There was no symmetry, pleasant or otherwise. Even if James had been telling the truth, he’d have acted because he wished to keep Edward away and take what should have been his birthright.
But Edward smiled and pretended to be touched. “That means a great deal to me, James. A great deal. I’ve not been fair to you. Listen to me now—all these years spent apart, and I never even asked after your situation. I hope my absence hasn’t posed too many problems for you.”
“Oh, not too many.” James leaned back.
“You’re being too kind to me,” Edward said. “Come. Tell me how things have really been.”
Getting a man to lie to himself was a peculiar sort of black magic. One had only to whisper the faintest praise in his ear, and he’d invent the rest. He’d make himself out to be a hero, beset by villains and calamity.
“Well,” James said slowly. “I didn’t want to make too much of it, but there have been some difficulties.”
“Ah, I thought so.” Edward smiled.
“I don’t have full control over the finances yet, and I can’t sit in Parliament. That’s delayed many a plan of mine.” James frowned. “And when I was looking for a wife, I’d have been able to do better had there not been that cloud over the title.”
Edward tsked in sympathy. “How dreadful for you. I hope you’re not too unhappy on that score?”
“It all turned out for the best,” James said heartily. “Annie had a decent portion, and she’s pretty enough. She eases me when we’re alone in the country together and doesn’t mind what I do in town. I couldn’t ask for a better wife.”
“Indeed. What more could a man want?” Edward asked. He even managed to sound sincere saying it.
But the answer to his rhetorical question rose unbidden in his mind. It was ridiculous to want Frederica Marshall. It didn’t matter how he dreamed of her at night; it didn’t even matter that he, apparently, did not disgust her, either. She was too intelligent to entangle herself with a man like him—and he was just foolish enough to want her anyway.
He was already in over his head. He didn’t mind that.
The danger was in telling himself lies. And the notion that he might have Frederica Marshall was the sweetest, most seductive lie he might have told himself. He wouldn’t give into that.
His brother burbled on—about his sons, his friends, about nothing in particular, helped on by a few judicious comments on Edward’s part. After a full quarter hour, James seemed to realize that he’d been monopolizing the conversation.
James took a long swallow of brandy and finally looked at Edward, squinting. “So,” he said. “What have you been doing with yourself all these years?”
“Running a metalworks in Toulouse,” Edward said smoothly. That much was true if James ever cared to look into the matter. His brother didn’t need to know any of the other things Edward had done.
But apparently, that was enough. James looked thunderstruck. “A metalworks! When you say running it—you mean you own it, but…”
“A fancy metalworks,” Edward smiled faintly. “If it makes you feel better. We do ornamental gates, fences, gratings for chapels. That sort of thing. And yes, I run it. I’m involved in all aspects of it.”
“You don’t actually mean that you do some of the…” James gestured futilely. “You know. The working. With metal.”
“Of course I do. I’ve always been artistically minded, and metal is just another medium.”
James did not ask any of the questions that Edward might have found uncomfortable, questions like How did you come to own a metalworks?
Instead, he took a long swallow of his brandy. “No wonder you disappeared. You told me you’d done things that reflected poorly on your honor, but I’d never imagined that you would take up a trade. Why, metalworking is practically…manual labor.” This was followed by another swallow of liquor, as if spirits were the only thing that could make metalworking tolerable.
“It is manual labor.” Edward tried not to let his amusement show. “However fancy the product might be.”
“Good God.” James drained his glass, frowned at the bottom of it.
“Here,” Edward said, reaching forward and picking up the glass. “Allow me to do the honors.” For one thing, standing and turning his back on his brother meant that James couldn’t see him try to hide his smile.
“I understand what you were getting at now,” James said. “I didn’t understand at all, when you came the other night. Couldn’t figure out why you’d agree to give up a viscountcy. But this makes sense of everything. We couldn’t have a laborer as viscount. What if people found out?”