Page 47 of The Replacement Duchess

“Can I help at all, Brother?” Jonathan asked one evening. “You seem tired.”

“It is nothing for you to concern yourself with, John.”

“But—”

“Be glad that I do all of this so that you need not do it yourself. That will be more help than you could ever know.”

Jonathan nodded with a smile. He was not quite sure of what his brother had meant, but his brother was an intelligent man and so he knew to listen.

He did not like the new Countess. She took over the household the moment she set foot in it, overshadowing even his mother and refusing to allow her to have a say in anything. He would have loathed her entirely, but her way of doing things seemed to work.

Their issue, however, was that three years passed and they did not produce an heir. It was not for a lack of effort, which was how the Countess worded it, but it simply was not meant to be. This was not a solution, however, merely an excuse. At last, the Countess did fall pregnant, but then she lost the baby.

“Where did it go?” was all that Jonathon could ask at the time. “Can we find it again?”

Fortunately, he had asked his mother, who gently explained that sometimes horrible things happened and babies did not survive. He struggled to understand for a long time, but soon enough, the Countess was once more with child, and she carried it to term and had…

A girl.

The marriage between the Earl and the Countess became a struggle from there. They did not like each other, and they never had. Their marriage had been arranged in a panic when the late Earl had passed, and so Edmund had agreed to a hasty marriage, one arranged with the first young lady who seemed willing. They resented each other, Edmund because his wife could not give him a son and his wife because that was all Edmund cared about. She was a failure in his eyes.

Jonathan wondered if that was why she disappeared one day. It was quite known that she was disliked by most, to the extent that they were quite relieved when she was gone. Then Edmund followed suit, vanishing one night, and all eyes turned to Jonathan.

It no longer mattered that he did not want the title or the wife or the heirs. It did not matter that by then, he was but seven and ten and not at all fit to marry. The day he came of age should have been a celebration, but it felt more like a trip to the gallows. His freedom would be ripped from him in a few mere moments, and he wished he could go wherever it was that his brother went.

“It is quite alright, Brother,” Roberta said gently. “Edmund was never any good at being an earl, but you shall fare much better. We all think so.”

“But I do not want to. This is Edmund’s role, not mine. Can we not find him and bring him back?”

“He has already brought shame on us once. There is no use in locating him and dragging him back only for him to do the same a second time.”

“There is a use. It shall save me from a life I would detest.”

“You and Edmund are insufferable, you know.”

“You do not understand!”

“Of course, I do not. John, you shall have a purpose far greater than mine could ever be. You shall have the world at your feet, and you could reach for the moon if you wished. My sisters and I, however, must sit with our needlework and simper in the hopes that a man will marry us. You have choices. We do not.”

“And what if I choose to run away?”

“Then we shall be out on the streets. What Edmund did may seem like a wonderful idea to you, but one day you will understand that what he did was cruel and selfish to us. You are our last hope until you sire an heir.”

“So I need only have a son?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Then I shall do just that.”

And it may have been because of that conversation that he agreed to marry a young lady the day he came of age, even if he had never met her. He was surprised at first, because she was far prettier than he had expected. She had a soft voice and small hands and seemed quite excited to meet him, but she never gave him a son, and so he hated her.

After two girls, he knew that he needed to leave. He knew that he would face the same fate as his brother, trapped in a loveless marriage without an heir and needing to remain there else he would ruin his family. Regardless, he had to find a way out.

It was a miracle what a curtain and a candle could do.

He hadn’t meant to cause anyone any harm, only ruin the house just enough that they had to leave. He wanted time away from being the Earl of Colton, with his two daughters and no sons. He wanted to be Jonathon Winston, no more and no less, but it was not going to be possible so long as he was there. He had not considered that a fire could not be controlled and that it would not care whether or not his pleasant wife, whom he simply could not bring himself to love, was sleeping. He had no control—not even an earl can dictate who lives and dies in a disaster, even if he caused it.

Even if Jonathon loathed his wife, he couldn’t help but fall to his knees when he was informed of her passing. They had married so young that she was all he had ever known, and given that they had only had their first daughter but six years prior, they had spent the longest time just the two of them. He hated the late Countess, but he needed her, and he couldn’t stand that.

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