Mayfair, London
May 1820
Sebastian Carlisle strode up the front steps of Park Place just as the first pinks of dawn began to lighten the sky.
Damnation, he’d been out later than he’d intended. Far later. But his parents disapproved of the women whose company he favored, so he’d had no choice but to spend time covering his tracks. After all, that talk with Father last year when he’d gotten caught with Lady Bancroft provided enough of an object lesson to last a lifetime. Good God, he still felt the embarrassment of that evening. He didn’t know which was worse—being threatened to a duel by Lord Bancroft or seeing the disappointment on Father’s face.
So he’d promised to put the reputation of the family and its legacy before all else. Including his own pleasures.
But he was a Carlisle, for heaven’s sake! Did Father truly expect him to give up all his wild ways? Certainly, he’d reined himself in and was decidedly more careful now, including staying away from the married ladies of the ton. But he also had a rogue’s reputation to uphold, and truly, what good was there in living like a monk? As fine as he felt as he let himself inside the house, with the lavender scent of the actress who’d spent the night entertaining him still lingering on his skin, he knew he’d made the right decision last night. What Mother and Father didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And he did so love the theater.
Apparently, he considered with a grin as he remembered the woman’s eagerness, the theater also loved him.
Careful not to wake the still-sleeping household, he strode into the front foyer. And froze.
His youngest brother, Quinton, sat on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, his elbows resting on his knees and his head hanging in his hands.
An icy foreboding slithered down Sebastian’s spine. His brother shouldn’t have been here. He and Robert should still have been out wreaking havoc on St James’s Street until long past dawn.
“Quinn?” he called out gently, suddenly afraid to break the stillness of the house.
Quinton lifted his head and stared blankly at him, as if he didn’t recognize him. His face white, his eyes red-rimmed, all of him shaking violently…The rasping words tore from him—“Father’s dead.”
No. Sebastian’s body flashed numb as he stared at Quinn and tried to comprehend the words as they swirled inside his head. No, he couldn’t have heard correctly. Impossible! Father couldn’t be…“Dead,” he breathed out, no sound on his lips.
Quinn leaned his head against the banister and squeezed his eyes shut as anguished grief twisted his face.
Oh God…“Mother!”
Worry for her consumed him. He ran up the stairs without feeling his feet on the marble steps, without being aware of anything except the deafening rush of blood pounding in his ears and the fierce thumping of his heart, so brutally hard that each beat pierced a stab of pain through his chest and ripped his breath away.
He reached the second floor landing, stopped, stared down the hall toward the family’s bedrooms— The world plunged away beneath him.
His sister, Josephine, sat crumpled in the hallway outside the door of their parents’ bedroom, weeping inconsolably in the arms of her husband, so hard as if she would break into pieces. Leaning against the wall, Robert stared blankly at his hands. Scarlet red…covering his fingers, staining his clothes. Blood. Father’s blood. A blinding pain shot through him, and Sebastian grabbed for the banister to keep from falling.
He gathered himself with a deep breath and walked stiffly past them into the room. Strong…he had to be strong for them. He was the oldest, the heir. It was his responsibility to protect his family. Father would have expected it of him. What he wanted to do was scream.
Inside the dimly lit room, Richard Carlisle lay in his bed. Sebastian’s heart stopped. Father wasn’t dead, surely. Not with his eyes closed so lightly like that, his face calm. He was sleeping, that was all, except that he lay fully dressed on top the coverlet, even in his boots. A red-stained towel lay beneath his head. So unnaturally still…Sebastian stared at his chest, waiting for it to rise and fall, holding his own breath as he waited for proof that the others were all wrong, that Father wasn’t…But no breath came, and when Sebastian could no longer hold his own, the air rushed from him in a choking sob.
Mother…oh, dear God, Mother. She sat on the edge of the bed, holding her husband’s hand tightly in hers. So pale, so weak and frail, her face so blank—only her eyes revealed any sign of life still left inside her, glistening bright in the dim light of the lamp.
Sebastian knelt beside her and placed his hand on her knee, the grief inside him now a burning pain. When she didn’t look at him, he whispered, “Mother?”
“Yes?” But she didn’t look away from his father, her hollow gaze fixed to his face.
“Mother,” he repeated and reached up to gently pull her hand away from his father’s, to hold it in his. So cold, like ice, her fingers gripped his as if he were the only anchor now holding her to this world.
She looked down at him, and the grief he saw in her ripped him apart. “Sebastian,” she murmured as recognition pierced her grief, “there’s been an accident…”
His eyes blurred with stinging tears, and he nodded, his voice choking in his throat.
“Where were you?” She reached a trembling hand to cup his cheek. “We couldn’t find you.”
Guilt poured through him with a self-loathing that burned so hot that it scalded his soul. “I’m sorry,” he choked out.
She whispered, “He asked for you.”
The weight of the world crashed down upon him, suffocating, crushing. Its weight was unbearable. With every inch of his body and soul aching with a guilt he feared he’d never be able to absolve, he buried his face in shame against her knee. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”