Page 82 of Atone, Adonis

He didn’t raise his voice when he urged, “Think it through, Tom. I was not holding the reins. I came upon that accident. The mare you took was tied to a tree several paces away.”

Thomas gave a short, bitter laugh that dissolved into a cough. “It’s very convenient that the worst thing ever to befall us is suddenly not your fault, isn’t it? Now that you’ve taken a liking to my sister.”

“Your sister is my wife. And a woman who can make her own choices without either of us involved. But I never said it wasn’t my fault. I said I wasn’t driving.”

“What is your point, Fred?”

Fred looked down at his oldest friend. He was still in there somewhere. He had to be.

“My point is that if I had been driving the barouche that struck your parents’ landau—if I had been at the reins, as I claimed—there would have been no mare for you to take back to Sedgewick Manor.”

“I understand that. It isn’t my brain that’s been wasted. What I want to know is why. Why you lied to us. Why you skulked away to the Continent, if not because you were guilty?”

“Because I was young and foolish and a coward. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I’m only telling you the truth.”

“Why?”

“You deserve to hear it. And your sister asked me to tell you.”

Thomas shook his head, another cough tearing through him before he could speak. “No. I deserved the truth ten years ago, when it might have meant something. Not now. It’s too late to ease your conscience. And I refuse to be a balm so that you might sleep well at night.”

“I don’t sleep, Tom. Haven’t for years.”

Fred turned away and watched the sun that washed over the countryside and the sea. The light was warm, almost pink. Soon it would turn lavender. Birds called and a light breeze blew and it was all so beautiful that he had to close his eyes. He had no interest in beauty that wasn’t hers. No interest in being warmed by the sun if she wasn’t next to him, face upturned to soak it in.

“Fred,” Thomas said after those long, long moments of silence. “There has to be a reason you kept this quiet. What was it?”

Fred looked up at Thomas, his oldest friend. The one who was sick now, dying, because of his betrayal. Because of his actions. And he said the words. “I let her seduce me, Tom. I let her have her way with me. I—I…participated. And because I was with the Baroness, Eva took out the carriage. And your parents died. You went to war. You’re dying, Tom. And it’s all my fault because of what I let her do.”

Yet another cough tore through Thomas then as if to put a point on it, but the man only shook his head after. “I am dying, but that’s not your fault, Fred, no matter what ugly things I might have said to you. Half the men in Crimea came home with tuberculosis. More, probably. That’s bad luck. And illness. I cannot lay the blame for it at your feet.”

“Would you have gone if I’d told the truth? If Eva had gone before the magistrate?”

Thomas shrugged. “Probably. We’d still have needed the money. I would still have had to look out for Julie-bug. I was already there when you inherited and offered the annuity.” He spent a few moments looking out at the sea before he continued. “I understand why you blame yourself. I do too, blame myself I mean. I knew, even then, that something wasn’t right about that woman and what she was doing. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think I had the right words for it.”

“But I participated.” Fred’s words were barely above a whisper.

“So you did. But, Fred, that doesn’t mean a goddamned thing. That doesn’t make any of this your fault. Christ, even if it had been a full blown love affair you still didn’t kill my parents. Nor did you give me the wasting disease.”

They sat quietly then, side by side as the sun danced off the sea. Finally, Thomas asked, “Is Julie-bug alright? Is that why you’re here?”

“She’s gone back to Farrow Cottage.”

“She’s left you?”

Fred turned his head at the unexpected timbre to Thomas’s voice. It was far gentler than he’d heard from him in years.

“She has. And it’s no less than what I deserve.”

Thomas sighed. “I no longer believe you when you say things like that, you know. Tell me then. All of it.”

So Fred did. He told Thomas about the letters—the ones he had written and never sent. The vow of celibacy he’d made and how he’d felt when he’d broken it. How much he despised himself for his weakness. And more for lying to Jules when she’d asked him not to. For being too weak to tell her the truth, to be her husband instead of Chester.

“All because I was afraid,” Fred said, finally, his voice rough. “I let myself be Chester, even though I knew what would happen when I did.”

“Fred,” Thomas said and there was a softness in his voice that Fred hadn’t heard in a long, long time. “Go back to Farrow Cottage. Talk to Julie-bug, not to me. She’s got a heart big enough to forgive any amount of arseholery. Trust me I would know. But you have to show her that you love her. Show her who you are. She needs that, Julie-bug does. She needs to know the truth of you.”

Fred looked at him askance. “Does this mean—”