Page 14 of The Earl who Isn’t (Wedgeford Trials #3)

14

Andrew stared at his younger brother, dumbfounded. He’d specifically told Alan not to come to Wedgeford. Yet here he was. He’d overheard the whole conversation, including all of Andrew’s admissions? That was bad.

“Who are you?” Lily asked.

“Alan,” Andrew said slowly. “Alan Wilderhampsher. He…” What was the story they’d used to explain Alan’s existence? “He comes for the Trials sometimes.”

“Pfaugh.” Alan rolled his eyes. “You were just telling this nice woman here about our fine family. Why start lying again? I’m Alan Tisbitt.” He held out his hand.

Lily took it gingerly with a glance at Andrew.

Alan tilted his head at Andrew. “He’s my older brother. And he’s going to save me.”

“I am…not.” Andrew tried to sound firm. “Your mother was, in the eyes of the world, the legitimate countess; everyone believes you will be the next earl. So, you will be the next earl. You have mistaken me for someone else.”

Lily took this in. Slowly, almost casually, she hopped up onto the counter and sat, feet dangling. If Andrew didn’t know better, he would think she’d just decided to sit there for fun. But he knew that she’d taken that exchange in, understood what was happening, if not why, and immediately sat on the logbook to hide it.

He had been awful to her, and she was still protecting him.

“Let me tell you my side of the story,” Alan said, turning to Lily, “since he’s told you his . Our father told me I was a bastard on his deathbed.”

“You said,” Andrew interrupted, “that he told you four years ago. He is still extremely alive.”

Alan rolled his eyes. “He has spent a very long time dying. He thought that your mother had returned to wherever she was from, and that her child, whatever it was, would never make a claim for the earldom. But I knew the moment he told me that I had an older brother. I knew he was going to save me, and the moment I saw Andrew’s picture in a newspaper about the Trials, I knew it was him.” He looked at Andrew. “You look like me.”

Lily blinked and looked between them. Andrew frowned. His brother had light, sandy hair; Andrew’s was only tinged with faint reddish-brown because the color had been bleached by the sun. His brother had pale skin; Andrew’s was sun dark. Lily, though, nodded slowly.

“He’s been coming to Wedgeford and talking to me for years now,” Andrew said. “Of course I don’t look like him. We’re not related.”

“He’s my elder brother,” Alan said cheerily. “And now there’s no time to waste. I’m going to wire my solicitor and let him know that I am definitely not the earl.” He pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! Ha ha ha! I win!”

This was not going to turn out the way Alan wanted.

“Alan, I’m not the earl. You’re not my little brother.”

“You are . I heard you.”

Lily tapped a finger to the side of her head as if thinking. “You don’t want to be an earl?”

Alan drew back as if from a viper. “Absolutely not. Why would I want that? Earls need to sit still and never have fun and get married to a girl and do boring, evil things all day long. Gross.”

Lily straightened her spine, as if smelling a rat, and Andrew smiled.

“That’s a very common attitude about women,” Lily told him sharply, “and it’s based on false preconceptions that devalue half the human race. Women are actually extremely capable. There’s nothing wrong with marrying one; you should be so lucky.”

Alan waved a hand. “I’m fifteen, not ten. I understand that girls are, you know, actual human beings and such. I like girls just fine. Two of my best mates are girls. I just don’t want to marry one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What do you want me to do,” Alan said, “marry some girl who has been raised to the task of getting her children to do boring, evil things? Boo.” He pointed his thumb at the ground. “Not for me.”

“Have you considered,” Lily said gently, “ not being evil?”

“Of course,” Alan replied. “Which is why I don’t want to be an earl! That’s the whole point.”

This stymied Lily.

“I really can’t fault the logic there,” Andrew said. “It’s just that I am not going to be the next earl.”

Alan ignored all of that. “It’s not as if I can just stop the evil shite. Just look at my aunt and uncle. They’re not even earls; they’re just, you know…”

“Earl-adjacent,” Andrew provided.

“Exactly. They’re earl-adjacent, and they’ll do anything to hold onto that power. It’s not good.” He shook his head. “There’s no changing that, no matter what I try.”

“But,” Lily protested, “you could do good by passing laws in Parliament?—”

“Ha!” Alan pointed at her. “I can’t pass laws by myself. I’d need others to sign on. And have you even met anyone in the House of Lords?”

Lily thought. “Posh Jim? Technically?”

“He doesn’t count.” Alan waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve met the others. And…no. Just no.”

“What I find interesting in all of this,” Andrew said slowly, “is that you alone think this. How did you realize it was evil?”

“Imagine.” Alan spread his hands out. “Imagine that all your life, you’ve yearned for an elder brother—someone who would take care of you and teach you to ride horses and the like. Now imagine being told that you actually have one, but you’ve never met him because your uncle tried to kill his mother while she was pregnant.”

“Did your father actually say that?” Andrew was shocked. From what his mother had said, the man had never admitted any such thing.

“No.” Alan gave a roll of his eyes. “Just something about a little push and the stairs just happening to be there.”

Lily clicked her tongue. “What a way to describe it.”

Alan nodded. “It makes one reevaluate one’s childhood,” he said. “And once you start asking ‘are we perhaps evil?’ it is shocking how often the answer appears to be ‘oh, yes, but it’s nothing to worry about because it makes us wealthier, and that’s good.’”

Andrew shook his head. “I…can’t argue with that part of your conclusion.”

“And we’re evil about everything.” Alan rolled his eyes. “Without fail. It’s so awful. I was searching through my father’s office for something that was not evil, and I came across this series of lectures on population written by a man who explained that it had been necessary to drive peasants out of the common areas they had used for centuries, because they would otherwise let the commons fall to pieces.”

“Obviously,” Andrew said, “not someone who had any experience with Wedgeford.”

“Nor with anywhere, really. I looked up estate records to see about it—if around the time when we enclosed the commons, the commons were found to be dirty and overgrazed. Guess what I found.”

“They weren’t?”

Alan dusted his hands. “The correspondence selling leases mostly praised the prime quality of the land. Later, there were requests for assistance putting down riots because of famine. That man gave a lecture and made up an entire thing that didn’t happen so that we might rest easy about killing people. And now I know how this works on a personal level.”

“You’ve been driven off common land?” Lily sounded dubious.

“No. I have an older brother.” Alan’s chin began to wobble. “And he won’t teach me how to ride horses or take care of me or even admit to me that he is my relation, because he’s afraid he’ll get killed for it.” The chin-wobble grew, then his little brother put his head in his hands and began sobbing.

Andrew looked at Lily in pure horror; Lily looked back at him, shrugging her shoulders. A moment passed, while the little brother Andrew had never been able to acknowledge wept.

Slowly, Andrew set a hand on his shoulder. “Alan,” he said slowly. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t been able to say anything. My mother is at risk. I am at risk. I can’t be the earl.” He took a deep breath. “But I am your brother.”

Alan looked up. His face was dry; his eyes were alight. “Ha!” He smacked his leg. “Got you to admit it!”

Andrew stared at him in silence for a moment before pulling back. “You’re very clever.”

“You see?” Alan nodded. “The fact that I’m willing to force you to be the earl proves I’d be just as evil as the lot of them, if you gave me the chance. I’m going to make you take the title if it’s the last evil thing I do. And once you’re declared earl, everyone will know my father is a bigamist, and I’ll safely be acknowledged a bastard.” He looked up with a smile. “No earldom; just my little inheritance from my mother. My life will be perfect.”

“It will never work.” Andrew glared at him. “I won’t let it. There is no way that I will be the earl.”

“Well, we’ll just have a friendly little wager about it.” Alan grinned at him. “Loser has to be the earl and give the other an allowance. Fair?”

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t want an allowance.”

Alan pointed a finger. “Well, you’re not going to win, so it’s rather a moot point. Now.” His younger brother turned to Lily. “Is that a captain’s log you’re sitting on? You did mention proof.”

Lie, Andrew wanted to tell Lily. Lie.

But this was Lily. Instead, she blinked and pulled out the book. “How did you know?”

Alan just tapped his head with a forefinger. “I’ve been dreaming about how not to be earl for years. I know what kinds of proof there might be to find, and a captain’s log? That’s exactly the thing that will make me not earl.” He smiled. “It’s perfect. I can’t wait to get cracking.”

The inn was quiet when Lily stepped in.

Andrew had taken his younger brother ahead to find a room. She could hear them climbing the stairs, voices indistinct but chattering still. Lily had come here with a mission of her own. She peered into the kitchen.

“Can I help you?” Mr. Kwan paused in the act of seasoning a dish.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Uchida.”

“Ah. She’s out back, airing sheets.”

Lily slipped through the inn and out the back door, where Mrs. Uchida stood, clothespins in her mouth, hanging linen sheets.

“Mrs. Uchida.” Lily took one end of the sheet and helped her heft it over the line.

“Lily.” She was treated to a nice smile. “Nice to see you. What are you here for?” Her words were muffled by the clothespins in her mouth.

“Andrew spoke with me this morning.”

“Did he?” Her smile widened. “Good, good.”

“And I’ve realized I owe you an apology.”

“Eh?” She spat out the clothespins. “Why?”

“I didn’t realize how…” She picked her words carefully. “How personally threatening it would be to you when I found Captain Lund’s logbook.”

Mrs. Uchida froze in place. Her fingers clenched.

“I didn’t know your history, but that’s no excuse. I should have thought of the effect on you, not just Andrew.”

Mrs. Uchida clicked her tongue, shaking her head.

“I apologize.” Lily bent her head. “Especially since Andrew’s little brother knows now, and?—”

“His what?”

“His little brother?” Lily’s voice faded.

Mrs. Uchida slowly straightened. “Help me here.”

“Of course.” Lily took a step toward the pile of sheets in the baskets. “I’m a little taller than you, so?—”

“Not with the linen. Are you saying that you found Captain Jeremiah Lund’s log from so many years ago with a record of my marriage?”

Lily felt the corners of her lips stretch into a grimace. “Did Andrew not tell you that? He said he would.”

Mrs. Uchida made a little motion with her hands. “He told me he was taking care of something involving you.”

“Oh, no. He said he would talk to you.”

Mrs. Uchida put a hand over her eyes. “Did he promise to say any particular thing to me? Or did he just say he would talk?”

“Oh, dear.”

The other woman still had her hand over her eyes. Her lips moved ever so slightly as she swayed in place.

“Did I just get him in trouble?”

“Wait. I’m having a conversation with him in my head.”

“You don’t need him here for that?”

Mrs. Uchida dropped her hand for a moment. “He’s going to say that he didn’t want me to worry. That he planned on telling me after he took care of the matter.”

“Is he?” Lily was fascinated. “You know what he’ll say that well? Are you angry?”

“I’m not angry with him for trying to take care of things so I don’t worry. I am, however, very, very exasperated.” She looked entirely even-tempered.

“This is you being exasperated?” Lily marveled. “ I hit him with a book, and he kept a secret from me for thirty-six hours.”

“I have had a lot of experience being exasperated with my son. It is my natural maternal state.”

“Can I ask you…” Lily bit her lip. “There is something I want to know, and it feels rather rude to ask.”

“Because of Wedgeford rules.”

“Yes. No. I’m not sure. I think I want to know about Wedgeford rules. Here, we don’t ask someone where they’re from or any of that. I only realized when I left Wedgeford that this is unusual. Where did that rule come from?”

“A group of us agreed,” Mrs. Uchida said primly.

Lily nodded. “I should have known it was your idea.”

Mrs. Uchida narrowed her eyes at Lily, but didn’t contradict this.

“I have been thinking about our conversation when we first arrived. About Mrs. Grimsley, among other things. You knew that I helped her leave her husband and…” Lily swallowed. “The thing you said to me.” Pride, as if you were my daughter. Lily couldn’t bring herself to repeat those words, lest Mrs. Uchida take them back. “What I did meant something to you, because…you had to do the same.”

“You learn a lot about a person by the gifts they give,” Mrs. Uchida said. “Our deepest gifts—the ones we give over and over to complete strangers—are the things we most need ourselves.”

“You give safety,” Lily said slowly. “And a place where people won’t be asked onerous questions. And…”

“And quiet conversations,” Mrs. Uchida said, “with those who think nobody is watching how they treat their family.”

“Yes.” Lily could feel thoughts she’d never understood coming together. “That was one of the things that shocked me most about the world outside Wedgeford. First, that everybody asked where you had come from and what you’d been doing with your life. But second, that you were expected to look away from wrongs and not say a word—that if a man raised a hand to his wife, people considered it polite to pretend it wasn’t happening. It was baffling. They were silent about all the wrong things.”

Mrs. Uchida looked thoughtful. “I wish I had said something to your grandfather.”

“What?” Lily goggled. “No, you’re wrong. He never mistreated me.”

“Not in that way,” Mrs. Uchida said. “But he did send you away when you didn’t want to go.”

Lily had held onto her own hurt about that for years. Having someone else repeat it to her, though, made her mulishly want to defend her ah gung.

“I was a child. He had the right to make that decision. And he wasn’t wrong. Living in Hong Kong taught me more about what I needed to know than I would have discovered here in Wedgeford.”

“What gift did you give there?” Mrs. Uchida asked.

“Whatever needed to be done.” Lily felt herself flushing at the attention. “Food, for those in need. That sort of thing.”

“That is not what Letta told me. Womb veils for those who didn’t want a baby at the time and couldn’t tell their husbands. Lilac daphne flower when the womb veils failed. And for the few who were truly trapped? Escape.”

“As I said.” Lily felt her voice lower. “Just what needed to be done. And yuan hua is not such a great gift.”

“The gift you give is freedom,” Mrs. Uchida said. “Freedom for a woman to determine her own future—to choose to stay in a place or to leave, to determine when or if a child would come.”

“Well, that makes me sound so brave.” Lily laughed. “I assure you, it’s nothing like that.”

“The gift you give,” Mrs. Uchida repeated quietly, “is to be the champion that you did not have when you could not control your life.”

Lily felt a lump in her throat. Was that what she had done? She could remember how she’d felt back then—as if everything were falling apart, as if she would be forced to marry. She’d reached for something, anything, that she might use to help herself stay free.

In some ways, she still saw herself as that scared young woman, afraid that her life would be permanently altered without her having a say. That someone would see her as a hero…

She had a hard time understanding that.

“I have received a lot of new information in this conversation,” Mrs. Uchida said.

“I’m so sorry.”

“For telling me?”

“No, um. For…” Lily didn’t even know why she was apologizing any longer.

“Let me think it through.” She nodded toward the back door of the inn. “Oh. There’s Andrew. I can see him through the back door, coming down the stairs. He’s likely looking for one of us.”

“Oh, no.”

“I need time to think. Talk to him, if you can, and give him some warning that I know, will you?” Mrs. Uchida smiled and picked up the sheets again. “I haven’t decided what to say to him yet.”

“Andrew?”

Andrew saw Lily step through the back door from the outside just as he arrived at the bottom of the stairs. He’d ensconced Alan in a room after another short back-and-forth argument about who would be the earl that had achieved nothing.

“Hullo.” Andrew put his hands in his pockets. He knew he had to talk to Lily.

“I just spoke with your mother,” Lily said.

Andrew winced.

“I hadn’t realized that you didn’t tell her. You said you would.”

Andrew’s head was beginning to ache. “Let’s have this conversation elsewhere, please?”

“Very well.”

He was feeling sick to his stomach. They slipped out the back door. Andrew’s mother was hanging sheets; he waved at her. She was some distance away, but he could almost imagine her eyes narrowing at him. His shoulders shrunk, and he turned away. They walked past the apple trees, then the plum, until finally they stood near the road out of Wedgeford, two ruts carved into white chalk leading up the down.

It was midmorning, and at this point, it was deserted. Andrew was going to have to speak with Lily.

Before he could gather his thoughts together—difficult, with an impending megrim—Lily spoke. “I’m sorry.”

Andrew paused in the act of massaging the tight knots gathering in his forehead. “Why are you apologizing? I told you I would tell her. How would you know I hadn’t?”

Lily rubbed the sash of her gown, folding the edges over slowly, one over the other.

“No,” Andrew said, “It is I who must apologize to you. When you first approached me, I panicked. I didn’t react well.”

“True.” Still, she did not look convinced.

“Then I realized that if you ever found out what I’d done, you would hate me for good. And…” He dropped his voice. They were not far from the inn; he didn’t want to risk being overheard. “I wanted you so much. It felt like that would solve my problems, too.”

“You thought it would solve your problems if I hated you?” She looked as if he’d offered her a fistful of snakes.

“Yes.”

“I apologize again,” Lily said, this time with a hint of venom, “for being unable to solve your problems in this particular way. I was angry earlier this morning; I said things that I regret. I am sorry for saying them. And I do not—I will not—hate you.”

It felt as if everything had changed by her knowing the truth. But that was an illusion. “Lily. I can’t ask you to get involved.”

“How convenient, then, that I am already involved and you needn’t ask.”

“You can’t be stubborn about this,” Andrew warned. “And you really shouldn’t forgive me so easily. I lied to you. I stole from you. And then, in the shed just now, rather than tell you the truth, I said…”

He could hear the words he’d spoken to her, echoing in his soul. It has been seven years since I had a kiss from you, and in all that time I have not lived. What in the devil had he been thinking, saying such things aloud?

“Were you lying then?”

“Ah…”

She held up a finger. “When you said that you burned for me, was that a lie?”

“Ah, Lily. Must we go through this?”

She raised another finger. “You mentioned something about wanting to defile every part of me. Was that a falsehood, and to what extent? Do you merely wish to defile some parts of me, or are you uninterested in any defiling whatsoever?”

“My want has nothing to do with any of this.”

A third finger went in the air. “What about your claim to be an absolute beast? Was this an untruth? What percentage of beast are you, if any? Please clarify.”

“It’s very easy to clarify.” Andrew threw his hands up. “I am an absolute buffoon and I said a lot of foolish things that I should have kept to myself.”

“I’m not asking you to tell me if what you said was foolish. I want you to tell me if any of it was true.”

The fingers she’d held up trembled. She looked at him, her chin jutting out defiantly, and he could not bring himself to lie to her again.

“It was true.” He felt defeated by that. “It was all true and meant from my heart. I still should never have said any of it. And I definitely should not have…” His gaze dropped to her lips.

“Kissed me?”

“Acted as if I had a right to touch what could not be mine,” he finished in a small voice.

“What a ridiculous thing to say.”

“I know. You should lecture me about it.” He managed a weak smile. “What an archaic, misguided notion it is, that a man can own a woman like a possession. That was very wrong of me.”

“That,” Lily said tartly, “was not what I meant. You did not offer a contract for ownership over my person; you used a common figure of speech that implies you have my consent to be kissed by you. When I said you were being ridiculous, I meant that you were incorrect. You have every right to my kisses. I gave it to you.” Her cheeks pinked as she said the words, but she did not look away. She did not back down. She stared at him with wide eyes, as if daring him to gainsay her.

“You must understand,” Andrew said slowly. “My problem has never been a lack of wanting. I cannot.” He swallowed. “No, I must not. I must not have you.”

“Please explain.”

“I have always known that if news of my parentage ever got out, my options would dwindle. I could stay in this country and fight for an earldom I don’t want, bringing unwanted attention to the village where I live and the people I love. Or I could flee.”

“Flee where?”

“Somewhere that is not here. Somewhere I can’t be found.” He looked down the road. It went to Dover on the one hand, and back to London on the other. He yearned to stay on this stub of the road, here in this village. By these apple trees, near his garden. The thought that he might never be able to deliver his long beans seemed insupportable. “I have always known, deep down, that I can’t really belong to Wedgeford the way everyone around me does. No matter what I do, no matter what choices I make, the danger will always be present. One day, I might have to leave. I will lose the only place I want to call home. How could I inflict that on anyone else? Let alone you, Lily.”

“But I just returned to Wedgeford. I’m no stranger to travel.”

“You have hundreds of pounds of printing press.” Andrew looked away. “You can’t flee with it. You are the brightest light that I know. Why on earth would I ask you to run away and hide everything good you can be in the world, just for the selfishness of being with you?”

She was not accepting it. He could see it in the twitch of her nose. She gestured him closer with a finger, and even though he knew he shouldn’t, he drifted in.

“I am thinking,” she said in a low voice, “of something we can do together tonight that is hotter than a kiss.”

A wave of want passed over him. He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. An upstanding man would never take advantage in this situation; that much was clear. But would Andrew? That was a different question.

“Lily. We…shouldn’t?” It sounded too much like a question.

“Oh, but we should.”

“I’m not good at saying no to you. I’m trying.”

“Meet me tonight,” Lily murmured. “In your shed. And…”

Andrew leaned in an inch closer. “And?”

“And we’ll start a fire.”

“A fire.” He felt ridiculous saying it. “A…metaphorical fire.”

“A literal one.” She gave him a bright smile. “You keep speaking of what you might have to do. Burn the logbook, and you’ll never have to find out.”

“Oh.” He took a step back and straightened, clearing his throat. “Ha. That’s what you meant by hotter. Right. Um. That will be?—”

But before he could agree, a figure popped up behind them.

“I’ve done it,” announced Alan from beside an old, wizened plum tree.

“Where the devil did you come from?” Andrew glared at him. “Aren’t you back at the inn?”

“Everyone there has things to do!” Alan protested. “And Wedgeford’s postmaster has a telegraph.”

Andrew could feel his body turn to ice. “No. You didn’t.”

“Just one telegram,” Alan said. “To my solicitor. He’s mine, not my uncle’s. He won’t tell anyone.”

“A solicitor for someone who has not yet legally come into their majority?” Andrew squinted at Alan. “Are you sure of his discretion?”

“Not if he wants to stay my solicitor once I come of age,” Alan replied breezily. “They’re all motivated by things like that, you know. And he won’t tell a soul, not until?—”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“It’s no surprise.” Still, Alan managed to look cagey. “He’ll keep quiet until we spring the truth on Parliament and install you as the next earl. I didn’t tell him about you. I just said that I’d discovered evidence?—”

“Please tell me you didn’t say where.”

“—in the form of a captain’s logbook, held in a small village where some folk from the Orient happened to live.”

“Oh, no,” Lily muttered.

Andrew hit his forehead with an open palm. “That’s Wedgeford. Where else would you be talking about? You know that you could have just said you found it in Wedgeford?”

Lily looked between them. “That thing we spoke of earlier? Let’s manage it after dinner service tonight.”

“What are we doing tonight?” Alan asked eagerly.

“You don’t want to know about tonight,” Andrew interposed. “It’s kissing nonsense.”

“Please.” Lily put a hand to her forehead as if she were faint; she managed to look like a robust woman with her hand against her head. “I am a genteel girl. Let us speak no more on my indiscretion.”

“Fine,” Alan muttered, “if you like that sort of thing, I suppose.”

“We all have our faults,” Andrew replied airily. “So, what now?”

On the one hand, Alan was trying to destroy Andrew’s life. On the other, Andrew had made a mess of Alan’s since before he was born. From what little Andrew could tell of other pairs of brothers he’d seen, this probably wasn’t too abnormal for siblings. He’d just have to fix everything. They would burn the log, and Alan could claim he’d been fanciful.

He clapped Alan on the back. “Come along, you little monster. You’re going to chop carrots with me.”

“Might I really?” Alan brightened. “Famous! I’ve never chopped carrots before!”