Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,86

he needed her strength as much as she needed his. “My hands were cut so badly from clawing at the ice to get to Thomas that Dr. Balfour said I might not get complete use of my forefinger and thumb back on my left hand. I’d forgotten that.” Lilias looked at his hand, imagining the torment it must have been for him to try and fail to save his twin brother. “I also recalled just this morning how I very nearly drowned, as well. How Father and the stable master had to pull me out because I would not come out of the frigid water, I would not quit diving under searching for Thomas.”

“Greybourne, do not do this,” his mother said, suddenly looking frightened and sounding small.

He didn’t acknowledge her, and Lilias realized he was lost in memories he’d repressed for so long. “Dr. Balfour said I was lucky I had not died from the cold and the blood loss from the cuts. But you… Do you remember what you said to me when I awoke?”

“Greybourne.” She moaned in such an animalistic way that Lilias’s breath caught in her throat.

“I am your son,” he said, “and you have never called me by my given name. So formal. So distant. So damn cruel.”

Tears filled Lilias’s eyes at the pain Nash had been living with caused by his own mother. “There were no kind words from you when I awoke, nor from Father. But you, you said that I let Thomas drown. You demanded to know what I had done to make him charge me on the ice. Never once did you offer comfort. You offered condemnation, guilt, and silence. Bloody deafening silence.”

Lilias swiped at the warm tears now gliding down her cheeks and squeezed Nash’s waist. When he squeezed her back, she exhaled with relief. This moment with his mother was painful but necessary if he was ever to heal and if the life they wanted together was to have a real chance.

“I couldn’t,” Nash’s mother said on a sob. “I couldn’t give ye those things. Not because I blamed ye but because I blamed myself. And yer father blamed himself, too.”

“Explain,” Nash said, the word cold, but Lilias understood why. She understood his need to protect himself now.

Nash’s mother’s gaze darted to Lilias for a moment, then fell on Nash once more. “Ye were not the firstborn,” she whispered, sounding utterly broken now. “Thomas was. Ye were not the heir.” A bitter laugh escaped her.

“What?” Nash said, sounding shocked. Lilias herself could not have even formed that one word in this moment.

“Ye were born second, a breath after Thomas, but ye came out perfect. Strong. Healthy. But Thomas—” The duchess shook her head violently. “He was blue and so quiet, and he had that twisted leg. Yer father and I both knew before Dr. Balfour even told us that Thomas would never be strong enough to carry on the family name.”

“Dear God,” Nash muttered, and Lilias found herself nodding in mute agreement.

“Ye do not understand!” his mother sobbed. “Thomas could not have handled the weight of being the heir. Dr. Balfour said his lungs, like his leg, were not properly formed, and he would always be weak. That’s why—That’s why we did what we did to protect him. Ye were to be his protector with us, and in the end, ye failed him and we failed ye both. And…and to make matters dreadfully worse, Dr. Balfour has been blackmailing yer father and me for years! He threatened to expose what we had done unless we paid him and unless ye one day wed his daughter. I wanted to tell ye, I did, but how do ye tell someone how miserably ye have failed them? How do ye tell someone the terrible choices ye’ve made?” She buried her face in her hands and cried.

Partly in shock and partly relieved it all seemed to be out in the open now, Lilias looked at Nash, and she could see the indecision on his face as to whether to go to his mother or not. Lilias knew he could likely not totally forgive the horrible things she’d done, and it would take a lot of time to even accept what had happened, but she knew he’d feel guilty if he didn’t go to her now.

Lilias set her hand on Nash’s back and gave him a little push, which did not move him at all, but he knew what she meant. He smiled lovingly at