Casper stilled. Then tore his head around.
Standing in the doorway was Uncle, palms held aloft, damn well beaming as though it were his birthday. “Didn’t see anything,” he continued, showing no sign of departing. “Soul of discretion, that’s me. Haven’t noticed your hand on her, er…”
Evelyn thrust him away to frantically fumble with her gown, shoving down skirts and hauling up bodices.
Casper wanted to howl his fury but Uncle still hovered, and although he’d like to accuse him of being a voyeur, he also noted the lines of worry on Uncle’s brow. Something was amiss and it wasn’t solely the hideous coquelicot tailcoat he now sported.
Breath grated. “Evelyn.”
“I must go. We should not have…” And she dashed for the French doors, wrenching the curtain aside and darting into a now twilit garden like the swift on a breeze.
Casper spun, leaned fists against the desk and attempted to claw air into his chest. How was he ever to calm his overwrought body?
“Uncle,” he rasped, “unless you have decided to play chaperone, what could you possibly want?”
“Lud, no, I’d be only too happy to know you’d dusted off the ole Lance of Lov–”
“Uncle. You wantedwhat?”
“It’s Ernest.”
“What’s he done?” Casper’s heartbeat dropped from rapid to merely brisk.
“Removed your mother’s sapphire necklace from the library safe and was last seen heading into a hell off Pall Mall. Not the Prince’s either. I had Horatio follow him.”
Casper swivelled, arousal now dead as a doornail. “Damn his hide! He takes after you and Father. Thoughtless and reckless, and I’ll bloody well leave him to the Fleet.”
Shutting the door softly behind him, Uncle stepped into the study, face serious, smile abandoned in the hallway.
“Tell me, nephew, who held you when your sister died of the winter fever?”
Casper swallowed.
Memories of Clarissa flooded.
He’d had but four years when she’d been born, and he’d deemed his baby sister the most splendid thing ever. But three years later, she’d become sick and he’d hugged her thin, trembling body and prayed hard as the nurse had told him to.
But all in vain – the prayers, the doctors, Cook’s herbal draughts as a desperate last effort. They’d buried her on a sodden January day in the Rothwell mausoleum.
Ernest had been born in the interim, a mere babe, and Casper had vowed he’d do anything to prevent harm befalling his remaining sibling.
“You,” he rasped. Uncle had held him tight. Explained to a seven-year-old boy about heaven. That she lived with the angels and that one day he’d see her again.
Father had beenotherwise engagedin London. Mother had retreated to her rooms. But Uncle had been there. Uncle Virgil had always been there.
An embrace in that bleak mausoleum, a hand to his shoulder when Father had also been interred, gentle words when Mother followed, reassurance when burden had weighed, an ear as he’d raged against the deaths of village tenants due to the rotten houses he’d not the money to mend.
Uncle might not be able to negotiate investments or scrutinise accounts and maintain estates, but he listened, and he encouraged, and he was always there.
Casper had forgotten all this in the mists of time, in the hours and hours of work.
“My abject apologies, Uncle Virgil. I should not have cast you and Father in the same light. You are nothing alike.”
That strong hand rested on his shoulder as it had done so often in the past. “The difference between your father and I, Casper, is that I care. I love you as my own, taciturn boy that you can be. And you care too, otherwise you would have cast us off years back.” He sighed. “But you see it as a weakness to show such emotion, when it is anything but.” The smile returned. “It’s a strength to love and be loved in return, Casper. If you have a struggle or problem, myself and Ernest would back you to the hilt. You’d never ask, but that’s not the point. You know that we would, do you not?”
Casper nodded.
Yes, he might despair and argue but he…loved them, and would in turn perish without their affection and merriment.
