“It’s just as well I was here. I can see he’s worsened since my last treatment of him in Town. Clearly, it’s an internal infection.”
“And what did your colleagues say?”
“It confounds them.”
There were some more low murmurings, which infuriated Silverton. Forcing himself upright, he called out loudly, “Well, my good man, will you tell me what’s wrong?” Jokingly, he added, “Am I dying?”
There was an ominous stretch of long, drawn-out silence, which was its own answer. He was dying.
His mother hurried forward. Her hands stroked Silverton’s face, trying to reassure him, and then she said in amongst a stream of words, “Your brother, Charles. We must call him home. He should be here.”
Her words echoed through him, and they left Silverton feeling truly scared, in a way that rocked him to his core. Even more so than the shock of his deadly diagnosis. Oh, his closest friends in the Set and his colleagues knew that his brother was a traitor, but no one beyond that did. Silverton had kept the real identity of Charles Brennan out of the papers. Out of the documents. Out of general knowledge. All because his dear mother had said it would break her heart if her baby Charles was outed as a traitor.
Cursing himself for this error, Silverton could reveal all now, he supposed, but would it work?
Voices were echoing around Silverton, but he couldn’t pay the least bit of attention to the rest of whatever the doctor and his mother were saying. He ignored them. The realisation that his life would be ending soon was hitting him. Then the hideous thought that his traitorous brother might return here to claim Silver Hall and Silverton’s title, once he was dead. Silverton’s Set would try to stop Charles, but would it be enough? Charles was clever and cruel, and Silverton did not want to leave the Set to deal with his twin. He couldn’t allow his brother to inherit. Suddenly, that mattered more than anything else.
“How long?”
“What?” Doctor Sprot looked confused, his wizened face pinched as he moved nearer to the bed, bending close to catch Silverton’s desperate words.
“How long do I have left?”
“I—err, well…”
“Don’t worry about my nerves, just tell me.”
“Six months, a year perhaps. But you will need to follow my directions, you understand?”
With a nod of his head, Silverton dismissed the doctor and his mother. Sprot left more of the medicine on the bedside table, a constant reminder of Silverton’s ominous fate.
Weighing the news, Silverton reached towards some inner calm—he had a year, if he was lucky, to find and kill his brother. But he’d have to do it weighed down with sickness, and he didn’t fancy his chances of managing such a task when he was so ill. Besides, Charles was a master of escape. And most importantly of all, Silverton was not even sure where Charles was at this point in time.
What were his other options?
Ask the Set, weighed down as they were with responsibilities, marriages, and infants, to help him track down and kill Charles? It wasn’t an appealing thought, and the guilt he would feel if one of his friends died because of him...
He could tell the world the truth and hope they didn’t think he was mad. But after he was dead and gone, would it matter?
He could hope against reason that his distant cousin Algernon was up to the task of being the Lord Silverton. The man was fifty if he was a day, and his only interest was in antiques. He wouldn’t last two minutes against Charles.
“I need an heir,” Silverton said to himself. His whisper echoed around an empty bedroom, and the silence taunted him with the knowledge that first, what he would need was a wife.
CHAPTER2
Staplehurst village, Kent. January 1816.
Miss Mary Walsh, more commonly known by Maeve to her family, was a handsome-featured, red-haired, and occasionally freckled if she spent too much time in the sun, schoolteacher. Her position meant she was often overlooked by wider society, but it also meant she had plenty of time to develop the skills of resourcefulness, a fine quick wit, and a compassionate nature.
With that kindly concern in mind, she had only been home from her teaching post for a few days before she became all too aware that something was wrong at her father’s home. It was obvious—the little cottage in the centre of Staplehurst had fairly bristled with tension throughout the winter holiday.
Mr. John Walsh, a valued and respected member of Lord Silverton’s household, was keeping something from his daughters. He was a proud man but an excellent father. His encouragement for his daughters to get an education had led to some unconventional choices, even going so far as to teach them to load and fire a pistol, but he deemed it as important as needlework or economy. Nonetheless, something was wrong with her father, and Maeve was determined to know the cause.
She had cornered her sister as the younger woman prepared to return to her own studies. “Grace, something is wrong with father. He’s been acting oddly for the entire holiday. Tell me you know something.”
Her sister lowered her packing. Grace’s bedchamber was a chaotic mess, as she had been bundling things into her bag. She was at school, too, although at eighteen she would rapidly need to finish her studies and find work as Maeve had. Looking up to meet her sister’s gaze, Grace nodded. “Yes, but he swore me to secrecy.”
“On what grounds?” Maeve asked.
