Bound by Love Page 8

  “Good day,” the man said cordially, as he brought his horse to a stop. “Have you lost your way, sir?”

  “No,” Jared said, “I have found my way back, sir.” There was a moment of silence. “Have you?” the man asked Jared thoughtfully.

  He knows! Damn his soul, he knows, Jared thought with a mixture of fury and jubilation. And why not? All his life, he’s had nightmares about someone riding up to his house and saying this to him.

  “Well then, sir. I am Alveston, of Hawkstone Hall,” the man said quietly.

  “No,” Jared said, tensing so much that his horse danced a step in reaction to the clenching of the muscles in his thighs. “I don’t think so. I am Alveston of Hawkstone Hall.”

  “Is he mad?” one of the other men cried, as the other brought his horse close to his host and shouted, “I’ll help run him off, Alveston!”

  “No,” the man who had called himself Alveston said, raising one hand to quiet them. He didn’t take his eyes off Jared. “Tell me, sir. You don’t seem to be a madman. I am Alveston. This is my home; these are my friends. You are a stranger here. Why should you say that you are me?”

  “No, I am not mad,” Jared sneered. “And I am not you, thank God, nor would I want to be.”

  “The effrontery!” one of the other men cried, but was silenced when he saw the look in Jared’s eyes and the deadly serious, fixed expression that grew on the face of the man who called himself Alveston.

  “Indeed? And why so?” the earl of Alveston asked too calmly.

  “Because I don’t claim a title that is not mine. I did not inherit the title through the kidnapping of the rightful earl and the murder of his brother.”

  Everything grew very still. All Jared could hear, above the pounding of the blood in his ears, was far-off birdsong and the restless sounds of the horses held still as the three men stared at him.

  “No,” the man who looked so much like Jared told him, his blue eyes infinitely sad, “I imagine you did not. I did, however. And though I regret my brother’s death to this day, I’m the only one who deserves to succeed him, although God knows,” he said quietly, “no one on this earth could succeed him. He was the best boy I ever knew and would have been a greater man than I could ever hope to be. Come, friend,” he said, returning from wherever he’d been in his mind, “enough of this. What is your quarrel with me?”

  But now Jared was ashen beneath his tan. His hand went beneath his coat to where his pocket pistol lay concealed. His voice came out a harsh whisper. “Do you claim to have lost your brother, too? God’s teeth! Do you take everything from me—name, title, and now, my poor lost brother, too? They gave you a fine tale to tell, didn’t they? You get everything—tragedy and all? No, no, that I won’t allow. It is bad enough that I was banished and my brother killed—but to have you take our story, too? Your father, may he rot in hell, whoever he was, may have done his best to erase me from the face of the earth, but I won’t let him twist history. I am Jared Bellington, earl of Alveston. My brother Justin died that night. You are not he. If I have to fight you for the rest of my life, I will. But you will not kill me twice—and I would warn you not to make your second attempt now,” he said, drawing out his pistol.

  Though he’d grown pale, the other man didn’t flinch. Instead, he stared at Jared.

  “Jared?” he said in a hollow voice. “But Jared was swept away in the water and never seen again. He was trying to save me and was drowned.”

  “No,” Jared said, staring just as hard. “It was Justin who was swept away—gone, before my eyes.”

  “No, it was Jared. He was never seen again.”

  “Not in England, no,” Jared said. “I was washed to the shore, and when they found me, they bound me again and took me to London. They sold me to a soul driver and he sold me into bondage. In the Colonies. The Virginia colony. I’ve come back at last. But Justin drowned. I saw him disappear,” he said uncertainly, because the look on the other man’s face unnerved him. It was too close to blinding joy to believe.

  “No, no. I was washed ashore, and they didn’t find me, though I could hear them searching in the dark,” the other man said as he kept staring at Jared in wonder. “When they finally gave up and left, I dragged myself to a nearby farmhouse and told my story. I was lucky. The farmer was an intelligent man. He asked about my family. After he thought awhile, he asked if my mother had any brothers and then was smart enough to return me to one of them—my uncle John—and not to my home, where I obviously had enemies.”

  “Uncle John?” Jared echoed, lowering the pistol.

  The other man nodded, and said in a shaking voice, “Yes. He was the one who faced my guilty uncle on the dueling field—it was my father’s brother, my uncle Roland—and killed him for it. Then he exiled Roland’s family to the Continent, where they still are, I suppose, God rot them. He kept the whole thing quiet, as have I—the scandal, the family name.… But that doesn’t matter now,” he said, impatient with himself, “I called my brother—What did I call my brother, sir?”

  “’Jard’—at least my brother called me Jard,’” Jared said, shaking his head, refusing to believe what his eyes were now telling him, “but anyone would know that.”

  “Yes. And he called me ’Just.’ In Jard and Just I place my trust, my father jested, and so did we. But yes, you are right, anyone else might know.”

  The two men faced each other, their horses prancing in place. The other two riders held their breath as well as their horses’s reins, they didn’t want to miss hearing a word of this strange meeting.

  “But no one would know what we did that day, the day before we were carried away,” the other man finally said.

  “No, because it was forbidden,” Jared said., “so we couldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Because no one wanted us to go to the old mill alone.…”

  “But there was a grouse’s nest.…”

  “The number of eggs?”

  “Four,” Jared whispered, “but the amazing thing was that…”

  “Only three hatched, though we stayed most of the afternoon…”

  They fell still. Then, without taking their eyes off each other, each man slipped down from his horse. They stood facing each other, their heads cocked, like men squinting into a clouded mirror.

  “Jared? Are you truly Jared, returned to me?” the man said uncertainly.

  Jared could only nod. And then they fell into each other’s arms and embraced, rocking back and forth together. When they stepped apart, each man’s face was wet, but no one could say with whose tears.

  “Brother,” they said at the same time. And then they both laughed.

  *

  “And here’s the blue room—yes, still yellow—we couldn’t understand it then, and I still don’t. Lord, Jared! It’s you, my God, it’s you!” Justin said, for the twentieth time that day.

  “Yes, I’m here, though I still don’t believe it,” Jared answered, as he did with each exclamation from Justin. He felt they both must sound like drunken fools, but though they’d toasted each other often since they’d met that morning, what percolated through his veins now was astonishment, dizzying gratitude, and bliss, not wine.

  They walked through the house, arms around each other’s shoulders: one golden-haired, the other, wigless now, had tobacco-hued hair that hadn’t been sun-baked to gold; both were tall, broad-shouldered, and slender. They were laughing, remembering, and still testing each other—because the truth was so blindingly good that neither of them could accept it all at once. It was both wonderful and terrible. It was like a noose that tightened the more they struggled: The more they believed each other, the more they rejoiced; yet they knew the happier they became, the harder it would be for them if they found it was a lie.

  “And here’s the drawing room,” Justin said, flinging the door wide, watching Jared carefully.

  Jared stood and stared. It was more beautiful than he remembered, and he hadn’t thought that was possible. The glow of this room
had lit his dreams even in the darkest places. It was a long, high room, with a domed ceiling timbered with oak. Long mullioned windows took up the whole wall facing the front drive. Above them, set in dark oak, were many little shamrock-shaped trefoil windows, filled with brightly colored glass, making the day more brilliant than a starry night by casting long spears of radiantly tinted sunbeams down on the polished wooden floors.

  “I didn’t remember this,” Jared whispered, and Justin tensed. “I didn’t know then that the walls and floors were oak,” Jared said in wonder, “and that the fireplace had an obsidian mantel. I knew it was wonderful, but I didn’t realize how expensive it was,” he said, laughing. “Forgive me, my lord brother, but it’s the merchant in me talking now.”

  Justin smiled, but his smile was taut. He took his hand off Jared’s shoulder as they strolled into the room. He ran his hand down a long, dark oak side table. “Remember this?” he asked Jared casually.

  Jared grew quiet. “Yes,” he finally said. “It used to be in the main hall, by the staircase. And if you crawl under it, you might see our initials. But I’m not sure anymore. Back then, it seemed to me that they were an inch deep and a mile high, and I thought we’d be killed for carving them there. But now? They might only be scratches; we were very young and very afraid Nurse would catch us at it. Any more tests, brother?”

  Before Justin could answer, Jared went on, “I don’t expect you to kill the fatted calf yet, but I hoped—no,” he said, shrugging, “to be honest, I never hoped to find you, so how could I know what you’d think? I never thought anyone would question me, either. I didn’t think anyone but the guilty one would know me, and he certainly wouldn’t want to prove who I was. Truthfully, I thought I might be killed,” he said ruefully, “much less the fatted calf. So ask away; I would if I were you. It’s just…” He laughed humorlessly. “It’s just that I don’t know what I expect you to do.”

  “Nor do I,” Justin admitted. His expression was sober. “Jared, if it is you, you know this means my world is completely turned around.”

  “I know,” Jared said. “Mine, too. I don’t know what to do any more than you do. I was going to take vengeance. But Uncle John did that for me.”

  “Years ago,” Justin said. “And to be on the safe side, he cautioned Uncle Roland’s younger brother George to never even dream of interfering with me—not that he had to. George was afraid of his own shadow, and terrified of Roland, to boot. He was so grateful to Uncle John for—ah—removing Uncle Roland from the scene that he was practically in tears. Everyone at the funeral thought he was grieving for his brother, not crying from relief. He died five years ago, poor old fellow, and being very accommodating, he never married to leave behind jealous cousins to trouble me.” Justin chuckled.

  Jared’s smile slipped when he heard the word me. His face grew grave. Head down, he paced a few steps before he stopped and looked up at Justin. “You should have said ’to trouble us,’” he said.

  Before Justin could answer, Jared went on. “I can never prove who I am, you know, never. Not even to you, obviously. And I’ve made a new life for myself in Virginia. I’m prosperous now. Alfred made me a full partner. Don’t turn up your aristocratic nose, brother; it’s a thriving business. I’m rich now. What I’m trying to say…”—he ran a hand through his hair—”…is that the wind’s been taken from my sails. I came here to right a wrong. I found it was already done for me. Better yet, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, because you’re here. Do you know what that means to me?” He grinned, but then his smile faded again, and he paced a few steps away.

  When he looked at Justin again, his gray eyes were bleak. “I was prepared to take vengeance; I lived for it. But this? I’m trying to reason it out; it’s not easy, so bear with me. The way I see it, I can’t realistically hope to regain my place. When I grew up, I realized it was impossible. I—I’d like to stay awhile if it’s all right with you—and then I’ll go.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’ll go. Well, look at it,” Jared said angrily. “I appear from out of the past and say I’m Jared—which I am—but how can I prove it? I can’t, and that’s the truth. I can tell you everything we did together years ago because they’re bright in my memory—my memories were the only things that kept me going for a long time. But so what? You’re the only one who can remember most of them with me, and you were just a boy then. And here you are, an earl of the realm and a well-respected one. And I? I was a bond-boy. Do you know what that means, brother? Do you? Let me tell you, then: a bond-boy is the lowest of the low in every way. A boy is less than a man because he can’t work as hard, and a bond-servant is less than a slave. If a slave dies, you lose a sizable investment. You lose nothing but time and a little money if your bond-servant dies, and that only because they expect you to bury him. In fact, it’s cheaper if he does die, because if he lives to work out his bond, you have to let him go with some money in his pocket.

  “And so here I am, a bond-boy from the Colonies jumped up to a wealthy merchant—and claiming to be an earl? In short, brother,” Jared said harshly, “dreams might have kept me going, but I’m a realist now. I’m a merchant; I deal in facts and figures. You’re the earl of Alveston. I appear and claim to be your brother. So what? No court of law can prove it. There are no papers, no pictures, no witnesses. You yourself told me the men who kidnapped us were disposed of by other men our damned uncle hired immediately afterward. I can’t say who the man was who sold me into bondage. I can’t prove who I am now any more than I could then. I was beaten for saying it then. Now, I’d be mocked.”

  He put up his hands like a man surrendering in a duel.

  “At least let’s remain friends. I’ll go quietly, but first I’d like to see it all again. That’s all.”

  Justin stared at him. “Are you mad?” he asked incredulously. “Go? When you’ve just returned? When you’re the rightful earl, not I? I don’t doubt it anymore. Aside from your face, there’s too much no one else could know. No one. We were close—closer when our parents died. You know things no fraud could. Suppose you or some collaborator of yours had met Jared somewhere, sometime—they might know what kind of knot was used to tie us up that night or how cold the water was. But would they know our favorite place to swim? Not the pond, but that muddy little duck wallow we would run off to. We’d come home filthy, and no one knew why. We did. You did.”

  Justin faced his brother and challenged him, but not the way Jared thought he would. “If you were a pretender, you’d ask the name of Jared’s pet dog in case anyone ever asked you about it,” Justin said. “But would you even think of asking Jared what his favorite name for our old long-nosed vicar was? His favorite color, maybe even his favorite dessert—but our secret names for our least favorite things? Ye gods, man! Even Nurse didn’t know we called the vicar ‘Punch’ because of his nose. She’d have skinned us for it. But you knew. And then after all of that,” he said triumphantly, “you just offered to leave!”

  Justin smiled. “I doubted you at first. I was shocked. I think I was afraid of being disappointed. But I don’t doubt you anymore.”

  “But if I was clever, I would offer to go—knowing that you are indeed ’Just’— Jared said wryly.

  “Jared,” his brother said, looking at the hard face of the man before him, so like his own, but with eyes that had seen too much pain and privation. “I no longer doubt you. Take your rightful place.”

  “You would give all this up without a battle?” Jared asked in amazement.

  “It was never mine,” Justin said soberly. “I never flaunted the title; I developed a reputation for being a bit of a recluse, in fact. I think I never felt I really deserved it or the title. You do. It was always yours: you are the earl of Alveston. It’s as simple as that.”

  *

  It wasn’t, of course. The uncles were of two minds about it.

  “He has the look of Maria, no doubt about it,” said Uncle John, the youngest and most reasonable of Jared’s mother�
��s brothers.

  “Well, but so do all the Fentons, and God knows there are dozens of them—breed like rabbits,” Uncle Lawrence grumbled from the depths of his chair by the fire in the drawing room.

  “Bad lot, the Essex Fentons,” Uncle Martin grunted.

  Jared and Justin exchanged a bright glance, as though they were boys again, listening to their uncles discussing the world in their usual cantankerous way.

  “Maria was the beauty of the family,” Uncle John said with a sigh, and his brothers nodded in silent tribute to their dead sister. “And Charles was a likely rogue,” he added, and they rumbled agreement. “But a fair man, a good man, not like his brother—ah, but what’s done’s done. Now, as to the lad.”

  “Got the look, all right,” Uncle Martin muttered.

  “And Alveston here—ah, Justin here—he’s all set to hand over his coronet to him,” Uncle Lawrence said.

  “Alveston’s a boy,” Uncle Martin countered, and they all muttered agreement. A man with only twenty-six years to his name was a mere infant to them.

  “But the lad remembers him. Swears it’s him. I dare say I tend to agree,” Uncle Lawrence conceded. “Knows every detail of the story of that terrible night they was carried off, and the devil knows we hushed it up after, didn’t we? But he knows things we didn’t and that young Alveston—ah, Justin—had forgotten about, too.”

  “Has the look, the manner,” Uncle Martin put in, “and he remembers what I gave him on his sixth birthday—not only that, but what he said about it, too. Cheeky fellow. Every inch the nobleman, and only six then.”