A soft voice shattered the thick, cloying silence. “I do believe he was as shocked as you by the news, Peter,” Lady Clara said, laying a hand on her cousin’s arm, giving Lenora a meaningful look. “If you had only seen his face when he arrived here, you would know how deeply he was affected.”
Lenora took the hint, snapping out of her stunned muteness. “Of course he was. Mayhap it would be best if the two of you talked in private. I’m certain he can explain everything to you then.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Lady Tesh interjected, waving her cane about, nearly clipping Lady Phoebe’s nose in the process. “You shan’t leave me in suspense.”
“Gran,” Margery said in an overloud manner, stepping in front of the viscountess, holding the frazzled dog before her face, “Freya is looking a bit peaked. I do think the trip to Lord and Lady Crabtree’s quite did her in. We’d best see about finding her something to eat.”
The diversion worked. Lady Tesh’s attention was successfully snagged, for there was little the dowager viscountess loved more than her pet. “Oh, my darling Freya,” she cooed to the dog, who took the attention with all the grace of a queen. “Are you hungry? Let’s see about feeding you, my love.” With that she shuffled off without a word to her granddaughter, her cane thumping. Margery, with an apologetic look to Quincy, trailed after her with the dog.
“There,” Lady Clara declared as her great-aunt disappeared from view. “Now there is nothing to stop you from sitting down together.”
Quincy looked to his friend. “Will you hear me out?”
For a long, horrible moment Quincy thought his friend might refuse. Peter’s pale blue eyes bored into him with all the intensity of a flame. Finally he gave a terse nod, turning on the ball of his foot and heading in the direction of his study.
Of their own volition, Quincy’s eyes found Lady Clara in silent thanks. She gave him an encouraging smile that he felt clear to his toes. Dragging in a deep breath, he turned and followed Peter.
* * *
By the time Quincy reached the study Peter was stationed by the window. He stood staring out into the back garden, looking for all the world as if something outside interested him greatly. Yet Quincy, who had known him half his life, could plainly see the lines of tension scoring his broad back.
“Peter,” he began, “I’m sorry—”
Peter held up one meaty hand and turned to face him. “I will admit, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this.” He frowned, looking more confused than Quincy had ever seen him. “Please forgive me for repeating myself, but you are the Duke of Reigate?”
Quincy swallowed hard. “Yes,” he rasped.
Peter nodded and began to pace. Each movement was deliberate and slow, as if he might gain control over this insane moment by pure intent. “And who was the previous duke?”
It occurred to Quincy that he wasn’t certain which of his brothers had taken the title before him. Had Gordon, his father’s heir, passed first? Did Kenneth or Sylvester don the mantle before their untimely demises?
For the first time since learning of his brothers’ deaths, he was filled with a cloying, bitter grief. He and his siblings had not gotten along. Yet they had been of his blood. They had been family.
“I don’t know,” he managed.
Peter must have heard something in his voice, for in a moment he was at Quincy’s side, steering him to a chair. And then a glass was being pressed into his hands.
Quincy could only stare at it in incomprehension. With a gentle nudge Peter lifted it to his lips.
The first sip seared him from the inside, finally jarring him back to the present. He blinked, looking to Peter, who had seated himself across from him and was looking at him in worried expectation.
“I don’t know where to start,” Quincy said haltingly.
Peter shrugged. “Start at the beginning.”
It was so simple, wasn’t it? He nodded, fighting the urge to drop his gaze, forcing himself to look in Peter’s eyes as he finally revealed a truth that should have been spoken long ago.
“I’m not who you think I am,” he began slowly. “Or rather, I’m more than what I led you to believe. And while I never explicitly stated that I was a commoner, I never once admitted otherwise. It was a lie by omission.”
That pronouncement was met with a careful nod. “And so you are an aristocrat?”
“Yes.” Quincy hesitated before, with a quick, desperate motion, he threw back the remainder of his drink in a bid for courage. “In fact,” he continued in a rush, pressing the empty glass to his chest as if he could dig out the guilt that filled him, “I am not Mr. Quincy Nesbitt at all, but rather Lord Quincy Nesbitt. Youngest son of the Duke of Reigate. Or, rather”—his lips twisted painfully—“I was.”
“Now you are Duke of Reigate.” It was no longer a question, but still plain as day that Peter was trying his hardest to comprehend this new turn of events.
Regardless, Quincy answered him. “Yes.” As Peter remained quiet, Quincy continued. “Peter, I am more sorry than I can ever say. I should have told you on that very first day—”
Again his friend stayed him with a hand. Quincy’s mouth closed with a snap of teeth, and he sat in misery.
“Yes, you should have told me,” Peter finally said, his voice low. “But you are still the same man I’ve known this past decade and a half. I know who you are, Quincy. Or at least, I know everything that matters.”
Quincy swallowed hard, his throat suddenly burning, his eyes hot. It took him a long moment to realize he was damn close to crying. It was the closest he had come since the day he’d left home. He looked down to the glass in his hands, at the remnants of whiskey within. “Thank you, Peter,” he managed thickly.
Peter scoffed. “You’ve nothing to thank me for. And I know you did not keep the truth from me to spite me. I can well understand the need to distance yourself from the past, to forge a new life on your own terms.”
Quincy shook his head, more in wonder that his friend could be so generous with him than anything else. “You make it out to be much more noble than it is. The only reason I kept it a secret was so you would not hate me.”
“Hate you?”
The disbelief in his friend’s voice brought Quincy’s gaze up. “You despised the nobility and all it stood for. I was fourteen, alone in the world for the first time, frightened. And you were my only friend.” He shrugged helplessly. “I could not chance losing you.”
“You could never lose my friendship,” Peter said fiercely, before he flushed and cleared his throat. “Arse.”
Quincy felt something deep in his chest lighten. Meaningless insults he could handle. They meant that things had not completely changed, that at least in this he was still the same person.
With that Peter rose and fetched Quincy’s glass from him, striding to the sideboard. Once again came the sound of clinking glass and splashing liquid. A moment later he was pressing Quincy’s glass back into his hand, this time fuller than before. And this time there was a matching glass in Peter’s hand, a testament to just how much Quincy’s revelation affected him.
“I expect the whole truth from you now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, of course. But first,” he said, holding his own glass aloft. “To reluctant heirs.”