Chapter 13 #2
It was the growing certainty that he had stumbled upon something far larger than a private disagreement between husband and wife.
William's heartbeat had begun to quicken.
Every instinct urged him to step away. Every other instinct demanded he open the door immediately.
The second prevailed.
He pushed the door inward, and the conversation died at once.
Augusta turned first, all color draining from her face, while Algernon remained beside the desk with one hand resting against its polished surface.
His expression barely altered, yet William knew his brother well enough to recognize the tension hidden beneath that practiced composure. Neither of them had expected him.
William's gaze moved slowly between them, suddenly conscious of how warm the room felt despite the dying fire.
“I thought,” he said carefully, “you were halfway to Aldermere by now.”
Neither of them answered.
The silence stretched until it became almost unbearable.
William waited another moment before taking a slow step farther into the room. “You told me you were leaving London.”
“I intended to.”
The answer landed strangely.
“But you did not.”
“No.”
William searched his brother's face, expecting irritation, annoyance, or even a sharp rebuke for questioning him.
Instead he found only weariness. It unsettled him far more than anger would have.
Almost without thinking, his eyes shifted to Augusta.
She was one of the few people William had ever known who met another person's gaze without hesitation. Even when embarrassed, even when challenged, she possessed a quiet confidence that rarely faltered.
Tonight she lowered her eyes.
Something cold spread through William's chest.
“What is happening?” he asked, unable to keep the confusion from his voice. “What have I walked into?”
Once again, neither of them answered.
It was not the lie that finally broke something inside him. It was the silence.
His brother had never lied well, not because he lacked the ability, but because he had never found it necessary. Algernon answered questions directly, accepted responsibility without complaint, and faced every difficulty head-on.
Tonight, for the first time in William's life, he was choosing not to answer at all.
“No.” The word escaped before William realized he had spoken it. He looked directly at his brother. “You lied to me.”
“William—”
“You lied to Mother. You lied about leaving London.” His voice remained remarkably steady, though he could feel anger and confusion knotting tighter with every heartbeat.
“Lady Rosalind believed she saw you tonight, and I defended you because I believed such a thing impossible. I watched your carriage leave this house.”
“It did.”
“Then where were you?”
The question lingered unanswered.
For the first time, William found himself unable to dismiss the possibility that there were truths about Algernon's life he had never imagined.
He did not want to believe his brother knew more about Lord Eastmere. He refused to believe that.
But certainty, once cracked, was difficult to mend.
William suddenly realized he no longer understood the man he had trusted without question.
Before his brother could answer, the library door opened once more.
The dowager stepped inside wrapped in a dark blue dressing gown, a single candle casting soft shadows across her lined face. She looked from one member of the family to the next before releasing a weary sigh.
“I should very much appreciate it,” she said dryly, “if heartbreak and family arguments might wait until daylight.”
William blinked.
She lifted the candle slightly.
“I was first awakened by Mr. Frost wandering the gardens declaring himself doomed to eternal misery.” The faintest smile threatened, though it vanished almost immediately. “No sooner had I persuaded myself to ignore that spectacle than I heard voices carrying through the west wing.”
Her gaze settled upon the three of them. “What has happened?”
No one answered.
The silence seemed to deepen until even the fire crackling quietly in the grate sounded unnaturally loud.
The dowager looked first to Augusta. “My dear?”
Augusta lowered her head. Then she turned to Algernon.
Still nothing.
Finally, her eyes rested upon William.
His expression must have betrayed more than he realized, for the concern in her face deepened immediately. “William?”
He scarcely noticed her speaking. His attention never left his brother.
The questions that had unsettled him only moments before had become something darker now, something far more difficult to dismiss.
Algernon had lied.
He had hidden something for three years.
And whatever that something was, even Augusta believed it had grown beyond his ability to manage alone.
William drew a slow, unsteady breath, struggling to make sense of everything he had heard beyond the library door.
“No.”
The single word escaped almost under his breath, more disbelief than accusation.
At last Algernon looked at him. “William—”
“No,” William repeated, this time more firmly, shaking his head before his brother could continue. He searched Algernon's face, willing him to offer some explanation that would make the knot tightening in his chest disappear.
“You are lying to me. You told me you were leaving London. You let me defend you when Lady Rosalind said she had seen you tonight.” He took another step forward, scarcely aware of the dowager watching him in growing alarm.
“You have stood here saying almost nothing while your wife begs you to ask for help.”
William’s jaw tightened.
“Something is wrong.”
The room fell silent once more.
William searched his brother's face, willing him to laugh, to explain, to tell him there had been some absurd misunderstanding that would make them all feel foolish by morning.
Instead, Algernon simply closed his eyes.
The gesture frightened William more than any words could have. “You owe us the truth,” he said quietly. “All of it.”
For several long moments, no one spoke.
The only sound in the library was the quiet crackle of the fire and the soft ticking of the clock upon the mantel.
Algernon stood perfectly still, his gaze fixed upon the polished surface of the desk. When at last he lifted his head, his eyes moved first to Augusta, then to the dowager, before finally settling upon William.
Weariness settled across his features in a way William had never witnessed before. It was the look of a man who had carried something far too heavy for far too long.
He closed his eyes briefly, as though surrendering to a decision he had spent years trying not to make.
When he spoke, his voice was scarcely above a whisper. “Very well.” His eyes met William's once more. “I will tell you.”
***
Three hours later, the first pale light of dawn filtered through the tall library windows, turning the lingering candle smoke silver in the quiet room.
William stepped into the entrance hall like a man who had aged years in a single night.
His face had lost every trace of color, his cravat hung loose where he had tugged impatiently at it hours before, and his eyes burned with the dull ache that came not merely from lost sleep, but from discovering that the world was no longer quite what he had believed it to be.
Nothing would ever look the same again.
The first footman beginning his morning duties stopped immediately. “My lord?”
William crossed to the writing table without answering. His hand hesitated only briefly before he drew a sheet of paper toward him.
He wrote only a single sentence.
Lady Rosalind,
Meet me in the main square as soon as you wake. There is something we must discuss.
William Sinclair
He sanded the ink, folded the note, and pressed his seal into the warm wax. “See that Lady Rosalind receives this the moment she is awake.”
“At once, my lord.”
William watched the servant disappear through the front door before slowly lowering himself into the nearest chair.
He had entered the library believing he knew exactly who his brother was. He left it wondering how much of Algernon's life had unfolded beside his own without him ever truly seeing it.
That realization hurt far more than he thought it should.