“Ah, of course.” Enid nodded. “For you to tie yourself to a man who will hunch over you, watching your every move, and perhaps restricting you in any way, would be pure poison to what you feel for him. He would slowly squeeze the love, and life, right out of you.”
“Better a little pain now than a lot later, and pain that could extend to whatever children we share. I can but pray that he knows what needs to be done, does it, and comes after me.”
“How long will you give him to come after you?”
“Are you insinuating that I will do something if he does not?”
“No, I know you will do something. So—how long does he have?”
“Two months and then I will hunt him down.”
Brant looked around his home at Fieldgate and suddenly had a bad feeling. He had thought about it before but forgotten the hard work he had done in the past three weeks consuming all his energy and thought. It had not been easy to bring to justice the ones who had shared and profited from his mother’s crimes but he had done it. Now he carefully studied his house and knew that every place in it would carry some memory of his debauched ways. He had not done anything to anyone in the master suite or the mistress’s bedchamber but there was hardly any other place Olympia could touch that would not give her some vision of the past he really did not want her to see. It was bad enough that she knew what he had been up to for the last few years.
He marched off to his library and quickly penned a note to Argus. The man knew what Brant had been doing for the last few years as well so would not be surprised by the request. Brant just prayed that, amongst all those gifted Wherlockes and Vaughns, there was someone who knew how to dim or vanquish all those little memories staining the beds, walls, and elsewhere. When he brought Olympia here, and he would, he wanted the house to be so clean she could touch everything. Any memories that would linger in the air or on the furniture would be ones that he and she made.
Once he sent off the message, he went to work on hiring new staff. He and Agatha could be served just fine with the ones that had been left after he had cleared out all his mother’s spies and allies but he would be adding more to the household soon. His determination to ready his house for the bride he meant to have consumed his attention well into the evening. It was not until he was alone, sitting in his neglected garden sipping some cool cider, that he finally turned his mind to the other thing he had to accomplish, cleaning his heart.
It hurt, almost more than he cared to endure, but he did as Orion suggested. He relived it all from the moment he had found poor Faith’s body to Olympia being shot. Every painful, gut-wrenching moment. He let all the what-ifs parade through his mind and did his best to look at them with only logic, no emotion. It was not until he felt a small hand on his shoulder and was handed a delicate, lace-trimmed handkerchief that he realized he was weeping.
“Sorry,” he muttered as he wiped the tears from his cheeks.
Agatha sat down next to him. “Does Olympia not love you?”
“Oh, yes, she does. She said so many times.”
“Then what is breaking your heart?”
“I did as that rogue Orion told me to do. I have just relived all that went wrong, all the things that hurt people I cared for such as you. It was not easy.”
She slid her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. “I can but imagine. Did it work?”
Brant took a long moment to look inside of himself. His heart ached but also felt lighter. He could even think of Faith and feel no more than a slight twinge of regret, not the gut-clenching grief and guilt that had always had him reaching for a bottle or a woman before. He accepted, he realized. He accepted it all. There was no sudden torrent of possibilities where he might have changed fate raining through his mind anymore. The only thing he still felt guilt over, and it was a very slight one, was when Olympia had been shot. He suspected that was still too fresh in his mind to be properly accepted.
“Yes, it did. I shall have to thank the man. Perhaps next time we need a carriage, I will try to make certain we do not steal his.” He smiled when she giggled.
“I am glad it worked. I suspect you feel a great deal better as well.”
“That I do. Much lighter of heart. I did not understand at first but now I do. I had to let it go.”
Agatha kissed his cheek. “Yes, you did. And Faith?”
He rested his cheek against her hair and sighed. “And Faith. I need to say good-bye to her. I thought I had but I had not. Not completely. I clung to her as the symbol of all the failings I felt I had.”
“You are not perfect, dearest brother, but you are no failure. You just tripped a little.”
He sat up and grinned at her. “A very delicate and pleasant way to say what I did. We can just ignore the part where, in tripping just a little, I fell flat on my face.” He laughed along with her and then stood, helping her to her feet. “I am to bed and you should be making your way to bed as well. I need to go somewhere in the morning. I may be gone for a while.”