He glanced at Michael. “I’m sure you’ve given this much thought, being a soldier. But even you haven’t come up with an answer. And I did think you had the best motivation to harm Cecilia when you first arrived.”
“But now this person is targeting me,” Michael said softly.
“You can take care of yourself.” Oliver’s tone was dismissive.
She stiffened but felt the pressure of Michael’s hand on hers as if to calm her. She tried to relax.
“But Cecilia,” Oliver said, turning back to her, “you don’t know how to protect yourself. Perhaps I didn’t want to believe the attacks were real because there’s still a part of me that thinks all this”—he gestured at the room, but seemed to mean the castle—“has some kind of power to protect us. But I guess that was only true when Father was alive. He would have protected you. I’ve failed you, just as I failed—”
And then he broke off, staring almost bleakly into the distance. He couldn’t mean Gabriel; he wasn’t even with them when their brother died.
“You haven’t failed me,” she said quietly. “Neither Michael nor I has been able to stop these attacks.”
“I should have,” he said in a hoarse voice. “But I didn’t want to see it. I thought ... if I focused on myself enough, I could forget anything unpleasant. It didn’t work.”
“What are you trying to forget, Oliver?”
He opened his mouth, but at first nothing came out. Cecilia kept herself from leaning forward, unwilling to break the moment. Then his face wrenched into an awful grimace, and to her shock, a tear slid down his cheek.
“I did something terrible,” he whispered, then rubbed the heels of his palms hard into his eyes.
Feeling ill, she told herself to be patient. She thought she might have to restrain Michael, but he was so calm as to be a statue. He radiated acceptance and ease, as if he were leaving the connection between her and Oliver alone.
“Can you tell me what you think you did?” she asked her brother.
“Do you remember the upstairs maid, Jennette, who used to work for us a few years ago?”
Baffled, Cecilia stared at him. This wasn’t about the attacks? “Of course. She left our employ and moved away, rather unexpectedly.”
“Not unexpectedly,” he said, his voice breaking. “I paid her to go away. I’d—I’d seduced her, and she got with child.”
A wrenching pain clutched Cecilia’s chest as she took a swift breath, and she wanted to press her hand to her heart. “Oh, Oliver,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you?” He gave a harsh laugh that held no amusement. “What was I supposed to say? I was seventeen and stupid. Though I knew several other men who’d done the same thing, I-I panicked, thinking of what Father would say. She didn’t want me from the beginning. I made certain she felt ... she had no choice.”
Cecilia covered her mouth, trying not to show her horror that the brother she loved had done something so despicable.
He wiped a hand down his face. “By the devil, I treated her as if she weren’t even a person. And when she said there was a baby ...”
She flinched, as if with another blow.
“I was so angry.” His voice trailed off, and he looked dispiritedly at the floor. “After I gave her money and sent her away, I never saw or heard from her again. I thought that would be the end of it.” He lifted his head and stared hard into her face. “But I can’t forget her, Cecilia. I can’t forget what I did to her, or how she looked so lost when I sent her away. When I look in a mirror, I see Jennette, not me anymore.”
“And you drink to forget.” Her brother’s past behavior began to fall into place.
“It doesn’t help,” he said bitterly. “When you told me what Rowlandson had done to the tavern maid—I’d done so much worse. I let you have my responsibilities so I wouldn’t have to think. When Father died ... oh God, there was a part of me that was glad he would never have to know what I’d done, how I’d betrayed our family name.” He covered his face with hands that trembled.
At last, Cecilia looked at her husband. Michael’s expression was grim, but he said nothing, only nodded toward her brother. Trusting her.
Oliver gave another shudder and looked up. His eyes were dry, his face haunted by a grief that suddenly made him look ten years older. “I can’t go on like this. I know I’ve relied on you too much, Cecilia, but ... tell me what to do to make this right again, to find some way to live with myself.”
“I think we need to find Jennette,” she said in a firm voice. “She’s out there alone with your child. Illegitimate or not, this child needs you to provide more than whatever money you gave her. You need to support them both.”
He nodded. “Yes, you’re right, I know, but ... how?”
“Let me talk with Mrs. Ellison and see if she knows where the girl went. Servants often leave forwarding addresses to have things sent.”
Oliver nodded. “I can talk to her if you’d like.”
