Page 47 of Atone, Adonis

Thomas paused to rest at the carriage block, leaning against the conveyance. Julianna stood beside him and Fred saw storm after storm of emotion sweep across her face. At last, she threw her arms around her brother but said nothing.

“Julie-bug,” Thomas rasped. “We agreed to try. I will come back if the treatment fails.”

“I know,” she said.

But her features showed such a wretched expression that Fred had to turn away momentarily from the pain in her face. And how bony and stooped Thomas’s shoulders had become. He hoped with all he had they were making the right decision here. Then he forced himself to turn back around in time to see a wan smile on Thomas’s face.

He was only a pale ghost of the boy he had once been but Fred still saw his bosom friend there, every time he looked. He probably always would, no matter what manner of men they’d become.

“Give me a moment with Fred, please,” Tom said.

She looked from one to the other, unsure, but eventually turned away so that Fred could take her place next to Thomas, who still leaned against the carriage. The two men stared at each other until finally Fred held out his hand to shake. Thomas brushed it aside.

“I don’t know,” Tom said slowly, “what to say to you. Ought I to thank you or swear at you or some combination of both?”

“You could have just shaken my hand.”

Thomas ignored that, studying him before he asked. “When did you make these arrangements?”

“The day after I first visited you at Farrow Cottage.”

“Before the marriage?”

Fred nodded.

“You always were certain you knew best.”

Fred looked away then. He had to, but he brought his attention back as soon as he could. “Never certain, no.”

Thomas coughed, a shallow, rattling sound. After it passed, he fixed Fred with a piercing look. “I believe,” he finally said, “that you are an exceptionally flawed man. And that your choices have made a ruin of us all.”

Fred said nothing. He considered telling Thomas the truth about that night as he watched the grooms finish checking the tack, but he didn’t. He opened his mouth but no words came out. There was just too much about that night for him to face right now. Especially not when the storm of Thomas’s temper these last weeks had finally abated and he’d agreed to go for treatment.

“I don’t forgive you,” Thomas went on, “and I likely never will. But I am not a fool. I can see what is happening between you and my sister. The way she looks at you and allows you liberties.”

At that Fred would speak, but Thomas only held up a hand to stop him and went on.

“Emotional liberties. She’s never allowed anyone to comfort her, you know. Not even me. Except for you.”

Fred swallowed and pushed away any implications he might draw from Thomas’s words. He didn’t think he could bear the hopefulness that rose in his chest at them. He listened instead to the meltwater that dripped steadily from the Manor eaves behind him. And slid his gaze over to Juliana, who he knew stood on the steps watching them.

“And she deserves a life,” Thomas continued. “Not one spent nursing me. Nor assuaging whatever personal demons you endlessly choose to court. She deserves something of her own. And while I neither forgive you nor trust you, I do believe you may give her that. Will you?”

“She will have whatever she desires.”

Thomas nodded, satisfied at that answer. “If you hurt her more than you already have, I will crawl back from whatever grave they put me in and make certain you regret it.”

Fred nearly smiled at that. “Seems fair.”

For a moment Thomas simply leaned there, gathering, Fred supposed, his strength for the next words he said. A question Tom asked so conversationally Fred could have pretended misunderstanding if he chose.

“Why did you run?”

Fred knew what Thomas was asking him. Why had Fred run the night of the accident? And in the moment of silence that followed, he knew he should tell the truth. And didn’t. Or not all of it.

“You know why,” he said. “You know where I was and who I was with, when I shouldn’t have been. I ran because the guilt I felt after would not allow me to stay.”

Thomas closed his eyes. “I am trusting you to be better going forward.”