What the devil were Sophie and Braddon doing on their long drives, if they were not conducting an affair? Patrick’s stomach twisted. No man and woman spent that quantity of time together without … And Sophie had such a contented air about her.

Later that week, Patrick looked up from his shipping accounts to see his twin standing before him.

“Alex!”

If Alex was a little surprised to have his normally undemonstrative brother almost knock over the table in order to give him a hug, he said nothing.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Patrick said lamely.

Alex arched an eyebrow, a smile hovering around his mouth. “Let me guess … you’ve bollixed up your marriage, in the style of a Foakes male, and now you would like me to help you sort it out.”

“Not at all,” Patrick said, meeting Alex’s eyes without flinching.

“Nonsense,” Alex retorted. “You don’t think I dragged Charlotte all the way to London in this weather just to have you shrug me off, do you?”

Patrick stared at him in frustration. “I didn’t ask you to come up,” he pointed out.

“You didn’t have to,” Alex reminded him, getting an edge in his voice. Oddly enough, although the twins were unable to sense each other’s physical pain, one knew instantly if the other was emotionally wounded. When Alex’s first marriage went gravely awry, Patrick suffered for months from an anxious stomach. “Cut rope, Patrick.”

There was a moment of silence. “All right,” Patrick finally said, turning his back to Alex and walking across the room to stare out the window. March snow was wearily drifting into puddles of rainwater. “I’ve bollixed up my marriage in proper Foakes style, but I don’t think there is anything you can do about it, thank you.”

Alex waited for him to continue.

“We’re no longer sharing a bed,” Patrick said, turning around, “and I don’t know how to remedy the situation.”

“Was it your choice or hers?”

“Mine, damn it! But that’s just it. I didn’t make a choice. I don’t know how it happened. We had a fight over something absurd, and I didn’t come home that evening—”

“A heinous error,” his brother interrupted.

“I went to my warehouse, not to a brothel.”

“My advice regarding marriage is never to leave the house until a quarrel is resolved,” Alex remarked. “Women never forgive you for it. Charlotte would tear me limb from limb.”