Chapter 13 #2
“That Ridley would be top of my list if I had one. I never could abide a toady, and he set my teeth on edge,” Damian remarked, not entirely surprised by the sharp look Gideon sent him.
“How do you know Ridley?”
“I don’t. We met briefly when I visited you on the site and found you had gone for the day. He made a point of genuflecting to me when he heard my title.”
“He’s my chief suspect,” Gideon admitted.
“Ridley has got access to the pay-packets, and he’s in charge of ordering supplies.
But there’s other stuff going walkabout too, and I don’t see how he can manage that.
He’s rarely on the building site, certainly not among the men, for they’d notice him.
He lives in the site hut with his nose stuck in the account ledgers. ”
“So, he’s a crafty bastard,” Damian suggested with a shrug.
“Or he’s got an accomplice,” Gideon said darkly.
Damian considered this. “Deon, did it never strike you as a good idea to speak to your employer? Isn’t he supposed to be a scary bastard?”
Gideon stiffened, turning to Damian with a look that might have frozen him if his gaze hadn’t been so bleary. It seemed the brandy was taking hold at last. “I’ll deal with this myself. I’ll present the facts and the bloody culprit to Mr King, not go running to him at the first sign of trouble.”
Damian shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Hetty suggested I order the ironmongery. Small, relatively portable objects of value. It’s all high-quality brass. Mr King wants the best of everything. Ought to be tempting.”
“That’s a good idea. She’s bright, your Lady Hetty.”
“She’s not my anything,” Gideon muttered, and now he sounded utterly wretched.
“Well, she could be if you weren’t so stubborn,” Damian said impatiently. If only Gideon wasn’t so bloody good. Guilt twisted his stomach into a knot as he realised he could undo much of his brother’s misery if he only spoke up. “There’s no reason on earth you ought not to marry, you know.”
Gideon turned and stared at him in outrage.
Damian tried to hold on to his temper as his increasingly unhappy conscience prodded him and a toxic mixture of impatience, shame, and fear brewed in his guts.
He’d meant to be here for his brother tonight, to support him in whatever self-indulgent misery he wished to drown himself in, but now that he’d had his own suspicions confirmed, this drove him… well, mad.
“How can you say that? You, of all people?” Gideon demanded.
Damian snorted and ran a hand through his hair. “Because I’m the only one of us at risk, you… you utter dimwit.”
Gideon just stared at him in confusion.
Cursing vehemently, Damian pushed to his feet. “You were right, there was a reason I came here, Deon. But it wasn’t to cause you trouble. Quite the reverse.”
He turned, looking down at Gideon, at his brother.
“Did it never occur to you that whilst we look alike, you are dark? Dark hair, dark eyes, whereas our father, our mother, and I are all fair?”
Gideon just blinked at him, but the colour had leached from his face. “What are you saying?”
“Do you remember mama before she lost her mind?” Damian asked quietly.
Gideon shook his head.
Damian’s voice quieted. He had few memories of the time before Gideon arrived, but they were vivid. “She was lovely. Kind. And then she wasn’t. Papa sent her away for a while after you were born. When she came back, she was calm, strangely calm—so long as you weren’t around.”
“Damian.” Gideon’s voice was unsteady now.
Damian swallowed, not wanting to say it out loud, but he couldn’t let Gideon suffer for the rest of his days—even if it meant he lost his brother. He told himself that would never happen; Gideon would never turn his back on him, no matter how dreadful Damian became.
But this gave him a reason, didn’t it?
Damian met Gideon’s eyes, reminding himself he was doing this for his brother, to give him the peace he deserved.
“I’d suspected something for years, though I can’t say I knew precisely what.
We look too much like our father for Mama to have played him false.
But I’ve been trying to track down my old nanny for years.
She left when you were born, you see. Damn near broke my heart as a lad, for I adored her and suddenly she disappeared.
But I finally found her a few weeks back, and… she told me everything.”
“Everything,” Gideon repeated, his voice harsh. “What everything?”
Damian took a deep breath. It was for the best. For Gideon’s best, at least.
“Mother lost her mind because our father brought his mistress’s bastard son home for her to raise.
He didn’t tell her why they hadn’t gone to town for the season that year, hadn’t told her he’d put it about that she was increasing, so she could pass you off as their son.
The conniving devil arranged it all to a nicety, so no one was the wiser.
He changed all the staff. Paid off anyone who might talk. ”
Gideon’s silence was so absolute Damian could hear it ringing in his ears. Just the tide, he told himself, that rushing noise was just the tide, nothing to get in a lather about.
“So, you see, brother mine, you’re only half mine, on our father’s side. Lord knows who your mother was. I didn’t discover that. But she’s not the one locked in that fancy asylum you’re crippling yourself to pay for. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Gideon let out a harsh breath. He looked like Damian had hit him in the solar plexus.
Damian eyed him warily.
For a moment, Gideon just stared at him, then he scrambled to his feet and ran to the nearest rocks, vomiting up brandy and buns with noisy retching sounds.
“Didn’t I say this would be pretty,” Damian said under his breath.
He gave Gideon a moment to clean himself up before going to him. He was standing by the water’s edge, staring out to sea.
Damian reached out, about to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, and then hesitated, uncertain. He dropped it again. “All right?”
Gideon didn’t answer for a long time, so long that Damian’s heart crashed about erratically behind his ribs, but then Gideon let out an unsteady breath and turned around to meet his eyes. “You’re sure?”
Damian nodded, too anxious to speak. His chest was tight, and he didn’t know if Gideon was glad or furious or what he was. He braced himself, half expecting to get his nose broken.
“Bloody hell,” Gideon said, his voice unsteady. “Bloody hell!” He gazed at Damian as if he was seeing him for the first time, and then, to Damian’s shock, Gideon threw his arms about him, hugging him fiercely. “Bloody hell! Do you know what this means?”
“What?” Damian asked cautiously.
“I’m free! I’m free to live without this… this dark… thing hanging over me like the sword of bloody Damocles.”
He let Damian go and strode away, and then turned back, his expression one of appalled regret. “Damian. Oh, Christ, I—”
Damian held up a hand, shaking his head. His throat was suddenly tight and the last thing he wanted was pity, God dammit.
“Don’t be a fool. You think I wouldn’t be jumping for joy if our positions were reversed.
Do you think I wouldn’t toss away the title and what little came with it, just to be free of the fear of what I might become?
You’ve been given a gift, Deon. For God’s sake, don’t squander it.
” The words were angry, far more than he’d intended them to be.
He sucked in a breath, struggling to calm himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me right away?” There was no accusation in the question, only curiosity, but Damian avoided Gideon’s eye.
He shrugged. “Thought I’d let you suffer a bit longer.”
“Don’t lie, Damian.”
Damian returned to the place they’d been sitting and reached for the unopened bottle. Pulling the cork with his teeth, he spat it onto the sand. Suddenly getting drunk seemed to be a marvellous idea.
“Damian. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Damian took a long drink from the bottle, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Being one of two mad brothers is one thing. Having a mad brother when you’re perfectly sane… I don’t know. I just—”
“You thought I might decide it was easier to accept I was a bastard and leave you to your fate alone?”
Damian shrugged again.
“That’s cold, Damian, even for you,” Gideon remarked calmly. “You must know I’d never do that.”
Damian stared at the bottle before taking another pull. He swallowed, relishing the burn as the fiery liquid scalded its way to his belly and chased away a little of the chill that had settled there. “I wouldn’t blame you,” he said with a short laugh.
Though it took more courage than he could ever have realised, he turned back to face Gideon.
His brother smiled at him and shook his head. “Stupid bastard. If I’ve not disowned you before now, I’m hardly going to start at this late stage.”
Damian laughed again, and if there was an odd break in the sound, neither of them remarked it.
“Give me that bottle,” Gideon said, snatching it from Damian’s hand. “I believe we came here to get drunk.”
“So we did, Deon,” Damian said, grinning with relief. “So we did.”