Chapter Seventeen
Seb was torn. One half of him wanted to smash his fist into the smug face of his half-brother and the other wanted to run. Instead he remained rooted to the spot and hoped his legendary talent for blending into the wallpaper would single-handedly save the mission.
He had to think.
He had to remember his training and his higher purpose here today. Had to rise above the volatile emotions which he had long buried and not expected to return. Not here and certainly not now. He had to do what was best for King and country. The scar on his cheek began to hurt, just as it had on that fateful day when his father’s acknowledged son had split it open with his riding crop and Seb had realised that he and his mother were truly destitute. Penniless. It hadn’t been a misunderstanding, but deliberate. The new Duke’s petty revenge on his father.
It had broken his mother.
Killed her soon after.
Indecision turned to white-hot rage and Seb decided to kill his half-brother and to hell with the mission. Today had been fifteen years coming...
He felt her hand on his elbow and allowed her to move him towards another door, ridiculously grateful for her perceptiveness because he was able to draw on her calm strength to control the sleeping monster which had suddenly reawakened. She closed the door behind them and dragged him down the quiet hallway towards an empty room.
Wordlessly, she pushed him into a chair, then poured a glass of brandy which she pushed into his hand. She never said a thing, almost as if she already understood everything, but sat next to him on the arm of the chair and stroked his free hand. The contact and her presence soothed him.
‘How did you know?’
‘Your reaction. The subtle similarities in both of your features. You have the same dark eyes. A similar nose—but you will be delighted to know you look nothing like him other than that. If you hadn’t confessed to being a duke’s son, I would be none the wiser.’
‘Did he recognise me?’
‘Is there a chance he might not?’
A laughable question. Seb and his mother had been disposable. As Lord Fennimore had quite rightly said, his dear brother had probably forgotten he existed soon after he had callously wounded him. ‘I was a boy when we last collided—not that we had ever collided much before. I went to him for help and he gave me this instead.’ He touched the scar and her fingers immediately followed, tracing the line of it gently before brushing the hair out of his eyes. Without thinking, he leaned against her palm and sighed, trying to control the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
To his surprise he did. He wanted to rant and rave and purge the anger. ‘We lived in the hunting lodge on Thetford’s estate. An open secret, yet detached from both the great house and its tenants. He would come and she would blossom. My mother loved my father. She assumed he loved her back, but even as a child I knew that was wishful thinking. I called him sir in the lodge but instinctively dipped my eyes if I saw him outside. He paid for tutors. He paid for everything. Then he died and we learned that he had made no provision for my mother in his will. She had given him sixteen years and didn’t warrant a mention. He left me money in trust to pay for my education when I came of age. Nothing else. That same day the steward came. Ordered us out of our home. After all those years he gave us three days to be off Thetford’s land.’ Churning it up again brought all those turbulent feelings back. To realise they were still so raw and unresolved was unsettling. Seb didn’t recognise himself because it was hard to reconcile the boy with the man he had become. He had thought he had moved on, yet they were one and the same. The fierce independence, the pride, the unacknowledged shame of not being born better, the resourcefulness and the shyness—even the drive to see justice done—all stemmed from those formative years and the consequences of that day.
Gem was still sat comforting him. There was no judgement on her lovely face, only sympathy. Seb took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers, needing the contact. ‘My brother was residing in London. He was—is—ten years older than me. I took myself there to inform him of the steward’s mistake, stupidly believing itwasa mistake and my father would undoubtedly have issued proper instructions about my mother’s future care. Because it never occurred to me that I would not be granted an audience, I rode directly to Berkeley Square from Norfolk, presented myself at his front door and told the butler that his Grace’s brother was here to see him. I was sat waiting in his hallway when he came. Two footmen held me down and he beat me senseless, then threw me out on the street. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘What happened to you and your mother?’
‘My grandparents took us in. My mother had been estranged from them since before I was born because they disapproved of her choices. I’m not entirely certain she had bothered to tell them about me until we turned up at the farm, but they welcomed us and gave us a new home. One I loved, but my mother didn’t. She never stopped grieving for what happened. It was just shy of two years later that she caught a chill and lost the will to live.’ And he was still angry at that, too. That he had not been enough to make her want to stay. ‘So there you have it. In a nutshell. Beyond that door is a man I loathe above all others and I have no idea what to do about it.’
‘Oh, Seb.’ Her arm came around his shoulders and she pulled him close, resting her head on top of his. Inexplicably, her embrace lessened the pain. ‘What a conundrum. What do you want to do?’
‘Break his neck with my bare hands.’
‘Understandable. I sense there is abut.’
‘But I have an important job to do.’
She inhaled, then exhaled slowly. ‘Then you have your answer. As it is highly unlikely from what you have said that he will recognise you, you must be Millcroft until it is safe to be Seb again. Then you can take what action you think fit and I will happily help you. In the meantime, for the mission you must pretend to be cordial and so must I.’
‘And if he does recognise me?’
‘Between us, we will think of something.’
‘You make it sound so simple.’
She stood and shrugged, her smile banishing the last of the murderous thoughts for the time being. ‘We are spies, Seb. Nothing is ever simple.’
* * *
Clarissa paced the bedchamber floor impatiently, waiting for Seb to come, feeling very daring in the borrowed breeches, shirt and dark coat she had pilfered from a wardrobe. She had no clue as to whether he still intended to go out tonight, but if he was then she was going with him. The idea of Seb in danger without her eyes there, too, to keep him out of harm’s way would make sleep impossible, especially after the evening he had endured through no fault of his own. Seeing Seb distraught and briefly panicked had bothered her. It made her feel hugely protective of him. At some point, he had come to mean a great deal to her and she worried about him. Therefore, it stood to reason if she wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, she might as well assist him tonight and every night henceforth in all aspects of his mission—because together they were the perfect team.
