by Rose Lerner
She shook her head. “Was he very unhappy?”
Ash couldn’t even look at her. He couldn’t watch for her reaction. “He was the proudest, stubbornest man I ever met, and I knocked all the fight out of him.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod. “Then I expect you want a new profession. I’m offering you one.”
That was it? “But—”
She sighed. “Loyalty isn’t—you know this. You might as well have chosen a brother at blind man’s bluff, and you stuck by him all the rest of your life. Was it because you would have felt guilty if you didn’t? Did it make you unhappy, to give things up for him?”
Ash shook his head. “I thought they were good swaps for what I got.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “But you know, I got Rafe, who is, by my estimation, the most wonderful person in the world. You’d only get me, and I turn melancholy at odd times and lie about strange things for no reason.”
“So do I,” said Lydia. “Rafe hurt that old man too.”
There was nothing to say to that. If he said it was all his fault, she wouldn’t agree. But he knew it was true.
“You can’t change the past,” she said. “I never told anyone this…”
In spite of everything, his ears pricked up.
“The night my father died, I told him not to ride home. I told him he’d had too much champagne. But he said, ‘Don’t fuss, Lydia, I know that road by heart and so does this horse’, and I was happy and busy and didn’t want an out-and-out argument, so I shrugged and let him go. Now he’s dead, and Jamie is an orphan.”
Oh. Oh, his poor Lydia. As if that were the same, at all. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I. I’ll never forgive myself. For days after, all I could think about was going back and doing it differently. But we can’t ever go back. We all do things we can’t forgive ourselves for, and we can’t change them. Some of them are worse than others, maybe. I’m not telling you not to be sorry. But what good will it do anyone to send me away? Will it change what happened? Will it take away one drop of Mr. Maddaford’s unhappiness?”
In spite of himself, he smiled. “I think seeing me miserable comforted him plenty.”
Her eyebrows lifted wryly. “Oh, well in that case.”
“You’re right. I can’t change it. But I can try to be better in the future. That’s what I’m doing: trying to be better. I’m trying not to hurt you any more than I already have.”
“Then stay with me,” she said. “Because I know that if it comes to that, I’d be happier living under another name with you in some port town than I would be living without you at the Dower House. Change your name back to Cohen and grow a beard, and who could find us?” She tapped her mouth with her forefinger, consideringly. “In fact, it might be nice to take a few months’ holiday now and then and do that anyway.”
That would be nice. He couldn’t quite breathe with how nice it would be. He couldn’t breathe with how complete this reprieve seemed. “What would you do in some port town?”
She smiled a little pityingly, as if the answer should have been obvious. “People need help everywhere. I’d do what I do at home.”
“What about your brother?” Don’t push your luck, he thought instinctively. But he always did push his luck, didn’t he? And as much as he loved walking the cliff-edge, she made him believe for the first time in his life that ground could be solid under his feet, if he had the courage to push far enough.
He remembered thinking that if he showed her his secret drawers, she’d put things back where she found them. But it was more than that. Maybe— It felt dangerous even to hope for it. He poked at the thought carefully, looking for the sharp edge he knew must be there.
Maybe she’d like what she found in those drawers. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could show her that would make her want to leave him.
She gave him a brilliant smile. “I’ll always have my brother. No matter what.”
He blinked, realizing what that meant. “You sorted things out with him, then.”
“I had to. I needed him on my side.”
She was magnificent. She’d untangled her own heart, to help Ash.
“I know you’ve loved women before, and left them.” The deep coffee brown of her dress made her eyes, fixed on his, seem darker and her hair stand out like jewels on dark velvet. “I know you’ve liked people and taken their money. But you’ve also been a brother. Love isn’t just a feeling, is it? It’s a choice. I’ve chosen you. You have to choose too. Now.” She hesitated. “Well, I suppose if you need time to think it over…”
He hated to see her uncertain. But he had to do this honestly, instead of pleasing her now and balancing the accounts in his head later. “I do. I need—I need a moment, to think about everything you’ve said.”
She sat down in a chair and waited patiently.
There was no doubt Ash loved her. But he’d loved all his mistresses when he was a boy. He’d chosen girls because they were kind to Rafe, and he’d fallen for them anyway.
He’d always known, though, that he’d throw them to the wolves in a second if he had to, to protect himself and Rafe. Because he’d known it, he’d never let love matter.
Could he have been happy for life with one of them? Maybe, maybe not. It was hard to imagine he could ever fit with anyone else the way he fit with Lydia, neater than a dovetail joint. But he’d never given himself the chance to find out.
Lydia wanted to let love matter.
He felt a surge of pride at the idea, the kind of pride that came from seeing someone else achieve something that you aspired to someday. Ash had never realized he wanted that. He’d thought it would hurt to open his heart, but suddenly he understood: it was keeping it closed that had been hurting all along. He had connections with twenty people a day, and he’d turned away from all of them. He’d ripped them out and pretended it didn’t sting. He’d thought there was so little to him that caring about one person at a time was all he could manage.
He’d been wrong to leave her. He’d torn out half his heart to do it, and hadn’t seen any reason not to. But he’d been wrong.
I’m not nothing, he told himself. I was never nothing. My feelings aren’t nothing. And there’s plenty of me to go around. It felt wonderful, better than stepping out of a prison cell, better than a bath when you were covered in a week’s dirt.
People torture themselves, you know, he’d said to her once. They put themselves through a regular Spanish Inquisition, and nobody asked them to do it. Nobody enjoys it but themselves. He’d always been far too easy on himself, true, but he was right about that—nobody ever enjoyed self-flagellation but the person doing it. He could throw all this away and pretend it was justice, pretend he’d atoned, or he could make a new profession out of making people happy. Starting with Lydia.
Ash chose.
“I want you. I’ll never leave you. I promise.”
“I told you that you could lie to me,” she said, “and you can. You can lie to me about your favorite food, you can tell me you love the curtains when you don’t. You can lie about everything but this. Me, and only me, forever.”
“You and only you, forever,” Ash repeated. He smiled. “And I adore the curtains.”
She nodded, all the tension leaving her body. As she slumped back into her wing chair, he saw all at once how tired she was, how much he’d frightened her. “Then I promise you the same thing. Convenient, isn’t it, that we’re already married?”
They’d be sharing that clean bed tonight after all. “I want you,” he said. “I’ve wanted you for days.” He went down on his knees to kiss her, desperately. It was oddly like that last morning in the Dower House, and nothing like it. He felt lightheaded, lighthearted. He understood now that this was more than luck. It was a miracle. A miracle they’d created themselves, together.
She kissed him back, and then she said, “
Dinner first. Our brothers are waiting, and so are the servants, and anyway I don’t want you to faint halfway through.”
But they stayed there a little longer, talking and kissing, before she got up to open the door.
Lydia felt as if she’d used up all her words. She was floating on a blissful, exhausted cloud, and there wasn’t a single syllable in her head. She didn’t know how they were going to get through dinner.
But to her surprise, dinner was easy. Now that he wasn’t worried about his brother, Mr. Ralph proved entirely capable of charming Jamie, plying him with warm, bright smiles and apologetic good humor and questions that said Jamie was the most interesting person he’d met in months. Lydia was sure Jamie saw through it, but that didn’t mean he was immune. Probably Ralph’s good looks didn’t hurt, either.
Soon Jamie was talking of gardening and horses and exactly what a day at Oxford was like with less self-consciousness than Lydia had ever seen him display with strangers. Then he and Ralph spent some time agreeing that physical work with a tangible result was more satisfying than work that was all talking with people.
By the time dessert was brought, Jamie was flirting a little. Subtly, nothing undeniable, but definitely flirting. He even allowed that he preferred spring holidays to Christmas, which Lydia happened to know was a bald-faced lie. Greenhouse gardeners loved winter.
Ralph had succeeded where Mr. Cahill had failed in less than two hours and after terrorizing Jamie for several days beforehand. Lydia gave her husband a bemused look.
Mr. Cahill glowed at her. He’d been glowing all evening. Leaning in, he whispered in her ear, “I told you my brother is talented.”
“I thought you were being partial.”
Ralph caught Mr. Cahill’s eye about something and grinned. Mr. Cahill’s beam increased until he was nearly incandescent. Her heart swelled.
It occurred to Lydia that since his arrest had brought about Ralph’s return, Mr. Cahill would be more ready to forgive Jamie. It was a calculating thought, the kind she’d always pretended she didn’t have. But Mr. Cahill liked that she was calculating.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’ve never seen you so quietly content before. I’ve seen you happy, but—I thought that was how you were, that your joy had an edge of wildness. Like the delight Jamie takes in going much too fast and almost breaking his neck.”
He grinned at her. “I always felt like I was in a lightning storm before, with you. Surrounded by light and glory, but sure to be struck down at any moment.” He ran a finger down the back of her neck. “The sun’s out now.”
Lydia understood that. She’d also been drawn to Mr. Cahill by the contrast between how he made her feel and her misery over her father, and the knowledge that it couldn’t last with him had made it headier, more urgent. It had been glorious, but she was looking forward to something a little less desperate. She grinned back. “We probably won’t be quite this happy all the time.”
He leaned in and winked, and there it was again, that exhilarating rush like falling from a great height. “Care to put money on that?”
“You look tired,” said Ralph from across the table, smirking. “We should let you get to bed.”
Jamie looked embarrassed, but he stood.
“Just try to keep the noise down, will you? I’m in the room next door.”
Jamie made a face, obviously grateful that he was in the room on the far side of Ralph’s. He had flatly refused to share, much to Ralph’s good-humored scorn of people with too much money.
“Don’t congratulate yourself too soon, Jamie,” Mr. Cahill said. “He snores louder than anything we’re likely to do.”
“Ash!”
“He’d have found out soon enough. These walls are thin.”
Ralph turned to go, and Mr. Cahill said, “Wait. Ralph—I—I know we’re all tired and I meant to let you rest before—I don’t think I can sleep until I talk to you.”
The easy good humor fled Ralph’s face, leaving it closed and apprehensive. But he nodded.
Ash sat on the edge of Rafe’s bed, watching his brother clean his boots. There was nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other evenings in their lives. But everything was different.
“Thanks,” Ash said finally, when Rafe didn’t speak. “Thanks for telling her who we really were.”
Rafe shrugged. “I never would have believed she’d marry you anyway, not with that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her mouth air.”
Ash grinned. “You know how deceiving appearances can be.” He hesitated. “I hoped you’d marry her,” he confessed. “Really marry her. I thought it would be a good life for you.”
Rafe looked incredulous. “You’re joking.”
Ash shook his head. “I had a feeling about her.”
Rafe laughed. “What on earth gave you the idea I wanted to bury myself in the same small town from now till Judgment Day?”
“You wanted a respectable life,” he protested, startled.
“I said I wanted an honest life. It isn’t the same thing, Ash.”
Ash knew that. He just hadn’t realized Rafe did. He’d thought Rafe meant, I wish I’d grown up somewhere else, with someone else. He’d thought Rafe was saying something about him, when Rafe had been trying to talk about himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never knew it scared you that I lost weight in prison. I reckoned a few pounds would bother you less than a black eye or a broken nose, so when someone asked for my food, I gave it to them.”
Rafe sat on the bed. “You can stop apologizing. You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“Then that’s all you can do.” Rafe sighed. “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I didn’t mean for us to part like that.”
“You had a right to be angry.” Ash hesitated. “Do you—do you wish I’d left you in the workhouse?”
Rafe shook his head vehemently. “Of course not. I’m glad to be your brother. I’m proud to be your brother. But we were both finished with that life. You know we were. You simply didn’t want to admit it, any more than you’d ever admit when something was wrong.”
He remembered Rafe dropping his muffler around Ash’s neck, muttering, You never dress warmly enough. Ash had always thought he was protecting his brother by pretending everything was all right, and instead he’d only taught Rafe that he needed careful watching, that Ash couldn’t be trusted to know when something was wrong. Rafe had kept watching him even after he left, and he’d been right to. He’d saved Ash. It was a humbling realization, that his little brother had been looking after him all this time. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for being sorry.” Rafe smiled crookedly. “Ash, I’m angry. I’ll be angry for a long time. But you always say that anyone who tells you he isn’t angry with his parents is either lying to the world or lying to himself. I’ve been doing both for a long time. It’s nice to just be angry instead. It makes me like you more.”
Tears stung Ash’s eyes. “I love you,” he said, because he didn’t know what to say. “I wish there were words for how much.”
“I know. I’ve always known that.” He hesitated. “I’m not going to Canada, and I’m not joining the army.”
Ash tried to contain his relief. “Do you know what you’d like to do instead?”
Rafe shrugged. “There’s no hurry. I can do whatever I like in the meantime.”
Ash smiled. He might not have given Rafe a trade, but he’d given him the ability to talk his way into a job without references. “Write to me, will you? Every fortnight or so? Just to tell me you’re safe. And if you ever need anything—”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “I’ll apply to your bankers.”
Ash laughed.
“Do—do you want me to write in English?”
English was safer. Rafe had been a child when they left London, and Ash had kept him
safe as best he knew how. Now Rafe was old enough to choose for himself. “Write in whatever language you like,” Ash said in Yiddish. His native language felt unfamiliar on his tongue, his mouth shaping the words awkwardly.
Rafe looked stunned. “I want to ask you something,” he said in the same language.
Ash hadn’t expected the sound of it to affect him so strongly, but it did. The Dower House was home now, but this would always be where he was from. “Anything.”
Rafe pulled Leah’s handkerchief from his pocket and turned it over in his hands. “Can I keep this?”
Ash nodded. “Carry it in good health.” He’d said those words so many times, they rolled off his tongue without effort. He hadn’t lost this at all. It would come back, if he let it.
Rafe stroked the faded L with his thumb. “What name did she give you? Your mother?”
Ash made a face. “Rafe—oy, I—if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. Just because you want it. But that name—I wouldn’t think to turn around if someone called it after me on the street, and there’s nobody living who’d know it to call. I’m Asher Cohen. It isn’t less my name because some man with a beard didn’t write it down according to the law.”
Rafe looked a little forlorn. “Does that mean you’ll be Ashford Cahill in twenty years?”
“Of course not. I plan to live a respectable life, not an honest one. I’ll die Asher Cohen. I promise.” He shook his head in bemusement. “Lydia told me tonight she wants to raise money for Jewish charities. She’s more reckless than I am, I swear.”
“You should do it.”
“And so are you!”
Rafe laughed. “Consider it, anyway.”
“I’ll consider it,” Ash promised. Why not? Lydia had actually spoken of working with Lady Tassell—who apparently was already acquainted with a number of leading Jewish philanthropists in London—and if she was willing to consider that, who was he to be stubborn? “What about you? Are you going to change your name? It’s more fun than you’d think.” He hoped his apprehension wasn’t written on his face as plainly as Rafe’s had been.
