The earl opened his mouth to speak but hesitated as he searched for the right words. “I can’t deny that Harland Sorrell was a difficult man to deal with, prone to losing his temper and being stubborn, but Eilian doesn’t realize how his father was raised. Harland’s father was a notoriously violent man, who beat his wife and children at the slightest indiscretion. Eilian’s father never raised a hand to Lady Dorset or the boys even if they needed it. As you can see, Dylan is spoiled and Eilian is wayward. While he broke from the violence, he could not escape his temperament and the hate it instilled in those who received it. I once asked him why he let Eilian carry on and cry when he should be taught to mask his emotions like a proper man, and he told me he refused to be like his father and give his sons only anger as a way to vent their frustration. I think he also wanted to know how his children felt about him. He wanted to know if they hated or loved him. Lord Dorset may have seemed like a tyrant, but you have to understand he had so poor of an example to learn how to be a father from.”
“Does Eilian know all of this?”
“I don’t think so, but I am not going to tell him now. It would only make him feel worse about the state in which he left their relationship.” He chuckled lowly as he straightened the papers on his desk. “He probably doesn’t know about the poetry either.”
A small smile played across her lips. “Poetry?”
“When Harland was courting my sister, he wrote her all sorts of silly love poems. When she would go out with my mother, I would peek at her cache of letters and sit for hours laughing at the poor sod. Oh, how he loved her. It was far from Shakespeare, but it showed how highly he regarded her. He would compare her to a muse or a goddess, and my sister thought he was the most romantic creature. I couldn’t believe someone saw my sister that way, especially since I found her to be shallow and whiney. Every time I saw him in town, I couldn’t help but laugh when I pictured this burly man hunched over his desk, struggling to write such delicate couplets. It was comical. I liked him though, despite his difficult disposition. If I didn’t, I would have chased him away as I did her other suitors, but there was always something endearing about how much he loved her. Maybe that is why he and Eilian never got along. They were simply too passionate about different things.”
Chapter Thirty-One:
A Confirmed Bachelor
Ever since Patrick Sinclair had picked up them up from the Queen Victoria Landing Fields, a contented smile had been etched into his features. Hadley couldn’t be sure if it was because Eilian was back within eyeshot or because he had gotten word of their impending nuptials. As the steamer chugged past London’s familiar storefronts, her mood waned with disappointment. Secretly she had hoped the grime would have melted away in her absence, taking with it the sneering society ladies and the skinny children caked in soot. London remained unchanged. The brakes squealed as they stopped with a jolt at the brick exterior of her home, which thankfully was just as she had left it. Eilian caught her hand as Patrick came around to open her door.
“I’m going to call on you in a day or two once I smooth things over with my mother. I want to wait before bringing you into the fray, though she is less likely to kill me if there are witnesses,” he explained with raised eyebrows and a cockeyed grin. “I will send word shortly. I know she will want to meet you.”
Hadley Fenice was surprised by the pang of sadness that bloomed within her breast at the thought of leaving his side. After several months of constant companionship, she felt oddly alone as Patrick lugged her trunk up the steps to her door. As she yanked her luggage inside and watched the steamer disappear into the misty gloom, the clunk of hurried boots clattered down the hall toward the foyer. Adam rounded the corner and caught her in his arms, crushing her to his breast before holding her far enough away to take a good look at her.
“Your freckles connected!” he exclaimed, noting her desert tan. As always, her brother was dressed impeccably in shades purple and black. “How was your trip? I hope your letters were infrequent because you were enjoying yourself.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t write more. It got quite hectic at the camp. Did you get my last letter?”
“Yes, and I’m so happy for you and Lord Sorrell.”
She stared into his blue eyes before moving to his henna brows but saw no hint of surprise or disapproval. “I don’t know about you, but the news hasn’t yet sunk in.”
“Well,” Adam began as a wry smile crept from beneath his pencil mustache, “I have known for some time he was going to propose.”
Hadley shoved him in the chest. “When? How? How could you not tell me?”
“If I told you his intentions, you would have stopped seeing him. There was no way I could let you do that, especially when Lord Sorrell is a good catch and actually cares about you. Not many men would tolerate you.”
His sister fell silent as her anger dissipated. “When did he tell you?”
“He asked my permission for your hand when we went hunting.”
All she could do was sputter in shock. “That— that was four months ago! I didn’t even think about him in that way then.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t feel that way about you. I asked him if he knew what he was getting into since you have a temper and a habit of throwing things when you are mad.”
Her cheeks instantly reddened as she covered her face and followed him into the kitchen where dinner was already laid out. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t actually say that!”
“I did, and much more,” Adam replied as he began to carve the chicken, gesticulating dangerously with the knife as he spoke. “Lord Sorrell had to know what he was in for, especially when you act so polite and rational in front of company. I warned him while your mouth looks like Cupid’s bow, what comes out of it stings like an arrow. Then, he told me he knew you had a temper because you pulled a gun on him the first time you met.” When he saw the horrified look on his twin sister’s face, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Sadly, I wasn’t particularly shocked. What shocked me was he came back.”
Once the chicken was carved and the vegetables were passed around the table, Adam settled down, filling his mouth with food instead of heaping embarrassment upon his hapless sister. Thus far, she had been pleasantly surprised to find that her brother was happy to have her home, and looking around the house, she was stunned to find that it was actually cleaner than when she left. She had always assumed Adam was the untidy one. He prattled on about the comings and goings at his office, the financial crisis he helped to avert when he caught an error one of the other accountants had overlooked.
“You came home just in time. The last order cleared out most of the stock, but I guess all that will be coming to an end soon, won’t it?”
“Just because I’m getting married does not mean either of my businesses will suffer! I may bring on an apprentice, but I’m not stopping,” she snapped but caught herself. “Sorry, Adam. I’m already anticipating hearing that from everyone else, and I know most people won’t drop the subject like you will.”
Adam simply gave his sister a sympathetic nod and went back to his dinner and tea. Hadley studied his face as she turned a thought over in her mind while wringing her napkin beneath the table. She could picture Uta with her long, white, woven hair and the ossified pins sticking out of her mouth as she said it to her. Maybe he doesn’t like women. The last thing she said to her was to talk to him, and this moment of peace was as good as any, otherwise she would never have the audacity to bring it up. Her brother always was a man of infinite patience, and she hoped he would endure her impudence once more. Swallowing hard, she pushed the bits of carrot around her plate as she watched him.
“Do you still fancy Matilda?”
Adam inhaled his tea at the question, choking and wiping the moisture from his mustache. “Where did that come from? I haven’t spoken to Miss Meriwether in over a year! Anyway, she is engaged now.”
“I was just wondering what happened. I mean, when I get married, won
’t you be lonely here all by yourself?”
“Matilda and I wanted different things, and I like being a bachelor, Hadley, you know that. I’m in no hurry to be in a relationship.”
Hadley drew in a deep breath as she struggled to ask what she lacked the words for. “Adam, are you— are you in a Greek relationship?”
He looked up from his plate and stared into her eyes with his blue gaze more intense than she had ever seen it. The reply shot from his lips with the hard edge of suspicion, “What are you talking about?”
“Do you— do you like men?” From across the table, she could sense his discomfort and the stiffness that suddenly seemed to permeate every cell of his body. “If you do, that is fine. I never thought I would understand it, but I do now. No one can help who they love, and even though we have had our differences in the past, I want you to know I love you no matter what you feel,” she blurted as she reached out and put her hand over his. “You are my brother, and I don’t want any secrets between us. I want you to be happy.”
For a long moment, Adam glared at her, ignoring the sorrowful sag of her sympathetic eyes and her lax mouth as she waited for his answer. After twenty-four years of hiding and denial, he never expected this moment to come. He drew in a tight breath, but his ribs and the muscles of his back fought against it. The outrage that rose from within rejected all means of smothering the fire. Finally, he tore his eyes away and sat back, whipping his hand out from under his sister’s warm grasp.
“How long have you known?”
“Not long, and you?”
“Nineteen years,” he uttered in almost a whisper, trailing off into thought. Suddenly, he turned back to her, his eyes aflame. “You can’t tell a soul.”
“Surely, you do not think Eilian would think ill—”
“I said, no one!” Adam slammed his hands on the table and leapt from his seat, looming over his doppelganger as his voice reached a roar she did not know could come from him. “You may not tell Lord Sorrell any of this!”
“But why? He does not seem fazed by it,” she replied meekly.
“You don’t understand anything, Hadley. Women handle things differently from men. When a woman hears something she doesn’t like, she will cry and grieve or shout, but she will eventually be resigned to what transpires. Men… men aren’t like that. When men hear something they don’t like and don’t trust, they react not with tears but with violence. Even a man who appears enlightened still has that side. He can’t shed his nature, Hadley. I have kept up this charade too long to have you ruin it.”
As he turned toward the door, she called for him. “Do you have so little faith in men even though you love them?”
“I have seen what they are capable of, what I am capable of.” Her brother’s chest heaved once again as the thought climbed up the straining cords of his neck. “I had to break Matilda Meriwether’s heart because of all this. Do you know what it is like to tell someone you will never marry them because you love another? To degrade yourself for someone else’s well-being. She thinks I’m a lout. They all do. Either I play the lout or I come clean as a sodomite. Which do you think brings us all the least pain?” A tremulous sigh escaped his lips. “If you expose me, Hadley, you will have no family left to your name.”
Before she could speak, he stormed through the halls and up the stairs, his boots ringing on the polished wood. Hadley flinched as his door slammed shut above her head, leaving her alone in the silence with only the chicken carcass for company. Never before had she realized how utterly alike they were until the tables were turned and she was on the receiving end of the Fenice temper. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she tucked her hair behind her ears as the tears burned her lids. What had she done?
Chapter Thirty-Two:
Prodigal Children
“I have raised the most thoughtless, prodigal, irresponsible children!” Millicent Sorrell seethed as her boys stood before her in the parlor of her Grosvenor Square home.
Even after two decades, little about the scene had changed. Eilian and Dylan stood with their hands folded behind their backs in guilt-ridden silence, absorbing the verbal blows their mother dealt from the comfort of the sofa. They winced in unison as her voice reached an ear-piercing screech. As her rant descended into listing the grave physical effects attributed to their absences, they exchanged knowing looks. Their mother’s martyrdom was nothing new to them. Eilian glanced at his brother, who was, as always, impeccably pressed and dressed in a pristine suit of mourning black. His dark blonde hair was neatly combed and pomaded to a lustrous sheen. The archaeologist had caught a glimpse of his own poor excuse for a reflection when he first entered the house. Even after four days on the express dirigible, his face was still tinted with green and red bruises, and the high collar of his shirt and cravat barely covered the finger prints left on the delicate flesh of his neck. He had come directly from the landing fields to Grosvenor Square and felt incredibly conspicuous in his Norfolk jacket while his mother wore widow weeds so elaborate and littered with symbolism that Queen Victoria would have been envious.
“Do you know who was here to comfort me after your father passed on? The servants! Strangers! Lord and Lady Bedford and even their daughters were at my side while my sons were off gallivanting all over creation.”
A sniveling string of sobs broken up by shrill keening emanated from the hall, reminding Eilian of the stories of Irish banshees he had heard as a child. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes as Constance deliberately strode past the open door, dabbing her eyes with her cambric handkerchief and wailing slightly louder. Despite it only being her father-in-law who died, a man she cared less about than her lady’s maid, she had several full mourning dresses and veils made for the occasion. The Countess of Dorset clenched her jaw and rubbed her forehead in frustration as Dylan’s wife blubbered past the parlor again.
“Dylan, tell your wife her grieving widow act is not appreciated. I’m not stupid. I know she had no attachment to your father. The only reason she’s crying is because she had to cut her trip to Paris short.”
“Mother,” Dylan began with patronizing sweetness, “she has never had a death in her family. She does not know the appropriate level of grief she should display.”
“Second mourning and as much grief as she actually feels! And you,” she added, pointing an accusatory finger at Eilian, “your brother at least had the decency to tell me when he was leaving the country. I even had to send your uncle to fetch you. You’re lucky he was nearby. Where is Malcolm?”
“He went to the Foreign Office to pick up something.”
Millicent Sorrell drew in a deep breath, her dull, crepe dress crinkling as she exhaled loudly. “Of course he did. He can never just come home, can he?” Her eyes locked onto her eldest son’s face. “What happened to your eye?”
“I broke up a fight and was hit in the process,” he replied stiffly, thankful he didn’t have to speak very often as his ribs sparked with pain at each inhalation.
“Savages,” Dylan chided.
“Of the English persuasion.”
Lady Dorset smiled slightly as Eilian crossed his arms, revealing that both limbs terminated in hands but narrowed her eyes at the dark grey color of his right hand. “You are wearing your prosthesis again. It looks different.”
“I bought a new one after the party incident.”
“Well, let’s see it.”
He slowly pulled off his jacket, half from the ache in his ribs that greatly limited the range of motion in his arm and half from the fear of how she was going to react. Turning away from his mother, he unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeve nearly up to his shoulder to reveal the entirety of the prosthesis and its support brace. Dylan smirked as he followed behind his brother, eager to see their mother’s reaction to such a sight. Her eyes ran over the arm, but her smile faded as she reached his elbow.
“What have you done to yourself?” she cried as she stared at the point where flesh met metal beneath the cotton sleeve. “Is— i
s it attached?”
“Yes, and it is a vast improvement over the other one.”
“But the other was so natural.” Lady Dorset watched in horror as he flexed the hand, making the joints squeal to life. “This is a— a monstrosity!”
“Mother, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. You should be happy. Look, I can pick things up now.”
As he reached for her teacup on the side table, she clasped her hand over it. “Your father would be horrified by how you have mutilated yourself! What will other people think? You don’t see other people walking around with rods and springs sticking out of their arms.”
“Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what others think of me,” he yelled, surprising even himself. “What would you have me do, Mother? Would you like me to have a surgeon cut open my arm and remove it for the sake of your delicate sensibilities?”
“You had surgery without telling me!”
Dylan smiled and stifled his laughter as his mother fell back, feigning the vapors. He couldn’t have envisioned his brother’s homecoming any better. He never had to lift a finger to make Eilian look bad. As blissful thoughts of disinheritance danced through his head, he was jolted forward with a sharp smack to the back of his shoulder. Whipping around to scold the clumsy servant who hit him, Dylan met his uncle’s cold glare. Malcolm Holland was the only man who struck a twinge of fear into his heart. He could never put his finger on why, but the man was intimidating. After years without seeing him, he forgot how much he resembled Eilian, but he knew his uncle disliked him more strongly than his brother ever did. Lord Newcastle saw the boys for who they really were and let Dylan know with gestures and barbs that he was onto him.
“Did you know about this?” Lady Dorset demanded as Malcolm stood beside Eilian, who was busy clumsily fixing his sleeve with trembling fingers.
The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Box Set Page 23
