“No one listened.” He set his gaze on the distant trees, pain and disappointment spinning around inside. “Those who made the journey were the good children. Grady was staying behind on account of his wife, so he was a good husband. I was just the heartless blackguard breaking Ma’s heart. No one heard anything I said that didn’t fit the role that’d been fashioned for me.”
Ian didn’t say anything. Patrick would’ve wagered his brother was struggling to believe the story, and Patrick hadn’t gotten to the most drastic misunderstanding yet. Best get it over with.
“If Grady hadn’t enlisted, we probably would’ve come to Hope Springs in a year or two.”
That broke Ian’s silence. “Grady wouldn’t’ve enlisted if you hadn’t. He was protecting you, trying to keep you safe.”
Time to shatter a family legend. His lungs tightened, and his heart pounded painfully in his chest. But he’d avoided this truth long enough. So he pushed the words out.
“Grady joined up first.”
“Hewhat?” Ian’s mouth hung agape.
“He signed up first,” Patrick repeated. “Ifollowedhimto war.Iwas protectinghim.Iwas keepinghimsafe. Not the other way around.” The agony of keeping this secret for so many years spilled over into anger and frustration and the clog of tears as he finally spoke the truth out loud. “I didn’t drag him to his eventual death. No rash decision on my part tore him from his family.”
“But Maura told us—”
“Maura assumed,” Patrick said. “And why should any of you believe it could’ve happened the other way ’round? Grady was the saintly one who sacrificed everything for the people he loved. I was the selfish one who didn’t care what pain I caused my family, so long as I got to do what I wanted, right? Putting my brother in danger seemed entirely in character for me. Didn’t it?”
Ian sat in frozen shock. His expression was far from blank. Denial warred with defensiveness in his eyes. Then he pushed out a breath and hung his head.
“Why didn’t you correct us?” Ian’s voice had grown quieter.
“I didn’t realize what everyone thought until after the war was over. Telling Maura her husband had gone to fight on his own account rather than on mine would’ve hurt her. Aidan never stopped talking about his da being a hero. I knew all of you viewed him as the best of brothers, a selfless defender of his family. I wasn’t going to mar that. He deserves to be remembered that way. Hewasthat way. No matter the order of things that sent the two of us to war, he fought bravely and heroically, and we did look after each other.”
Patrick stood and paced away. Telling Ian was harder than telling Eliza. Still, if Ian knew, then Patrick would have someone to help when the weight of his past and the family’s view of him pushed him back toward the very escape he was trying to avoid.
“We were in the same regiment,” Patrick said, “so we were always together. I was with him when he died. Some deaths in battle happen in an instant. Some are slow and agonizing—torturous.”
“Which was his?” Ian asked.
Patrick couldn’t look back at him. “You don’t want to know.” He wiped at the sweat rolling down his neck. “We’d both been injured, Grady worse than me. He made me promise that I’d make certain Maura and the rest of you knew he loved you. The family might’ve seen me as the villain, but I don’t break my word to a dying man. Telling everyone that he’d not stayed behind with Maura entirely willingly, that he’d left Maura and Aidan to join the war effort becausehewanted to, not because I’d forced his hand—that all ran a deep risk of undermining my promise to him. I couldn’t risk it.”
“But when you left New York after the war, why didn’t you come to us?” Ian asked. “Or at least tell us you were alive?”
“All of you believed I’d led my brother to his death in pursuit of my own vainglory. I knew from Maura’s telling of things that none of you paid the least heed to my promise to rejoin you, insisting instead that I didn’t care enough about my family to leave the siren call of the city. Add to that the fact that I’d become a drunkard.” He shrugged, still not looking at his brother. “’Twas better to stay dead. You’d all think better of me that way.”
Ian walked up and stopped beside him. “You’re loved by this family, Patrick. You always have been. So has Grady. And none of what you’ve told me changes either of those facts. Ma never stopped loving her brother even through Uncle Archibald’s struggles against the bottle. None of us stopped loving you because you stayed in New York or because we thought you were the reason Grady enlisted.”
“Grady deserves to be remembered the way he’s thought of now.”
“Don’t you deserve to be thought better of than you are now?” Ian asked.
“I’m a jobless, homeless drunkard. You tell me.”
Ian stepped around him and set his hands on Patrick’s shoulders. “You’re my brother. The rest is just distractions.”
Emotion clogged his throat, but he swallowed it down. “I’ve missed you, Ian.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Ian said. “M’life hasn’t been the same without you in it.”
He’d needed that assurance all these years. “Eliza insisted I wasn’t the villain. She also called me all sorts of a fool for not telling any of you.”
“Wise woman.”
“She’d be pleased to know I’ve finally told you. If she were still speaking to me, that is.”
Ian turned him so they stood side by side, one of his arms around Patrick’s shoulders. “Let’s keep at the trees while you tell me about your troublesome colleen.”
