T he next knock at the door came so quickly that James felt sure, for a moment, that it had to be William again. His friend had come back to apologize. It must be that. James decided he would accept the apology—but only if it was a good one.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened.

James jumped to his feet. "What in the blazes are you doing here?" he demanded.

For it wasn't William at all. It was Benjamin.

Benjamin crossed to the chair William had vacated and sat down. "I had to see you," he said.

"Where is my butler? Why didn't he announce you?"

"He wanted to announce me, James," Benjamin said. "I had to be rather firm with him in order to get past him, and I beg you not to find fault with him. I promised him that if you were angry?—"

" If I was angry? Did you foresee a possible outcome in which I wouldn't be angry? Because it was foolish of you if you did."

"I promised that if you were angry, you would be angry with me and not with him. I'm the one who contrived to get into this room without being announced. I am to blame."

"Oh, I have no qualms with the idea of blaming you. You shouldn't be here at all."

"Precisely my point," Benjamin said. "If I had asked to be announced, you wouldn't have seen me. And I wanted you to see me. I wanted to have a conversation with you, if only this one time. It's so hard to persuade you to do as much as have a conversation with me, and I've never understood why."

"After the way we were raised, you truly can't understand why I wouldn't want to see you?" James sighed. He knew he was being unfair. It was Benjamin's mother he was angry with.

"I know my mother didn't treat you fairly," Benjamin said. "I know that was hurtful to you. You felt she cared for me more than she did for you."

"It wasn't a matter of me feeling that way, Benjamin. This isn't a case of sibling rivalry. She doted on you, and she despised me. She resented me for belonging to another woman, for being proof that Father had loved someone before her."

"I suppose she did," Benjamin said. "And yet, she would hardly be the first lady to have such an insecurity.

Of course it's wrong that it was manifested toward you.

You had done nothing to deserve it. But it was such a long time ago now—surely it's time that we moved on from that.

Surely you and I can find a way to be friends even though we have this in our past."

James shook his head. "I can't."

"I don't understand why!"

"I know this is unfair to you," he said. "I know this has always been unfair to you. You're right when you say that you did nothing wrong."

"I didn't come here to say that."

"But you have said it. And you're right. I just can't forget about the past. And I can't be here in a room with you, knowing that you will never understand."

"Help me understand, then. Tell me why this all matters so much."

"I don't think I can tell you."

"I'm asking you to, James. For the sake of whatever relationship we have—for the sake of our bond as brothers. Please. Tell me why it has to be this way."

James closed his eyes briefly.

He had always struggled with whether or not it would be permissible to tell Benjamin the truth. After all, this was Benjamin's mother, and she was dead. He would be poisoning Benjamin's memories of his own mother, and that felt like a shameful thing to do.

And at the same time, Benjamin was here. He was asking. More than asking, he was begging to know. James was beginning to see that Benjamin would never leave this matter alone. He would never stop trying to figure out what had happened.

James was simply going to have to come clean.

"I'm not angry because your mother favored you over me," he said slowly, heavily. "You're right. That would have been understandable."

"Then why?"

"Because she tried to kill me, Benjamin."

Benjamin stared. His mouth opened and closed several times, but he appeared to be lost for words.

"This is why I didn't tell you," James said. "No one should have to hear something like this about his mother.

"But it's true? She tried to kill you?" Benjamin shook his head. "That can't be true. I would have known about it."

"You did know. You just didn't recognize it for what it was. Did you honestly think I was so unhealthy as a child that I had to spend weeks at a time in bed, and that the moment I came of age—and moved out of that house—that condition simply went away? Did you think that was a coincidence?"

"I don't understand."

"She was poisoning me," James said. "She was putting strychnine in my tea. I didn't figure it out myself the first time, but the second time I did, and I tried to tell Father. He didn't believe me, of course. And I'm sure you don't believe me now."

"Well, of course I believe you," Benjamin said.

James hadn't expected that. "You do?"

"What possible reason could you have to lie about something so serious?" Benjamin asked. "Of course it's the truth. And it makes sense of everything else. My goodness. I can't believe it—but I do believe it. Of course I do."

James exhaled. He hadn't known that having his brother on his side was something that mattered so much to him. He hadn't imagined that knowing Benjamin took him at his word could feel this good.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "Truly, Benjamin. It means a lot to have you take me at my word."

"Is that why you've never told me this? You thought I wouldn't believe you?"

"Well, that isn't the only reason. You were a child at the time, and she was your mother. What was to be gained by telling you, even if you had believed me?"

"I suppose so," Benjamin said. "Still, I wish you had. I wish I had known. I might have done something to help you."

"No. There was nothing you could have done, Benjamin. You were a child."

"Perhaps." Benjamin sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you went through such horrors. I'm sorry you had to watch me living an idyllic childhood while yours was so terrible. That must have been maddening—horrifying. I'm sorry I accused you of making too much out of nothing. I had no idea."

"No one did," James said. "When I tried to tell people, they didn't believe me, and for a while I doubted it myself.

It was only once I was an adult and had left the house and researched the effects of strychnine that I felt sure of it.

And then I came home once and looked into Father's books, and I saw that there was a connection with a name I didn't recognize—a man who turned out to be a black market dealer. Leopold Hartigan was his name."

"You never reported him? Never tried to involve the authorities?"

"There was nothing I could have done. This was years after the last time I had been poisoned, so I had no objective proof that it had happened at all.

The evidence made it obvious to me, of course, but Father would have spoken against anything of the sort having happened, and I would have lost. The man would have gotten away.

And by then, I was eager to simply put the whole affair behind me. "

"And that's why you fell out of contact with the family," Benjamin realized. "You didn't want anything to do with any of us after that."

"I just needed to get away from it all."

"I can understand that," Benjamin said. "But James—I hope we can become brothers again. I'm getting married."

"I heard that you were."

"Yes, well, I'd like to have you there. At the ceremony. I'd like you to know my wife, and for us all to be family."

"I'd like that too," James admitted. "It might take some work on my part."

"I'm willing to be patient. I'm just so happy that we can be back in one another's lives, James, truly.

And I can't wait for you to meet Katherine.

She's lovely, and she makes me happier than I ever would have believed I could be.

I wake up every morning excited for the day ahead knowing that she will be a part of it.

" He smiled. "And I know that will only be more true once we marry. "

The words were like a dagger to James' heart.

What his brother was describing was exactly the way he felt about Victoria. She was the sunshine in his days, and she made each one worth getting out of bed for.

And he was losing her.

"I have to be somewhere," he told his brother. "I'm sorry to cut this short. If you'd like to return tomorrow, we can discuss further."

Benjamin rose at once. "I know I came without announcing myself today," he said. "Thank you for seeing me, James. Thank you for talking to me. This has meant the world. I will return tomorrow, and I fervently hope that this is just the start of something."

He saw himself out.

James was about to leave too, to hurry over to the church in hopes of catching Victoria and stopping the wedding. He knew he couldn't afford to delay if he wanted to have even the barest chance of getting her back.

But for a moment, he did delay.

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out the papers William had brought him.

He couldn't have said why he did it, what instinct let him know that this was something he needed to do at once.

Maybe it was the urgency with which William had put them in front of him.

He meant to give it the briefest of glances, to give himself an idea of what he would be dealing with when he returned—but then he froze.

A familiar name was written on one of the documents.

How had he failed to notice this before? How had he missed it?

And there was only one thing it could possibly mean, only way this could possibly unfold.

Suddenly, he understood everything—Lord Harbury's urgent desire to marry Victoria, William's insistence that he look at these documents at once. It all made sense. And he knew, too, that he had to get to the church even more quickly than he had thought.

It was no longer simply a matter of losing the lady he had come to love to a marriage. Things had just become far more serious than that, and if James didn't intervene at once, he might miss his chance altogether.

He sprinted down the hall, took the steps two at a time, and ran out the door. There was no time to wait for a carriage to be prepared for him—he needed to move more quickly than that. He brought out a horse and mounted without taking the time even to saddle it.

And then he was off, galloping toward the church as fast as he could compel the horse to run, and as they ran, he found himself praying to whoever might be listening that he wouldn't be too late.