Page 115 of The Lost Duke of Wyndham

“I should have come back,” he said. “I should have—Oh, God, I’m such an idiot.”

Mary touched his hand, pulled it gently down and held it. And then she pulled him out of the hall, into the nearest room. His uncle’s study.

Jack walked over to the desk. It was a hulking, behemoth of a thing, the wood dark and scuffed and smelling like the paper and ink that always lain atop it.

But it had never been imposing. Funny, he’d always liked coming in here. It seemed odd, really. He’d been an out of doors sort of boy, always running and racing, and covered in mud. Even now, he hated a room with fewer than two windows.

But he had always liked it here.

He turned to look at his aunt. She was standing in the middle of the room. She’d closed the door most of the way and set her candle down on a shelf. She turned and looked back at him and said, very softly, “He knew you loved him.”

He shook his head. “I did not deserve him. Or you.”

“Stop this talk. I won’t hear it.”

“Aunt Mary, you know…” He put his fisted hand to his mouth, biting down on his knuckle. The words were there, but they burned in his chest, and it was so damned hard to speak them. “You know that Arthur would not have gone to France if not for me.”

She stared at him in bewilderment, then gasped and said, “Good heavens, Jack, you do not blame yourself for his death?”

“Of course I do. He went for me. He would never have—”

“He wanted to join the army. He knew it was that or the clergy, and heaven knows he did not want that. He’d always planned—”

“No,” Jack cut in, with all the force and anger in his heart. “He hadn’t. Maybe he told you he had, but—”

“You cannot take responsibility for his death. I will not let you.”

“Aunt Mary—”

“Stop! Stop it!”

The heels of her hands were pressed against her temples, her fingers wrapping up and over her skull. More than anything, she looked as if she were trying to shut him out, to put a stop to whatever it was he was trying to tell her.

But it had to be said. It was the only way she would understand.

And it would be the first time he’d uttered the words aloud.

“I cannot read.”

Three words. That’s all it was. Three words. And a lifetime of secrets.

Her brow wrinkled, and Jack could not tell—did she not believe him? Or was it simply that she thought she’d misheard?

People saw what they expected to see. He’d acted like an educated man, and so that was how she’d seen him.

“I can’t read, Aunt Mary. I’ve never been able to. Arthur was the only one who ever realized.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. You were in school. You were graduated—”

“By the skin of my teeth,” Jack cut in, “and only then, with Arthur’s help. Why do you think I had to leave university?”

“Jack…” She looked almost embarrassed. “We were told you misbehaved. You drank too much, and there was that woman, and—and—that awful prank with the pig, and—Why are you shaking your head?”

“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

“You think that wasn’t embarrassing?”

“I could not do the work without Arthur’s help,” he explained. “And he was two years behind me.”

---