“You’re welcome,” she whispered as he turned to the window. “Will I see you again?”
He hesitated but didn’t turn around. “I don’t know.”
He hoped not. He hoped he had the strength to stay away.
Chapter Four
Any man would be gladto start a family with you...
The memory of his conversation with Miss Bourke haunted Adrian as he sat in the parlor at Morgan’s house, watching as his niece and nephew tumbled across the floor, giggling as they wrestled over a ball. Hannah was three and Samuel—named for Adrian and Morgan’s father—was five. Anne, Morgan’s wife, reclined in a chair by the fire, sleeping, her hand resting protectively upon her heavily pregnant belly.
Morgan sat in his shirtsleeves on the floor by the children, alternately playing with them and talking about Adrian’s latest obsession, a compact steam-engine for a motor car, which he’d been struggling to perfect for months. He broke his children apart with a laugh and diplomatically instructed them to play catch, before turning back to Adrian.
“Perhaps you should tear it apart and start over from scratch,” Morgan said with a smile, knowing Adrian’s methods better than anyone. “It sounds as though you’ve tried everything else.”
“Perhaps,” Adrian agreed grumpily. Truth be told, he’d found it incredibly hard to focus recently. His thoughts were consumed with Vanessa, and for the first time in his life, neither his work nor his exploits as Prometheus provided enough of a distraction.
Morgan raised a brow, obviously sensing something was wrong, but to Adrian’s relief, he did not press. They’d shared a womb, and Morgan knew him better than anyone. Where Lucien was prone to prying, Morgan had made it known long ago that he would always be there, should Adrian want to speak about something, but would never demand explanations for his moodiness and silence. For that reason, Adrian felt more comfortable here than he did anywhere on earth except for his laboratory.
He loved to watch Morgan with his wife and children. He did not understand Morgan’s love for the silly, shallow girl he’d chosen to marry, but Anne was lovely and kind, and he didn’t doubt that she loved Morgan in return. Their life was so simple and wonderful, so much how he remembered his childhood before their father had died.
Father had always known how to handle Mother, how to keep her happy, and perhaps if he’d lived, she’d have remained the kind of mother that they’d needed...
With a grimace, he shook the thought away. No sense wasting time thinking about what might have been. He’d learned that painful lesson long ago, so he didn’t understand why he’d spent so much time dwelling upon the past lately.
“I’ve been painting,” Morgan said, too casually, stealing a surreptitious glance at Anne, who remained sound asleep.
“Really?” Adrian asked cautiously. While he had always lost himself in science, Morgan had done the same with his art. Until the day their stepfather had wandered into the attic room Morgan had used as a studio, tearing his work to pieces while berating him for being weak and foolish, telling him that his art was worthless and forbidding him from ever picking up a brush again.
Adrian and Lucien had cleaned up the pieces, trying helplessly to find something worth salvaging. They’d assured Morgan that the bastard didn’t know what he was talking about, that he should continue doing what he loved, no matter what Winters said. Morgan had always been the best of them, the sweetest and kindest, but on that day, Winters had killed a piece of his spirit, something that had hurt Adrian even more than the abuse he had suffered. No wonder Lucien had killed the bastard...
They’d invented Prometheus as a way to cope with the horrors they’d been subjected to, spending countless hours imagining how they could use their masked creation to bring about their nemesis’s demise. They’d even gone so far as to make the costume, a much simpler version of what Adrian wore now. But when the earl had been found dead, a piece of Prometheus’s cloak clutched in his hand, Adrian had been stunned to realize his big brother had gone to that extreme to save him.
That had been what had spurred him to start wearing the costume himself. He did all he could to save those who couldn’t save themselves.
Morgan leaned back on his elbows, staring blindly at the ceiling. “I’ve been having nightmares. Fire and death. I don’t know why. I hadn’t had them for years. But about two weeks ago, I woke up from a particularly bad one, and I found myself in the children’s schoolroom, staring at a blank canvas. Before I knew it, I’d spent the whole night painting burning buildings...” He laughed bitterly. “I slept like a babe after that though.”
