“It makes no difference to my plan,” Charles declared with a fury that fully shook him, revealing his words to be a lie. Silverton’s wife did not fit with Charles’s plan of posing as the real viscount. “I will simply find your wife and inform her she is now wed to me. She would be a fool to disagree or to go against my will.” With that wild statement, Charles had swept from the room.
His dramatic exit left a stilled sense of dread in the chamber. The traces of early dawn had given way to the outbreak of morning, and light was starting to creep more fully in to illuminate the gothic prison with what seemed to be a bright and wholesome day. The irony seemed just a little too much for Silverton in that moment.
In normal circumstances, he might have been able to reach for his own rationality and find a lingering sense of comfort in that—his twin was mad, and his scheme would not work. It would fail unquestionably. But the problem was that Charles’s grand goal now included Maeve, and that was increasing Silverton’s own insanity.
She was what mattered to him. It seemed almost to burn through him with a ferocity he would never have previously imagined possible. Even captured and so close to the man who had been his yearly torment, Silverton’s mind carried him away to the sound and sight of laughter. To the way Maeve tucked an errant curl behind her ear, to the singular feel of solace she brought him when she hugged him. How had he never realised the sheer joy an embrace could bring? The overwhelming sensation of his breath leaving his lungs because he knew he was safe. That was what Maeve meant to him.
He’d rejected her again and again because he was a coward. He was scared of the emotions she stirred in him. For all his seeming bravery, there had been the fear she would see through him—sense that he was unworthy of her. Lifting his eyes to the bed’s rotting canopy, Silverton realised that if he were to die today, his greatest regret would be that he would never have the opportunity to tell Maeve how he felt.
No, that is a regret I can die with, but I cannot die with the regret that I endangered her. Which meant if he did die, he had to ensure his brother did too.
It occurred to Silverton, never an overtly religious man, that his preference would once have been the solace of sheer unrelenting darkness washing over him. That would have been the comfort he sought. Now, he realised the comfort, the solace, the heady release of breath entering him would be the feel of Maeve’s soft auburn red hair, the scent and sheen that was uniquely hers. It wrapped around his fingers and cupped his cheek, cascading out as a pillow to hold him. In the few months he had known her, Maeve had rendered him softer and needier than he had ever thought capable, and yet, he knew in his heart of hearts he would never resent her for this. It was a gift to feel as he did for her. A gift which deserved his utmost efforts to protect. Heaven, for him, would be knowing that she was safe.
Opening his eyes wide, Silverton focused his attention on his mother. He needed her to be able to free himself from these restrains and help.
“Lady Silverton,” he called to the slumped figure in the corner. The chamber he was in was a large one, the master suite, in fact. The huddling form of Lady Silverton was a good distance away from him, in the corner of the room. She had not stirred from where Charles had thrown her. Her greying brown hair was flowing over her face, and her limbs were splayed out on the frayed carpet, yet he could see, if he strained against his knots, the slow rise and fall of her chest that said she was still breathing.
“Please Seraphina,” he tried again. “Please, Mother.” The maternal title sat uneasily on his lips; after all, she had betrayed him, but were he to cling to such stupidities he would never be free.
The dowager shifted just a little and lifted her head a fraction off the ground until their eyes met. “Help me,” he begged, doubtful the appeal would work but knowing it was worth the try, in case something remained of the woman his mother had once been.
With a groggy shake of her head, she stood and edged closer to the bed, moving like a confused child. Her soulful grey eyes stared down at him as if her elder son was a riddle she could not understand, no matter how much she gazed at the ropes at his wrists.
“You need to untie me,” Silverton whispered, his voice as gentle as he could make it, as soft as if she were an infant.
A tentative hand moved away from its position at her side and towards one of the sets of the knots, and for a fleeting moment, Silverton felt some hope, but then his mother paused.
“I thought you would be friends. Again. He wrote and wrote to me about how that was all he needed—that there was a misunderstanding.” Her voice was sad and low. “I can show you his letters where he promised he would win you over, so you would be brothers once more. That is all I wanted for my sons.”
“I know. I believe you. I forgive you,” Silverton said.Keep calm, she does not realise the harm or the danger both of us are in. It was so clear his poor mother had been tricked, as hundreds of others had been, by Charles’s smooth words and winning ways.
“You do?” This was the first time Lady Silverton looked truly interested, as if she might help.
“Yes.” Silverton was not entirely sure if it was truth or a lie, but in this moment, it didn’t matter.
“It was my fault—Charlie always said it was that your father died. He said you blamed me.”
“No, Charles is confused,” Silverton said hurriedly. “I don’t blame you. Please, I need your help now.
The worry seemed to clear from her tired face, and she let out a giggle. “Would untying you be cheating at your game?” The dowager moved her head, and Silverton saw a trickle of blood eased its way through his mother’s hairline. She was injured from her fall, a gash visible from here.
“No—Charlie cheated. He should not have tied me up.”
With a knowing maternal sigh, Lady Silverton reached forward and yanked at one of the bindings as she spoke in a rush, pulling at the material to loosen the rope which held captive Silverton’s right hand. “You two are always playing together—you were like this when you were little, always trying to outdo each other. Whatever will you try next?” She paused as she wriggled one of the knots a little looser, the tension lessening on his right wrist a fraction. “I do not think he means badly. He has such ideas of what will happen when you two are reunited that he writes to me of what a fine day that will be. But I am your mother, you will do as I say, won’t you? Promise me, Gregory? It will be as it was before—that is all I ever wanted.”
Before Silverton could think of a suitable reply, there was a loud sound of gunfire, the kind that came from pistols. There was a blast of one shot and then another, before the Hall returned to an ominous still.
“Quick,” Silverton said as he sat up as much as his bindings would allow. His directive was aimed at his mother, who had frozen in her place, all the colour leaving her face as she swayed, uncertain of what to do.
The dowager’s hands scrambled with the knot, but it seemed to do little good. In fact, Silverton’s wrist almost seemed to be pulled back tighter.
Below them, Silverton was aware of movement. It was the sound of feet running through the Hall. The noise of a person which he sensed was not his brother. But was that wishful thinking on his part?
The binding knot which had been tight around Silverton’s right wrist suddenly gave way beneath Lady Silverton’s trembling fingers, loosening and giving Silverton the use of one arm. A small liberty at last.
“Go,” he ordered his mother. With this freed hand, he could untie himself. “Go and find somewhere to hide.”
Light was breaking through the windows of the room, the faint edge of dawn. He would have liked to order Lady Silverton to run through the gardens and find a neighbour, but even the nearest cottage might be beyond her, and he didn’t have faith she would be able to explain it all. With an encouraging smile, he turned to his other hand and tried to untie that twisted knot.
