Chapter 2 #3
“How could we?” Freddie squeaked. “You’d need a broadsword to sever them.
Besides, neither of us shares her convictions.
She may have just tried to cave my head in with A Discourse on Pain, but soon she will be engrossed in it again.
She isn’t strong enough to attend church, so it must come to her, and thus, Danforth. We cannot give her what he can.”
“And maybe that is our failing, too.”
Freddie shook his head. “You are not the failure here. You have always done exactly as she asked.”
“What’s this about a Richmond girl?” Alasdair asked.
It was just like Freddie to try to worm his way out of confrontation by throwing someone else out onto the road.
There was a frenzy of activity in the hall outside Alasdair’s rooms. He watched a stream of sheepish staff hurry by with crates laden with books, folded cloths, and diaries.
“Danforth’s things,” Freddie said with a sigh. They waited until the rooms were quiet and empty, and Alasdair went inside. It smelled wrong somehow. “He was using your chambers, you know. Mother allowed it. Insisted upon it.”
“I suppose nothing has been done to prepare for Gordon’s arrival, then.”
Alasdair crossed to the tall window beside his four-poster bed and urged the casement open; immediately the fire-tipped air blustered inside, and he thought better of it, shutting the window with a thump. Even the cloying ambergris ghost of Danforth’s presence was better than smelling smoke.
“Gordon?” Freddie shifted out of the doorway, a footman returning with the small number of items Alasdair had packed in his saddlebags.
“The builder. Does anyone at Sampson speak to one another? I warned of his imminent arrival. The east pavilion was to be made ready for his ease and comfort while Clafton is rebuilt.”
Freddie’s golden eyes burst with stars. In a few eager steps, he was at Alasdair’s elbow, mouth open, quietly mystified. “You’re really doing it. You’re resurrecting the old beast.”
Alasdair flinched at his choice of words. “I haven’t been running all over the continent hunting furnishings for the place only to let them rot in a London warehouse. Mother has sent me after enough statuary and art to fill Clafton six times over.”
“How marvelous! How utterly marvelous! And, of course, I am at your disposal.”
“Yes, I imagine you are keen to make yourself useful.” Alasdair took advantage of his proximity, grabbing Freddie by the forearm and bringing them nose to nose. “So. The Richmond girl. What has made Mother this agitated? Surely, it was more than a passing comment.”
The blood drained from his brother’s face. Even through his sleeve, he could feel Freddie go cold. Just as swiftly, red pinpoints gathered in his cheeks. “There is some truth to what she says.”
“Some?” Alasdair’s grip tightened.
Freddie winced. “More…m-more than some.”
“Christ, Freddie, the years march on, yet here you remain, an utter fool.”
“What!” His brother retreated, hugging his arm to his stomach and perching on the sill.
In the early evening light, his brother looked perfectly angelic.
Freddie was anything but; the man had left a string of broken hearts across the county, seducing anything with long lashes and a coy smile.
Alasdair went to find the brandy he knew would be hidden in the globe near his writing desk.
The compartment, however, was empty, filmed with dust, and he groaned.
“If you only saw her, you would understand.”
Alasdair snarled, turning and leaning against his desk. “If I saw her, I would ignore her and choose quite literally any other woman in England. Use your head, brother; where the Richmonds are concerned, there is but one rival for Mother’s hatred, and that’s the devil himself.”
“I know,” Freddie whined, dragging out the words. He continued gazing out the window, though now Alasdair knew it to be deep and pathetic pining.
“Cut her out of your thoughts,” Alasdair told him, sharp. “What is forbidden is always tempting, but you were given a mind to temper your heart.”
“Cut her out of my thoughts? I would sooner cut off a limb! Can you not at least try to take my side against Mother’s? She is so dour now, so unhappy; a wedding would cheer us all.”
“You will please leave your arms and legs where they are and forget this misguided obsession. In time, you will see it for the distraction it is. What’s more, Mother will not be swayed; nothing nourishes a sick mind quite like a grudge.”
There was one other place Alasdair kept a hidden bottle: a retracting drawer on the top of his desk.
He flicked the handle open, hoping for luck, but was confronted with scarcity.
Scraps of paper had been left behind there, the beginnings of a Sunday sermon.
Alasdair rammed the drawer closed and punched his hands, knuckles down, into the worn surface of the desk.
“Bloody Danforth,” he spat.
“And what, pray tell, makes you so qualified to dispense this advice, brother?” Freddie sneered, though there was no malice in it, just desperation.
Could it be? Did little Freddie actually care genuinely for a woman?
No, it didn’t matter. Anyone associated with the Richmonds was out of the question.
“Is a wife soon to follow you here? Has love come for you at last?”
“No.” An image of Julianna flashed across his mind unbidden. He ground his teeth together until the muscles in his jaw ached. “No, I have returned to rebuild our home. For me, there is Clafton and nothing else.”