His father’s eyes went wide. “He admits it!” he burst out, finishing his drink in one slug.
“It was published three weeks ago,” Henry said.
He shifted. He had written the paper for the Society and it had been published in a small monthly they produced for the scientific community and those interested in the research. Sometimes those papers were picked up by larger journals that were published quarterly and more widely disseminated, but he had yet to hear if his had been chosen.
His father glared at him. “You said nothing to us of this great honor.”
“I did not think you would care,” Henry said, the politeness of his tone at last fraying. “Perhaps not even understand.”
Philip recoiled slightly as their father took a step closer.
“That’s right, you got your mind from your poor, dead mother, didn’t you?” the viscount spat. “She never should have encouraged you with the comets and stars.”
Jaw setting at the dismissiveness of his father’s tone, Henry fought to meter his reaction. His late mother had been the one to first introduce him to a telescope. He’d been but nine years old and seen his first comet that night. A memory seared into his mind, as was the weight of his mother’s hand on his shoulder, the warmth of it as they shared that brilliant flash of light. She had died a few months after, gone far too soon, just like the comet. It had been a devastating loss to their entire family, including his father, despite the viscount’s current attitude.
Henry thrust his shoulders back slightly. “You ask if I admit that I wrote the piece. I do, with pride. The search for a new celestial body is no small thing, Father. It has been predicted to exist by equation for decades. A new star—or by my theory, even a planet. Can you imagine being part of that?”
He asked the question but already knew the answer. His father’s bland expression told him he cared not one fig about that kind of thrill of discovery. The viscount turned away and Henry continued to speak, as if he could find words that might change his father’s hard heart.
“If I could be a part of solving such an astronomical mystery…if the equations I have developed could help even a fraction—”
The viscount slammed his drink down on the sideboard hard enough that the wood shivered. He spun back. “Enough! You can sputter at me all you like about the importance of this foolishness and perhaps you are right that what you are doing is vastly significant. You did it under your real name, Henry. Your real name.” He moved forward, now deceptively calm. “My name. It is one thing to have a hobby, boy. And one I have indulged, clearly to my detriment.”
“This is not a hobby!” Henry burst out, hating that his emotions flooded to the surface. “You have dismissed it as such for years, but it is much more. This is a life’s work, Father. A new planet!”
Philip shook his head with a snort of laughter. “That sounds like a children’s tale every time you say it.” Henry glared at him briefly.
“This is a trade,” his father said, soft and deadly as a blade to the chest. “As much as if you worked in a shop.”
Henry shut his eyes, trying to find calm, trying to find reason. “And what is wrong with a trade? Would you prefer I be a layabout like Robert?”
His middle brother lifted his head from the cushion. “What’s that?”
“Shut up, Robert,” their father said. Robert rolled his eyes and put his head back on the pillow. The viscount caught Henry’s arms none-too-gently and shook him slightly. “You will cease this foolishness, Henry.”
Panic rose in Henry’s chest, overwhelming wisdom for a moment. He jerked from his father’s grip and staggered back a few steps. “Cease what?”
The viscount crossed his arms. “It seems you must be cut away from all of it. The stars, the planets, the…science.” He said the last like it was a curse. Something disgusting to be scraped off his boot heel.
“You cannot be serious,” Henry said, somehow managing to speak even though the rush of blood in his ears made hearing close to impossible.
“I am entirely serious.”
Henry shook his head. He was trembling and he hated himself for this emotional display. It was not his nature, nor his desire to let his heart rule him like some fool. And yet he couldn’t seem to control himself. “No,” he said at last. “No, I won’t.”
There was a stunned silence from all in the room. Henry understood it. He felt its weight as much as the rest. No one refused their father. Certainly none of them ever had. Now Philip stood gape-mouthed, and Robert had sat up from the settee and was staring at Henry with wide eyes. Their father’s jaw was set.
Slowly the viscount moved closer, invading Henry’s space once more. His face was less than an inch from Henry’s now. All the anger still burned in his eyes, but his voice was dangerously cool as he said, “I will cut you off.”
The viscount had enunciated each word carefully, but Henry still gasped. “What?”
“If you want to act like a commoner, you can live like one,” his father said. “You will be penniless. The little house? That will return to me. You will be roofless and bedless. Do I make myself clear enough for your sharp mind to understand?”
“But then I would not be able to—”
“You would not be able to do a great many things,” his father said, voice still soft. “I will end this nonsense one way or another.”
Henry’s stomach roiled, what was left of his breakfast rising to his throat as he stared into his father’s eyes and tried to find a tiny kernel of hope. There was none. The viscount meant this threat. It was not empty.
“Father, please,” he said softly.
Silence greeted him. Stony and cold. “Think on it, as you like to do,” the viscount said after what felt like an eternity. “I expect to hear from you within a week’s time about your decision.”
He pointed at the door, dismissing Henry as abruptly as he had been summoned. Henry had no choice but to do as he had been directed. He stumbled out into the hall and toward the foyer. He had almost made it there, almost with unseeing eyes, when he heard footfalls behind him.
He pivoted to find Philip there. His older brother’s face was lined with guilt. “I didn’t know he would threaten this,” he said.
Henry stared at him, hating him and understanding him with equal power in this charged, painful moment. “It wouldn’t have stopped you from showing him the journal, would it?” His brother’s darting gaze told the answer to that. Henry sighed. “You just wanted his approval, at any cost. Just as you always have.”
The barb seemed to hit its mark, for Philip recoiled ever so slightly. Then he pushed his shoulders back and said, “Don’t be a fool. Do as he asks. You have no other choice now. Your life comes at his pleasure.”
Henry shifted with discomfort. How he wished that there was a clever retort he could give, but there wasn’t because his brother was entirely correct. Henry was a third son, one who depended on the allowance the viscount allowed. He didn’t live extravagantly, but had little saved. When he had it, extra money went to the Society and their needs. A new telescope lens here, an abacus there. It had never occurred to him that those indulgences would be his downfall.