Jack closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. It almost looked, Thomas thought, as if he were trying to obliterate a memory.

“It’s going to be hideous today,” Jack said.

Thomas nodded slowly. It was an apt description.

“It’s going to be a bloody circus.”

“Indeed.”

They sat there, doing nothing, and then they both looked up at precisely the same moment. Their eyes met, and then Thomas glanced to the side, over at the window.

Outside.

“Shall we?” Jack asked.

“Before anyone—”

“Right now.”

Thomas set down his half-drunk glass of brandy and stood. He looked over at Jack, and for the first time he felt their kinship. “Lead the way.”

And it was strange, but as they mounted their horses and rode off, Thomas finally recognized the lightness in his chest.

It was freedom.

He did not particularly want to give up Wyndham. It was…

Him. Wyndham. It was him. That’s who he was.

But this was wonderful. Sneaking off, tearing through the dawn as it rose over the roads…

He was discovering that maybe there was more to him than his name. And maybe, when all was said and done, he’d still be whole.

Chapter 19

Thomas found the ride to Maguiresbridge surprisingly pleasant. Not that he’d expected the countryside to be anything but picturesque, but the circumstances of the day did not lend themselves toward an amiable outlook. As for Jack—he seemed uninclined toward conversation, but he did occasionally provide bits and pieces of the local history.

Jack had enjoyed growing up here, Thomas realized. No, more than that, he’d loved it. His aunt was a lovely woman; there was no other way to describe her. Thomas was quite sure that she would have made a wonderful mother. Certainly Cloverhill would have been a far more enjoyable place to be a child than Belgrave.

Ah, irony. By all rights, Jack had been robbed of his inheritance. And yet Thomas was beginning to feel that he had been the one cheated. Not that he’d likely have had a more pleasant childhood were he not the Wyndham heir; his father would have been even more bitterly tempered living in the North, known to all as a factory owner’s son-in-law.

Still, it did make him wonder. Not of what might have been, but of what could be. He had made it a mission not to emulate his father, but he had never given much thought to what sort of father he himself might someday prove to be.

Would his home be adorned with miniatures, the painted frames worn down by too much handling?

Of course, that presupposed that he had a home, which was very much still up in the air.

A small village came into view, and Jack slowed, then stopped, staring into the distance. Thomas looked at him curiously; he didn’t think that Jack had meant to pause.

“Is this it?” he asked.