Chapter 2
SILAS DARBY WOULD much rather spend an evening at home with a good book and a fire than dancing with young ladies seeking a husband, seeking an excuse to flirt, or seeking to irritate their mothers.
He was and always had been rather specific with his tastes for company and social occasions, and balls had not been something he had enjoyed for several years now.
He had attended a few, of course, as he could not very well avoid them without being considered a recluse, but enjoying them had been a very different matter.
He had not enjoyed a ball in three years.
Not since he had left Caro behind to secure his future.
Part of his future, at any rate.
Being the second son, it had always been presumed that he would take up an occupation to make his living, and he had been fully prepared to be taken on as an apprentice estate manager three years prior, when his parents had disrupted those plans.
His mother’s brother had no children and had apparently grown ill, so Silas had been dispatched to the estate in the southern portion of the county to take care of the man, and, it was hoped, secure his legacy as a result.
It was precisely the sort of mercurial action his parents would take when the alternative was for their second son to become an employee of an estate rather than running one himself.
Silas felt no shame in it, but his parents were just proud enough to feel differently.
They were a good sort, and he would not pretend otherwise, but his lack of airs where his ambition was concerned had always peeved them.
He was too content with too little, they’d told him. Too comfortable with uncertainty. Too driven in unhelpful ways. They’d suggested a military career, and he’d argued against it. They’d offered opportunities with law, and he’d laughed it off.
No one had suggested the church, because they all knew better, and his mother had begun to suggest a future in trade, though she had looked a trifle ill at the prospect.
Apparently, even trade was preferable to what he’d wanted for his life.
He’d never told anyone in so many words what his vision for life had been, and perhaps that was his fault.
Perhaps the agony of his heart in the last three years, despite the productivity of his actions, was more of a sign of the state of things than anything else.
Perhaps, as he had always thought, his occupation had little to do with the satisfaction of his life.
There had only ever been one ambition he had clung to for his life: to marry Caroline Brooks.
Everything else had been secondary.
Yes, he would need to support her somehow, especially if they intended to have children. But how he managed that support was less important than the reason for that support.
It was far more sentimental than they would expect of him, which was why Silas had never expressed those feelings, but what no one would comprehend was that it was not some whim he had been indulging in for the last fifteen-odd years.
It was as vital to his existence as water.
It was a truth that sustained him. It was as natural as breathing.
It was the sole purpose of his creation, and the foundation of his life.
Caro Brooks was his. Not in a possessive way, but in a statement of truth.
There would be no one else for him, even if the last three years had changed things in their situation.
It had been his cowardice that he had not spoken of his feelings before he’d left for Sinclair House, his reserve over matters of the heart that prevented him from telling Caro what he hoped she already knew.
They had never said the words, but he felt certain—as certain as any man who’d never heard the words can be—that she loved him in return.
They were more than two halves of the same soul, for Caro could never be half of anything.
Caro was whole and complete without anyone else, somehow managing to fill the holes and gaps he felt within himself.
She understood things he could not say. Completed thoughts he hadn’t managed to.
Saw parts of him that no one else knew existed.
She could sit beside him in silence and somehow they would have the most meaningful conversations he’d ever known.
She was his light, his motivation, his dream, and his home.
Three years apart had only solidified that for him, and he was done waiting for an opportune moment. Or conforming to a polite timeline. Or refraining from bold speaking.
He was going to speak his mind and his heart to Caro the moment he could do so.
Tonight, if she were in attendance. He would dance with two wallflowers to assuage his mother’s anxieties about his behavior, especially since Bas was back in the area.
He had not stayed in the region for long in the past, but he apparently intended to remain now and take up his responsibilities, so the family’s behavior would reflect upon him.
Silas liked his oldest brother enough to comply with that, and Samuel would be affable enough to charm any suspicious eyes.
Other than that, the evening would be all about securing a private moment with Caro and confessing everything.
Absolutely everything.
“You look like you are going off to war.”
Bas’s low rumble of a voice brought him around in the quiet of his bedchamber. His attention had been fixed out of the window, and nowhere near the door, where, as he turned, he could see his eldest brother leaning rather inelegantly.
It was such a rakish posture, and yet Bas was no rake.
He was more like a non-religious and brooding monk who preferred sarcasm to anything scholarly.
But he was the most loyal of men and generous to a fault.
They had one sister, Serenity, and heaven help her when the day came that she found a suitor.
Sera did not take after her name at all, and she would almost certainly push Bas to his limits of tolerance when he grew overbearing.
She was only fifteen now, so he had some time before that became a concern.
“No war,” Silas told his brother with a wry smile. “But a battlefield all the same.”
Bas snorted and pushed off the doorframe and into the room more fully. “Too right. Will it be worth the trouble?”
Silas raised a brow. “For you, or for me?”
“Both.”
“For you? Who can say? You haven’t said what you’re here for, so it could go either way.” Silas shrugged, not particularly invested in the prospect. “For me, tonight could be everything.”
Bas seemed surprised by that for a moment, his eyebrows practically dancing with his hairline. But then understanding dawned, and they resumed their normal position as he returned his brother’s smirk. “Ah, you’re finally going to admit that you’re in love with Caro?”
Silas felt his face heat and cleared his throat. “You knew?”
“Who didn’t know?” his brother retorted at once. “I think our parents began thinking of the wedding when you were twelve years of age or so.”
“She was my best friend,” Silas admitted freely. “We shared a . . . connection. Almost from the beginning, really. She helped me understand myself in a way I might never have discovered otherwise. I feel incomplete without her.”
Bas made a slight face. “That sounds like obsession.”
Silas smiled, though it was weak. “It might be.”
“It is not exactly healthy, Si.” Bas looked a trifle concerned, but also amused. “You’ve spent three years without her, and you survived.”
Silas let his smile ease from his face as the reality of the last three years sank into his soul, and he let every pain of that time reveal itself in his expression.
“I did. I grew, I worked, I learned . . . I struggled. I mourned. I worried. What I did not do was breathe, nor rest, nor live. I survived, Bas. That is the extent of my existence. I am tired of having nothing more.”
He watched as his brother’s eyes widened, his jaw slackening. But it only lasted a moment, as did most emotions with Bas, and then he was grinning.
“You’re going to propose to her?” Bas asked, though there was a certainty to his voice that rid the words of any actual question.
Silas returned the grin. “I think I had better confess my feelings to her first. I would love to marry my best friend, but I need it to be clear that I choose her out of love and not convenience.”
Bas nodded in understanding. “That would be important. I can see how she might mistake the two without a proper conversation.”
“I think a lot of pain over the last three years could have been avoided with a proper conversation,” Silas told him on a sigh. “I was too afraid she only saw me as a friend and wouldn’t let myself say anything before our parents sent me to Sinclair House and our uncle.”
“Did you write her while you were away?” Bas inquired, his voice dropping to an even lower timbre.
Ashamed, Silas shook his head. “I could not bear to. And now . . . I so wish I had. It might have made all the difference. I dreaded hearing about her getting married to some fortunate idiot who would never love her the way I could.”
“‘Made all the difference’?” he repeated.
“Silas, she isn’t lost to you. She hasn’t married.
As I understand it, she isn’t even in a courtship.
The way is clear for you. And just because you have not had an open and honest conversation about your feelings—or hers—does not mean you have reason to doubt.
” He crossed over to him and put his hands on Silas’s shoulders.
“I have seen the way she looked at you. Yes, it was in the past, but nothing could change what I saw short of your absolute betrayal of her.”
Silas searched his brother’s eyes, hope flaming within his chest with a fervency that he hadn’t been prepared for. “What did you see?”
Bas’s mouth curved into a surprisingly gentle smile. “Adoration and complete trust. She may have been hurt by your departure, by your silence, but feelings like that do not disappear easily.” He squeezed Silas’s shoulders hard. “I wish you all the luck in the world, brother.”
Silas clasped his elbows in return, grinning. “Thank you, Bas.” They dropped their arms, and Silas tilted his head in curiosity. “And what of you? Is there a young woman you are here for?”
Bas scoffed softly. “No. I’ve not been here consistently for several years, and no one had attracted my attention before that.
It is important to find a wife and settle into my position as heir to the estate, so perhaps I will begin the search tonight.
It would be fortunate not to have to entangle myself with the social affairs in London to do so. ”
“Will you marry for connection?” Silas asked, wanting to take advantage of his brother’s suddenly open mood while it lasted. “Convenience? Affection? What are you hoping for?”
“What I hope for and what I expect are two very different things,” Bas confessed softly. Almost wistfully, which was startling.
Silas narrowed his eyes. “Meaning?”
Bas shrugged. “It would be ideal to have a marriage of affection. Love, even. I am just not certain I am capable of it. Or that I will find someone to whom I might entrust that part of myself. So I may settle for something comfortable and beneficial. And there need not be any shame about that.”
No, it was true that many marriages were entered into for a variety of reasons, including the ones his brother had described, and they proved successful.
A life engaged in together, with a mutual understanding and respect for one’s partner, could be a beautiful and satisfying thing, even if there was no love specifically.
It was not something that many people had an opinion on, truth be told.
But knowing what Silas knew now, and feeling what he felt, he did not want to see his brother settling for a match that was less than what he deserved.
Bas was one of the best men he knew, brother or no brother, and if he wanted a marriage of love, then Silas saw no reason why he should not have it.
“I hope you find it, Bas,” Silas murmured with all the earnestness he could muster. “And I think you are more than capable of such a marriage with the right woman.”
Bas smiled very slightly. “Thank you. Now, shall we go down and tell our mother that we are ready to behave ourselves with alacrity in a public spectacle? And vow to keep Samuel in line? You know she will ask for details to tell Sera, yes?”
Silas laughed and nodded as they left the room. “Yes, and between the three of us, she will have more than enough details to contend with.”