Martin’s gaze lowered to her face. “I’m sorry.” Faint panic edged into his voice. “By all means berate me, but for God’s sake, don’t cry.”
“I’m not.” Therese pulled back enough to swipe her knuckles across her cheeks. “Or at least, they’re only happy tears—you don’t need to panic.”
She clearly knew her brother well, because there had definitely been incipient panic in his expression as well as his tone.
Then she stepped back, and Martin’s arms fell from her. She searched his face. “My God, Martin—you put us through such a terrible time.”
His face fell, and he held up a hand in a fencer’s gesture of surrender. “I know—well, I know now, and I’m sorry. I never thought…” He broke off and grimaced. “But you know that. Back then, I didn’t think things through all that well.”
Martin had forgotten Devlin, and Devlin was in no hurry to make his presence felt. He studied the younger man critically as Martin met Therese’s eyes.
“I never meant for anyone to worry about me, but…” He gestured vaguely. “The longer I was over there, the harder it became to even think of contacting anyone here—and at first, I was too ashamed.”
Sincerity rang in his tone. Seeing the genuine contrition in Martin’s face, Devlin felt respect—faint but definite—stir. Coming back from the dead—rescripting a belief that, it seemed, he’d fostered by omission—wouldn’t be easy.
Devlin realized he could testify to that.
“Well,” Therese said, “at least you’re here now, and as Mama and Papa have forgiven you, everyone else will, too.” She glanced at Devlin, then with her lips lifting in a smile, looked back at Martin. “As you vanished before our wedding”—she waved at Devlin—“you’ve yet to meet Alverton.”
Responding to the hopeful look she threw him, Devlin walked forward.
Her smile encouraging, Therese continued, “Devlin, allow me to present my errant little brother, Martin Cynster.”
Adopting an easy expression that didn’t quite mask his reservations, Devlin nodded. “Cynster.” He halted beside Therese and offered his hand.
Martin grasped it and lightly grimaced. “Please—Martin.” He glanced at Therese. “We are family, after all.” There was a definite question in that statement.
Devlin wasn’t surprised when Therese responded with an approving smile. “Indeed, we are, and you would do well to remember that from now on.”
Martin released Devlin’s hand, and as Therese moved to the sofa and sat, Devlin waved Martin to the armchair opposite. “And as you just heard, I’m Devlin.”
He waited until Therese had settled her skirts, then sat beside her and waited for her to commence her interrogation, which she promptly did.
“Now—tell me. What exactly did you do? Start when you and the other two left Eton.”
As Devlin had noted earlier, Martin clearly knew his sister; he’d come prepared to answer her questions. For all that his answers sounded well-rehearsed—undoubtedly, he would have already given them to Vane and Patience and probably Gregory as well—Devlin found the tale illuminating.
“Yes, I know it was the height of foolishness now,” Martin replied to Therese’s exclamation over his and his friends’ plan to seek their fortune by running away to sea. “But at the time, it seemed like”—he gestured—“a great adventure.”
Therese primmed her lips, then asked, “So what happened?”
“Instead of heading to London, we went to Southampton. It was easy enough to hire on as deckhands on a ship bound for New York. We worked our passage across—that wasn’t so bad. But then we reached New York, and Lionel fell ill. Eric and I stayed with him, of course, but even pooling our funds, we didn’t have all that much, and we couldn’t find a doctor.” Martin paused and looked down at his tightly clasped hands. Eventually, he went on, “Lionel died. After that, Eric and I found work here and there, but it was rather rough, and Eric decided he’d had enough adventure, and he took a ship home. We’d agreed for him to take news of Lionel’s death to his family, but—” Martin paused, then glanced fleetingly at Therese. “I made him promise not to tell anyone anything about me.”
Puzzled, Therese asked, “Why? If you needed help—”
“That was why.” Grimly, Martin shook his head. “By then…well, I understood what I’d done. But the whole point of running away in the first place was to forge a life that wasn’t dependent on the family—on being a Cynster.” He waved dismissively. “Christopher’s the eldest and will inherit Walkhurst. Gregory’s the spare, and something will surely come his way. You”—he glanced at her and tipped his head toward Devlin—“are the dynastic connection. You all have roles to fill, but me? I’m the unnecessary third son, which is why I went looking for…a life.”
He paused, then went on, “By the time Eric left, I’d realized that running away had been the wrong thing to do, but coming back seemed pointless. What was there for me here? Finish at Eton, go to Oxford, and then what? Sit quietly in a corner?”
Devlin couldn’t imagine the man seated opposite doing any such thing, and a sidelong glance at Therese’s expression showed she thought the same.
“So what did you do?” she asked.
Martin dragged in a breath and replied, “I decided I was going to make a go of it and build some sort of successful life, enough to prove to everyone that I wasn’t any sort of cipher—the third and forgettable son.”
“Mama and Papa and all the rest of us never thought of you that way.”
He paused, then tipped his head. “Perhaps not, but back then, it certainly felt like that.” After a moment, he went on, “Eventually, I hired out to a man running an import-export business. He…saw my potential, I suppose you could say. He showed me how best to use what he termed ‘the skills God gave me’ in the pursuit of business. Because of my accent and my manners and the obvious benefits of my years at school, he made me his assistant and took me with him to all his meetings. He taught me everything there was to know about wheeling and dealing in commerce and in goods. Ultimately, he brought me in as a partner, and subsequently, I went to Chicago and established an office there, dealing with all the goods trafficked via the Great Lakes and brought in from the western states.” His lips lifted faintly, and pride edged his tone as he said, “I built the Chicago business into a critical hub for commerce of all sorts.”
Watching him and plainly intrigued, Therese prompted, “And that was where Mama and Papa found you.”
Martin’s expression changed; for an instant, he looked stricken, then he nodded. “Yes. I hadn’t changed my name, although I’d never made anything of it—never even alluded to the ducal connection.” He blinked, then met Therese’s gaze. “Meeting Mama and Papa after all that time…”
The emotion that must have invested those moments seemed to hover in the room.
Martin drew in a tight breath and went on, “They—their reaction—brought home to me how completely misguided I’d been and that they cared about me as much as they did any of you three.”