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catastrophic failure of the heart.”
    “A catastrophic failure of the heart,” echoed Stuart. Frankly he was surprised. He thought Bertie’s heart had withered long ago.
    He asked the questions expected of him—Would there be an inquest? Who was responsible for funeral arrangements? Did the staff at Fairleigh Park require immediate directions from him?—and thanked the solicitor for his trouble.
    Mr. Marvin showed himself out. Stuart returned to the drawing room. Mr. Bessler had joined his daughter. They must have guessed—both waited solemnly for him to speak.
    “My brother is no longer with us,” said Stuart. “He passed away several hours ago.”
    “My condolences,” said Mr. Bessler.
    “I’m sorry,” said Lizzy.
    “We will have to delay the engagement announcement until after his funeral,” Stuart said.
    “Of course,” said both the Besslers.
    “And you’ll have your hands full after we are married, Lizzy, for I have inherited Fairleigh Park.”
    “That is not a problem,” she answered. “You know I like to lord over houses, the bigger the better.”
    He smiled briefly. “Shall we toast our engagement, then? I’m afraid I must leave soon, much sooner than I’d like.”
    He had a case that would come up before the Master of Rolls in a fortnight. And the necessity of attending Bertie’s funeral and seeing to the estate in the meanwhile meant he must start final preparations for the case right away.
    Champagne was brought out and consumed. Stuart took his leave, but Lizzy followed him to the vestibule.
    “Are you quite all right?” she asked. “About your brother, that is.”
    “I couldn’t be more all right if I tried,” he said in all honesty. “He and I haven’t spoken in twenty years.”
    “It’s just that, when I first met you, there were times when you seemed disconsolate. I’d always wondered if it was because of your brother.”
    He shook his head. “I wasn’t disconsolate.” Then, more truthfully, “And it wasn’t because of my brother.”
     

     
    Stuart lived not in his constituency of South Hackney, but in the elegant enclaves of Belgravia. From the Bessler house, he returned directly home and worked ’til quarter past two, when he judged he’d done enough for the night.
    He poured himself some whiskey and took an intemperate swallow. The news of Bertie’s death affected him more now than it had earlier—there was a numbness in his head that had nothing to do with fatigue.
    It was the shock of it, he supposed. He hadn’t expected Mortality, ever present though it was, to strike Bertie, of all people.
    Two shelves up from the whiskey decanter was a framed photograph of Bertie and himself, taken when Bertie had been eighteen and he seventeen, shortly after he’d been legitimized by both an Act of Parliament and the marriage of his parents
    What had Bertie said to him that day?
    You may be legitimized, but you will never be one of us. You don’t know how Father panicked when it looked as if your mother might live. Your people are laborers and drunks and petty criminals. Don’t flatter yourself otherwise.
    For years afterward, whenever he’d remembered Bertie, it was Bertie as he had been at that precise moment in time, impeccably turned out, a cold smile on his face, satisfied to have at last ruined something wonderful for his bastard-born brother.
    But the slim youth in the picture, his fine summer coat faded to rust, resembled no one’s idea of a nemesis. His fair hair, ruthlessly parted and slicked back, would have looked gauche in more fashionable circles. The square placement of his feet and the hand thrust nonchalantly into the coat pocket meant to indicate great assurance. As it was, he looked like any other eighteen-year-old, trying to radiate a manly confidence he didn’t possess.
    Stuart frowned. How long had it been since he’d last looked at the photograph?
    The answer came far more easily than he’d expected. Not since that night. He’d last