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Her sister had already drifted off without saying anything, wallflower that she was. It was only then that it struck Gwen she did not have much of an understanding of her sister. When was the last time they had talked—really talked? Teddy didn’t dismiss her like everyone else did. They just…didn’t have much in common.
Perhaps if they had been closer, she could have asked Teddy for her guidance when it came to Ernest. Or the Marquess of Ravenshurst, for that matter.
Perhaps things would have been very different, if she’d had a sibling to whom she felt close.
And speaking of siblings to whom she did not feel close…
The scrawny lad finished playing his piece on the fiddle with a flourish, and riotous applause rang out across the deck as Michael and Phylis came to a final halt.
“Bravo!”
“Excellent work, Jack!”
“What wonderful playing!”
Gwen scowled as her brother kissed Phylis’s hand then traipsed over to her. Steeling herself for whatever onslaught he was about to unleash upon her, she decided to go for a preemptive strike.
“So, the news is officially out, then?”
It was only as she uttered the words that she wondered why on earth she’d felt the need to. Michael had done her no wrong—at least, not in the last week, though admittedly, he had been mostly at sea during that time.
Apparently, her brother had not heard the acid tone in her voice, for he replied cheerfully, “Yes! Yes, the news is out. Phylis and I are having a baby.”
There was such a look of delight on his face, his eyes practically shining, that Gwen softened. “I’m happy for you.”
Michael glanced at her as he stood on the other side of the door. “Are you?”
A prickle of discomfort tingled unpleasantly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You and I have never really seen eye to eye on things, have we?” her brother said conversationally.
Gwen did not look at him but instead watched her parents step together and begin dancing a slow waltz being played by a large man on a small accordion. Teddy had somehow been persuaded to dance with a sailor, though she did so with brilliant red cheeks, and Phylis was dancing with a Mr. Drummond, who had been introduced to them when they had first boarded as her first mate and sort of uncle, which she hadn’t quite understood.
The three dancing couples swayed slowly as Gwen considered what to say.
“No,” she said eventually, with a wry smile. “I don’t think we have seen eye to eye on things at all, really.”
“It’s a shame, but then we are very different people,” said Michael lightly. “You know. I chased after the person I loved. You allowed yours to run away.”
Fury rose within Gwen so swiftly, she almost rocked with it.
She should have known. She should have known her brother wouldn’t be able to help himself. He always had to poke, didn’t he? Always had to point out her failings.
“I didn’t allow—I don’t know where he went,” Gwen ground out. “And I’ll have you know, he was very unfair to me.”
Still, that hadn’t stopped her from looking. She’d asked Sir Arnold Quintrell first, thinking he surely knew something of his nephew’s whereabouts, despite the strained relationship, but the man had been no help at all. So Gwen had moved on. It was shameful, really, the number of hotels she had traipsed to with an unresisting but unhappy Teddy, along with their mother’s maid, trying to ask delicately at the front desk whether a Baron Frasemere was staying with them.
They had all said no.
Gwen had to presume he had requested they lie on his behalf. He had to have been somewhere.
Unless he had actually left London, as he’d threatened to.
The thought had twisted in her gut the instant it had occurred to her last night, halfway through a crying session that had dampened her pillow but brought her no relief. If he had returned to Frasemere already, then it would be impossible for her to see him. She couldn’t exactly go gallivanting off across the country!
Even if she wished to.
“You don’t know where he went,” Michael repeated lightly, his gaze watching his wife with the overbearing concern of a mother hen.
