“Haven’t named it yet. I invented it. It’s part of what I’m asking you to invest in.” He said the words all at once because he was afraid Arthur might find them laughable.
Arthur raised slightly widened eyes to Devon. “That’s what you were doing with Mr. Clarke? What is it?”
“It heats the coffee grounds away from the liquid that you will actually drink.” A simplification, a frankly stupid way of describing it. Devon’s brain was too clogged with emotion to provide better.
Arthur scratched his chin and nodded. “You know, the one reason I don't like coffee is because of the grounds. It’s like having dirt in your drink.”
“It’s not,” Devon persisted. But Arthur had hit the problem on the head, and Devon felt a little brighter inside because his brother understood. Yet a shadow loomed. Would his brother understand everything?
“So,” Arthur said, “why a coffeehouse and this frankly brilliant little invention?”
Back to the pertinent question, they were. Very well then. Devon could be a man and share his emotions. Some might argue he had that wrong, but being a man meant doing the difficult things. If sharing your emotions was difficult, well then, one needed to be a man to do it.
“There’s no way you could know this, Art,” he said, “but being a younger brother to a duke… it’s damned difficult.”
Arthur raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Really? Do tell.” Devon hated saying it out loud, but he did so, anyway. “I’m a replacement, born and raised just in case you happen to die. What I do doesn’t matter as long as I’m a good replacement for you. I have no meaning outside of that.” The words felt wrong in his mouth now, sticky and untrue.
Arthur leaned back in his chair and surveyed the coffeehouse, his expression unreadable as usual. “I wish I could say it is all untrue, but I see what you mean. I mean, I can see how you would feel that way. When father died, everyone expected me to fill his shoes, even though I was a young boy and much too small for them. I felt in many ways that I had to be exactly who he was. That’s what I wanted. What I liked no longer mattered. Everything I was had been… voided, given wholly over to the dukedom. It’s a miserable way to live.” He picked some sort of invisible lint off his shoulder. “Glad Tabitha fixed me.”
Arthur’s words buzzed in Devon’s ear, an almost indecipherable confusion, despite the fact that he’d understood every single one. His brother understood. His brother sympathized. And his brother had somehow escaped the shroud of who the world wanted him to be in order to be who he was.
No, notsomehow.
Arthur had identified the source of his escape—falling in love with a daring debutante could change a man.
And Devon had lost his. Well, he was trying to get her back, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t give up. Not until she told him absolutely and irrevocably to jump into the Thames with his pockets weighted down with rocks.
“You’re right, Art. I’m not a replacement for anyone. So, I want this place to be mine, but I would like some help.” Not the whole truth. “I needyourhelp. A loan. I need you to invest in me. Because this”—he held his arms wide—“is my investment in myself, in the future I want, in the man I plan on being. Independent. Someone who puts something of value into the world for others.”
Arthur leaned closer to the machine, tweaking it here and there, tilting his head, inspecting its corners and curves. He stuck out a hand, without looking away from it. “You’ve got it. Write down your plans and share them with me, as you said.”
Devon had always thought he’d feel defeated if he had to ask his brother for help. But defeat was nowhere to be found. He felt elation. Excitement. Victory.
The all-consuming need to find Lillian. That very moment.
He placed his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “I’ll pay you back. Every penny.”
The corner of Arthur’s lip tipped up, high emotion for the man. “I know you will.” He stood from the table, pushing the chair back with a scrape of wood against wood.
Devon jumped to his feet and crashed into his brother, wrapping him in a hug. “Thank you.”
Arthur’s arms swung up to pat Devon’s back, as much as they could manacled as they were to his sides by Devon’s embrace. “Um, yes. Right. No need for all… this.”
Devon squeezed tighter, rocking him side to side.
Arthur ducked down, sliding out of Devon’s grasp like a fish from between a fisherman’s hands. He took several steps away from Devon, clearly scared he’d find himself similarly trapped if he didn’t, straightened his waistcoat and jacket, then smoothed his hair.
“I’m grateful for your gratitude, Devon, but—ack!”
Devon tackled him once more, grinning like a wildling bent on destruction or, at the very least, antagonizing his brother. Devon had not felt this free in years, perhaps since his father’s death.
“Let me go,” Arthur grunted. “You giant lum—”
“Devon!”
He dropped his hands to his side and dropped his brother to the floor. He swung toward the door. Lillian stood there, the sun streaming into the gloomy dark of the coffeehouse, outlining her lithe form, showing her for the angel she was. He strode toward her to embrace her, to toss her in the air and twirl her in a circle, but stopped short right before her.
Her steely eyes, her pursed lips, both reminders of his past sins.
