Page 71 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

Evander looked at his brother's face and frowned, telling him to stop.

Frederick went quiet. He looked around with the same boyish grief that he had seen at their father’s funeral. And he started crying. The tears ran sideways down his face toward the cushion. Evander put his hand on Frederick's forehead, and he heard Moore make for the door and close it.

“I can't be a cripple,” Frederick said. “Seraphina... What kind of life is that for her? She didn't ask to be the wife of a cripple-Lord. But if it’s that or dying… They’re going to take the leg whole… I’m scared…”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Evander urged, still boiling with anger for Seraphina and everything she had said. He didn’t have as good a heart as Aurelia. He would not forgive her so quickly for what she had admitted to him.

Frederick’s nose was running, the tears coming still. He looked so young and fragile. They were boys again. “She deserves someone who can hold her and give her children, who can walk. What will I be if I cannot walk? Who can walk with one leg?”

“Enough, Frederick.” He waited until his brother looked at him. “You fell off a horse. You have not had a death sentence. Moore does not know yet what the full picture is. He said as much. You are catastrophising on thirty minutes’ worth of consciousness. None of your conclusions are reliable.”

Frederick stared at the ceiling. “You’re just lying to make me feel better. They’re going to take the leg. It’s going to hurt so much.”

“You are going to be all right,” Evander said, swallowing his rising bile.

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.” He paused. “Because I will not permit anything else.”

“As always, I suppose,” Frederick laughed, though the sound was wet and broken.

The morning light was coming through the curtains now, thin and grey. Outside, a wood pigeon was making noise.

“Do you remember that summer?” Frederick asked, as Evander handed him the kerchief from his pocket. “When I was going away because of Father? When you taught me to fish? I’ve been thinking about it all night. I was there…”

“I remember you caught nothing for three weeks.”

“No, I caught one fish. You’re lying.”

“One small trout.”

Frederick sniffed. “It was a good trout, I thought.”

“Good enough,” Evander said, though it made Frederick smile. “I’ll admit a little revisionism this morning, if it pleases you. But I’d rather not talk about trout.”

“I thought you were the best fisherman in England. I thought you were the best at everything. You must have been absolutely maddened by me.”

“I wasn't.”

“No. I suppose you were very patient with me, though it didn’t feel like it at the time.” He turned his head on the cushion to look at Evander. “You always were, not just with the fishing, but even when I didn't deserve it.” He paused as his eyes flitted to the ceiling again, his shoulders trembling. “I know what I did with the weddings. I know the damage it caused. I know I made things very hard for you and for Aurelia, that poor girl. I know I did it badly. And I'm sorry. I've said it before but I want to say it again now, while I'm lying here and you can't walk away from me because otherwise you’ll feel terrible, abandoning a cripple in the making while he’s talking to you.”

“I wouldn’t walk away from you.”

“But I'm also glad,” Frederick continued unimpeded . "And I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, but I am. Because you and Aurelia are exactly right. Anyone can see it. She would have been wasted on me. She is wonderful. But I would have spent our whole marriage wishing for something else. She needed you all along, and you needed her. Isn’t that the funniest thing?”

Evander wasn’t about to laugh, though he agreed. He could still feel Aurelia on his skin, and the memory of her that night, the way he had marveled at her as she lay close to him, at what they had become together, brought a smile to his lips he could not check fast enough.

“You know I’m right,” Frederick said. “I have perspective now. A brush with death will do that, apparently. Losing a leg… Maybe I’ll gain something else. But I'm glad she has you. I'm glad it went the way it went. That's what I wanted to say, really, before it’s too late.”

“I'm glad too,” Evander agreed. “And it’s never too late – shut up about that.”

Frederick smiled, then he winced. “How is… Matchem?”

“He is still standing from what little I heard. He was not my concern last night. You were.”

“But you love that horse.”

“Hm.”