Page 25 of To Heist and to Hold

Where are you running off to, Brother?”

Ethan, who should have been trying to sleep but had instead been heading out for a good pounding ride in Hyde Park, froze with the key in the lock. He glanced to the side and let loose a low curse.

One door down from Ethan’s, Isaac had his dark head stuck out into the hall like a weasel peeking out of its burrow.

Knowing his plans for a solitary ride were well and truly over, Ethan turned to face him.

His brother sauntered over, hands in pockets as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

But there was something tight at the corners of his eyes, something almost…

suspicious? Why did his expression set the hairs at the nape of Ethan’s neck to standing?

“I think that should be obvious,” he drawled, indicating his riding attire.

Isaac huffed a laugh, rolling his eyes. “And you think I’m going to accept your departure from your usual schedule without commenting? You, who have not deviated from that schedule once since we’ve begun Dionysus?”

If only his brother knew how much he had begun to deviate from that schedule since Heloise had come into his life.

Damn it all to hell, but the woman affected him in ways he never could have imagined. And he seemed to have no defense against her. Thus the need for that pounding ride.

But Isaac was waiting for him to say something, and he’d be damned if he’d tell him the truth. “I couldn’t sleep is all,” he finally grumbled.

“Splendid,” his brother replied with a wide smile.

Ethan blinked. “Splendid?”

“Absolutely. I have no desire to go home and sleep, either. Wait just a moment and I’ll join you.” Then, before Ethan could think to stop him, Isaac disappeared back into his office.

Damn and blast. The last thing he needed was his brother’s typical chatter when all he wanted to do was mindlessly ride until he was too exhausted to sit in the saddle.

He considered running off before Isaac returned.

But he knew that was a futile dream. Isaac would not be opposed to chasing him down.

Ethan sighed heavily, leaned against the wall, and tried not to think about why he needed the ride in the first place. At least with Isaac joining, he told himself bracingly, though not very convincingly, he would not be able to think of Heloise much.

That pathetic hope was quickly pummeled and left for dead. Just as he and Isaac exited the mews, guiding their mounts down St James’s, his brother started up on the one subject Ethan had hoped to avoid.

“You disappeared with Mrs. Marlow last night for some time.”

Ethan, who had been busy guiding his horse around a shining black lacquer carriage, started, his hands tightening ever so slightly on the reins.

Or perhaps more than slightly; Typhon, typically calm even in the face of the worst London’s streets had to offer, shied to the side.

By the time Ethan regained control, not only of Typhon but of himself as well, Isaac’s attention had been well and truly piqued.

He considered Ethan with pursed lips and a raised brow as they turned onto Piccadilly.

“Sensitive subject, Brother?”

“Not at all,” Ethan replied evasively. “It just surprised me, is all.”

Isaac cast him a hooded sideways glance before, face relaxing into its typical natural ease, he tipped his hat at a lady in a passing open carriage, giving her a sly wink.

“It’s natural to ask about it, I think,” he continued to Ethan.

“After you hid from her yesterday, followed by your shock at Teagan’s revelation that she wishes to seduce you, of course I’m going to ask about last night. ”

“Of course,” Ethan replied sardonically.

His brother laughed. “If you were in my shoes, you would do the same.”

True. But he’d be damned if he’d admit as much.

“If we are to assure Mrs. Finch’s match goes off without a hitch,” he said instead, keeping his voice as even and bored as he was able to make it, “I will be working with her manager day and night to see it is done, no matter the place or time.”

There was a beat of silence as they worked their horses around a particularly snarled bit of traffic.

Which was a sight less stressful than dealing with his brother’s too-astute comments.

While he had gone into this affair with a clear goal in mind, it was quickly being usurped by a plethora of emotions that he wished to avoid looking too closely at—an impossibility with this sudden probing.

But if Ethan thought Isaac was through with the subject, he was dead wrong.

“I am not so stupid,” Isaac drawled once they were on their way again, “that I did not notice the way you looked at her when you pulled her from the gaming room last night. Nor am I so nobbed in the head as to have missed your expression when you disappeared with her this morning.” He raised a dark brow, eyes twinkling as he considered Ethan.

“Mrs. Marlow is a beautiful woman, and I would not blame you at all for taking her to your bed. Though,” he continued, ignoring the furious glare Ethan sent his way, “the very fact that you did, indeed, take her to your bed at the club speaks volumes that this is no normal affair.”

Which was something Ethan had done his best not to think about.

But damned if the whelp wasn’t right. He had never, in all the time they’d operated the club, taken a single woman to his rooms. Any affair he’d entered into had been conducted at the woman’s residence or an obliging hotel.

He had never brought a woman into his inner sanctuary, the one place he felt safest.

Why, then, had he brought Heloise there? He could have just as easily made love to her in his office. While he had never used that space for such a thing, either, it was not as precious to him as his private apartments.

Yet when he’d had her in his arms, he had not thought of protecting himself or keeping her out.

No, he had wanted to claim her in the most complete manner possible.

And, though it was difficult to admit, he had also wanted to be claimed by her, to share something with her he had never shared with another.

But why? That one question had haunted him since he’d parted from her, worrying away at his hard-earned peace.

And as he could not answer the query any better than when it had first sprung up in his mind like a particularly unwelcome weed in a carefully cultivated garden, he replied the only way he could think to: with a raw threat.

“Lest you wish to find your pretty face bruised and bloodied,” he growled, “I will not hear Mrs. Marlow spoken about in such a way.”

Which may not have been the right response to throw his brother off the scent, if his sudden wide smile was any indication.

“Oh, you really do like her.”

“Isaac.” The one word was like thunder rumbling, his chest vibrating with it.

But his brother had never been particularly quick when it came to heeding warnings. Or rather, he understood the threats given but didn’t seem to care a bit for his own safety.

They entered the park at Hyde Park Corner and slowed their horses down, pulling them off to the side of the path.

“I don’t judge you a bit for it,” Isaac quipped, grinning, taking a moment to look out over the sea of people in the park, each of them there to see and be seen.

“In fact, if I was the one lucky enough to be working so closely with her, I probably would have done the same—”

Ethan reached across the space between their mounts and lay a hard hand on his brother’s sleeve, stopping his idiotic words in their tracks. “Don’t ever say anything disrespectful against her again,” he gritted when Isaac looked at him in shock. “Do. You. Understand?”

There was a beat of silence. And then, voice more sober than Ethan had heard it in a long while, “I apologize. I was so glad to see you loosening the tight reins you keep on yourself, I went too far.” Then a pained smile. “I just want to see you happy for once. I love you, Brother.”

Those words, said with such affection, knocked the breath from Ethan’s lungs.

He knew Isaac loved him, of course. And Isaac knew he returned that love.

They were blood, after all, and had been through all manner of hell together.

But they were not demonstrative people, and never actually said the words out loud.

Which gave him pause. Had he ever in his life told his brother he loved him?

Never in words, perhaps. But in actions he had let his brother know he cared deeply for him.

Hadn’t he? He frowned, thinking back, digging through their interactions over the years.

Which brought him back much further than he had expected, to the before time.

His hand fell numb to his side, Gavin’s smiling face swimming in his memories.

But even as anger and guilt and pain washed over him, nearly as potent as they had been three years earlier for all he had kept them bottled up and fermenting, he could not help remembering how much easier the three of them had been with one another.

Before Gavin’s betrayal and death and before their world turned upside down.

He looked fully at Isaac, forcing himself to take in the hint of grief in his brother’s eyes. Was that worry beneath the surface? Worry for him? A strange tightness closed his throat.

“I am happy,” he managed gruffly, looking out over the milling riders and open carriages. “I have everything I need, after all. What more could I possibly want?”

Isaac was silent beside him for a long moment, the lack of sound from him louder than the laughter and conversation and jangle of tackle about them. Finally he huffed a soft chuckle.