“It’s the girl, isn’t it?” Trevelyan said.
“What do you know of her?”
“A bit,” Trevelyan said mysteriously.
At that Harry began to laugh. “It was you. You were the old man she met. You were the one who caused her horse to throw her. You were the sick old man who fainted on her.” Harry sat up straighter in bed. It seemed that all his life his brother had been an adult. One of their uncles had said that Trevelyan had been born full grown, that he hadn’t wanted to bother with childhood and so had skipped it. It rather pleased Harry to hear his older brother called an “old man.”
“You should have heard her,” Harry continued. “She was disgusted, couldn’t stop talking about the old man.”
Trevelyan got up from his chair and walked to the far side of the room. But she didn’t tell you my name, he thought. “Do you know that she wants to write a biography of me?”
Harry was feeling more self-confidence in the presence of his brother than he ever had in his life. “She wants to write about everything. Read about everything. You’re about the seventh or eighth man and the third woman I’ve heard who she wants to write about.” Harry paused. “Did you tell her who you were?”
“No. I told her I was related to the family and she told me about the dead brother who may or may not have been—” He paused. “An overzealous letter writer.”
“She does give her opinions, doesn’t she?”
Trevelyan turned back to his brother, and his eyes were as intense as a snake’s. A man had once told Harry that he’d met Captain Baker and he could swear that the man could go for hours without blinking. “You seem to like her well enough.”
Harry shrugged. “She’s all right, but then she is an American.”
“And quite lovely,” Trevelyan said under his breath.
At that Harry started to come out of the bed. “Now see here, Vellie, you can’t mean to try to take her. She’s my heiress and no one else’s.”
Trevelyan sat back down on the chair and gave his brother a smile. “An heiress, is she? Is that why you want to marry her?”
“One does have to keep a roof on the house. And Mother—”
“Ah, yes, our dear mother.” Trevelyan held his glass up to the light. “How is our mother?”
“As well as she can be.”
“Still running everyone from her room, I gather. Has your little heiress met her yet?”
Harry swallowed more of his whisky. “Not yet. Claire just arrived yesterday.”
“Do you think she will like your heiress?”
“Does it matter? Claire is suitable.”
“For an American.”
“At least she’s not one of those loud, brash, pushy Americans. Always talking about ways to make money. Always wanting to change things, then calling it progress.”
“You can certainly tell that this family is against change. Grandfather’s clothes are still hanging in the wardrobe in his room, just as they were when I left here when I was nine. Tell me, is Mother still charging for the newspapers?”
“Economies have to be made. Mother’s not bad, not really.”
“To you she’s not,” Trevelyan said softly, and the way he said it made Harry look away.
After a moment of silence, Harry spoke again. “What do we do now? Tell the world the second brother has come back from the grave and is to be the duke? Or perhaps, from the look of you, you’re ready to stop all your wanderings and tell the world who you are. Or have been. However you want to say it.”
“I told you my plans. I want to rest and write, that’s all. You can be the bloody duke for all I care.” He fixed Harry with those eyes of his. “I want my expeditions financed. And, by the way, how the hell does the Prince of Wales know that Captain Frank Baker might have once been the earl of Trevelyan?”
“Father told the queen. He thought she should know and should give you a few medals.”
Trevelyan laughed at that. “What would I do with them?”