“Wait.” Amaranthus’s voice stopped him at the door, and he turned. She was still pale and curdled, and her hands were knotted just under her breasts, as though to keep her heart from escaping. She had regained her self-possession, though, and her voice trembled only a little as she focused her gaze on Lord John.
“I have to tell you something, Uncle John.”
“No,” William said quickly. “You don’t need to say anything right now, cousin. Just—just rest a bit. You’ve had a shock. So have we all.”
“No,” she said, and shook her head slightly, dislodging a few blond strands. “I do.” She made an effort to smile at William, though the effect was rather ghastly. His own heart felt like a stone in his chest, but he did his best to smile back.
Lord John rubbed a hand down over his face, then went to the sideboard, where he took down a bottle and shook it experimentally. It sloshed reassuringly.
“Sit down, Willie,” he said. “Tea can wait. Brandy can’t.”
WILLIAM WONDERED VAGUELY just how much brandy his father and uncle got through in a year. Beyond its social functions, brandy was the usual first resort of either man, faced with any crisis of either a physical, political, or emotional nature. And given their mutual profession, such crises were bound to occur regularly. William’s own first memory of having been given brandy dated from the age of five or so, when he had climbed up the stable ladder in order to get on the back of Lord John’s horse in its stall—something he was firmly forbidden to do—and had been promptly tossed off by the startled horse, smacking into the wall at the back of the stall and sinking, dazed, into the hay between the horse’s back hooves.
The horse had trampled about, trying—he later realized—to avoid stepping on him, but he still remembered the huge black hooves coming down so near his head that he could see the nails in the shoes, and one of them had scraped his cheek. Once he’d got enough breath to scream with, there’d been a great fuss, his father and Mac the groom rushing down the stable aisle in a clatter of boots and calling out.
Mac had crawled into the stall, speaking calmly to the horse in his own strange tongue, and pulled William out by the feet. Whereupon Lord John had quickly checked him for blood and broken bones, and finding none, smacked him a good one on the seat of his breeches, then pulled out a small flask and made him take a gulp of brandy for the shock. The brandy itself was nearly as big a shock, but after he’d got done wheeking and coughing, he had felt better.
He was actually feeling slightly better now, finishing his second glass. Papa saw that his glass was nearly empty and, without asking, picked up the bottle and refilled it, then did the same for himself.
Amaranthus had barely sipped hers and was sitting with both hands wrapped about the small goblet. She was still pale, but she’d stopped shaking, William saw, and seemed to have regained some of her usual self-possession.
Papa was also watching her, William saw, and while a small tingle of apprehension went down his spine, he realized that his sense of restored calm had as much to do with Lord John’s presence as with his brandy. Whatever was about to happen, Papa would help deal with it, and that was a great relief.
Amaranthus seemed to think so, too, for she put down her goblet with a small clink and, straightening her back, looked Lord John in the eye.
“It’s true,” she said. “I told William that I knew about Ben—I mean, I told him just now; he didn’t know before. That really is what happened to Ben.” She took a visible gulp of air, but finding no further words to expel with it, breathed audibly through her nose and took another minuscule sip of brandy.
“I see,” Lord John said slowly. He rolled his own cup to and fro between his palms, thinking. “And I suppose that you were afraid to tell us—to tell Hal, rather—because you thought he mightn’t believe you?”
Amaranthus shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I was afraid to tell him for fear he would believe me.” The dark indigo of her gown had turned her eyes to a pure, pale blue. The picture of sincerity, William thought. Still, that didn’t mean she was lying. Not necessarily.
“Ben had told me a lot about the family,” she said. “After we met. About his mother, and his … his brothers, and you. And about the duke.” She swallowed. “When Ben made up his mind—to—to do what he did, he sent for me. I came to meet him in Philadelphia; Adam was with Sir Henry there, and Ben meant to tell him—Adam, I mean, not Sir Henry—as well.”