But none of those thoughts came out. Instead, he studied his brother and saw that the lanky youth he remembered had filled out into a man. His shoulders were broad and thick with muscle. His hands were far from the dainty kind fops prized. His brother was large and strong in all the best possible ways.
“You look good,” Lucas said. And he meant it.
“So do you. Especially since I thought you were dead.” And when Lucas had no response to that, Nathan spoke with his usual blunt honesty. “I couldn’t understand it when Aaron insisted I come to this masquerade. And then Jackson challenged me to find Lord Lucifer. He bet me money that I would account it well worth my while.” His jaw clenched as he shoved his hands into his pocket. “Damn it all. Now I owe him a monkey.”
Five hundred pounds? “What made you do that? You were never a betting man.”
Nathan glowered at him. “I thought it an easy win. There’s nothing here that could possibly be worth my time.”
The words sat heavy in the air. “There still isn’t, Nathan. Go home. Pretend—”
“What? That my only brother is dead? Is that what you were going to suggest?” Fury burned under his words, and Lucas held up his hands as much to defend himself from the lash of it as to quiet his brother.
“Hush! Don’t draw attention.”
“Don’t draw attention?” his brother sputtered. “You’re alive!”
Thankfully, Diana interrupted, hooking both brothers by the elbow as she drew them down the dark path. “Let us have this discussion more privately, shall we?”
Fortunately, a glance around told Lucas that they were somewhat alone. He had walked Diana to the very end of the main pathway. It was a few steps more to the path where lanterns were spaced infrequently, and there were dozens of tiny breaks in the shrubbery for all kinds of illicit behavior.
He doubted though that the greenery had ever been host to a discussion such as he was about to have with his only brother. A man who even now refused to lower his voice. “How long have you been back?”
“I arrived in London a year after Waterloo.” He blew out a breath, struggling to express why he’d made the choices he had. “I did come to the house. I saw the crepe on the door and…” He shrugged, ashamed to admit his actions. “I followed you on a walk about Hyde Park.”
“What?” The word was barked out.
“I heard Mama tell everyone to call you Lord Chellem. She was so proud of you.”
“Proud that my brother was dead? Are you daft?”
He had been, perhaps. Feverish from the crossing and ashamed of his hand and his limp. He hadn’t worked that out yet, and he’d kept looking at his brother. “You looked splendid, you know. Every inch the future earl.”
His brother turned around to face him. “That’s it then. You think I wanted the title, and you thought you’d let me—what? Play at it for a time?”
“No!” He blew out a breath. How did he explain? “At first, I was so sick from the crossing that I ended up at a…” He didn’t want to confess that he’d gone inside a gambling den simply to escape the rain. And when he’d collapsed with fever, Mrs. Dove-Lyon had given him a room and cared for him. And when he’d recovered, she’d offered him a job as her door guard.
Being no fool, Diana already knew what he did. “He works at the Lyon’s Den managing the men who watch the tables and hold the doors.”
His brother recoiled. “You work at a gambling den?”
“And as my bodyguard,” she huffed. “Even though I don’t need it.”
His brother frowned at her. “You need protection? From whom?”
Lucas waved that all aside. None of that was important right now. Looking at his brother, he realized the magnitude of what he had lost when he’d refused to reconnect with Nathan. He’d hurt the man, and he could see the burn of that pain in his brother’s eyes. “Nathan, I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I never meant to hurt you.”
It was a poor response, but an honest one. Unfortunately, the damage remained. Nathan looked at him with heavy regard. His hands were shoved into his pockets, and his gaze darted around in confusion. “Why would you hide from us?”
“Not you,” he said. “Never you. I just…” He raised his damaged hand and pulled off his glove. Even in the shadows, his brother would see the thick scars on his palm, the mangled way his fingers twisted. “I had a limp, too, but I’ve worked that out,” he said. “It’s better, but I’ll never win a footrace.”
“Does it hurt?” Nathan asked. He gestured to the hand and also to Lucas’s face, where a scar cut down by his ear. “Are you in pain?”
“Not often. And I forget about the face scar except when I shave.”
Nathan nodded. Once. Twice. Then he blew out a breath and stared hard at his brother. “And what does that have to do with anything?” He asked it with confusion, not anger. And if that didn’t show Lucas how wrong he was, nothing else would. His brother honestly didn’t understand how his parents would view his disabilities.
“Nathan,” he murmured, using that same tone of exasperation he’d used when they were children.
“Lucas,” his brother echoed, in exactly the same way.
And then it was done. They were kids again, facing off after one of them had made a mistake. “I’m so sorry,” Lucas said.
Nathan took the step forward and embraced him. His arms were thicker than when they were children, his grip a thousand times more welcome. And after the emotional moment he’d had with Diana, this felt like another tidal wave of feeling. He hugged his brother, using the time to let the tears slip free because he could hide them in his brother’s rough cloak. And when Nathan shuddered in his arms, Lucas felt his own breath release.
He was welcome. His brother didn’t wish him dead.
“Damn you,” Nathan said against his ear. “Father’s going to—”
“No!” He jerked back, out of his brother’s arms, feeling his chest tighten. “No,” he said more calmly.
“But they deserve—”
“Let me tell them in my own way. Give me that, at least.”
Nathan didn’t look like he would agree, so Lucas took a stab at explaining.
“Imagine it, Nathan. The moment Mama sees me alive and comprehends the truth.”
“She’d be so—”
“Happy? Truly? Certainly, she’ll make a show of it, but remember how happy she was when you took my title. Can you remember one time when she ever looked on me with such joy?”
He waited, his breath held as Nathan finally let his head drop. “Very well,” he said, “but Papa—”
“He’s not a man for change—for good or ill. You know that. He won’t like it simply because—”
“It’s not what he is accustomed to.” Nathan nodded. “But you must tell them. You must take your place.”
Lucas let the thought hang. Did he really need to take his title? Truly? He had some money and work that he was good at. It wasn’t the life of leisure most titled peers enjoyed, but he’d never lived that. Not even when he was in school and his friends were future aristocrats. In many ways, the life of a soldier had suited him better, as did the management of men who watched over a gaming hell and the workers within. He had grown so used to not having any of the responsibilities of his title that he wondered if it was something he truly needed.