Grayson had heard about his niece by letter. He stood in place, exhaling slowly.
He loved children. He especially loved other people’s children. Half his valise was made up of toys for little Henrietta. This tended to confuse people because there had never been a point where he’d actually wanted his own child.
Part of that was because he was inherently a wanderer. He’d had go-fever since he was able to walk. He’d listened to his uncles’ stories of their travels with big eyes and an even bigger yearning. He’d begged to be allowed to come along even before he could possibly be allowed to do such a thing.
At the age of seven, he’d tried to sneak on board his great-great-uncle John’s ship. He had succeeded too—or at least, he had thought he had succeeded. An hour after the ship had pulled out from harbor, his great-great-uncle had found him in his hiding place.
“Well,” Uncle John had said, looking up at Grayson’s startled, pleading eyes, “do you want to see your bunk?”
He had discovered that his mother had packed his things for the short journey and written him a letter saying that if he was going to sneak off, he might as well do it properly.
He had, apparently, not been as sneaky as he’d thought he was. Ever since that time, it had been a constant struggle between them, inasmuch as his mother ever struggled. She asked him to stay, allowed him to leave, and sighed when he grew restless. If she’d had her way, all her boys would have stayed home forever and surrounded her with grandbabies. Now she had only Adrian for that.
They looked happy here. For a moment, he could watch them laughing and cooing over the baby, his heart a tangle, feeling outside the circle of their love.
Then his mother looked up.
She hadn’t had a chance to prepare for the sight of him, and he remembered an instant too late that this was going to be a problem. She turned to look at him. Her eyes widened. And in that first instant—before the smile, before the greetings—he saw a flash of something pass through her eyes.
His mother was English. It had been a hell of a shock for her, moving to America, moving to be with his father’s side of the family. His cousins and uncles and aunts tended to be direct and plainspoken—exactly the opposite of how his mother had been raised. She’d grown used to it, somewhat, but she was never going to be the sort of voluble person who told him exactly what she thought at all times.
Grayson had grown up with her. He’d learned to infer her emotions. Unfortunately, he was far too good at it.
“Grayson,” she said. “You’re here early.”
His father was not English. He jumped up from his seat, barreling across the room, folding Grayson into a hug. Adrian got up gingerly, his child in his arms, and came to stand beside him.
“Merry late Christmas,” Adrian said, touching shoulders to avoid squishing little Henrietta between them.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t quite make it in time. I ended up delayed by travel. I had to cross the country, second class by rail—”
“Not first?” His mother interjected.
Grayson let out a long sigh. “I bought first. I was put in second.”
Adrian made a face. His father sighed. But his mother… Her eyes flashed in something like resentment.
How well Grayson knew what resentment looked like on her.
“Intolerable,” she said. “And this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this.” A slash of her hand indicated who her we encompassed—the world of people she was connected with who were like-minded. “Your father and I have been donating to a subscription for legal challenges to such practices. If you’d like, we could—”
Grayson cut this off with a wave of his hand. “Mama, I’m too busy making my own network to be bothered with the problems from someone else’s.”
John might have done it, if he were still here. He was the sort to appreciate such intricate machinations. But Grayson hardly trusted the courts that had given the country Dred Scott to treat transportation fairly, no matter what the law supposedly said. Better to make something for himself.
His mother sighed. “Go wash up. Let me get us some tea before we are inundated with cousins.”
By the time Grayson had returned from the washroom, tea was served, and Adrian was back, sans baby. Camilla, his wife, was putting her down, he said; they had a little time. Just for themselves—him, Grayson, their parents.
“We’re looking for a property,” Adrian said. “We may move back here now that everything is settling down.”
God. His mother must love that. Grayson was happy that she had someone to love. Truly he was.
His mother leaned over and set a hand on Grayson’s knee. “I’m so glad you’ve taken a week from your busy schedule to see your family.”
Here was the thing about having a mother who had been raised to express herself in the politest terms possible. When she was angry, this was how she sounded. One had to be attuned to her every nuance to recognize that statement for what it was: a thorough denunciation of the way Grayson spent his time.
“Mama.” Grayson thought about apologizing, but he’d been raised to believe apologies were meaningless without changed behavior, and he didn’t know how to change. “We’re behind schedule as it is.”
“Schedule?” She glanced at the clock ticking against the wall. “You’re in charge. I thought you set the schedule. Why would you set a schedule so that you would be so behind it that you couldn’t even see your family?”
Here in this room, with one other brother and room for so many more, with his mother and the resentment he occasionally caught behind her eyes…
Here, he could have said it. Harry set the schedule; I can’t abandon Harry’s schedule.
But he hadn’t talked to his family about his brothers, not since the day he’d come home alone and had his mother ask why Noah wasn’t with him. He hadn’t been able to do it.
Instead, Grayson leaned over and kissed his mother’s forehead. “Mama, I know how hard it is for you to have…” He couldn’t even say that—how hard it was to have only two sons now. He changed his words. “It’s been hard on you, having a son who wanders the world.”
Her eyes shivered shut. “Gray.” Her hand found his. “Don’t worry about how hard it is on me.”
Of all his parents’ sons to survive the war, it had to have been Grayson who did it. He wasn’t loving and ebullient like Harry. John enjoyed a bit of travel, but he’d been more interested in politics—at home or abroad, he’d taken after his father in that regard.
His mother had never said it—she would never have mentioned it—but Noah had been her favorite, so bright and full of life and enthusiasm for the entire world that everyone couldn’t help but love him with all their heart.
Grayson was the one who didn’t want children of his own. Who never wanted to rest in any one place. He knew his mother loved him. He also knew—although she would never say it—he was her least favorite son.
When he had come back from the war—when he realized the letter he’d sent informing his family of his brother’s passing had never arrived, when he’d had to tell her in person that Noah had died of a fever in his arms—he had seen that now-familiar flash of resentment. It had been her first response, before tears, before sorrow.