Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,112

in a way in which the victims of the peerage would be in control of the information to be revealed. Her brother had proven he’d no right to know of her intentions or the work she intended.

Unlike Tynan. Tynan, who’d come ’round to support her, but had left the decision to her.

Tynan, whom she’d never see again.

Tears filled her eyes, blinding her.

The moment the door clicked shut, indicating her brother had gone, Faye wept.

Chapter 27

“Two visits within two weeks,” his sister greeted as Tynan entered the parlor Sara so favored in this house he’d kept for her through the years. “Dare I hope there is special news you’ve come to me with?”

“Special news?” Certainly, being discovered in Faye’s arms by her brother and ceremoniously tossed out on his arse by the same two footmen he’d previously gotten on well with at the Poplar staff dinners and breakfasts. He had managed to walk away with his life and had not had to surrender to a constable for impersonating a household servant in a lord’s house. So, there was that.

His sister sighed. “I shall take that as a no, then.”

It was odd to find the regret in her sad tones was as great as the regret that had followed him since he’d been run out Faye’s home.

Nay, that wasn’t within a remote distance of the regret sawing away at his insides. What was this? This… missing another person. It was simply that he wouldn’t see her again, which he’d always known, as their time together had always been finite. This struggle certainly, only, came down to the fact that there’d been no proper goodbye. There was no closure on the whirlwind relationship he’d known with Faye Pop—

“What is it?” his sister urged as she stood and moved to the end of the sofa so she was nearer to him.

Guilt settled in his gut. “Because it is unexpected for me to arrive twice in one week?” Working as he had been, there’d been little time, and yet, he’d attempted to when he could.

“I was teasing, Tynan,” she said gently, setting aside her embroidery. “You have been the most attentive and loving of brothers, and I—”

“I was arrested,” he said with such an abrupt and sudden shift, his sister’s words ended midsentence, and she stared unblinkingly back at him. “I was accepting bribes from the wealthier, more powerful inmates, and I landed myself in Newgate prison. I crossed the wrong duke.” Tension snapped through him. There it was, the illusion he’d held up for this one person, and now she knew precisely what her brother—

“Is there a right duke to cross?” Sara said dryly.

Of anything she might have said, that was decidedly not what he’d expected. And yet, having revealed that truth hadn’t left him vulnerable. Nor, by the teasing glimmer in his sister’s eyes, had it changed the way she looked at him.

Even as it likely should have.

He slouched in his chair and shifted back and forth. “No. That’s a fair enough point.” He elaborated on that misstep that had kept him away from his sister these past months. “His grandson was imprisoned for thievery, and the gentleman took exception with my treatment.”

“When his grandson is a thief?” Sara scoffed. “That does seem rather hypocritical of him.”

He smiled wryly. “Yes, well, different standards and all that. Either way,” he went on, getting back to the reason he’d come. To make atonement and to at last be honest. Faye had helped him see that his sister was not only strong enough for those truths, but deserving of them as well. “I wanted you to know that is why I’ve not come around, Sara.”

“I know.” She didn’t so much as pick her gaze up from that previously white fabric now stitched in bright, colorful threads.

“What?” Shock pulled that question from him.

“Do you think that when you disappeared for months on end I didn’t look into what became of you?”

He blinked slowly. That would mean… “You went to Newgate.” He’d had no idea.

Color blossomed on her cheeks, a blush he didn’t know what to make of, but based on his endless knowledge of that prison, he could assume. “I had hopes of freeing you,” she explained. “I spoke to your replacement warden. Mr. Hinton.”

A hiss slipped from between his clenched teeth. “You spoke with—?”

“Oh, hush. He was nice enough.”

Briefly distracted from the real reason he’d come this day, he processed those latter four words uttered by his sister. “Nice enough?” he echoed incredulously. “He’s a petulant,