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At the sound of his name, James snapped his head back to the bar to find a distorted mirror of the painting that hung in Bailey Hall. Unlike his half-bandaged face at the convalescent home, Harrison now wore an eyepatch that James knew to cover a concave where his eye used to be. The skin on the entire left side of his face was pinched as if there were not enough to fully cover the bone, though not still raw as it had been years earlier. James recalled after staring for a moment that he was the elder brother, and a baron at that, and squared his shoulders. And damnit, Harrison had been writing to his wife. His wife.
“Did Mariah tell you I was coming?” Harrison signaled to the barkeep who provided him a new ale and brought one for James without asking. Harrison rose from his seat at the bar and gestured for James to sit.
James did not sit.
“What business do you have in keeping correspondence with my wife?”
“What business? Harrison stood abruptly. “That is the first thing you say to me after all these years?”
“I did not say. I asked. Quite politely given the subject I might add.” James remained perfectly still, as if rooted to the spot.
Harrison’s good eye darted about them. “Are you sure you wish to have this conversation, here, brother? I would not have your wife’s honor, which is unimpeachable, bandied about.”
Acknowledging the crowded taproom around them, James acquiesced. “For the sake of my wife, let us absent ourselves to the private dining room.”
At that, Harrison signaled to the barkeep again, and five minutes later, James found himself sitting in the very room where he had eaten mutton with his wife. He ordered the same mutton, though he found his appetite was quite diminished from the previous day.
True to his nature, Harrison wasted little time on pleasantries, choosing instead to strike directly at the heart of the matter.
“First off, it is quite rich to be lambasted for writing to your wife when you have neglected to write her for your entire marriage, except for the occasional note that you were planning to grace Bailey Hall with your illustrious presence.”
“There was no need—”
Harrison held up a bare hand, which James noted was calloused and tanned. No longer the hands of a gentleman. James refused to glance down at his own hands to compare.
“I know what she wrote to you at the beginning of your marriage. How much of herself she shared. She received your message in return quite plainly.”
“What she wrote…” In his mix of indignation and confusion, he took far too large of a bite of mutton, which was not as good as the previous day.
“What I want to know,” Harrison went on, holding up his fork at his brother accusingly. “Is why you are here now. Especially when you did not send your customary note. One might conclude that your arrival was prompted by some desperate urgency, brother.”
The letter from Barrymore burned a hole in James’s pocket, yet he willed himself not to react.
“You are changing the subject. I asked you why you were writing to my wife.”
“You wish to know why?” Harrison, who had been so even keel in his youth, smashed his hand upon the table. “Because for years she was my only friend. Because, perhaps, I had the good fortune to be her friend.”
“You were very popular, Harry. You had loads of friends.” James scoffed, yet the derision left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue.
“Half my friends died, James. And the other half abandoned me as you did.”
James set down his utensil so rapidly it clanged on the ancient oaken table before them.
“I had responsibilities. As Baron St. George, I had to—”
“What?” Harrison sat back in his chair, the tension leaving his frame. “Run your estate? Mariah does that, and she hired an excellent steward when she turned her attention toward the town. I suppose you must sit for Parliament, but that is only half the year. No, I saw your face that day in Portsmouth. You recognized, for the first time, that life wasn’t beautiful. And it scared you so badly you have avoided me since.”
“Do you love her?” It was the most shocking question he could think of, but it was the only one that could turn the conversation away from the course Harrison was pursuing.
Harrison’s head snapped to attention and he drew a labored breath before responding. “Yes.” Something acidic began to spill down James’s chest and it was not the ale he just imbibed. “But not in the way you think. She is my dearest friend. Mariah—”
James set his tankard down with a thud that echoed throughout the private dining room.
“She gave me purpose, James.” The anger cleared from Harrison’s one good eye, as though a storm had passed on a cloudy day. “Can you not see?…after Portsmouth, there was a chance, I felt…I might not have made it. But she wrote to me, she shared her words and her stories. They gave me something like hope. And now this project has given me purpose. Mariah saved me.”
“You dare to use her Christian name?” That sensation, which he was loath to call jealousy, hastened his tongue, though James wished the words back as soon as he spoke them.
Harrison’s countenance fell, making the scarred flesh on his left cheek appear both more sunken, almost skeletal. “Clearly you did not hear anything I just said. And I see you care for me as much as you did that day in Portsmouth. Very well.” Harrison leaned forward over his plate, his haunted face reminding James of one of those mythical figures you were warned would meet you on the side of the road at midnight and you would never be seen again. “I know you are not here in the north out of the goodness of your heart. Something has drawn you here, and I intend to find out what. But I will not allow you to hurt Mariah again. Good day, brother. I give you fair warning.” With that, Harrison rose, his mutton left uneaten on his plate.
