Page 5

Ollie shook his head to clear away the shock, but before he could respond, something strange happened.

Something, or someone, in the crowd caught Victor’s full attention. Victor stared out at whatever it was, and Ollie tried to find his line of sight but only saw endless heads and hats.

Confused, Ollie looked at his brother again to find Victor had completely gone pale. And then, he looked immediately down to Ollie, horror written in his face.

“What—”

But Victor wouldn’t let Ollie finish his sentence. “I’m taking today’s losses out of your wages. I need to go take care of something.”

“I can cover the day’s losses with my savings, Victor.”

“Absolutely not. That defeats the purpose of teaching you a lesson, doesn’t it?” And Victor hurried off before Ollie could argue back.

Ollie watched his oldest brother hook around the end of the bar and weave through the crowd, coming to a stop to talk to someone. But Ollie couldn’t see whom.

“Got yourself in a spot with your brother there, eh?” Billy’s voice grabbed Ollie’s attention. When Ollie looked back to Victor, Victor was gone.

Ollie let out a long breath and put his full attention on Billy. “You enjoyed that bit there, Billy? You seemed rather entertained by my brother ripping me to shreds.”

“Aye!” Billy laughed. “That was more entertaining than vaudeville!”

“Thanks,” Ollie replied darkly.

But Billy merely laughed again. “I have brothers too, you know. I find a fist to the face can be an excellent solution to problems.”

“I’m not punching my brother in the face. Even if he does deserve it.”

Billy lifted his pint glass, cheering it into the air, before taking a long gulp.

The pub door opened again, and Ollie was flooded with relief when Dantes walked through it, followed by Vivian and Lady Litchfield, who began shaking out their umbrellas.

Dantes led the two women over to the bar and kicked two of their patrons out of their chairs for the women to sit.

“Off,” was all he said as his placed heavy hands on their shoulders.

The two men looked back as if to argue but upon seeing the ugly scar that slashed across Dantes’s face, thought better of it.

Vivian and Lady Litchfield sat in the vacated seats as Dantes went around the end of the bar to join Ollie.

“My, my,” Vivian said, looking around. Always the picture of elegance, her dark hair was swept up with a mother-of-pearl comb. “I can’t believe how crowded it is right now!” She put her attention back on Ollie. “Where’s Victor? Why isn’t he helping you?”

Ollie poured out two whiskeys for the women. “Don’t know, don’t much care.”

“Trouble in paradise?” she said with a wry grin, now well-accustomed to the constant clashing between Ollie and Victor.

As Dantes appeared beside Ollie, Billy decided to join in and leaned over to Vivian. “I told him to get a swift fist to Victor’s face. He said no .”

“How noble of you, Ollie,” Vivian replied with humor before taking a sip of her whiskey. Lady Litchfield giggled in response before taking a sip of her own drink as well.

“That would be ill-advised,” Dantes added with a chuckle. “No offense, Ollie, but Victor would wipe the floor with you.”

Ollie clenched his jaw.

“Where is he, though?” Dantes searched the crowd. “I’m surprised he’s not up here breathing down your neck.”

“He already was, believe me.”

Billy laughed loudly and when Ollie shot him a death stare, briefly saluted the family before disappearing into the crowd.

As Ollie and Dantes got to work, Ollie mentioned Victor going pale after spotting something, or someone, in the crowd before disappearing.

Dantes, though, didn’t seem to think anything of it. “Maybe he saw someone drop a coin,” he joked.

But Ollie didn’t laugh. Nothing seemed funny to him right now. He had never seen Victor react so severely before. Thus, he told Dantes he was taking a short break and decided to go investigate.

As Ollie made his way through the crowd, several people stopped him to chat briefly or say hello. They were all genuinely happy to see him, and it lifted Ollie’s spirits.

Just ahead was a break in the crowd where he’d be able to slip down the hallway and likely find Victor in the office.

But as Ollie squeezed between two men on his way in that direction, another man doing his best to hurry through the crowd accidentally bumped hard into a group of women, who shouted after him with offense. The harried man, who wore a tweed flat-cap, completely ignored them and continued on his way.

Annoyed, Ollie went after him and gripped his shoulder hard, forcing him to turn around, winning a loud, rude curse word in response.

Ollie opened his mouth to give a warning but instead froze in place.

Ollie was the shortest of the three brothers, though thanks to their giant, Scottish father, he still was rather tall. This man on whom Ollie had a death grip was a good head shorter than Ollie.

But his face? It was as if Ollie were looking in a mirror.

The two even held twin expressions of true shock. But the mystery fellow, after a moment, clenched his mouth shut.

“What the—?” Ollie began, but the man slipped out from his grip and pushed through the crowd again, shoving people out of his way, much harder this time.

“Wait a minute!” Ollie called out. He was only seconds behind the stranger when the stranger slipped out the door.

Ollie hurried outside, chased the man for half a block, but, despite having shorter legs than Ollie, he was also much quicker.

Ollie could only watch helplessly underneath the awning of a neighboring bakery as the stranger disappeared into the rain.

Heaving heavy breaths, Ollie watched the spot where the man had disappeared. Someone who looked like him. No, he had to have been seeing things. He’d only seen the man’s face for a flash of a moment.

Ollie hurried back into the pub and found Victor back behind the bar with Dantes. He rushed over to his brothers and began talking animatedly, telling them what had just happened, but it all came out jumbled and confusing.

“Whoa, whoa.” Dantes set his hands on Ollie’s shoulders. “What in the blazes are you talking about? You are making absolutely no sense.”

Ollie looked around at the group—Victor, Dantes, Vivian, Lady Litchfield—and they were all looking at him as if he had sprouted horns.

He took a deep breath. “I just saw a man who could have been my twin.”

Vivian pulled back her head. “What are you talking about?”

“He looked exactly like me,” Ollie explained. “The only difference was he was a good head shorter. And maybe older. I’m not sure, though.”

Dantes and Victor held each other’s gaze.

“You know who he was, don’t you?” Ollie concluded.

Dantes bit his bottom lip. But Victor had no problem replying. “Don’t be ridiculous. You did not see a man who looks just like you.” But his voice lacked the intensity it usually held.

“Do I have a twin?”

Victor frowned. “A twin?”

A more horrifying thought hit Ollie. “Was he my father?” He stepped toward Victor. “Have you been hiding this entire time that I have a different father?”

“Even you can’t be that stupid, Ollie,” Victor growled out. “Are you saying our mother went around with another man behind our father’s back? Do you think that’s the kind of woman she was?” His voice held a dangerous warning.

But Ollie didn’t know what kind of woman she’d been, because unlike his brothers, he had no memory of their mother. Or their father.

Lady Litchfield’s gentle voice cut through the tense air. “You have the same green eyes as Victor and Dantes. And the way Victor has explained it to me, your father had those same green eyes. And your grandfather has them as well. Isn’t that correct?” She ended this with a small smile.

Ollie looked up at Victor and found his brother watching the marchioness. “So, that man wasn’t my father,” Ollie said, feeling idiotic.

Victor replied, “Don’t be daft,” in a quieter voice, without looking away from Lady Litchfield. But then he seemed to get a hold of himself. “I don’t know what you saw, but I know for a fact you don’t have a twin. I was there when you were born. God help us all if there were two of you.”

“Victor, that’s not very kind.” The marchioness’s gentle voice came through again.

Victor stiffened and Ollie knew he was itching to retort. Instead, the eldest McNab brother said, “Two pounds.”

Ollie blinked. “What?”

“That’s what I’m taking out of your wages for today’s mistakes. Two pounds.”

Ollie looked over to Dantes, hoping to find the ire he felt reflected in his other brother. But, not for the first time, Dantes was trying his best to distance himself from being in the middle of it, turning and backing away, even though Ollie knew Dantes would never agree with this.

“Two pounds?” Ollie shot back to Victor with offense.

Victor crossed his arms. “Maybe this will finally teach you a lesson on responsibility.”

“You know I’m horrific at anything with numbers. I can’t grow into understanding them.” And you should have been out here with me, anyway. But of course, Ollie wasn’t bold enough to say that.

“This is going to be how it goes from now on,” Victor said without an ounce of understanding in his voice. “From here on out, every error you make will come straight out of your own pocket. I don’t know what else to do with you. Perhaps this will be the thing to finally get you to grow up.”

Ollie again looked at Dantes and found emotion battling in his brother’s gaze. It almost seemed like sympathy, which didn’t make sense. But Dantes looked away quickly. Perhaps he’d interpreted that wrong. “I don’t have to agree to this,” Ollie said to Victor, but his voice had weakened.

“You don’t?” Humor reflected in Victor’s eyes. He was mocking Ollie. “Why don’t you focus on what you do best, then, if you don’t think you can manage agreeing to it?”

Ollie clenched his teeth. “And what’s that?”

“Faffing about. Leave business matters to Dantes and me. We know what we’re doing. And we can handle it.”

Ollie didn’t know by whom he felt more betrayed. This behavior was not unexpected from Victor, even though it still stung. But Dantes always seemed to have Ollie’s back.

Ollie swallowed and excused himself before he gave away the betrayal he felt, then disappeared in the pub’s crowd.

He wanted to get as far away from his brothers as he could, finally coming to stop at one of the front windows, where he watched the rain pour outside, matching exactly how he felt on the inside.