Her words only made him feel worse somehow. If she had demanded to know if he truly had sold secrets to the French…if she had asked where he’d been for the last five years and what he’d been doing…If she had only asked why he hadn’t sent her even a whisper of a suggestion that he was still alive…All those questions would have been her right to ask, and the fact that she didn’t ask one, but merely gathered him into her arms as she had done so many times when he was a boy, rent Alec’s heart. He was better as a spy now, alone and unfettered, when he didn’t even have to pretend to any sort of honesty. Gingerly he held his mother and let her weep.
“Oh, but I’ve gone and turned maudlin,” she said, raising her head and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “On this, the happiest day in many a month.” She stepped back, and Alec saw her make a small hand motion urging Julia on.
His sister didn’t appear nearly as pleased to see him. “Alec,” she said, ducking her head in a stiff curtsey.
“It is good to see you again, Julia,” he replied. She pressed her lips together and said nothing. “And you, Marianne.”
Frederick’s wife jumped as he said her name. The child she was holding clung tighter to her neck and started to whimper. “Welcome home, Alec,” she said quietly. “We were overjoyed to hear of your return.”
“Thank you,” he murmured. Everyone was looking at him, and with such naked curiosity and emotion. It made his skin crawl to be the focus of so much attention, after years of avoiding all notice.
“Well,” said his mother brightly, “shall we go inside? You must be tired, Alexander dear, and in want of a drink.” Clinging to his arm, she steered him into the house. He couldn’t help glancing up and around as he passed through the high arched door into the main hall. He might have left only a month ago; the house was just as he remembered it inside as well as out. The butler and housekeeper were waiting within, and from the quick patter of footsteps, the rest of the servants had also been loitering about the hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man come back from the dead. Alec tried to rein in his dark mood, but it all began to seem quite ghoulish.
“Farley, see to Major Hayes’s things at once,” his mother told the butler. “Mrs. Smythe, send tea to the drawing room, along with…” She glanced up at Alec. “A bottle of port, and some brandy.” The servants bowed and hurried off. “Come, dear,” she said to Alec. “Won’t you sit with me?”
Like a funeral train, everyone filed into the sitting room. Marianne followed after sending her children upstairs with a nursemaid. The thought that he was attending his own funeral grew more pronounced; irrationally, Alec felt like saying it aloud to provoke any other reaction. Only his mother seemed oblivious, settling herself in the chair that had always been hers, beaming at Alec as he sat next to her.
But then no one seemed to know what to say. The silence grew more and more ominous as they all sat and hardly looked at one another. Alec finally forced himself to speak. “I only recently heard of Frederick’s death. If I had known—”
“Then what?” Julia said under her breath.
Perhaps if they had a loud screaming row, it would air out the grievances everyone must be feeling, like ripping a bandage from a festering wound in one painful swoop. Alec turned to face his sister. “What do you want to know, Julia?”
She lifted her chin, taking up his challenge. “The same thing we all want to know, I daresay. Where you’ve been for five years and why the bloody hell you didn’t send Mother even a single word that you were alive—”
“Julia!” cried her mother.
Julia’s mouth pursed. “I was just answering his question, Mother. Didn’t you say we must go on as if nothing had changed?”
Anthea Hayes flushed. “Not today, Julia,” she said with steel in her voice.
“No, no,” Alec replied, watching his sister’s face burn red. “Let her speak. Julia and I were never coy with each other.”
Julia’s hands balled into fists in her lap. “Weren’t we?” she retorted. “And yet you’ve been exceptionally coy these last five years, neglecting to tell us you still lived.”
His sister was seething with fury, and oddly it made Alec feel better. This was better than sitting and being stared at with amazement and suspicion. “I wouldn’t call it coy or neglectful—”
“Oh?” She sniffed. “Perhaps willfully deceitful, then.”
“Julia,” said Marianne softly.
His sister opened her mouth, then closed it. She lurched to her feet. “Pray excuse me, Mother. I feel a headache coming on and would like to retire to my room.” She shot a furious glare at Alec before sweeping from the room.
He clenched his jaw as the door slammed shut behind her. He saw the worried look Marianne sent John, and the way John replied with a tiny shake of his head. “I am so sorry,” said his mother, reaching out to put her hand on his. “Julia is…Well, it was a tremendous shock…”
“Mother, I understand.” Alec shook his head. “I don’t expect her to be overjoyed.”
“Julia always loved you so; this has been a very hard week for her,” she replied. “She was distraught after Waterloo, when we heard…But she will come around in time.”
In time. The thought of the weeks and days ahead made Alec’s head ache. If this was the reaction from his family, how much worse would it be when he met neighbors and old friends? He might as well have come home with the word “traitor” branded on his forehead. “I’m sure it has been very hard on you as well.”
“Oh, no!” His mother’s face lit up. “When the Peterbury boy wrote to us, telling us you were alive and well—Alexander, you cannot know
