Page 52 of Stealing His Duchess

“You did not tell me he would be here,” Cornelius snapped at Owen, his voice tight, before Hudson had even fully crossed the threshold.

Owen, to his credit, at least had the decency to look faintly sheepish. “It must have slipped my mind.”

“It did not slip your mind. Nothing slips your mind. You have never once forgotten an appointment, a debt, or a wager in the whole time I have known you,” Cornelius bit with irritation, though he did not press the matter further, apparently deciding that Owen’s transgression was the lesser of two evils presently seated in the room.

Hudson approached slowly, mindful of every step, and inclined his head toward his brother in greeting.

“Cornelius.”

“Your Grace,” Cornelius returned, with a coldness that landed exactly as intended.

Hudson absorbed the blow without flinching, though it cost him something to do so.

“How was your journey?” he asked, for lack of any better opening, though even as the words left him, he recognized how insufficient they were for the gulf between them.

Cornelius set his glass down with more force than strictly necessary.

“Is that truly all you have to say to me? After everything?”

“What else would you have me say?” Hudson asked, and regretted it immediately – not because it was untrue, but because he saw, too late, the way it landed on his brother’s face, saw Owen’s expression shift into something like exasperated warning from the corner of his eye.

“You should not have said that,” Owen muttered under his breath, wincing.

But the words were already spoken, and Cornelius rose from his chair, any pretense of civility abandoned entirely.

“What else would I have you say?” Cornelius repeated, his voice rising. “How about an accounting of what you did? You kidnapped a woman, Hudson. Not Edith – a woman who had done nothing to you at all, who happened only to have the misfortune of leaving her friend’s house at the wrong hour. You ruined her reputation, forced her into a marriage she never sought, all because you could not be bothered to learn the face of the woman your own brother loved, despite your many complaints about her. And then, having ruined one life, you set about ruining two more; mine, and Edith’s – determined that neither of us should have what we wanted, simply because it did not suit your notion of what was proper.”

“I was attempting to protect you,” Hudson protested, quietly. “You did not understand why, and if you would just let me explain –”

“You were attempting to control me,” Cornelius shot back. “There is a difference, though I doubt you have ever troubled yourself to learn it. You have spent our entire lives deciding what is best for me without once asking what I actually wanted. My tutors, my friendships, my prospects – all arranged according to your judgment, never mine. And when I finally found something I wanted for myself, something that had nothing to do with you at all, you could not bear it. You had to interfere, had to bend the situation until it once more revolved around your will.”

Hudson felt the accusation settle into him like a blade between the ribs, all the more painful for how precisely it found its mark.

“That is not –” he began, then stopped, because he was no longer certain how the sentence was meant to end.

“Is it not?” Cornelius pressed. “Tell me truthfully, Hudson. When have you ever done anything that was not, in some fashion, about maintaining your own control over the people around you? You call it protection. I call it what it is – you are manipulative, and selfish, and you have only ever wanted things to go precisely your way, because it satisfies you to hold power over the people who depend on you. That is who you have always been, and I am tired of pretending otherwise for your sake.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Even Owen, who rarely lacked for something to say, said nothing at all, his gaze flicking between the brothers with the careful stillness of a man who understood he had wandered into a conversation far beyond his ability to referee.

Hudson looked at his brother – at the anger in his face, the years of resentment finally given voice – and felt something within him go terribly quiet, leaving him unable to deny any of his brother’s accusations.

Oh, how he wanted to, wanted desperately to argue that everything he had done, every attempt to control, every calculated maneuver, had been born from love rather than the hunger for power Cornelius accused him of. But the words would not come, because some small, honest part of him recognized the shape of the accusation even as it wounded him.

He had done those things his brother had accused him of. He had manipulated and controlled the situation and people around his brother, in his own fashion, dressing his interference in the language of protection because the alternative – admitting that he did not know how to love someone without also trying to manage them – was more than he had ever been willing to face.

“I do not deny that I have made mistakes,” Hudson said finally, his voice quieter than he intended. “I do not deny that my methods have, at times, caused more harm than the dangers I meant to guard you from.”

Cornelius stared at him, some of the fire in his expression faltering at the admission, as though he had expected resistance and did not quite know what to do without it.

“But do not mistake my methods for my intentions,” Hudson continued. “Whatever else you believe of me, know that I have never once acted against you out of malice.”

“Intentions do not undo the harm they cause,” Cornelius replied, looking as though the fire in him had been snuffed out suddenly. “And I do not think you will ever understand.”

Cornelius then shook his head, his expression unreadable, and then, without another word, he turned and walked away, leaving his half-finished drink upon the table and Hudson standing alone beside the ring with the weight of the conversation settling over him like a weighted shroud.

Owen exhaled slowly once the door had closed behind him.

“Well,” he said, attempting to lighten the mood in the wake of a disaster he had inadvertently caused. “That went rather better than it might have.”