Page 57

His heart gave a thud.

“How does this sound?” Geoffrey was at his elbow. “A monthly allowance, beginning tomorrow. Contingent, of course, on your continuing to publish gentlemanly, agreeable essays.”

Alan focused. “Sounds like rubbish. As pathetic as Count Davanzo’s opera. You’ll open the account, without conditions, and give me back full control of the investments. Otherwise, Great-Great-Grandmama’s portrait is going on the auction block.”

Geoffrey wheeled around and seized Alan’s shoulder, breathing hard. His breath smelled of champagne.

“Gentlemanly and agreeable,” murmured Alan. “Shall we try it on? For the sake of yon innocent maidens?”

Pairs of giggling debutantes in pastel silks were sweeping toward them along the path.

With a growl, Geoffrey dropped his hand. They parted, each to one side of the path, to permit the girls’ passage, then remained where they stood, looking at each other.

“You’ve already taken enough,” said Geoffrey at last. His chiseled face seemed suddenly haggard. “From the very beginning, you . . .” He choked off the words, compressed his lips to whiteness.

“Yes, I know. I took our mother away from you.” Alan pushed down on his cane, driving the ferrule into the dirt. “My first sin.” His laughter was cold enough to blight the blossoms on the trees, to stun the butterflies wafting between.

He shook his head. “I didn’t ask to be sick, Geoff.” He held Geoffrey’s gaze and continued, slowly and deliberately. “And I was never so sick as she pretended. Until she made it so.”

Geoffrey’s whole face had gone white. He stood as still as the marble figure on the fountain behind him.

“And if it’s true?” The breeze flattened his hair against his forehead. “She had a nervous disposition. I don’t deny that. If her mollycoddling worsened your symptoms, what of it? Look at you. Healthy as a horse. All’s well that ends well.” Now he laughed, a laugh like Alan’s, like winter night. “You got better. And still their pity drove them to give you what by all rights belonged to me.”

Alan’s smile tasted like acid. “Their pity can drive them through the fires of hell.”

For a moment, he considered trying again, begging this time.

Geoffrey, listen to me. Please.

He’d make his brother understand, at last, that their mother had sickened him. He’d add the missing piece and explain that she’d meant to cripple him too. That, in a sense, she’d succeeded.

But he’d rather die than beg.

He’d rather go to hell himself.

“All’s well,” he said instead, and quoted more Shakespeare. “Health shall live free and sickness freely die.”

“You’re insane,” said Geoffrey simply. “If you were a woman, I’d have you locked away.”

“Or a child.” Alan sneered. “You lock away your own son.”

“To convalesce, you lunatic.” Geoffrey stepped forward into the center of the path, and Alan met him there. Nose to nose. “Better a bedchamber than a crypt. Now, listen to me.” He lowered his brows, voice tightening. “I don’t care what you claim to own, or what papers you can adduce to prove it. Umfreville House is mine. I won’t open the door to your auction house appraisers. The portraits will stay on the walls, where they’ve hung for decades, some for nearly a century.” His irises were washed out with sun, white and uncanny. “Complain to your solicitor. Let him spring into action. I’m a duke, dammit. I dine with the lord chancellor and the home secretary. They oversee the courts, Scotland Yard.” He snapped his jaws. “You will bend to me, not the other way around. You’ll write what I like. What I uphold, you will uphold. Your nonconformist capriccios end today. All of them. The preposterous name. The preposterous apparel.” He took hold of Alan’s lapel.

Alan looked down his nose, expanding his chest, maximizing his extra inches, which he knew made Geoffrey’s blood boil.

“How is Claud?” he asked conversationally, as though he hadn’t heard a word of Geoffrey’s frothing speech.

“Believe it or not, he’s in a bad way.” Geoffrey released his lapel. “You won’t see him, or hear a word of him, or the girls. And I won’t let them hear a word of you. Not until you demonstrate that you have respect for family. Which begins with you telling Broughton that you’ve changed your mind about the sale.”

“Your grace!”

Geoffrey didn’t turn, reluctant to look away first.

Alan leaned to the side and peered over his shoulder. A couple was circling the fountain, arm in arm, headed their way. Lord Kilderbee and his wife, Lady Kilderbee, née Lady Patricia Kempe. Geoffrey’s youthful passion for her hadn’t blinded him to the sacrifices the union of two pauperized aristocrats would have required. Nor hers for him. They’d both married for money. Alan doubted their spouses knew how these two pragmatists carried on whenever their backs were turned.

“Ah,” he said softly. “What were you saying about respect for family?”

Geoffrey turned abruptly. Lord Kilderbee, rich and portly, good-humored and insensitive, hallooed again. He had nearly reached the path. Lovely as ever, Lady Kilderbee trailed behind, twirling a sprig of blossoms in her hand.