smooth, “I’m not.”
“I’m only going to be here for another two weeks,” James reminded him with a pout that had him chuckling as he tossed the rag he’d used to apply an oil finish to the trunk aside and finally deemed the project finished.
“And you’re going to be very busy for at least one of those weeks,” Robert decided to remind his brother as he reached over and turned off the lantern on his workstation.
“I knew that I should have left for England last month when I had the chance,” James said with a pathetic groan that Robert wasn’t buying as he rubbed the back of his neck and tossed the wood shaving aside.
They both knew what was waiting for James back home and he wasn’t in any rush to return to his wife. He’d married her for the inheritance and had instantly regretted it. Since they’d said their, “I do’s,” Heather had taken residence in one of the luxurious town houses that had originally been left to Elizabeth in a fit of rage and had refused to talk to James since. Not that James really seemed to care.
If anything, he seemed happy to get away from her, which Robert really couldn’t blame him for, but what he could blame his brother for were the looks of regret that he sometimes caught him sending Elizabeth. He knew that his brother would never touch her, but that didn’t hide the fact that James was more than a little in love with Elizabeth. He hated to see his brother in this much pain, but then again, if James ever acted on those fingers, Robert would tear him apart with his bare hands. But since his brother was kind enough to keep his feelings, and his hands, to himself, Robert would pretend not to notice.
“You would have missed me,” Robert said with a chuckle as he decided to call it a night.
James’ lips twitched. “Perhaps,” he lied his ass off when they both knew that James would have been miserable without him in England, but soon he wouldn’t have a choice and they both knew it. James was the first in line to inherit and as much as James would like to turn his back on his responsibilities and the unwanted wife that he now found himself with, he’d also been raised to believe that the future of their family depended on him. He could never turn his back on that, no matter how much he wanted to pretend that life back in England wasn’t waiting for him, he couldn’t.
Too may lives depended on James to pick up with their father would one day leave off, tenants, farmers, merchants, thousands of them. So, as much as James would like to start over in New England and pretend that he had a choice in his future, they both knew that he didn’t, because if he turned his back on his responsibilities then it would fall on Robert’s shoulders to do the right thing for their family.
And they both knew that he couldn’t do that.
Robert couldn’t go back, he couldn’t turn his back on the future that he’d created for his family, on the life that he’d made for them, he just couldn’t return to a life that had meant absolutely nothing to him and they both knew it. So, to make sure that Robert was never forced to take on a role that was never meant for him, James would do whatever it took to continue the line even if it meant going back to his wife in England and starting a family with her.
The fact that James was going to do whatever it took to ensure their families survival as well as the life that Robert had created for his family here in New England told him just how much he meant to his brother. They didn’t say anything, because nothing had to be said. They were brothers after all and this is what they did for each other. No thanks was necessary, but they both knew that whenever James needed an escape, there would always a place here for him when he needed it.
With that being said…
“You agreed,” Robert pointed out, deciding to cut through all the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter.
“I know,” James groaned with a mock glare, but they both knew that he was looking forward to having the run of the house and the boys all to himself. With Mrs. Brown’s help of course, which meant that he would probably end up spending the entire week teaching the boys how to blow spit bubbles and con Mrs. Brown into cooking all of his favorite foods and spoiling him rotten before he had to head back home to the harpy that was doing her best to go through their fortune before he got back, not that she really cared that he’d left, but because she just couldn’t seem to help herself.
Elizabeth still had never forgiven herself for losing the inheritance to her sister, but he knew that she had no regrets. She could have done a great deal of good with that money, but in the end he knew that she couldn’t bring herself to regret what happened between them and especially their boys. He was too much of a selfish bastard to regret what happened, but it damn near killed him that no matter how hard he worked, he would never be able to give her the life that she deserved.
He’d robbed her of a life of luxury and he could never forgive himself for that. She’d gone from being a pampered daughter of a Peer to the wife of the town carpenter. She’d deserved better than that and although he would never be able to give her what she deserved, he was going to do his best to make her happy, which was why he’d been busting his ass for the past few months, scrimping and saving every extra penny that he could so that he could finally take her on a honeymoon.
“You could always take me up on my offer and take her on a tour of Europe,” James suggested with a shrug even as he took a step back and put some space between them before Robert could get a chance to properly thank him for the offer.
“Thank you, but no,” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes narrowing to slits as he sent his brother one last warning, but the stubborn bastard ignored the warning and kept going.
“Think of it as a wedding gift. You could take her to Paris and Venice. Treat her to the best hotels across Europe, and dine at the finest-Ow, you son of a bitch! Stop punching me!”
“Let it drop and I will,” Robert explained with a tired sigh as he walked past his brother, in absolutely no mood to argue with him tonight.
With a heavy sigh that was going to get his jaw broken, James followed after him. “Consider it a gift.”
“No.”
“It would be from all of us,” James added as Robert shoved the heavy barn door open and strolled out, seriously tempted to lock his brother in for the night, but decided against it since the tattletaling bastard would just tell Mrs. Brown on him in the morning and the old woman would make his life a living hell out of spite.
“No,” he said, forcing himself to walk down the well-worn path that he’d created over the last few months with the help of Elizabeth, who liked to visit him throughout the day with a baby on her hip and a plate of goodies to keep him going.
He loved her visits and looked forward to them everyday. If he had to work at someone’s house or in town, he would get up an hour early and get the team ready for her, making sure to put the baby bassinets that he’d made specifically for the carriage in the back to make it easy for her to visit him. While most husbands usually bitched about their wives and took whatever excuse they could find to get out of the house, he couldn’t stand going even a few hours without seeing his wife and sons.
If Elizabeth wasn’t able to get the boys outside to see him, then he made sure to take breaks during the day so that he could check on them, see if she needed anything and mostly just so that he could take her in his arms, close his eyes as he tried to accept that she was finally his. No matter how many times he touched her or held her at night, he still couldn’t believe that this was real, that his minx was his forever.
It was funny that once upon a time just hearing her name could ruin his day, but now he couldn’t imagine going a day without hearing her beautiful name whispered from his lips as he pulled her into his arms at the end of the day and thanked god from bringing the vicious little minx into his life.
“You can take her on a trip that she’ll never forget,” James said offhandedly as he caught up with him.
“That’s what I plan on doing,” he said evenly, knowing that his brother was trying to do something nice for them, but it was
still fucking insulting.
“You can take her anywhere in the world, Robert. You don’t have to live like this,” James said, sighing heavily as he gestured lazily towards the large farm house and surrounding property, trying to sound like he was offering to save him from a life of hell, but he didn’t miss the envious tone as he brother dutifully repeated the offer that their parents had tried to shove down his throat before they’d finally conceded and boarded the ship to return to England. They’d left it on James’ shoulders to convince Robert to accept their offer to pay for a European tour, wet nurse, carriage and a full line of servants to follow them as they dined at the finest restaurants in Europe all while their every need was met. It was the type of trip that either one of them could have rightfully expected thanks to the station that they’d been born to, but that wasn’t the world that they belonged to anymore.
The world that they belonged to had bills, limited resources, obligations, and the knowledge that if he couldn’t work then his family would starve. It wasn’t a comfortable existence, but it was the one that he’d chosen. He’d come to America to make a new life for his family and to get a fresh start and he couldn’t do that if he allowed himself to depend on his family for support. He loved his family, more than anything, but if he was going to make it, if his family had any chance at all of surviving and making a life for themselves, then they needed to do this on their own.
He needed to do this on his own.
He needed to know that no matter what life threw at them that he could not only handle it, but that he could come out on top, keeping his family safe while making something of himself here. He needed to do this on his own and that meant that he did this completely on his own, without his family’s purse strings or influence.
He sure as hell didn’t need them paying for his honeymoon.
“I don’t want your money, James,” he bit out, insulted that everyone in his family and in hers kept offering to throw money at them, terrified that they were going to die in the streets.
“You know the money really belongs to Elizabeth,” James said quietly, saying the one thing that was guaranteed to make him stop walking and turn around so that he could face his brother.
For a moment he considered breaking his brother’s nose for bringing up something that was better left unsaid, but the tormented expression on James’ face stopped him.
“We don’t want the money, James,” he said, suddenly feeling every single one of those long hours that he’d worked to make sure that they had extra money in the bank so that they could survive another year without having to beg their family for help.
“It should have been yours,” James said tightly, a muscle clenching in his jaw as he stood there, forcing himself to look Robert in the eye.
He met his brother’s gaze and shook his head, “I got what I wanted.”
His brother’s lips twitched as he nodded in understanding. “Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth,” he agreed with a chuckle and a wink as he headed inside, more than ready to put an end to this day and crawl in bed with the woman that he loved and hold her all night.
Chapter 3
“Dear, it will be fine,” Mrs. Brown said even as the normally stoic woman shot the two young women cowering in the corner a pleading look, praying that they understood the silent message that she was sending them, but of course they were still ignoring her and fixated on the young woman in her arms crying.
“I-I don’t un-understand what went wrong,” Elizabeth sobbed, somewhat hysterically as she hugged the basket filled with burnt biscuits, which really looked like discs of charcoal, to her chest as she continued to sit there, in the corner, on the floor, finally having the breakdown that Mrs. Brown had been waiting for since the twins were born.
“They just got a little brown, that’s all,” Mrs. Brown said, trying to not to glance down at the basket full of charcoal as she told Elizabeth yet another lie just to make it through the day. “I’m sure Robert will love them,” she said, this time forcing a smile that unfortunately probably resembled a grimace, because just the thought of that boy eating these things turned her stomach and she was a woman known for having a strong stomach.
“T-the boys,” Elizabeth mumbled absently, looking a little lost. “I’ve gotta make the boys something to eat.”
“They’ve already eaten,” Mrs. Brown pointed out soothingly even as she did her best not to think about exactly how much food the babies had gone through or the fact that they would probably require a second dinner in another hour or two.
She’d raised a lot of children in her lifetime, but none of them had been anything like the Bradford twins. Not that she didn’t love them, because she did, probably more than she should since one day they would grow up and wouldn’t need her, but until that day came she was going to allow herself to foolishly love those baby boys more than anything else on this earth.
It was probably the reason why she pretended that some of the things that they did didn’t terrify her, like the silent way they communicated when they planned something out, the look they shared just before they did something that had run off more than a few of the village girls that she’d been able to convince to ignore the rumors that had spread through town like wildfire about the twins and Robert’s insatiable appetite and work for the Bradfords for a few hours a week, just to lighten the workload on Elizabeth, who was determined to be the perfect mother and wife.
It wasn’t possible, not with a husband like Robert and babies that could eat more than most men. A shiver tore through her just at the thought of how much those boys could put away. While most babies their age were just learning to sit up, crawl and starting to make the switch to solid foods like porridge and mashed vegetables, the Bradford boys were already the size of two year olds and could put away more food in one sitting than all her sons and nephews combined.
Sometimes at night when she was in bed and the house was quiet and the only thing that she had to keep her company were her thoughts, it was a struggle not to grab her bag and make a run for it, but the reminder that the twins were sweet boys that adored her, and probably wouldn’t resort to eating her if they had a really bad winter and ran out of food, kept her there. She couldn’t imagine spending her days without the Bradfords.
With that being said…
She really couldn’t imagine how Elizabeth had lasted this long before she’d finally cracked under the pressure of keeping up with the twins. They were cute, but very demanding. Every hour, sometimes twice an hour those boys were hunting their mother down, demanding to be fed and snuggled while Elizabeth did her best to be the perfect wife, something that she knew damn well that Robert didn’t expect or want.
He only wanted Elizabeth…
She would love to say that her own husband had loved and adored her the way that Robert cherished Elizabeth, but she couldn’t. Never once had Roger looked at her the way that Robert looked at Elizabeth. She knew that he had grown to care for her and had adored their children, but he never loved her, not the way that Robert loved Elizabeth. She’d never seen a man look at a woman the way that Robert looked at Elizabeth, like every dream that he’d ever made had come true.
It was something that made her smile every time she saw it.
She only wished that Elizabeth realized just how much she meant to Robert and how little he actually cared if things were perfect. As far as she could tell, the only thing that he seemed to care about was that she was healthy and happy, which at the moment was a problem…
“I can make fresh ones,” Elizabeth mumbled almost desperately, looking seconds away from passing out, which again, was to be expected considering how hard she’d been working over the last few month to make everything perfect.
“No, sweetie, that okay’s. I’m sure that-”
“Elizabeth?” Robert said brightly with that smile that belonged solely to Elizabeth as he walked through the back door, making Mrs. Brown cringe and damn near made her whimper, because any chance of stoppin
g this before it got worse was gone now.
“Oh, God,” came the soft mumble, followed by a terrified gasp as Elizabeth, who was probably surviving on less than an hour of sleep a night, jumped to her feet, dropped the basket of burnt biscuits to the floor, shoved her messy hair back and in the process ended up spreading ash over her beautiful tangled hair as she raced to the table, grabbed a large dirty mixing bowl and with a panicked expression on her face, began making more dough right around the time that the Robert spotted her and the smile slowly slipped away from his face.
She opened her mouth to make another excuse for Elizabeth, to distract him away from the fact that his wife was beyond exhausted, covered in soot and ash, trembling and quietly sobbing, because there wasn’t enough lard to make another batch of biscuits, when she saw all the good humor evaporate from Robert’s face only to be replaced seconds later by a look that she prayed that she never saw again, because it was in that instant that she realized just how dangerous Robert Bradford was.
*-*-*-*
“It’s okay, Robert. Just let me-”
“Watch the boys,” Robert said firmly, shutting the bedroom door behind him and cutting of Mrs. Brown before she could give him another bullshit excuse.
“I thought we agreed that there would be no more secrets,” he murmured softly, kissing Elizabeth’s forehead as he carefully carried his trembling wife across the room, berating himself for letting this go on for so long.
He’d known that she was overdoing it. Hell, it was the one thing that they were always arguing about. He’d tell her that she was overdoing it and she’d tell him the same thing. He’d threaten to spank her bottom raw if she didn’t slow down and she’d threaten his balls.
No matter what he said or did, she wouldn’t listen to him. If he was going to work himself into exhaustion to take care of their family, then so was she. She didn’t understand that he was doing this for them, that he had absolutely no fucking choice but to take every single job that came his way no matter how exhausted he was or how much he’d rather be able to sleep in with his wife in the morning, spend the day playing with his sons and making them smile, but he couldn’t.
When he’d sold his investments, he’d expected to have to support a wife, maybe a servant or two, but twins? Christ, he’d never expected to have boys that could eat more than most grown men. Right now they were fine, he could afford to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and their bellies comfortably full, but he knew that could all change at any time. If he got hurt or sick, then he wouldn’t be able to provide for his family and that absolutely terrified him.
So, he took as many jobs as he could, pretended that he wasn’t