Chapter 24 #2
"I ---" Lord Tyrone tried to speak but could not, lowering his head and then closing his eyes again.
Josiah, sensing that Clara's distress was great, moved to stand behind her and then set his hand on her shoulder.
She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes glassy, and Josiah's heart twisted in his chest.
"You admit to this, then?" she asked, her voice breaking with all the emotion that Josiah had seen in her eyes. "You stole Miss Jennings' affections, you promised her more than you ever intended to give her and then you dismissed her as if she was nothing? As if she meant nothing?"
Lord Tyrone passed one hand over his eyes. "It was never meant to be anything of significance."
"But that is not what you said to me," Miss Jennings responded, and there was iron in her now. "You promised me so much, told me that your heart belonged to me and swore you cared nothing for my father's disgrace. That is why I trusted you with my own heart."
Lord Tyrone's jaw tightened and, for a moment, Clara saw a flash of the brother she had always known --- the one who believed himself righteous in all things.
"You must understand," he said, his voice suddenly stronger, more defensive.
"I was protecting this family. The Tyrone name, the title itself --- do you think I wanted any of this to come to light?
" He gestured broadly at the room. "A Marquess cannot simply wed a paid companion!
The scandal would have destroyed us all.
Everything I did was for the preservation of our standing. "
"You seduced her under a false name," Clara said, her voice cold. "Thomas's name. How was that protecting anyone but yourself?"
"Because I never intended for it to go so far!" Lord Tyrone's composure cracked further, his carefully constructed justifications beginning to crumble. "She was meant to be nothing more than a distraction, a momentary pleasure. I did not expect... I did not think..."
"You did not think I would fall in love," Miss Jennings finished for him, her voice trembling but steady. "You did not think that your promises meant anything beyond the moment you spoke them."
Lord Tyrone opened his mouth to respond but no words came. His shoulders, which had been squared with righteous indignation only moments before, began to round. The mask he had worn for so long was slipping, revealing the fear and shame beneath.
"Everything I did," he said, his voice hollow now, "was to protect the family. That is what the head of a family does. That is what Father would have expected of me."
"Father would never have expected you to destroy the lives of others to hide your own sins," Lady Tyrone said, her voice sharp with disappointment. "Do not sully his memory by claiming otherwise."
The words struck Lord Tyrone like a physical blow.
His head dropped, his hands falling uselessly to his sides.
In that moment, Clara saw her brother truly for the first time --- not the powerful Marquess, not the stern protector, but a frightened man who had built a fortress of lies to hide his own cowardice.
Silence flooded the room for a few minutes. Josiah kept his hand where it was, wishing that he could take Clara in his arms and comfort her. He did not know what else to say, both horrified and relieved that they had finally uncovered the truth.
"I must ask you something more," Clara said, her shoulders rounding. "Why, if you sent Thomas away and Miss Jennings was gone also, did you insist that I end my connection to Lord Rutland? He had done nothing wrong."
Lord Tyrone's jaw jutted forward, his eyes narrowing. "Oh, Lord Rutland knows very well why you cannot wed."
Confusion swept around Josiah like a cloak. "I certainly have no notion as to why you did such a thing," he responded, as Clara looked back to her brother. "I cannot understand it."
Lord Tyrone snorted. "You lie. I know that Thomas wrote to you before he was forced from the house."
In an instant, the truth crashed back into Josiah's mind. "Yes, that is so," he remembered, hearing Clara snatch in a breath. "I received a note from him the day before I attended the Christmas ball. The one where Clara and I declared our love for one another."
Lord Tyrone threw up his hands. "You see? You know very well why!"
"Except I wrote nothing of significance in that note," Lord Thomas said, his voice quiet but his words seeming to bounce around the room. "I only said that I needed to speak with him at his earliest convenience. I wrote nothing more than that."
With careful eyes, Josiah watched Lord Tyrone's expression alter drastically.
The anger that had been flashing in his eyes faded to nothing, the high colour in his cheeks dropped completely.
His mouth was ajar, his eyes widening at the corners as he stared at his brother, his shock more than evident.
"I did not write anything more to Lord Rutland thereafter," Lord Thomas said, shaking his head. "You were afraid that I was going to tell Lord Rutland all and thus, you pulled Clara back from him. You demanded an end to the connection and again, it was done solely to protect yourself."
Lord Tyrone dropped his head into his hands. The room waited for something --- an excuse, another justification, another display of the authority that had governed them all for so long. But nothing came.
When he finally lowered his hands, his face had changed. The arrogance was gone, and so was the defensive fury. What remained was something Josiah had never seen in the man before --- not defeat, exactly, but the terrible blankness of a person who had run out of walls to hide behind.
"I was twenty-three." His voice was barely audible.
"When Father died, I was twenty-three years old and the solicitors came to me with debts I did not know existed and a title I had never been taught to carry.
Every decision I have made since has been to ensure that this family would never be vulnerable again.
" He looked at his hands, turning them over as though seeing them for the first time.
"I know that does not excuse what I have done. I know that."
Clara pressed her lips together, her eyes bright with tears.
Josiah saw the war in her face --- the part of her that remembered the brother who had carried her through the apple orchard at Thornfield fighting against the part of her that had spent months suffering under his cruelty.
She did not speak and Josiah did not blame her.
There were no words adequate to this moment.
"You destroyed lives to avoid discomfort," Thomas said, quietly. "That is not protection. That is cowardice dressed in duty."
Lord Tyrone flinched but did not argue. He sat very still for a long moment, his gaze fixed on some point beyond them all.
Then, slowly, he rose to his feet. There was no urgency in the movement, no desperation.
He straightened his coat with the mechanical precision of a man who had nothing left but habit, and when he spoke, his voice was flat and careful.
"I will be in my study. I expect you will want to discuss what is to be done."
He crossed the room without haste, opened the door, and closed it quietly behind him. The soft click of the latch was somehow worse than a slam would have been.
Miss Jennings let out a long, shuddering breath. It was not a sob --- not quite. It was the sound of something held tightly for a very long time finally being released.
"None of this is your fault, Miss Jennings." Josiah spoke in a low voice, aware of the tension that still flooded the room. "You are not to blame."
"We are to blame," Lord Thomas said, rising to his feet.
He came towards her slowly, as if approaching a bird that might startle.
"I should have done more. I should have resisted my brother's threats and spoken of this --- but I did not.
That was wrong of me and I have carried the shame of it every day since. "
Miss Jennings stared at him and Josiah saw the moment that recognition truly settled over her --- not the confused flicker from when she had first entered the room but something deeper, something that made her breath catch and her lips part.
She was looking at Lord Thomas as if seeing him clearly for the first time, and yet also as if she were seeing someone she had known before.
"It was you," she whispered, and her voice was full of wonder rather than accusation.
"At the morning calls. You were the gentleman who sat quietly by the window whilst your brother held court.
You asked me about my book --- the Cowper --- and thanked me for the tea.
" Her eyes searched his face, fitting the man before her to a memory she had never been able to make sense of.
"I thought you were Lord Tyrone. I could never understand why you seemed so different from the man who had courted me. So much gentler. So much kinder."
Lord Thomas's expression crumpled with emotion but he did not look away from her.
"I noticed you from the very first call my mother made upon Lady Prentis," he said, quietly.
"I thought you the most gentle and admirable woman I had ever met.
I was trying to find the courage to speak with you properly when I discovered what my brother had done --- and by then, it was too late.
He had already used my name. He had already broken your heart. "