Page 25 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
The corner of his father’s lip quirked up. “Vegetables?”
“Someone suggested I may be rather better at growing them than I am at growing flowers.”
His father sat up straight, the other side of his mouth curling upward. “You growflowers?”
“I kill flowers. But maybe I can grow vegetables.” Why did it matter? He could not say, but he’d wanted to make the attempt since Miss Cavendish had mentioned it, needed to try, to see if she was right.
“Having a landscape designer for a friend has made you an interesting fellow, son. The earl is a better friend than you’ve ever had, I think.”
“I know.” He could admit it. He’d not kept good company before. He’d watched one fellow harass a young girl to tears once. It had made him sick, but he’d not stopped it. He shivered and sank low in his seat.
“How is Franklin’s plan coming along? Are you still following it?”
Cass nodded, considered telling his father about his attempts to fill a gap in Franklin’s plan by finding a governess to teach him to be good. Bad idea, that. Best to leave Miss Cavendish in the column of his notebook entitled Mistakes to Atone For.
“I gave you the book in France because”—he slumped against the chair’s back—“to be honest, I didn’t think anything would work at that point, but I had to try. And this book by an American, of all people, was one of the first things I saw in Paris—even before I laid eyes on you. There it was, crowded with the others, outside a bookseller’s shop. I snapped it up. I’m glad you cling to it still.”
The book offered an anchor, something to connect Cass to the world and good people around him. It gave him hope. But it had not saved him. His father had done that. When Cass left England, he’d never thought his father would chase after him. He’d imagined the lot of them holding champagne glasses high, toasting to their better lives without Cass.
They didn’t want him.
Or so he’d thought until his father found him drunk in a dirty hotel, rushed to him, and wrapped arms strong as steel around him, crying fiercely, apologizing as if he had been the one to wrong Willow, not his son. Cass had shrunk away from the apologies, feeling at his very core, across every inch of his skin, and with every beat of his heart, unworthy.
He still felt damaged, a blot on the family happiness.
But he was trying to deserve his father’s forgiveness, his father’s love. He dreamed of gaining these things from Bax.
A bit of a hopeless dream, that one, but one could not help dreaming, even one like him.
“I was following Franklin’s guide,” Cass said. “I am.”
His father nodded. “Good man. Stay the course.” He studied Cass’s face then frowned. “Why do you seem so despondent? More so than usual, that is.”
“I’m not. I’m disappointed.” He laughed. “In myself. As usual.” His heart sank like a gray stone tossed by a careless child into a dark lake.
“Cass?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ve never asked but always wondered what happened between you and Bax and me. To put us all so at odds. When I followed you to France, I didn’t care about those details. I just knew I had to take a risk, that if I let you go at that moment, I would never get you back.”
Cass held his arms out wide, smiled playfully. “Have no fear, Pater. Here I am. Back.”
His father nodded, scratched his neck. “When you and Bax were children, you followed him around like a little shadow.”
More old pains. Cass lived with ghosts, breathed them. They exhausted him. But they were part of atonement. He sighed. “A myriad of things. You started spending time with Bax alone, teaching, you said. Then there was Mary, the barmaid. I thought myself in love with her, wanted her to be my first. She preferred my brother. Then you gave Bax Briar House. It felt like you loved him more, like you forgot I existed. I had always, before, thought of us as equals. Two firstborn boys, growing up, side by side. But then, I began to feel like a second son, the spare… unneeded, unwanted, unnecessary.” Bloody hell. Such childish things. To say them out loud burned his throat and his pride.
“I wish you’d spoken with me.” His father dragged a hand through his hair. “I should have made you speak with me instead of yelling at you. I blame myself.”
Cass bristled. “I’ll own my own destructive idiocy, thank you.” Devil take it, he’d been a right idiot.
“Good. You should. You do not lack culpability. But neither do I. And I’ll own my own destructive idiocy as well. Good men do.”
His father kept insisting he was a good man. He did not feel it. “I’m at a loss for how to proceed. I have my notebook.” He pulled the red leather from his jacket pocket. “But I don’t quite know how to go about practicing the virtues Franklin lists. I recently had a, ah, run-in with a virtuous young lady. It should have been an easy moment to practice chastity.”
His father leaned forward. “And?”
“I did not debauch her, but I was not respectful of her. I failed. I wrote that down.” He turned to the page in the notebook, frowned at the words scribbled there—kissed her… enjoyed it… damn.Why didn’t Franklin mention women when he wrote about moral improvement?Cass would have.
