Chapter 17

At her permission, Adam rose and in one simple movement carried her around the bed. She laughed, wrapping her arms more tightly about his neck, but he shifted her on his hip like she weighed nothing. Carefully, he lowered her onto the sheets and climbed in beside her. Then he pulled her back to his chest. Emmeline wrapped an arm around him, feeling the way his heartbeat slowed.

"When was the last time you spent the night with a lady?" she asked, tracing her fingers across the soft smattering of hair that ran down to his navel.

"A lady?" He snorted. "Never."

"I'm the first?"

"You are. Is that a surprise?"

"I don't know," she said contemplatively, resting her head on his shoulder and feeling the way he rested his cheek on her hair. They were stretched out together, no parts of their bodies separate, as though they were no longer two but one. "I suppose I thought you were not… a stranger to intimacy."

"That depends on your definition. I'm a stranger to this."

"Tenderness?"

She felt his smile against her hair. "Is that what you would call it?"

"Well, how would you describe it?"

"Tenderness will do," he said after a slight pause.

She twisted so she could look at him. "Tell me what happened tonight that made you frustrated?"

His sigh felt as though it came from the deepest part of his soul. She felt it ripple through him. "That's a long story."

"I told you before, I'm your wife. There is nothing you have to hide from me."

"Menace," he said wryly, tugging at her hair in a way that made warmth bloom through her. "Very well. It concerns your Rickard Hansen, so I hope you're prepared."

She half smiled, though there was a nervous weight in the pit of her stomach. "He is not my Rickard Hansen."

"No, perhaps not." He sighed again. "The fact is, I have no idea what to do with him."

Emmeline twisted so she could get a better look at his face. Instead of that odd distance, there was nothing more than tired resignation on his face. A sense that he was attempting to come to terms with something she could not yet comprehend, but that weighed heavily on him, even after their mutual bliss.

She touched his face. This tenderness—yes, that truly was the term for it—and intimacy were still new to her. "Did you argue with him?"

"Perhaps that is the word." His smile was rueful, and she traced it with her fingertips. His skin was so different in texture from her own, and she could not help but marvel at it. "Initially, I confronted him because I knew there was something he was not telling me, but once I finally compelled him to tell me the truth, it was not what I had feared." He glanced at her, his eyebrows knitting together. "I thought he was here because he wanted you, but he was here for an entirely different reason. If he is to be believed—and regretfully I think he is—then we are brothers. Half-brothers to be exact."

Emmeline frowned, struggling to comprehend that. Rickard, who had been so jovial and charming, so utterly meek compared to her fierce husband, was Adam's brother? That seemed so incongruous with what she knew about them.

And yet, now that she considered Rickard's face in this new light, she could see how perhaps it might have come about. There was a certain similarity in their faces, in the lines of their jaws, and the particular way they held themselves, as though preparing for the worst.

"How?" she asked softly.

"My father married his mother, by all accounts." Adam's shoulders slumped as though a weight bore down on them. "He said nothing about the family he had in England, and Rickard only found out recently when his mother died."

"That must have been dreadful."

"And so he made the journey down here but was unsure how to broach the subject." Adam lay flat on his back, one arm curling around her waist, and ran his hand through his hair. "So now I must come to terms with the fact that not only was my father?—"

He pressed his lips together, but Emmeline remembered the sight of his bare back in the sunlight, and the marks on it. She had assumed those scars were from the Navy, but perhaps she was wrong and they had been from his father. That would explain Adam's clear disdain for the man, and the discomfort he occasionally showed when he was in this house.

"Is this not a good thing?" she asked, reaching up and cupping his cheek, turning his face to hers. "You have gained a brother."

"A half-brother."

"Even so, that is one more than you had before. This is a chance for a new start, Adam. A chance for you to get to know him." She smiled down at him, and he attempted to return the expression. "You have another member of your family."

A brother lost and another brother found,she wanted to say, but that wound was too fresh for her to dare touch it.

Adam tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Your propensity to find the best in every situation never ceases to astonish me—even when there is nothing good to be found."

"On the contrary," she said brightly. "There is always good to be found."

"Except for in me?"

"Adam." She laughed, partly in shock at the wry note in his voice. "Do you truly think I see no good in you? When I am lying here in your arms instead of retreating to my room? You would have left me if I had insisted, would you not?"

His eyes searched hers. "I would have."

"Is that not in itself proof that you are a better man than you are making yourself out to be?" She shook her head, a little impatient. "Enough of this nonsense, Adam. At least promise me you will consider getting to know Rickard. Learn who he is. Perhaps you may even learn to love him."

"Do you believe that's possible?" he asked, his gaze intent on hers. "That one may learn to love?"

She closed her eyes as she snuggled against him, listening to the sound of his heartbeat. "I think that is part of human nature," she said softly, feeling the way his arm curled more securely around her. "We always find things to love, even if they are not what we thought they would be when we set out on this journey."

Already sleepy, she did not hear his reply before drifting off to sleep.

* * *

Mindful of what Emmeline had told him, Adam did his best to connect with Rickard. His first step was to invite the man back to the house. Now that he was confident Rickard was not interested in seducing Emmeline—and their intimate exploits had caused a certain restlessness in him to sleep, too—he felt far more comfortable at the idea that Rickard had been under his roof.

He'd only ever had one brother, and despite being in the Navy, he had not had any close friendships there, either. Nicholas was the closest thing he had to a best friend, and even Nick had been closer to William.

As a result, when Rickard returned to the house, Adam was regrettably at a standstill. In his mind, all he could see was his father and his betrayal—a betrayal of such magnitude that he could hardly countenance it.

In the end, Emmeline was the one to smooth things over. Naturally, she was always the one to take steps to make him a better person.

"Rickard," she said when the man entered the dining room.

It was like the way Adam had returned home all those weeks ago to find Rickard dining with his wife, although this time Rickard was the one returning.

They were both equally discomfited, it seemed.

"Adam has told me everything," Emmeline said, extending a hand to Rickard, which he accepted with a look of muted relief.

Now that Adam knew the truth, he was beginning to interpret Rickard's looks as stemming less from admiration but gratitude. Emmeline had made his life at the castle so much easier, and for that, he was grateful. This made sense, even if Adam had the ridiculous urge to tuck Emmeline away so no one else would be tempted to look at her with such warmth.

"I trust you are not too disappointed," Rickard said with his trademark charming smile, a slight lilt to his words. "I know I was not immediately upfront with the reason behind my presence here, and I know, Sir, that it must have come as a shock." He directed those words to Adam.

"Oh, call him Adam." Emmeline took Rickard's arm and practically dragged him to the spot beside Adam. "You must both learn how to get along. You are not so far apart in age, after all. And it's an exciting thing to learn that your family is larger than you once believed it to be. I would be delighted if I discovered I had another sister."

Adam fixed his attention on Rickard. There were such similarities between them, he noted now that they were standing closer to each other. "My wife is correct. I would like to get to know you very much."

A smile spread across Rickard's face. "I'm relieved to know that. You are the only family I know of in the world."

Emmeline let out a sound of sympathy, but Adam merely nodded. He was in precisely the same boat. "Tell me something about you."

"Everything I've told you so far about myself is true," Rickard said with a nervous laugh. "I hail from Glasgow, as I've mentioned, and I grew up as an only child. I had a sister, my mother tells me, but she died when I was very young, and I don't remember her."

There was no sadness on his face—no real emotion at all. He was relating these facts as though they had happened to someone else.

"I was educated at Edinburgh, and I went to St. Andrew's. My mother suggested I go to London, but that would have meant leaving her alone, as she had no desire to go." He locked eyes with Adam. "She knew by then, I think, that our father had deceived her and your mother. She wanted nothing more to do with it."

"This was six years ago?" Adam asked.

"Yes."

"Then our father"—the words were strange in his mouth—"was already dead."

"Precisely. There was nothing more for her to say, but I think to have encountered your mother, or even you, would have been painful for her."

"My mother"—this was more painful to utter, but he knew he needed to be honest about everything—"was also dead by then."

Rickard started as though surprised. "I'm sorry to hear it, Adam. Truly."

Adam inclined his head in a stiff nod, but Emmeline was the one to lean forward, her chin resting on her hands as she looked between them, sympathy heavy in her eyes.

"You are so alike, for all you are so different," she said. "Look at you both. Your mothers have perished, you share a father, and you are all the family each other has. Of course, you have your differences, but think of how much you share. Even when apart and ignorant of one another, your lives took a similar trajectory."

"Not too similar," Adam said, glancing at her.

Her eyes were soft in the candlelight, the gentle, beautiful lines in her face blurred by the flickering light. She did not need gilding, so beautiful was she already, but the candles did the job regardless.

"Oh, I forgot you left to join the Navy," Emmeline said, nodding very slightly. "Yes, I suppose that is a difference between you."

"I say," Rickard said. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Not particularly," Adam said shortly.

His time in the Navy had been extensive, and he had learned a lot, but it was a relief in many ways to be home and to resume what most would consider an ordinary life.

If only he hadn't returned to find his brother gone and a new one in his place.

No, that was unfair—he could never compare Rickard with William. They were too different. For all Rickard had taken a risk in coming here, he had by and large proven himself to be a careful, somewhat timid man. William was the careless one, the risk-taker, the one who went out on a limb to do something because he thought it sounded fun.

That was one way in which William and Adam had differed. During their childhood, William had been the type to climb to the very edge of a branch for the thrill that being suspended might bring. Adam had stayed very much with his feet on the ground.

And William, amidst his cries that he was flying, that no one would ever know what superior joy he experienced at the top of the tree, also fell and broke his leg.

If anything, in temperament, Rickard was more like Adam, if Adam had been granted the patience to charm and smile and work to convince a room to like him. All too early, Adam had left Society to join the Navy, and there, charm was not a currency one could use for their advantage. Either one bought one's way in, or one worked hard to move up the ranks. Adam had always chosen the latter, but perhaps if he had stayed in London, if he had not been suffering from guilt over his mother's death, from anger at his father's continued cruelty, he might have been a little more like Rickard.

"I have an idea," Emmeline said, interrupting his reverie. Her chin was still on her hands as she looked between the two men and said, "I propose a picnic."