This reflexive denial of a crime he’d not been accused of had made everything painfully clear. Robert had found Oliver directly after the holidays.
I’m not my father, he’d said, his voice shaking. I’m not my father, no matter what anyone says.
And Oliver had simply grinned at him. I know that, he’d replied cheekily. I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out.
I know you’re not your father. Over the years, those words had meant more to him than any of the flattery that so often came his way. A don at Cambridge had looked him in the eyes, and said, “My God, you’re the spitting image of him.” When he reached his majority, men slapped him on the back and told him how much he looked like the old Duke of Clermont. Every time they complimented him on his heritage, he heard his father’s plaintive lament. She wanted it. They always do.
Robert was taller than his brother by two inches. He was the elder by three months. And—the only thing that really counted—he was the legitimate child, the one who’d inherited a dukedom from his father and a vast fortune by way of his mother. Nobody would have blinked if he had put his brother in his place—somewhere far, far behind him.
Which was why Robert never would. I won the first toss, therefore I win everything from here on out did not make a satisfying battle cry. Especially when he’d only won that first round because his father had cheated.
Since that day, every reminder of his privilege—of his father’s wealth, his father’s station—had rankled. It reminded him of the moment when he’d discovered what it meant that his father was a duke. It meant that nobody questioned him, no matter how wrong his actions were. It meant that he would not be held to account for his crimes, no matter who paid the price. It meant that if Robert followed in his father’s footsteps, nobody would blink an eye.
Men, after all, had their needs. And women wanted it. They always did.
In all his life, only one person had ever looked at him and said, “You don’t have to be your father.”
One, and… Robert’s gaze slid out the window once more. One and a half.
Because Miss Pursling had just walked into his home, given him that handbill, and told him that he’d written it. It had taken all of his power not to glow with pride and ask her what she thought. Was it persuasive? Did you like it?
Instead, he simply wrinkled his nose. “Our father was an ass.”
Oliver grimaced. “Your father,” he said sharply. “The Duke of Clermont didn’t raise me. He didn’t take me fishing. He’s my sire, not my father. He was never my father.”
By that standard, Robert had been raised by teaspoons and blades of grass.
“I wasn’t speaking as a matter of history,” Robert said stiffly. “Just biology.”
Oliver shook his head. “Family isn’t a matter of history. Or biology,” he said softly. “It’s a matter of choice. And don’t look so grim. You know what I meant. Just because I refuse to let that man be my father doesn’t mean you can’t be my brother.”
“If only everything were that easy.” Robert put his hands in his pockets and looked away. “I had a message from my mother this morning.”
“Ah.” Oliver reached over and touched his shoulder. “Indeed.”
“I know,” Robert said, with a hint of what he hoped came out as wry amusement. “And I saw her in London only two months past.”
His brother glanced over at that—a swift look out of the corner of his eye, one that had rather too much pity in it. Robert waved him away.
“Don’t,” he muttered brusquely. “She’s coming here.”
Clermont, she had written. I will be taking rooms in Leicester’s Three Crowns Hotel for a space of time. As I believe you are in the vicinity, we shall dine together on the nineteenth of November.
“She didn’t say why, and I can’t think what would draw her.” Robert carefully avoided looking at his brother. “If family is a matter of choice, she chose everyone other than me a long time ago. Why she’d bother with me now, when she’s never noticed me in the past…”
“Maybe,” Oliver said, “maybe she wants…”
“She doesn’t want,” Robert snapped. “She never does.”
Oliver and Robert had known each other more than half their lives. They’d attended Eton together, followed by Cambridge. During that time, Oliver had been showered with constant letters from his family. He couldn’t have helped but notice that Robert received almost no correspondence from his parents.
Oliver’s eyes moved up and to the right, as if he were choosing his next words carefully. “So what are you going to do?”
“I already wrote back and told her I’d be gone on that date—that I’d promised to accompany Sebastian up.”
“Ah,” Oliver said blankly.
“And then I wrote to Sebastian and begged him to come,” Robert admitted. “Whatever she wants can’t be of much importance. Besides, the three of us haven’t been in one spot together for almost a year. If the Brothers Sinister in all our villainy isn’t enough to drive her away…”
Oliver smiled. “They only called us that at Eton because we’re all left-handed. I’m practically respectable these days. You’re a duke. And Sebastian is…” He frowned. “Well thought of, among intelligent people. Some of them.”
Robert laughed. “A valiant attempt, but it won’t wash. My mother thinks that your existence is a personal insult. She is certain that Sebastian is an apostate—and ever since he flirted with her last year, a lecher.”
Oliver sputtered. “He what?”
“I asked him to save me at a gathering. He did.” Robert shook his head. “His way.”
Oliver winced.
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Robert said. “But it all comes down to the same thing. If she insists on seeing me despite the change in date and the presence of two people she hates, the situation is dire.”
At one time, Robert might have lost himself in a daydream, one in which his mother fled to his side in tears, desperate for his help. He’d save her through a combination of wit and good sense. And she would tearfully apologize for having avoided him.
In his youth, when he’d imagined her heartfelt regrets, he’d always told her not to cry.
“Don’t worry,” he’d imagined himself saying. “We have years left ahead of us.”