Page 66 of In With a Chance

It had been the most glorious surprise. He could still remember roaring with delight as he’d rushed down the staircase, the older brother he’d so adored, so idolized, home at last…

And Laura behind him, and her eyes shining with what he had thought had been delight on his behalf. It had only been later, when Ernest had read their note, that he had realized the emotion in his betrothed’s eyes had been something else.

“Your brother returned? But why would that—”

“They fell in love,” Ernest said simply.

There. It was said.

And a weight, a burden he had not known he’d been carrying, was lifted from his shoulders. The pain, the responsibility of somehow being involved in their deaths, it had melted away and Ernest wanted to cry out in relief.

Not that he could do such a thing in a churchyard. Obviously.

Understanding was starting to dawn in the beautiful face of the woman beside him. “Your brother—and your betrothed?”

“I do not blame them,” Ernest said quickly—perhaps too quickly, and harshly, because Gwen looked up at him with sympathy he perhaps did not deserve. “I cared for Laura, of course, but as a friend. Perhaps even like a sister. There was no talk of romantic love between us, no expectation of that, and Charles… Well, I thought him the best man who ever was. It would have been churlish to expect Laura to disagree.”

Gwen still looked astonished. “They truly fell in love?”

“They did. It was almost instantaneous, I think,” Ernest said ruefully. “I wish I had noticed it at the time, but I admit, I was far too interested in hearing my brother’s tales of Egypt to notice just how Laura hung on to his every word. By the time they had gone, and I had found their note… Well, it was too late.”

A hand slipped into his. Ernest was immediately grounded, immediately centered in a way he had not expected.

“You must have been heartbroken,” Gwen whispered.

He could not help but laugh at that. “At first, no! The alliance was still between our families, I had no possessive feelings for Laura, and I loved my brother far too much to deny him. I could not understand why they had left, why they had felt elopement had been their only option—”

“Perhaps they feared your father.”

Ernest started. How on earth had Gwen understood the nature of his father so well? “You are far too observant.”

Her smile warmed him from the very tips of his toes to the top of his head. “I know you.”

She knows me.

Why that was so particularly wonderful to hear, Ernest did not know. He also refused to examine it, so he returned to his story. “Laura was a wonderful woman, but she had no dowry. Oh, she was well connected, and well-bred enough for a second son like myself, but to marry the heir? To bring nothing to the estate, an estate so desperately needing funds?”

“Your father would never have permitted it,” Gwen said quietly.

Ernest barked a laugh that felt empty inside. “My father died that very day. A weak heart, they said.”

A funeral to organize, and before he had known it, he would have three. All of his family, buried within a month.

“But they were never married, either,” she said quietly, turning back to the two headstones. “They died.”

“They died the very day they reached London,” Ernest said, pain curling around his heart again—but grief this time from their loss, not from what could have been considered a betrayal. “A thief with a knife. I heard it all from my steward, who spoke to the new Metropolitan Police. He grabbed Laura and Charles lunged at him and in the brawl… Well. They’d only just stepped off the mail coach.”

It had been so empty. So pointless, their deaths.

Gwen’s hand squeezed his. “He died protecting her.”

“He should not have had to,” Ernest said fiercely. “They should have been allowed to wed for love and be happy in Frasemere Hall! Charles… Charles didn’t even know about Father’s death. Didn’t know he was the new baron, in all but signed paperwork. If he had, he could have… They could have come home and done it properly.”

It was infuriating—he was still so angry at the past, angry at the happiness that had been stolen not only from them, but him! Here he was without them, without anyone, and he still had not found a wealthy woman to wed and bring back home.

Gwen’s hand squeezed his own. “Why didn’t you tell me of this before?”

Ernest gave a laugh. “It is not exactly polite dinner conversation.”