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“I do.”

Harrison’s mangled brow furrowed. “Then I repeat, why are you here?”

“For her,” James said through gritted teeth. “I have the funds to help her. To help you. With the tenements.”

“The tenements are paid for.”

James closed his eyes briefly, in his mind imagining a younger Mariah at a theater, the hush of the crowd as the curtain rose. How many times had he attended the theater in Town and never appreciated the magic of that moment? Could he help her create that here?

“Then I have something else I wish to help Mariah with.”

Harrison stared at James as if he did not know what to make of him.

“Well, go on.” Harrison gestured toward him with his ale. “What’s your plan?”

James shook his head. “No. First we need to deal with this.” He inclined his head toward the covered painting.

“With that old picture of Bedford Grange?”

“I think we should burn it.”

Harrison’s eyebrow rose and he opened his mouth and closed it abruptly.

“Have you been hit on the head recently, Lord St. George?”

James shook his head, smiling. “I feel more clear-minded than I can recall. Though let us remove the frame first. I have it on good authority that it is gold, and that we can sell and give the money to Mariah.” The good authority was in a dream, but he must have heard that information at some point in his waking life. “Besides, it’s not as if we are destroying our only family portrait, there is still that one before Bailey Hall that hangs in the drawing room.”

Harrison watched him for a long moment, his scarred lip curling into something almost resembling a smile. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”

James pounded his brother on the back. “Ask Mariah.”

Harrison’s smile disappeared at the mention of his wife’s name. “I will help you. For her. For the town. Whether I do so for you remains to be seen.”

“That’s far more than I deserve.”

There were several who claimed they saw the two blonde men behind the Crown and the Loom that day. Laughing like madmen as they poured an old bottle of brandy on something between them as a fire started. Local gossip said they danced around the fire that night, as if enacting some ancient rite.

But only James knew that in the fire, something started to heal between them. Instead of the two wild men that others reported, they were two brothers who had grown apart for too long, one blinded by his own selfishness and one literally blinded in one eye. While the fire did not heal all wounds, it burned away some resistance. Harrison was no longer an adversary, but someone who would help him rebuild Barnsley, even if he was wary of trusting him. As long as Harrison would help him build Mariah’s dream, he didn’t have to trust him.

Yet.

“He was staying at the Crown and the Loom,” Mrs. Applewhite, the housekeeper of Bailey Hall, reported to Mariah with evident disapproval as they examined the inventory of provisions destined for the newly constructed tenements. Mrs. Applewhite huffed as “Too good for his childhood home, apparently. I’ve known that boy since he were in short pants, I have.”

They sat in the study that James had never truly claimed as Lord St. George. In truth, Mariah had never claimed it either, and the decor remained a testament to the late Lionel Reed’s penchant for the monochromatic and the austere, leaving the room feeling cold despite a fire in the hearth.

Mariah said nothing. Mrs. Applewhite, despite her complaining, had been a stalwart supporter of Mariah’s and never blinked an eye at any amount of food going from Bailey Hall into Barnsley. Still, there were aspects of her marriage Mariah would likely never share with anyone.

“Captain Reed is also staying at the C-crown and the Loom, perhaps he is visiting with his brother.” Though it was unlikely, Mariah thought as her heart twisted at the memory of the brothers fighting at the assembly hall.

“Haven’t you heard, my lady? The two of them were laughing like jackals yesterday behind the inn. I had it from my sister’s son, the two of them were burning something behind the building.”

“Burning something?” Mariah began, then stopped recalling the picture of Bailey Hall that Harrison had removed from the breakfast room. Was that what they had burned? But why?

As questions swam about her mind, Ellis appeared in the doorway. “My lady, Captain Reed has called.”

“Thank you, Ellis. You may invite him into the study if Mrs. Applewhite does not mind?”

“I don’t mind at all, my lady. We have finished what we needed.” Mrs. Applewhite gave her a warm smile, rising to exit with a conspiratorial look on her face. Wherever had that come from?