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If they’d ever met again, she’d expected him to greet her with outrage and derision, but he didn’t sound like he detested her. He sounded as if he regretted her absence, as if he’d missed her all these years as she’d missed him.
Hungrily she searched his face. He was so like their father, except his eyes were kinder and his mouth wasn’t set in perpetual judgment upon an inadequate world. Now her brain worked again, she read guilt and unhappiness and astonishment in his expression.
She didn’t perceive a shred of condemnation.
Her hands clenched at her sides as uncertainty hammered at her. All this time, had she misjudged Henry? Had she also accepted her father’s edict too easily? Should she have plucked up courage to write to her brother after the late earl’s death? She’d longed to, if only to share her sorrow now that both their parents were gone.
“Henry, I was sure you’d hate me.” Her voice was thready. She folded her arms over her chest to steady her shaking.
“Of course I don’t.” Henry ventured a step closer. He was close enough for her to see he trembled too. His voice was raw with emotion. “I’ve mourned your loss the last ten years. I’ve blamed myself for what happened. I loathed that I introduced Benton into our house. If I’d known what the blackguard intended, I’d have horsewhipped him from the door before letting him come within a foot of my sister.”
Hesitantly Henry laid a hand on her arm, as though afraid she’d vanish in a puff of smoke like some magical creature. His face was somber and his voice shook with the power of his feelings. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to find you alive.”
Antonia quivered under his touch but didn’t shift, either forward or away. After the long silence, this swift, unconditional acceptance seemed unreal, untrustworthy. “Are you?”
“Of course.” He laughed with what she was surprised to recognize as joy. His voice rang with certainty as he repeated his assertion. “Of course!”
She blinked back hot tears. This still felt like a dream, although she’d long ago relinquished dreams of reconciliation with her family. Of all the possibilities for her future, she hadn’t imagined that her brother might find her and offer absolution.
“Really?” she asked unsteadily.
“Really,” he said with such a wide smile, she couldn’t doubt his sincerity. The smile was heartbreakingly familiar and made him look much younger, for all his physical exhaustion. Briefly he looked like the boy she’d grown up with, not the man he was now.
She wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly he hugged her and she hugged him. Although she told herself she’d cried enough, she burst into difficult sobs. All her misery and fear and regret united with this unexpected blessing to level her last defenses. For ten years, she’d felt completely alone, yet now it seemed her brother had always loved her.
“I still can’t believe it,” she said in a choked voice when she eventually drew away. She dashed her hands across her eyes but still tears welled.
“Neither can I.” Henry kept his arm around Antonia as he turned toward Demarest, who had moved to stare out the window to give brother and sister some privacy. “Thank you for keeping her safe. Although why in God’s name you didn’t tell me you had her, I’ll never know.”
“I was sworn to secrecy.” Demarest turned to survey them with a faint smile. “And your father was such a self-righteous prig, if you’ll pardon my frankness, I knew he wouldn’t relent once he’d disowned her.”
“He never admitted the truth, even on his deathbed,” Henry said with a trace of anger, his arm tightening around Antonia. “At least that bastard Benton showed a glimmer of conscience and informed me Antonia was alive. When I read his letter, I was terrified to think what my sister had suffered without her family’s protection.”
“She’s had her family’s protection,” Demarest said with a hint of hauteur.
“I’ll always be grateful,” Antonia said, even as she couldn’t scotch the recognition that Eloise Challoner’s fall from grace in similar circumstances to hers had resulted in a much harsher fate.
She couldn’t quite place her cousin’s mood. While he seemed pleased for her, his manner held an element of reserve. Perhaps he realized that Henry’s arrival meant at the very least a delay before Antonia accepted his proposal and his life proceeded as he wished.
Demarest crossed to the sideboard and poured three brandies. “It’s early but we all need this.”
With an unsteady hand, Antonia accepted the glass. Long ago, she’d smothered the smallest hope of returning to her family. It was too late to make peace with her mother. Her father, she knew, would never have forgiven her.
But her brother was here. More than that, her brother didn’t hate her.
The shock left her reeling.
Henry released Antonia and turned to her. “I want you to come home.”
Antonia frowned, not sure she’d heard right. “Are you sure? We might spark the scandal Papa was so eager to avoid.”
In spite of her doubts, her heart lurched with relief at the prospect of returning to Blaydon Park. To the places she’d loved. To life as Lady Antonia Hilliard.
No more disguises. No more deception.
A new start where she could rise above Ranelaw’s treachery. His cruel deceit and irredeemable wickedness had bruised her soul. Even the miracle of Henry’s loving welcome couldn’t heal that festering injury.
Escaping to Blaydon Park provided a spark of hope. The idea of home would always have beckoned like soft music on a summer’s evening. Now she wanted to weep with gratitude at the promise of safe harbor.
