Andrew Lord of Despair(97)

“You intended to leave Julia floundering in the water once you got Mother into the boat?”

“Of course not, but by then…” Nothing but frigid green-black water, towering waves, the roar of the wind, and wreckage in all directions. “I no longer knew where to throw the rope, and I have no memory of how Mother and I made it to shore.”

In contrast to the mayhem of Andrew’s memories, Gareth’s voice was calm. “For half your life, you have thought yourself a conscienceless, rutting coward who murdered his own unborn child?”

“For half my life, I have known the truth about myself,” Andrew replied. To say it though, and to Gareth, had made a curious change. Andrew could finally breathe. He could draw air all the way into his lungs in a manner that had slipped from his grasp so long ago, and so subtly, he hadn’t noticed.

“Adam told me,” Gareth said. “He told me that woman had been after him and every other man in the family, including our grandfather. Grandfather was not affronted by her behavior, Andrew, why should you have been? Why did neither Adam nor I, nor Grandfather, nor Father, for that matter, think to protect you from her?”

Shock went through Andrew, a physical sensation not unlike an electrical spark. The shock of revelation, of learning something so far outside his imagined universe, his very body had to react. “What… are… you… saying?”

So Gareth repeated himself, his voice more firm.

“She as much as offered to bed down with the old marquess, and did with you, probably with Jeffrey, and who knows how many others. She certainly made a play for Adam, and for me. Adam told me I ought to bring it up with you, since he suspected she’d gone after you as well, but I argued with him, bitterly, thinking Julia would not have preyed on a mere boy. She wasn’t right, somehow, wasn’t… natural.”

“She claimed Jeffrey had enticed her with promises of marriage, but she assured me the child was mine. Adam and I argued over your betrothal to her, but even then…” Andrew had not told his oldest brother the truth in the course of that protracted altercation, but Adam had apparently had his suspicions.

Suspicions that cast Andrew as a victim.

“Had she been with child, Brother, as often as she spread her legs, she could not possibly have given you that assurance.” Gareth gave Andrew’s shoulders a shake for emphasis. “She apparently tried that ruse with Jeffrey, among others that we know of.”

Andrew seized on the single word: ruse. “What ruse? What do you mean?”

“She was no more with child than I am.”

“But, Gareth, there she was, the waves dragging at her, screaming to save our child, begging me…” Andrew’s breath constricted again, and vertigo threatened.

“I am telling you,” Gareth said, shaking Andrew’s shoulders again, harder this time, “there was no child… You did not murder your unborn child, you did not betray me, you did not commit murder. You made mistakes, Andrew, mistakes common to adolescents the world over. And no one, not your own father, not your brothers, not the head of our benighted family, made any attempt to protect you from them.”

The very irascibility of Gareth’s tone was as reassuring as the weight of his arm across Andrew’s shoulders, and yet, comprehension would not coalesce into acceptance. “I cannot understand this. I cannot get my mind to absorb this version of my history. I cannot.”

“There’s more,” Gareth said, “but it will keep. I cannot believe you lived with these lies and falsehoods for this long. I am sorry, Andrew. I am so sorry.”

The arm around Andrew’s shoulders became a hug then, a simple, affectionate embrace Andrew found he wanted never to end. His brain could not focus enough to sort out the ramifications of what his brother had shared with him, not yet. But his heart felt lighter, able to beat freely, unburdened save for the task of sustaining his own life.

Andrew loved his brother again; he simply loved him, openheartedly, joyously. It would take time for the guilt and shame to fade, but if he and Gareth had time, they could arrive to that.

“This stair,” Gareth growled, “is giving my arse a pain. I am going to shave, eat something, then chase your wife out of Felicity’s bedroom, so I might pray my marchioness back to a semblance of health. Where shall I chase her to?”

“Bed,” Andrew said. “She’s been up far too long, and she needs her rest.”

“I am getting old.” Gareth rose stiffly and extended a hand down to assist Andrew.

“Yes. You are, old and wise. Gareth…” He dropped his brother’s hand. “Thank you.”