Page 84 of A Lady of Means
“I kept… my promise,” Devyn spoke, eyes barely adjusting to the light, strained and searching for something familiar in a world of foreign blurs.
“I never doubted you,” Peregrine returned, squeezing his brother’s hand as he was carried to his rooms.
Devyn was poked and prodded, and then given something else; it was probably something to help him sleep again.It was a too-welcome relief when his eyelids drifted shut again, dreaming about a blonde with eyes like twin oceans, staring at him across a church, tracing her eyes over his body underneath a willow tree, wearing a gown dusted with celestial shapes like she was wrapped in a starry sky.
“He’s alive,” Perry’s voice broke to someone as the door snicked closed behind them.
“I gathered.You were right not to give up hope.”
Had anyone ever comforted my brother before in all his years of comforting everyone who needed him?
“He can’t walk.He was shot in the hip.”
Devyn’s body knew that, felt the marks and the aches; his mind, however, registered this belatedly.
How am I to get to her if I can’t walk?How am I to stand in front of a church like I promised her?I’d made it this far, I would crawl if that’s what it took.
“You are linked by blood, and more than blood, that’s what you told me, remember?He will be alright, because you will make it so.There isn’t anyone in the commonwealth who can stop you when your mind’s made up.”
Peregrine ran a hand over Devyn’s shoulder.
The other masculine voice spoke again.“I never knew he had so many tattoos.His chest, his torso, his arms…”
Peregrine sniffled.“I was older, he was bigger.Father put more marks and scars on him than he did to me.I suppose he found a way to cover over them.”
“Christ, what a monster.I’m glad that you had each other.I’m glad you didn’t lose him.”
“So am I.”Devyn heard Peregrine echo his thoughts.
“I’ll stay.”
“You’ll…stay?”
“You’ll need a hand.He’s quite heavy.And your cook’s rather decent.Your cognac’s better than mine, too.”
“Tristan, you are far from impoverished.”
There was a long pause, in which Devyn slowly felt some of the energy start to re-enter his body, in which he felt the weight of his family curse that had kept him from staying in England with the woman he loved, kept his brother from something close to happiness with the person he seemed to care for.
“I want you to stay,” Peregrine said, finally.
Devyn barely heard it, felt awful for hearing their confessions, and wondered if his big, weighted body was actually still asleep.
“Then I’ll stay, however long you’ll have me,” and the words Tristan Valentine whispered, the words Devyn should have said to the woman he loved, echoed on repeat in the dark valley of Devyn’s laudanum filled dreams.
* * *
Peregrine satby his brother’s side for nearly four days until he was fully conscious.Tristan never left.He brought Peregrine meals which he ate after helping Devyn to eat no matter how Devyn insisted his brother eat first.Tristan even shaved Devyn a time or two, rather skillfully, in fact.
“God, I guess I never realized that you must have shaved every day, that’s how burly you are.”
The Devyn before would have laughed at that, this one wasn’t sure he remembered how.
“Did I choose the wrong brother?”Tristan said, cleaning the razor in a bowl of warm water, eyes lighting on Peregrine with this affection that Devyn was beginning to understand, but felt was something rare.
Peregrine made an effort to involve Devyn in games of cards, reading to Devyn, getting him to drink water, checking his bandage to make sure it didn’t get infected.Through all of it, Devyn had been biding his time, waiting for the moment someone would escort her into a room, or answer his questions.
Finally, Tristan brought up the one thing they’d all been dancing around: the woman Devyn loved.Clearly his brother and Peregrine didn’t think he could hear them through the open door or thought that he was asleep, but it was the first real answers he’d been given.
