A Fiery Dalliance

XIV

"It seemed such a lonely way to be twins, I thought. Emmanuel always faced out to a future he was sure he could dream into existence and Ella, always turned back to a past that had meaning only for her." Kaitlyn Greenidge, Libertie: A Novel

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XIV.

Joe had been distracted all morning and did feel terribly for hardly listening to Adam as he talked. It hardly bode well for the eventual meeting between his father and the duke.

Although his father and Adam had known each other at school, as far as Joe knew, they had not been reacquainted as adults. For all Joe's internal anguish, Adam did not seem the wiser.

When the butler finally informed them that the carriage of their expected guests had arrived, Joe's stomach was about in his throat.

Joe focussed on breathing evenly. This would be a good meeting. He was to see his brother again. It had been a long time since they had been in residence under the same roof.

There had always been a separation between Joe and Ed, despite them being born as close as two brothers could be. It was never a separation instigated by either of them, but their father.

Though, for the first six years of their lives, Joe and Ed had been entirely inseparable. They were twins who shared a face and a mind, and for a time in their youth, they had both been convinced that they could hear the other's thoughts and feel the other's pain. Of course, as young, identical boys, they had also pulled pranks on their nanny and had switched places many, many times.

But despite being identical, their father, John Parish, the Viscount Evesham, had always been able to tell them apart. Perhaps that was the way of things when one son, the first, gave him everything he'd ever wanted, and the second, the unexpected son, had taken everything in an instant. John Parish always knew which twin was which.

Since then, Joe had felt Ed consistently being pulled away from him. Ed had been the one person in his life who had always been on his side. Ed had been the one to fight the battles that Joe was not strong enough to fight. He had been the one to stand up to their father when he was harsh or cruel. But as they grew out of childhood, it became apparent that their lives would take very different trajectories.

Ed was the heir. He was destined to be a peer, and to join the House of Lords. He was to be a great gentleman and would marry a great gentlelady and would sire many gentlechildren.

Joe was the spare. Joe was the son who wasn't anticipated or needed.

"Are you alright, Mr Parish?" Adam asked Joe as they approached the landing. "You look as though you have sucked on a sour grape."

"Yes," Joe replied, a little too quickly. "Yes, I am fine."

When they reached the landing, Joe could see that the Beresford family had begun to gather in the foyer to receive their guests. After a quick survey of the members present, Joe immediately noticed that Perrie was not among them. Where was she?

But then, Joe supposed that it was probably a good thing that Perrie was not present. She could not provoke him into saying something catty, and he could also delay his brother learning that the infamous Peregrine who had been the bane of his existence for half of his life was actually a girl the size of a croquet mallet.

When Grace saw her husband descending the stairs, she asked, "Is Perrie up there with you? Nobody can seem to find her."

"No," Adam replied with a shake of his head. "Hasn't she been hiding in the library these last few days pretending to read?"