Scorned By Him, Cherished By His Brother novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Open Door
Henry's POV
I went to see my brother at dusk, before the cart came for him.
The gaoler let me into the last cell and shut the gate and left the lantern.
Roland sat on the plank bed with his hands between his knees.
He had been crying, and he did not hide it.
"You came," he said.
"I did."
"I thought you would not."
"I did not think so either."
He looked up.
He was thirty-one, and he had been my little brother.
I had taught him to ride a pony on the sand at Sable Cove.
I had not once stopped him at a supper table, in four years, when he got up and left his wife with the silver.
"Hal," he said. "I am sorry."
"I know."
"I would have stopped, if I had known where it went."
"You would not," I said. "You would have stopped when it cost you something, and it never did."
He flinched.
"I came to say two things," I said. "The first is that you will be fed. I have written to the harbour master, and you will have a bed and a coat. I will not have you starve at the Rocks."
"Hal..."
"The second is that I do not forgive you. Not yet. I may, in seven years, if I see something I can trust."
"What would that be?"
"I do not know," I said. "You will have to find it."
I went to the gate and called for the gaoler, and I did not look back.
It was darker in the street than I had expected.
My wife was waiting for me in the study.
She had lit the fire herself.
She stood at the window in a green dress with her hair down, and she turned when I came in.
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