Page 65 of Thief Taker

“You forfeited that a long time ago.” Kit followed with his eyes as James crossed the room to the sideboard and unstoppered a decanter. “For the love of God, James, have you even breakfasted?”

His brother ignored him, poured the brandy and swallowed half of it down. “What do you want of me, Kit? Apology? Regret? What difference would any of it make now?”

“None,” Kit said. “That’s not what I want.”

“Then what?”

“I want you to stop.” He took a step closer to his brother’s back. “Don’t enter Le Grand Jeu. Don’t risk Ashbourne.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s our home, James, and our land. Our family’s heritage.”

He gave a cold shrug. “And what is that to me? A millstone around my damned neck.”

“You don’t mean that. You loved Ashbourne once. We both did.”

“Did we? Did we, brother? Because the way I remember it, you loved Ashbourne so much you left it behind.”

“I had no choice!”

“The devil you didn’t!” James spun around, breathing hard enough that Kit could see the rise and fall of his slender shoulders. “You ran away, Kit. So don’t you dare lecture me about our godforsaken family, because you forsook them first.”

“That’s not—” He gritted his jaw against the anger bunching in his throat. “You’re the eldest, James. You’ll be the earl someday. Ashbourne was always destined to be yours.”

James flung one arm wide. “Then it’s mine to dispose of as I wish!”

“Not like this! You don’t have the right.”

“The right?” He glared, enraged. “How dare you, Kit? How dare you talk to me of what I have the right to do, not when you left me with a father who despised me and—and an inheritance I never bloody wanted!”

“It doesn’t matter what you want!” Kit spat back. “Doing your duty is what matters.”

“I did my duty! For God’s sake, I did my duty to Ashbourne and Father when I married Maria—and see what that cost her. To the devil with duty, I am done with it!”

Kit took a breath, trying to calm himself in the face of his brother’s fury. “You’re Viscount Rowsley, you’re our father’s heir. You can’t set your duty aside, James. Not even for grief. Dear God, do you think I live the life I want?”

James snorted. “If you don’t, it’s your own damned fault.”

“Because I don’t live like you? Because I don’t flaunt and debauch and drink myself into the bloody grave?”

“Because you don’t live at all, Kit.”

“I did once. I’d found my place, James. But you dragged me back with all this…this ruin you’ve brought down on us!”

Those clever eyes of his narrowed, mouth curling into a derisive smile. “Ah, so for all your talk of family, Kit, you found your place an ocean away from Ashbourne—” He faltered for a moment “—and from me.”

Kit felt a queasy spike of guilt. “You know how things were. People were talking.”

“People always talk.”

“If it had got back to Father—”

“Ha!” James laughed. “Hardly matters now, does it? He doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, let alone cares whether his son likes to be fucked in the breech by a captain of the—”

“Lower your voice!” Kit barked. “God, have you no shame?”

“Not a shred,” James said. “And no need for it; you’ve got quite enough for the both of us.”