The worst of it was that for a moment last night in the corridor, he’d been back in Lord Marlowe’s ballroom, sure that something wonderful was about to begin.
Bam!
Wolfgang lowered the rifle. “I’m done. You fire.”
Lysander raised the second gun to his shoulder, took careful aim and pulled the trigger. He squinted at the tree. “Where’d I hit it?”
“You missed by a mile.”
Lysander shrugged and leaned his gun against the fence. “All right, Wolfie, why’d you drag me up here?”
But Wolfgang’s mouth was a thin, flat line and nothing could punch its way out.
“Shall I guess?” Lysander cocked his head. “You stepped on Rupert’s tail and Georgiana’s demanding satisfaction.”
“It’s Lady Charlotte. She…” Wolfgang could only shake his head.
“Did you offer for her?”
Wolfgang loaded the nearest rifle, raised it, and fired. Wood shards exploded into the sky.
“Blast it!” Lysander shouted. “Put the gun down!”
“I made such a hash of things, Lysander.” Wolfgang’s voice broke and he had to pause. “I…”
Lysander let the silence stretch, but he could only hold it for so long before he gave up and hopped onto the fence, his shoulders hunched up like a crow’s. “Wolfie, I’m the wrong man for this. We need John.”
It was true, but John wasn’t coming.
At the funeral, several people had come up to Wolfgang and told him how helpful they found it to talk to ones they’d lost. His own aunt Imogene was known for her long and raucous conversations with her dead sister, and often about people within hearing distance. But when Wolfgang trudged along to John’s grave and plunked himself down to talk, he could never quite manage it. The silence of the marble slab was so profound it smothered everything.
It was often said that one needed to sink to the bottom in order to rise, but Wolfgang had thought the bottom was the day John died.Then he’d thought it was the funeral, or the first time he’d gone down to London and people he barely knew had bustled up to congratulate him. He’d never considered that the bottom might be three years later, looking into Lysander’s hollow eyes and realizing he’d let his only remaining brother do his suffering alone.
Wolfgang forced himself to open his mouth and it creaked like a rusty hinge. Why did words come so hard when he tried to talk about the most important things? “I offered to court her, she said no, and now we have to leave.”
“Leave?”
“You must stay if you want, of course, but—”
“Wolfgang, last night with Lady Charlotte was the first time in years that I sawyou, instead of a starched-up idiot. You’re just becoming yourself again and you want to leave?”
Wolfgang gritted his teeth. “Shetoldme—”
But something over Wolfgang’s shoulder caught Lysander’s attention. “Pull it together, Wolfie, the others are arriving. Although perhaps they’re exactly what we need?”
“What?” Wolfgang turned just as Miss Alexandra bounded up the hill, with Miss Marby following behind.
“Good morning, my lords!” called Miss Alexandra. “We heard the rifles. May we try a shot or two?”
“Yes, but there’s more interesting sport and we could use your help,” said Lysander. “My brother’s making an ass of himself, you see.”
“How diverting.” Miss Alexandra offered her hand to Lysander and he pulled her up to sit beside him on the rail. “What have you done, Your Grace?”
Wolfgang opened his mouth to say something withering, but the dowager crested the hill with Georgiana at her elbow. “What a bunch of madcaps you children are! Isn’t it early in the day for shooting?”
Wolfgang leveled a dark look at his brother. “Not when there are so many targets available.”
“Hmm.” The dowager eyed Wolfgang up and down. “I take it you botched it last night?”
