Page 189 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“Algernon…”

“He made me this!”

The shout echoed through the cellar as Algernon struck his own chest with one hand.

“He locked me in this house. He starved me. He made me repeat the same words until I could barely speak at all, and then years later he looked at the man who survived it and decided I was too damaged to deserve the future he had promised me.”

William could think of nothing to say to that. The cruelty of it was impossible to defend, and he would not insult his brother by trying.

“He was going to tell you,” Algernon continued. “Perhaps not that day, perhaps not the next, but eventually. Then he died, and for a while I thought it was finished.”

His attention shifted toward Edmund.

“Until Eastmere began spending more time with you.”

“He never told me.”

“I watched the two of you become friends. You sought his advice. You trusted him.”

“He was your friend too.”

“He was preparing you.”

William frowned. “Preparing me for what?”

“To take my place.”

For a moment, William could only stare at him. Of all the things he had expected Algernon to say, that had never occurred to him.

“You thought I wanted the dukedom?”

“I knew you did.”

“No.” William shook his head. “Algernon, I have never wanted your title.”

“Everyone wants power.”

“I don’t.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“I have spent half my adult life avoiding responsibility whenever possible. When, precisely, did you imagine I was plotting to become a duke?”

The question would have been absurd under any other circumstances. William had spent years escaping every responsibility he reasonably could while Algernon dutifully shouldered his own. Yet here they stood, surrounded by iron bars and the wreckage of everything his brother had done to preserve a title William had never once coveted.

His anger gave way to something far more painful.

“I never wanted what was yours,” he said quietly. “I wanted my brother.”

Algernon looked away.

“All these years, I thought the distance between us was simply who you were. I thought you preferred it that way.” William’s throat tightened. “I never understood what you were keeping on the other side of it.”

“You could not have understood.”

“Perhaps not. But I wish you had let me try.”

William started toward him, only to stop when Algernon immediately retreated. The movement was small, but something about the look in his brother’s eyes unsettled him.