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Violet felt a lump in her throat and stepped to one side, unwilling to intrude upon the moment, although it was impossible not to be moved by the poignancy of the scene. Lance’s expression held so many emotions she could hardly name them all. Surprise, relief, joy...yes, even joy. Her heart glowed to see it.
‘Let me look at you!’ Lance stepped back finally, though he kept hold of Arthur’s shoulders, clasping tight as if he were afraid to let go. ‘You’re alive! How is it possible?’
‘It’s a long story. As I’ve just been telling your wife.’
They both turned to look at her then and she smiled, sharing their happiness. It was strange, looking at two versions of the same face, and yet despite the obvious physical similarities, the differences between them were more exaggerated now than before. Arthur in particular looked like a whole different man, with cropped hair, tanned skin, and shoulders that seemed to have doubled in size during his absence. He looked as if he’d spent the whole of the past nine months out of doors. A stranger might not even have noticed that he and Lance were twins.
‘Come and sit.’ She gestured towards the hearth and then reached for the coal scuttle, adding a few nuggets to the fire before stoking it back into life. ‘Tell us everything.’
‘Yes.’ Lance drew his brother towards one of the armchairs and then settled himself in the other, grasping hold of her hand and drawing her on to the chair-arm beside him as he did so. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. I think I must have run mad for a while.’ Arthur’s gaze moved between them with open curiosity. ‘What must you think of me, Miss Harper? After the way I behaved towards you in the past, you must hate me. I was trying to prove something to my father, but I was unforgivably rude. You were as much a victim as I was, but I treated you atrociously. I’m sorry.’
‘You didn’t want to marry me.’ She said it matter-of-factly.
‘No, but believe me, it had nothing to do with you. I never meant to insult you.’
‘It’s all right. You didn’t know me. We didn’t know each other. I won’t deny that it hurt at the time, but you were unhappy. Anyone with eyes could see that.’
‘I suppose I was, though at the time I simply felt trapped.’
‘Is that why you ran away?’
‘Yes, though I’d no intention of doing so, I swear. I went sailing that day without knowing what I was going to do. All I remember is sitting on the prow, thinking about the future, about the life my father had planned for me, knowing that I didn’t have the strength to fight him. The next thing I knew I was in the water, except that it didn’t seem like me either. I didn’t feel anything, not the cold, not the shock, nothing. It was like I just stopped thinking and jumped.’
‘So you weren’t trying to drown yourself?’ Lance’s voice sounded unsteady.
‘No.’ Arthur shook his head. ‘I didn’t have a plan. I just knew that I didn’t want to think any more. So I swam and swam and kept on swimming. I felt the currents take me and I didn’t fight them. It sounds ridiculous now, but I thought I might find an answer if I just kept going. Luckily a fishing boat found me before I froze to death. They were on their way back to Aberdeen and I asked if they would take me with them. I didn’t have any money, of course, but the skipper was a kind man. He probably thought I was on the run from the law, but he said I could work off the cost of my passage if I wanted. So I did and I enjoyed it. It made a refreshing change to have a purpose, a task to do. I’ve always been good on the water and it turns out that I’m good with my hands, too. The crew must have known I was a gentleman, but I proved myself with hard work, and after a while they accepted me. When we got back to Aberdeen I asked if I could stay on board. The skipper offered me a pittance to try to dissuade me, but I accepted.’
‘Let me get this straight...’ Lance leaned forward slightly. ‘Are you saying that all these months, you’ve been fishing?’
‘Improbable as it sounds, yes.’ Arthur looked towards her ruefully. ‘So you see, I’m no ghost, Miss Harper. I’ve simply been in hiding. Which is another way of saying I’ve been a coward.’
‘You were desperate.’ She got up from the chair-arm and crouched beside him. ‘There’s a difference.’
‘Wait.’ Lance put up a hand. ‘What about Father?’
Arthur’s expression became pained. ‘I didn’t know. It’s easy to avoid news when you’re at sea and I didn’t want to know what was happening. I assumed that things would just work themselves out without me, that you and he would be reconciled...’ He dropped his gaze. ‘I didn’t know about his death. I didn’t know anything until we made port at Newcastle yesterday and even then it happened by accident. I was sitting outside a tavern on the quayside when I overheard the landlord telling a story about a family near Whitby. The father had been a viscount, he said, who’d died in the same week one of his sons drowned and the other was shot overseas. He told it like some kind of morality tale, though I’ve no idea what the moral was. It was the first I’d heard about any of it and it was like my eyes suddenly opened again, as if I’d been asleep and dreaming for the past few months. I asked him what had happened to the other son, but he didn’t know, so I came back here as quickly as I could. I know I shouldn’t have broken in during the night, but I couldn’t wait another moment. It was bad enough hearing what happened to Father. I’ve been so afraid of learning the worst about you, too.’
‘Come.’ Violet stood up, trying to break the sombre mood. ‘You must be exhausted if you’ve been travelling since yesterday. I’ll get a room ready. Are you hungry?’
‘Wait!’ Arthur put out a hand to stop her. ‘No one else should know that I’m here. Now especially.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Lance started out of his chair. ‘We ought to wake up the whole house and celebrate.’
‘No.’ Arthur’s voice had an imperative tone she’d never heard there before. ‘As far as everyone else is concerned, I drowned that day.’
‘What? No, Arthur, you’re back.’
‘It’s too late. If I come back, then there’ll be repercussions for all of us. What’s done is done. We ought to just leave things as they are.’
‘But this is all yours. The house and estate are your birthright. You’re the—’ Lance stopped mid-sentence, his eyes turning towards her with a look of anguish.
‘What?’ Violet felt a tendril of foreboding tickle the back of her neck. ‘He’s the what?’
‘The heir.’ Her husband’s lips seemed to have turned white suddenly. ‘Arthur’s the heir.’
* * *
