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“Gerard?” Mother looked surprised by the question. “Oh, he’s back at his bachelor pad. He said you were healing up well enough on your own at this point, and that he had certain arrangements that needed to be taken care of personally. I don’t know that I would agree you’reentirelyhealed up…”
Mother’s words drowned out as the ‘arrangements’ Gerard had to be speaking of returned to the forefront of Thomas’ mind.
After Thomas had collapsed in the study and been returned to bed, Gerard had suggested that Thomas leave London again for a spell.
“Whether you return abroad, or merely escape to the country, I don’t think it will matter,” Gerard had pressed. “So long as you make your way out of London and the danger it poses sooner rather than later.”
“Why me and not you?” Thomas had asked, in the moment incapable of giving full voice to the depth of the question. Gerard, as the second Russell son, should have also been in danger.
But Gerard had already been shaking his head. “Someone, as before, must stay to handle our business here. Besides that, I was alone in London for months after Father’s death, and no one attacked me—and I am also not the one attempting to court Lady Evelina.”
Thomas had dimly understood that there was likely some importance to that timeline, and the reality that Gerard hadn’t been attacked when he was alone in London the first time. Yet Thomas’ addled brain had not been able to focus on it in the moment—he’d been too upset over the loss of Lady Evelina and the missing ledger.
Now, however, when he thought of Gerard making arrangements on his behalf to leave the city, Thomas wasn’t sure what he felt.
On the one hand, it likely would be safer. On the other…
Now that Thomas had had some time to recuperate, he was not as willing as he had been on the night of the collapse to completely throw in the towel. Additionally, though Thomas had no idea whether Gerard knew the truth about his parentage or not, he also felt as though it was important he was there, physically, to support his brother. Not that Gerard had ever needed his help. Still—he doubted it would go unwanted.
“Very well, Mother,” Thomas said, getting to his feet upon the meal’s conclusion. “Tomorrow, I shall seek out Gerard at his accommodations. There is much the two of us have to discuss.”
“Indeed,” said Mother. “I would imagine that you do have quite a bit to go over, given the fact that you have been laid up this past week.”
Thomas, half out of the room, turned to look at his mother. There was nothing devious about her. No sly glint to her eyes, or ominous lilt to her tone. She was the same woman he had known all his life, even with age beginning to wear her down at the edges.
A memory from childhood rose up behind his eyes—Mother taking her hands in his, warming the cold out of them, before a small recital he had played for their friends and family on the piano. None of the other children his age had a mother so affectionate—they were all cared for solely by governesses. Thomas had had a governess as well, of course, but while other children’s parents kept their distance, Thomas had always felt lucky to be so close to his.
Gerard had just been a baby, then. Thomas wondered now if Mother had still been in the throes of her affair.
“What is it?” his mother asked now, face falling with unusual insecurity.
A part of Thomas still wanted to yell at her. To demand answers. To call her all sorts of awful names that had little to do with her own actions, and more to do with Thomas’ feelings of overall betrayal. This new knowledge of his mother’s past would not have hit half as hard had he not been also going through the whole ordeal of getting to the bottom of Father’s death.
But he needed more time to process this. So much had been happening lately—he was glad to have succeeded in thinking before he spoke for once, and not rashly demanding information that would likely cause great pain for one of the few loved ones he had left.
With a thin smile, Thomas said, “Nothing. Goodnight, Mother.”
