A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,44

yes.

His brother’s features shifted subtly, until he looked out at Simon through eyes that would have done some long ago religious zealot or too-enthusiastic member of The Inquisition proud.

For the first time in Simon’s memory, his brother burned with emotion and it scared the hell out of him.

He lost all desire to taunt or mock. “But you are not the break, Wyndham. I will inherit. There is no break. Everything will go on as usual. You know I will not be profligate or reckless or—”

“But that will never happen, Simon.”

Simon squinted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you are intent on killing yourself. I can read it in your face. Every day that passes and your head hits the pillow is a miracle.” Simon opened his mouth to deny it, but Wyndham wasn’t done. “I see it. I feel it, Simon. You are not interested in living. I don’t think you are interested in anything—not even the horses you claim to love.”

An image of himself reaching over the cliff to retrieve Honoria Keyes’s feather flickered into Simon’s brain.

Wyndham nodded as though Simon had admitted to something. “Yes, you don’t want to live. You haven’t wanted to live since before your injuries.”

This time Simon was too shocked to argue—too shocked by his brother’s perception. He was also bitterly envious of other man’s memory. He could no longer recall so much of his past. It was like looking at something through a cracked and filthy window, he could see images, but they were smoky and unrecognizable.

“I don’t know what happened to you during the war to make you the way you are, Simon, but I do understand the result—your lack of desire to go on living.” It was as close as Wyndham had ever come to admitting the unimaginable pain of losing one child after another.

A lump of remorse blocked Simon’s throat and he had to swallow several times to overcome it. He was so bloody tired of fighting with the brother he loved that he opened his mouth to capitulate—to give him what he wanted and marry one of the young women who were probably even now infesting Whitcomb.

But then, out of nowhere, Bella’s tear-stained face rose up like some specter from a Shakespearean play.

I love you, Simon. I will always love you.

He had no recollection of the circumstances surrounding that memory—he didn’t know the day, or even the year—but it left a bone-shaking rage in its wake.

This was the man who had made Simon this way: Wyndham.

His brother had destroyed his chance of marrying the woman he loved and living the life he’d always hoped for.

Wyndham’s machinations were the reason that Simon had gone to war in the first place.

It was because of Wyndham that he was a broken, damaged wreck of a man.

Simon let fourteen years’ worth of fury ooze into his sneer. “You haven’t a clue what is in my mind, and I have no intention of ever sharing my private thoughts or plans with you.”

Wyndham’s eyes shuttered at Simon’s animosity, the little glimpse of himself that he’d so briefly displayed was gone without a trace.

A chill settled deep in Simon’s bones. Wyndham was not a man to cross, and yet Simon had done so again and again and again. And now—

The duke stood and pulled on his gloves, the snug brown leather tightening over his knuckles as he flexed them, as if for a fight. “I have paid your shot here through tonight but the innkeeper knows it is the last money he will see from me. I daresay you could remain here indefinitely and he will not dun you. You can soak up his food and drink, occupy his best room without pay,” he hesitated, “or fuck his employees, and he will allow it—even if it ruins him.”

Simon felt dizzy and breathless as he realized how inexorably his brother’s web had closed around him.

“You’re inhuman.” The words were barely a whisper.

Wyndham nodded. “I am. Don’t fight me, Simon, you cannot win. Come home by tomorrow. I will expect you at dinner, which will be a bit of a send-off for Miss Keyes. As you’ve not been home for some weeks you might not be aware that she has completed her work here and will be going home to commence the portraits.”

Oh, Simon had been aware. Very aware. Staying away from Miss Keyes—and thereby avoiding ruining her life—had been his chief reason for relocating to the St. George.

He’d removed himself from temptation the morning after that disastrous