Chapter 9
“Brother, you have been frowning incessantly.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows did not lift from their present position.
“Are you unaware of the pleasantries around you?” Tunbridge continued, throwing up his hands. “Can you not see the many smiling faces? Can you not hear the laughter and the conversation?”
“I can see and hear all that you can,” Jonathan replied, with a sigh. “You need not press me on this, Tunbridge.” Seeing his brother’s scowl, he shrugged. “You do not have to stay here with me if you do not wish to. Do not let my dark presence cause you any frustration.”
Lord Tunbridge threw up his hands. “You admit that you have a darkness in your spirit at present, then?”
“I am well aware of my disinclination towards company, yes.” Jonathan did not tell his brother his reasons for such feelings, however. He did not want to go into his situation with Lady Susanna. “But I am here, at least. Is that not good enough for you?”
His brother rolled his eyes. “I suppose it shall have to be.” With a twist of his lips, he tilted his head just a little. “Might I ask if this has anything to do with… well, to do with my previous mistakes?”
Jonathan’s eyebrows shot upwards, his frown leaving him. “What would make you think so?”
With a sigh, his brother shrugged and looked away.
“Last Season, I made some foolish mistakes that almost cost me my fortune and my standing. I am aware that you had to do a great deal to help me and gave me excellent advice and support for which I am truly grateful. Even though it is now one year on, I must hope that you do not hold the same concern for me. I hope your present concern and disinclination towards company is not because of me.”
“No, it is not,” Jonathan said firmly. Putting one hand on his brother’s shoulder, he looked straight into his eye. “You are a trustworthy fellow, and I know that you will never again get yourself into such difficulties as you did last Season.”
Relief flooded Tunbridge’s face. “That is good to know.”
“I have my own struggles,” Jonathan told him, without going into any further detail. “They have nothing to do with you, I assure you. I am sorry that my demeanor is so very poor. I am doing my best to make an end of my troubles, I promise you.”
With a nod, Lord Tunbridge frowned. “If you wish to share with me, brother, then I would be very glad to do all I could to assist you, given how much you have done for me.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I appreciate your concern, but there is nothing that you could do.” Looking around Lord Ulster’s drawing room, he smiled briefly.
“But do not let me hold you back from enjoyable conversation, Tunbridge. Go now, enjoy yourself this evening. I will come to join you in a few minutes, once I have cleared some thoughts from my mind.”
Lord Tunbridge did not move. Instead, he stood very still, his jaw working silently, and Jonathan recognized the expression at once — the same look his brother wore when he was trying to assemble words for something difficult.
“There is something I should have said to you long before now,” Tunbridge said, quietly.
“About last Season.” He held up one hand before Jonathan could speak.
“No — please let me. I know you have told me that my difficulties are resolved and that you hold no grudge, and I believe you mean it. But the truth is, brother, I have not forgiven myself.”
Jonathan frowned. “Tunbridge —”
“I was a fool.” The word came out flat and hard, as though he had been carrying it pressed between his teeth for months.
“I knew that Moncrieff’s card games were above my level, and I played anyway.
I told myself it was sport, that I could afford to lose what I wagered, and that was true — at first. But by the time I realized I was being led deeper and deeper in, my pride would not let me walk away.
” He looked at his hands — fine, well-kept hands that had once signed vowels for sums that could have ruined them both.
“You saved me from the worst of it. You confronted Moncrieff, and I know that cost you more than you have ever told me. And now I look at you — shut away in corners, scowling at perfectly pleasant company — and I cannot help but wonder…” He trailed off, then forced himself to finish.
“I cannot help but wonder whether my weakness gave someone the means to hurt you.”
The words landed with more force than Jonathan had expected.
He opened his mouth to deny it — it was his habit to protect his brother from these kinds of concerns — but something stopped him.
Perhaps it was the rawness in Tunbridge’s voice, or the way his brother stood with his shoulders braced as though preparing to receive a blow.
“You are not to blame for the choices of others,” Jonathan said, carefully. “Whatever has been done to me — and I will explain it all to you soon, I promise — was done by someone who sought to harm me, not by you.”
“But they used my mistakes as kindling,” Tunbridge pressed. “If I had not been so reckless, there would have been nothing for them to fan into flame.”
Jonathan could not deny that entirely, and his silence was answer enough.
Tunbridge nodded once, a muscle twitching in his jaw, and Jonathan saw something he had not seen in his brother before — not the careless younger son, not the cheerful companion, but a man who carried his own quiet burden of guilt and was learning, slowly, to bear its weight.
“Go enjoy the evening,” Jonathan said again, more gently this time. “We will speak of this properly. Soon.”
As Tunbridge moved away into the room, Jonathan’s mind caught on a detail that had been hovering at the edge of his consciousness for days: the Moncrieff daughters.
Lady Theresa and Lady Evelina — introduced at Almack’s, danced with, smiled at — and he had known their name the moment he heard it.
Moncrieff. The same Earl whose cheating he had exposed, whose gambling debts to Tunbridge he had forced back.
He had noted it and then set it aside, reasoning that their father was not in London, that the daughters could not possibly know of the affair between their father and himself, and that a gentleman’s private disgrace was unlikely to be shared with his children — especially his daughters.
It had seemed a reasonable conclusion at the time.
Now, standing in Lord Ulster’s drawing room with doubt gnawing at every certainty he had ever held, Jonathan wondered whether he had been too quick to dismiss the coincidence.
With another searching look, Lord Tunbridge stepped away, leaving Jonathan alone.
They were not unlike one another in appearance — the same dark hair, the same strong jaw, the same tendency to carry the weight of their concerns in the set of their shoulders — but where Tunbridge had grown lighter and more open since his troubles had been resolved, Jonathan felt himself becoming more closed, more guarded.
It pained him to recognize it. He did not want to be this way.
A small sigh of relief escaped from his lips as he leaned back against the wall, glad that the shadows were hiding him somewhat.
Lord Ulster’s drawing room was warmly lit by a fire that crackled in the grate and a pair of candelabras on the mantelpiece, their light catching the gilt-framed paintings that lined the walls.
The hum of conversation and occasional laughter from the main room drifted through the open doors, but here, in this quieter corner, Jonathan could almost pretend he was alone with his thoughts.
They were in disarray, torn by his affection for Lady Susanna and the confusion that her nearness had brought to him.
Her questions as to why he had never spoken to her father about these financial troubles, her demand that he tell her who it was that had written to him, had done nothing but bring a fresh awareness to his mind that he cared for her still; that he had never been able to remove her from his heart.
All the same, I cannot let myself consider her again, he reminded himself firmly. I cannot risk it.
As if she had known that he was thinking of her, Lady Susanna stepped into the room alongside her mother and sister.
Jonathan recalled being introduced to them all, remembered the moment that he had looked into Lady Susanna’s face and thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
Her brown eyes had flecks of gold within them as she had smiled, her dark tresses dancing lightly as she had risen from her curtsy.
Later in their acquaintance, she had told him that her sister was considered the beauty, that her mother was concentrating all of her attentions on making certain that Lady Maude made the very best match possible.
Jonathan had never been able to understand such a distinction.
He had only ever been drawn to Lady Susanna.
Just as I am now.
His eyes followed her as she walked across the room, noting how the Duchess pushed Lady Maude to the front of their conversation with some other guests, leaving Lady Susanna to stand a little behind.
The urge to go to her, to speak with her, to show her that she was just as valued as her sister was so great that it almost drove him forward.
Instead, he turned on his heel and moved out of the room at once, his hands curling into fists as he fought back against the desire to return to where he had been.
The hallway was quiet, and he stepped into the next room he came to, needing to take a few minutes to settle his thoughts and regain his composure somewhat.
“The Duke’s investments have done very well, I must say.”
“I am surprised that you are so well versed in all the Duke of Somerset puts his money into, Lord Trafford.”
Jonathan frowned and meandered slowly into the library, keeping his back towards the group of three gentlemen whose conversation he had now overheard.