Page 58 of Love Wasn’t Built in a Day

Damian winced and reached into the bag of buns. “For Christ’s sake, eat something. I’ve nothing against you getting drunk but you’d better be able to make it home on your own two feet or you’ll be sleeping on the beach.”

Gideon took it, staring at it morosely for a moment before taking a large bite.

“That Ridley would be top of my list if I had one. I never could abide a toady, and he set my teeth on edge,” Damian remarked, not entirely surprised by the sharp look Gideon sent him.

“How do you know Ridley?”

“I don’t. We met briefly when I visited you on the site and found you had gone for the day. He made a point of genuflecting to me when he heard my title.”

“He’s my chief suspect,” Gideon admitted. “Ridley has got access to the pay-packets, and he’s in charge of ordering supplies. But there’s other stuff going walkabout too, and I don’t see how he can manage that. He’s rarely on the building site, certainly not among the men, for they’d notice him. He lives in the site hut with his nose stuck in the account ledgers.”

“So, he’s a crafty bastard,” Damian suggested with a shrug.

“Or he’s got an accomplice,” Gideon said darkly.

Damian considered this. “Deon, did it never strike you as a good idea to speak to your employer? Isn’t he supposed to be a scary bastard?”

Gideon stiffened, turning to Damian with a look that might have frozen him if his gaze hadn’t been so bleary. It seemed the brandy was taking hold at last. “I’ll deal with this myself. I’ll present the facts and the bloody culprit to Mr King, not go running to him at the first sign of trouble.”

Damian shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Hetty suggested I order the ironmongery. Small, relatively portable objects of value. It’s all high-quality brass. Mr King wants the best of everything. Ought to be tempting.”

“That’s a good idea. She’s bright, your Lady Hetty.”

“She’s not my anything,” Gideon muttered, and now he sounded utterly wretched.

“Well, she could be if you weren’t so stubborn,” Damian said impatiently. If only Gideon wasn’t so bloody good. Guilt twisted his stomach into a knot as he realised he could undo much of his brother’s misery if he only spoke up. “There’s no reason on earth you ought not to marry, you know.”

Gideon turned and stared at him in outrage. Damian tried to hold on to his temper as his increasingly unhappy conscience prodded him and a toxic mixture of impatience, shame, and fear brewed in his guts. He’d meant to be here for his brother tonight, to support him in whatever self-indulgent misery he wished to drown himself in, but now that he’d had his own suspicions confirmed, this drove him… well, mad.

“How can you say that? You, of all people?” Gideon demanded.

Damian snorted and ran a hand through his hair. “Because I’m the only one of us at risk, you… you utter dimwit.”

Gideon just stared at him in confusion.

Cursing vehemently, Damian pushed to his feet. “You were right, there was a reason I came here, Deon. But it wasn’t to cause you trouble. Quite the reverse.”

He turned, looking down at Gideon, at his brother.

“Did it never occur to you that whilst we look alike, you are dark? Dark hair, dark eyes, whereas our father, our mother, and I are all fair?”

Gideon just blinked at him, but the colour had leached from his face. “What are you saying?”

“Do you remember mama before she lost her mind?” Damian asked quietly.

Gideon shook his head.

Damian’s voice quieted. He had few memories of the time before Gideon arrived, but they were vivid. “She was lovely. Kind. And then she wasn’t. Papa sent her away for a while after you were born. When she came back, she was calm, strangely calm—so long as you weren’t around.”

“Damian.” Gideon’s voice was unsteady now.

Damian swallowed, not wanting to say it out loud, but he couldn’t let Gideon suffer for the rest of his days—even if it meant he lost his brother. He told himself that would never happen; Gideon would never turn his back on him, no matter how dreadful Damian became.

But this gave him a reason, didn’t it?

Damian met Gideon’s eyes, reminding himself he was doing this for his brother, to give him the peace he deserved. “I’d suspected something for years, though I can’t say I knew precisely what. We look too much like our father for Mama to have played him false. But I’ve been trying to track down my old nanny for years. She left when you were born, you see. Damn near broke my heart as a lad, for I adored her and suddenly she disappeared. But I finally found her a few weeks back, and… she told me everything.”