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Tom felt a slow burn in his chest and managed to count to seven. “I have never questioned your life. If you hear reprimands in your ears, they come from Father, not from me. And he is dead, Rees. You could stop trying to get his attention any day now. He hasn’t the faintest idea that you have an opera singer living in mother’s bedchamber.”

There was a chilly moment of silence and then Rees laughed, except it sounded more like a bark than a laugh. “It must be enviable to understand the world in such a clear fashion, Tom. I never think about the old man anymore. Lina lives with me because I want her to. And she lives in mother’s bedchamber because it’s convenient to mine.”

Tom snorted. “She lives here because you’re still trying to make father spit fire and actually look at you. But the man is dead.”

“I like Lina,” Rees said softly, rolling her name off his tongue like a delectable sweet. “I gather you met her. And what did you think of her, little brother? Isn’t she a luscious bit of goods?”

“Are you planning to toss her out the door tomorrow to make room for Helene?” Tom asked, not trying very hard to keep censure from his voice.

“That’s the way of the world.” Rees shrugged.

“Where will she go?”

“A dissolute man like myself doesn’t worry himself with trifles, does he? Probably to the streets, brother. That way, if you were very lucky, you could whisk her off to some charitable home for wayward ladies.”

“Your attempts to bait me are a poignant reminder of how much Father meant to you,” Tom observed.

Rees narrowed his eyes. “So do give me the churchman’s views. What does one do with a discarded mistress? Wait! I wasn’t supposed to commit adultery, was I? How could I forget that little detail?”

Tom turned toward the door. “I imagine you know precisely where your Lina will go after you turn her out. I can’t think why we need to discuss it.” He paused and grappled with his temper for a moment. And lost. “I don’t know how you can live with yourself, debauching a girl like that.”

“I continue to do my best to live up to my family reputation. As do you. Couldn’t you take that infernal dog collar off even when you were making a trip to the big bad city?”

“I am a vicar,” Tom said, shrugging.

“I suppose if you removed the collar, you’d lose the authority to hand out moralities like sweets at Christmas, would you? I wouldn’t want all that talent of yours to be wasted.” Rees’s eyes would have set the room on fire, were it physically possible. “I’ve just changed my mind, and it’s all due to you, brother. I’ll keep that poor debauched girl here even when Helene returns. She can stay in mother’s bedroom, where she belongs. I need Lina close enough so that I can tup her at a moment’s notice, wouldn’t you say?”

Tom paused, hand on the doorknob. He could hardly speak, he was so angry. “And Helene?” he managed. “Your wife? I thought you planned to get an heir, brother.”

“I shall,” Rees said casually. “I’ll put Helene on the third floor, up where the nursery is. That will nicely symbolize her role in the household.”

Tom yanked open the door and stalked out. He doesn’t mean it, he thought. He can’t mean it. He’s just unable to be himself. Damn Father. And when the Reverend Holland brought himself to use a word like damn, he really meant it.

Tom managed to make it into the hall and start up the stairs without going back and throwing himself at Rees until they hit the ground in a rolling pile of fisticuffs, which was exactly what his brother wanted him to do. Rees was never any good at talking out grievances; he preferred to rush into action. It was Tom who had given Rees his broken nose; Rees who had blackened Tom’s eye not once but three times.

And it was their father who applauded from the sidelines, feeding the fire with judiciously placed little barbs that pitted his godly and his ungodly son against each other. Except they weren’t that, they were never that.

I never wanted to be the godly one, Tom told himself. Not if it was at the expense of my big brother, who had to become my opposite.

He stuck his head into the nursery and looked in on Meggin. He hadn’t been able to get her onto a bed. Finally he had given her a sheet and she had arranged it into a nest in the corner. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, so Tom returned to his own room with a sigh. If things were different, he could have been the one nestled up to a songbird like Lina.

He couldn’t quite imagine it. Dog collar or no dog collar, a woman like that would never want him.

Thirteen

An Odd Household, Indeed

Rees stamped his way down to breakfast in a fit of irritation. Tom had to be booted from the house directly. The maddening comments he had made the previous evening stuck in Rees’s mind like a burr. Rees actually found himself up in the middle of the night, wondering whether Lina’s presence in his house had anything to do with their dead father, until he decided that Tom, as usual, was being overdramatic. Reading had addled his brother’s brain, or so their father always—Father! What on earth was he doing even thinking of the man?

He pushed open the door to the breakfast room with a snap and then stopped short. Lina was sitting at the head of the table. Thank goodness, she appeared to have decided to dress herself this morning, instead of appearing in negligee, as was her custom. Even more startling, next to Tom was a small girl who looked to be his image.

“You didn’t tell me that you had a child!” he said, staring at the girl and then at his brother. She had precisely the same sweet expression as had Tom when he was a boy. They were two of a kind; Tom had obviously sprouted a hymn-singing four-year-old, if there was such a thing. His mind spun: Tom, father of an illegitimate child?

“This is Meggin,” Tom said, his hand touching the child’s head for a moment. “She’s not my daughter.”

Meggin looked up at Rees. “I belongs to Mrs. Fishpole.”

“Belong,” Tom corrected her.