Claire poured herself another brandy from the crystal decanter in the library. Candlelight winked off the cut glass as she tilted the bottle, giving the impression of tiny flames in the amber liquid. Good. She wanted it to burn away this pain in her heart.

She took a swallow.

“Wouldn’t you rather have tea?” Andrew suggested quietly from behind her. “Or perhaps even coffee?”

She heard the cautious concern in his voice. He was probably worrying that she was drunk as a broken wheelbarrow by now. And given that this had been her first night drinking hard spirits, perhaps she should be.

But she wasn’t. She’d never been more sober. Or more heartbroken.

Or as coldly furious.

Given her moody silence on the carriage ride home, Andrew must surely think her mercurial. But she hadn’t been quite ready to talk to him then. She’d learned too much tonight, and she just didn’t know how she felt…about any of it.

Still, he’d respected her wishes in the carriage, and now he deserved to hear everything that she had.

“I don’t like tea,” she said. It seemed like a safe enough place to begin, even if she was admitting to something no good Englishwoman ever should. “Never have.”

Andrew feigned shock, then smiled as he realized, “You actually answered my question.”

She took another sip of her brandy, relishing the burning bite on her tongue, and said nothing.

His grin faded, the look of concern reclaiming its place.

“Clarence, you may remember,” she went on, “loved the stuff.”

“I do remember,” he answered, the careful tone creeping back into his voice. “Loaded it with more sugar and milk than tea and called it the nectar of the gods. Drank it night and day. The gents ribbed him mercilessly for it.”

She huffed. “Yes, apparently his penchant was well-known. I swear, I had to pretend to drink more cups of tea at Abchurch than I could count, whilst finding a discrete place to dump the swill,” she complained, pursing her lips in distaste.

Then she took a third swig from her snifter and set it down on the table with a decided clink of glass on wood.

“Did you know Clarence had given up brandy?” she asked.

Andrew’s brows shot up in surprise. “What?”

“I didn’t know, either.”

His eyebrows settled into a V above his nose. “But he enjoyed a nip nearly as much as he did his tea. We drank barrels of it in our day.”

“Yes, well, apparently he came to…struggle with his need for it.” She’d never noticed. Never had an idea that her brother suffered so. Her heart squeezed. She wished he would have told her.

But then, he hadn’t told her many things, it seemed.

Andrew’s eyes turned down with sadness, or possibly regret. “I had no idea.”

A bit of the fury she’d sealed inside her heart slipped out. Just what exactly did he regret? That he’d been gone from Clarence’s life these past six years? Or that—

Claire tamped down her anger. She wasn’t ready to talk about that part of what she’d learned tonight yet. Nor was she even certain who she was more angry with. Clarence? Andrew? Herself? Until she could figure that out, she had to stick to what pertained to Abchurch business.

“Well, that’s one way Rosalie—”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed at the unfamiliar name.

“Clarence’s contact at the Devil’s Den,” Claire explained. “That’s one of the ways she knew I wasn’t Clarence. Clarence, she said, would have nursed that initial brandy most of the night and then set it down nearly full and gone after a cuppa.”

“Wait. Are you saying she knew you weren’t Clarence before you accompanied her to the private room?”

Claire nodded. “When she pulled me to her, she demanded right then to know who I was.” She remembered the bolt of fear that had pierced her in that moment. “I nearly shoved her away and ran. But then I decided that if I was already caught, I had nothing to lose.

“So I whispered that I was Clarence’s sister and that I needed to speak with her privately. She agreed, and I steered her to the private rooms the only way I could think of with so many people around watching and listening.”

Her cheeks burned as she recalled her risqué words, and flamed higher as she thought of what else she’d done.

Dear Lord, what must Andrew have thought of her?

What was he thinking of her now? She peeked over at him.

His lips were pressed together, and he looked to be struggling to contain…laughter?

“Christ, Claire. When you reached down and—” He lost the battle, and a rich chuckle rumbled out of his chest.

Her face was afire now. She must be as pink as the lip salve that likely still graced her cheek. She swiped at it, and indeed, her thumb came away rosy.

Lovely.

Andrew’s face, however, glowed with mirth. It made him look younger, somehow, and the sight took her back to when she’d lived to make him happy. “And then,” he chortled, “when you told me to shove off?”

Despite the fact that her feelings were gnarled and muddled and terribly conflicted at the moment, she couldn’t help a reluctant laugh of her own.

“You should have seen your face,” she said, recalling his widened eyes and the look of shock that had nearly made her break character and dissolve into fits.

Despite everything, it felt good to laugh with Andrew again. Impossibly, it made her feel as though all was right with the world once more. Which made everything she’d learned tonight a bit sadder, really.

“You said ‘one of the ways’ she knew you weren’t Clarence…” Andrew prompted when she didn’t speak.

“Ah, yes. She also said Clarence would never wear so pedestrian a knot as a Waterfall.”

Another sharp laugh burst from his lips. “She’s probably right,” Andrew said. “He always had a bit of a dandy in him.”

“That he did,” she agreed.

After a moment, Andrew ventured, “It seems this Rosalie knew Clarence well, then?”

His voice was tenuous and tactful—for her benefit, she suspected. Tiptoeing around the indelicate to spare Claire. Deciding what was best for Claire. Trying to protect Claire, no matter what she wanted for herself.

She was tired of being protected by the males in her life.

“They were lovers,” she answered bluntly. “That’s the true reason she knew I wasn’t Clarence. She insisted he would never have gone so long without coming to her unless something terrible had befallen him.”

Unlike some men, who could walk away without a word.

And with that thought, all of the emotions she’d been holding back since her tête-à-tête with her brother’s lover threatened to burst through the dam she’d built around her heart and drown her.

“Apparently, they were quite close,” Claire said, hearing her voice rise with the tide of her feelings, but unable to care. “She claims he even asked her to marry him. Several times.”

“Marriage?” Andrew exclaimed. “To his mistress?” Incredulity rang in his voice. Then he shook his head. “Do you believe her?”

“I do,” she replied softly. Rosalie had known too much about her brother, things Claire had never fathomed. That was one of the many hurts afflicted tonight. She’d thought she understood Clarence better than anyone, being his twin, but how wrong she’d been. “She says she turned him down each time, but he persisted.”

She watched Andrew closely to see how he took the next statement.

“He told her that life was too precarious to live it without the person you loved by your side, everything and everyone else be damned.”

Andrew’s face went unnaturally still, as if he were suppressing something he didn’t wish her to see. But he couldn’t hide the flash of anger that darkened the green of his eyes.

“That…doesn’t sound like Clarence,” he said carefully.

Too carefully.

God. It was true, wasn’t it?

She should just come out and ask him.

But now that the opportunity was upon her, she found herself afraid of the answer. No matter what he said, it would taint forever the way she saw him, or her brother…or herself.

Claire strode back over to the sideboard and swiped her brandy glass, finishing off the last bit with one large gulp. Then she turned back to him before she lost her nerve.

“Why did you desert me at the Danburys’ Christmas Eve ball?” She swallowed the lump that was threatening in her throat.

Rather than answer her, Andrew closed his eyes.

Oh, no. She wasn’t going to let him dodge her question. She walked the few steps to him and grasped both of his hands—and by God, she meant to hold him there until he answered her.

His lids flew open and his eyes locked with hers.

“Why did you never come back into my life?” she demanded with a squeeze. “As if I’d meant nothing to you, when you knew how much you meant to me?” Her voice broke on that.

The flat expression he’d been trying to maintain melted, every feature drooping into one of pain. “Claire…” he said, his voice raw.

She waited, but he said no more.

She licked her lips, which had gone dry.

“It was because of Clarence, wasn’t it?”