He nodded. “Yes, a very good idea. Let me move these things and give us a working space.”

He stripped out of his jacket and unlooped his cravat, then rolled up his sleeves, took a long breath and went into the back corner of the room. She stood back as he moved around, pushing and lifting trunks and boxes without hesitation. As if he weren’t an earl who could ask a dozen men to do this for him.

“You asked about why I was taken away,” he said with a grunt as he lifted one trunk onto another. “One afternoon after church my mother and I came home to find my father in the midst of…er…some very amorous activities with my mother’s lady’s maid.”

Thomasina slapped a hand over her mouth in horror. “Oh no!”

“Yes.” He hesitated and his jaw tightened. “The countess was humiliated and angry. It was one of the few times I recall her mask of disinterest falling. They quarreled and my father laughed the whole thing off. Disgusted, she packed me up and took me away. He let me go, of course—he had his heir. He didn’t need his spare. I never saw him alive again.”

“How old were you?” she asked.

He swallowed as he motioned her forward into the space he had created. “Let’s see…sixteen? My father died five years later, when I was twenty-one and Solomon twenty-six.”

“You didn’t see your father or your brother for five years?” she asked softly, again stricken by how utterly painful such an idea was to her. She was uncomfortable with Anne being missing for less than two weeks. To go years without hearing her voice or seeing her face?

That seemed unbearable.

“The next time I saw my brother was at our father’s funeral service and he was a changed man. As irresponsible and wild as the earl who preceded him. We went out for a drink a few days later, to my club in London. My brother made a mess of things and got us both banned.”

She shook her head. “Was he sorry?”

“No,” he said simply. “He was never sorry. I cut myself away from him over time. I only saw him when it was absolutely necessary or when I bumped into him by happenstance. I worked hard to make my own reputation free of any ill repute in the hopes I could make something of myself and protect my mother some small bit. But Solomon’s antics affected me. Kept me from position and respect.”

He shrugged. “At any rate, it did me little good, and now I have a mountain to climb when it comes to reputation. I suppose that punishes you, as well.”

She moved forward and crouched before a trunk, unlocking it as she said, “I’ve spent my life with my reputation tied firmly to Juliana and Anne. I recognize the unfairness of being held to a standard that isn’t your own. I know you and I know you aren’t like your brother.”