell you—I should have known you would think this foolish!’
‘It’s not foolish, exactly, I can see why you—it’s just, well,’ Henry said lamely. ‘You cannot manufacture romance, you know? You can’t buy it off the shelf, or plan for it. It’s not like that.’
‘And what would you know about it?’
The words were spoken in anger and Henry knew that.
It wasn’t his brother’s fault that his heart had been broken, that he had thought he had love…
and then watched it walk away. That the knife had been twisted all the deeper when just two months later, Georgiana had returned, all smiles and joy, when the newspapers had written about his sudden assent to grandeur and title.
He had loved her. Loved the idea of her—he had wanted to marry her.
And she had not wanted to marry Dr. Paisley.
She had been rather eager to marry the Duke of Glanyrafon.
Henry’s jaw tightened. Would he ever be free of the memories of her? Of the regret, not that he had loved her, but that he had been so wrong about her?
The remorse swiftly rushing across his brother’s face was genuine. ‘Henry, I’m sorry, I—’
‘No, it’s fine,’ he said as easily as he could manage.
Charles looked stricken. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘I know,’ said Henry calmly. ‘I know.’
The two brothers stood in tense silence while Henry tried to think of a way to extricate them both from this situation. ‘So, when’s the big day? The first one, I mean, the proposal?’
His brother smiled awkwardly. ‘I thought February 12. Just before St Valentine’s Day, you know.’
‘So…what, twenty days away?’
Charles nodded, and for some reason, looked awkward again. ‘Yes…which reminds me.’
Henry fixed his brother with a piercing stare. He knew it. ‘What do you want?’
His brother raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘It’s just a small favour!’
Henry groaned. ‘I knew it—I knew you wanted something, you only ever come over when you want something!’
The cheeky grin across Charles’s cheeks, however, was one he knew well. Had he ever been able to resist helping his brother out? Did he ever want to?
‘I have a big case tomorrow, one I can’t leave the office for, and the proposal planner arrives on the midday stagecoach.’
Henry sighed. ‘And you want me to meet them.’
He’d say yes. He knew that. He’d never been able to say no to his brother.
Charles grinned. ‘Thanks, Henry.’