But he grew serious again. “I was not angry at Peter for marrying. Or even for the scandal. I was angry because he left our mother. He left me.”
Nancy tried to imagine it. “He must have had a reason.”
Oscar looked away. “Our father was cold, a tyrant in every sense. He tolerated us so long as we were invisible and obedient. But our mother—she tried. She loved us. She especially loved Peter.”
He said it without bitterness, but Nancy felt the current of pain underneath.
“She used to tell the housekeeper,” Oscar continued, “that I would always have my title, my name, my place in the world. But Peter—Peter would have nothing but what love she could give him.” He gave a thin smile. “I never resented it. I understood. I had everything else.”
“So what happened?” Nancy asked.
“When Peter brought Teresa home, our mother objected, but only at first. She wanted better for him, but more than anything, she wanted to be loved in return. I thought Peter would talk to her, find a way to bring her round. Instead, he left. He took Teresa and left.” Oscar’s mouth twisted. “Mother never recovered. She grew ill. But she was more broken than sick, I think.”
Nancy saw the truth in it, the wound that had never healed.
“Peter did not come back,” Oscar said, “not until she died. He claimed he hadn’t known she was so ill, and I believe him. I think he was just… afraid.”
He fell silent, fingers tracing patterns on the desk.
“That was my last conversation with him. At the funeral.” Oscar’s voice was flat. “I told him I never asked him to give up Teresa. That if he’d only spoken to mother, she would have forgiven him anything. But she died believing she meant nothing to him. I told him that, and he wept. Then he left. Again.”
Nancy’s heart ached for him.
Oscar shrugged, as if trying to shake off the memory. “I should have been kinder. I should have forgiven him. Instead, I blamed him for everything I lost. And then he was gone, too.”
A silence stretched between them, heavy as the sea.
Nancy said, softly, “You wrote those letters.”
He nodded. “I wanted to say all the things I never said when he was alive. But I couldn’t send them. I thought—if I wrote it down, maybe I could make sense of it. Maybe I could let go.”
“Did it work?”
Oscar smiled, but it was not a happy smile. “No. Not until now, maybe.”
Nancy reached for his hand. It was a reckless thing, but she did it anyway.
He looked at her, surprised.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she said. “But you have not lost everything. The twins—they are still here.”
“They deserve better than me.”
“They deserve you,” Nancy insisted. “They deserve a duke who brings them jam biscuits and teaches them to play piano and paints with them. You are not your father, Oscar.”
He looked at her, as if the idea had never occurred to him.
Nancy let go of his hand before she could think better of it.
Oscar watched her, the warmth in his eyes startling and new. “You make it sound possible.”
“It is possible,” she said. “But you must forgive yourself, too.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
They sat in silence for a long moment, jam biscuits forgotten.
At last, Oscar rose and circled the desk. He stopped in front of her, searching her face.
