How could he have been so damnably, utterly, unforgivably stupid?

Nineteen

“She has the look of the boys about her.” Nick went on peering at Barbara’s image, ignorant of Ethan’s world crashing to pieces. “I’m sure I was introduced to her, wasn’t I? Did she mention it?”

Ethan could say nothing, could do nothing save stand there with two little portraits clutched in his hands.

“Ethan?” Nick took a step toward him. “Are you all right?”

Ethan shook his head, his eyes on the portrait of his late wife. He’d paid well for it, and it was a good likeness, the lady’s gaze conveying a kind of brittle, mocking gaiety. At one side of the portrait a blond man stood, his back to the viewer, only a portion of his head and shoulder visible. The lady smiled at him, but also at the viewer, and the overall impression was one of irony, despite the subject’s compelling blond beauty.

The design had been Barbara’s. When Ethan had seen the completed image, he’d wanted to burn it on the spot.

“I assume that fellow on the left is you?” Nick asked, frowning.

Ethan considered lying then considered that Nick would figure out the lie sooner or later.

“It isn’t me,” Ethan said on a heavy sigh. He returned the miniatures to the quarter shelves, feeling moments trickle by like the sands in a glass.

Nick crossed the room to stand behind Ethan. “What aren’t you telling me?” He sounded wary and puzzled, not yet furious. He would be furious and likely stay that way.

Ethan would not turn and face him. “You don’t want to know, Nick.”

Behind him, Ethan felt Nick pull himself up to his full height. “I do want to know. Tell me, Ethan. What fellow is the lady regarding with such mocking irony?”

Ethan put his hand out and steadied himself on the wall, feeling winded or aggrieved and barely able to keep to his feet.

“She’s looking at you, Nick,” Ethan said, turning to behold the portrait. “My wife is looking at her lover, and that man is you.”

Nick backed away, expression horrified. “I did not dally with your wife, Ethan. I would have known… I didn’t…” He scrubbed a hand over his face, and Ethan watched as Nick’s nimble mind started sorting and comparing, recalling and rejecting.

Ethan could at least spare his brother the uncertainty.

“You didn’t even know I had a wife until this spring,” Ethan said. “You didn’t know I had sons or a wife.”

“But she was your wife,” Nick protested. “I have not slept with females named Grey. I haven’t, Ethan. I wouldn’t.”

“And how would you know what a woman’s last name was, Nick?” While Nick looked to be reeling with shock, all Ethan could muster was sadness. He dropped onto the couch, feeling as tired as Joshua had been acting. “You take their word for who they are, you take their bodies for what they want to share with you, or you did until you married.”

“Christ…” Nick eyed the portrait with what looked like loathing. “I slept with your wife. You’re sure?”

“She told you her name was Barbara Fitzherbert, thinking it a great jest to poke fun at Prinny’s old amour,” Ethan said. “She was angry at me, Nick, angry at her life. She’d had my child, and I remained unwilling to squire her about in society or admit her back to my bed. When I departed for business in Copenhagen, she went prowling, with revenge on her mind.”

Nick eyed Ethan with the same expression he’d turned on the portrait. “I cannot believe you haven’t killed me or at the least called me out. How long have you known about this?”

“Oh, let’s see.” Ethan closed his eyes, the better to toss all hope, all caution, and all sense to the wind. “Joshua is going on six, so nearly seven years.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “What has my nephew to do with this?”

Ethan said nothing, feeling pity for his brother, for himself, and even for the departed Barbara.

“Ethan…” Nick began to pace, a big, caged animal in the grip of more emotion than even his grand body could hold. “Please tell me I did not plant a cuckoo in your nest… I could not live… Ethan?”

Ethan could not give his brother those words.

Nick turned toward the door, and rather than let his brother bolt out of his life, Ethan was on his feet in an instant.

“Don’t leave.” Ethan was at the door, blocking Nick’s exit bodily. “It’s as much my fault as anyone’s, Nick.” It being Barbara’s scheming—not the child it had produced. Never Joshua.

“It can’t be your fault, damn it.” Nick backed away, looking like he wanted to destroy something, someone, anything. “How can you stand to look at me? I swived your wife, got her pregnant, and you’re my brother, Ethan.”

Ethan advanced on him, glad they were in a closed room where they were free to shout and worse. “That is the first sensible thing you’ve said: you’re my brother. So sit your bony arse down and listen to me.”

Nick closed his eyes, his big hands fisting. Ethan knew him and knew what he was thinking: I’ve betrayed the one person I never wanted to hurt, and we are supposed to solve it with talk?

Ethan shoved him down into a chair, taking the decision from him.

“Barbara was a kind of predator,” Ethan said, keeping his voice even with effort. “She spied me, staked out with new wealth and no masculine confidence, and trained her crosshairs on me. Lady Warne nudged me to take her on as a mistress, and at first, I could not believe my good fortune. She was skilled.”

Nick winced, nodded, and kept his silence.

“Too skilled,” Ethan went on. “Even I could discern in a short time Barbara was tolerating my attentions, even as she pretended to encourage them. I began to see her less and less, but she’d made her plans for me, and I was as doomed as you were.”

“I had choices, Ethan,” Nick protested softly. “I always had choices.”

“So did I,” Ethan shot back. “Barbara conceived Jeremiah with all the forethought and planning in the world. She knew I would not choose to allow my son to be born a bastard, and she knew I’d capitulate to whatever she demanded to make it so. We married, and she immediately began taking other lovers, though she was at least amenable to discretion.”

“Ethan, you don’t have to tell me this.”

“Yes, I do, so you will not blame yourself unnecessarily, Nick. You were stalked like prey, and I did not see it coming and did nothing to warn you. She went after me the same way and was still coming after me when she dragged you into her machinations.”

“I had a choice,” Nick repeated numbly.

“Nicholas!” Ethan glared at him, the urge to slap sense into the man nigh overwhelming. “Will you listen to me? When Barbara took up with her lovers, I warned her that our marriage was over. I would not escort her in public. I would not grant her marital favors. I traveled as much as I could. The more she begged and bargained and promised, the more excuses I found to leave her to her own devices. She told me she’d met you, and as much as threatened to have an affair with you. I didn’t think even she would go that far, but she delighted—delighted—in announcing she had conceived your child. She said it was a belated Christmas present.”

Nick stared at his hands in misery. “You’re sure? Sure Joshua is my son?”

“I made sure there was at least a scintilla of doubt, and realized that I’d been a fool. Had I continued paying my wife even the casual attention of a normal husband, she likely would not have strayed, or at least not as wildly.”

“I am going to be sick,” Nick said on a sigh. “You’re right. She was Barbara Fitzherbert to me. There weren’t many people in Town, because it was the winter holidays, and she’d been cast into my path for the month or so before. She was pretty, charming, available, and amenable. I still recall some relief when she told me she was leaving for the country after Twelfth Night. She watched me… It wasn’t a hungry gaze, but it made me uncomfortable.”

“I saw you on the first day of the New Year,” Ethan said. “Barbara’s mood had shifted, from wronged and bitter to gleeful, as if she had a wonderful secret. I decided to follow her, and she met you in the park.”

Nick nodded, though clearly details yet eluded his memory.

“Ethan, I am sorry. For whatever it’s worth, I am so bloody sorry I could shoot myself.”

Fortunately, he sounded as if the threat were rhetorical.

“I am sorry too, Nick.” To say that felt astoundingly good. “I should have told you I was getting married, should have told you when Jeremiah was born. I should have told you the truth of my marriage. I should not have let it become one more thing separating me from you and from my family.”

“Don’t be so bloody noble,” Nick said bitterly. “I was a stupid, heedless billy goat, and my weakness was used to hurt you. I hate that, and now we have a child conceived in the midst of this deceit and stupidity, and I don’t know how you can stand the sight of him, much less me.”

The answer to that was so simple Ethan should have seen it years ago. “Even if he’s your son, I had no choice but to love him.”

“My son.” Nick turned away, his voice dripping with self-loathing. “God help me, I will have to tell Leah this. Short of that, I will honor your wishes, provided no harm comes to Joshua.”

As an earl, Nick had influence that far exceeded Ethan’s, and maybe this was why the truth had remained Ethan’s secret for so long. That Nick would not wield his power unfairly came as a relief and brought with it a burden of compassion. “If you were his father, Nicholas, what would you wish for Joshua now?”

“Love him,” Nick said, voice breaking. “Love him like he was your own, because as far as I’m concerned, he is your own. He’s such a busy little man, all smiles and energy and galloping everywhere… Jesus.”