Once in a Blue Moon by Penelope Williamson Page B

taut, well-bred face. He could never sort out his feelings when he was with McCady. At times he was sure he loved him like a brother. A brother —and he could even see the irony in that. He loved him, but he was not sure he liked him. Perhaps he only wanted to be Mack Trelawny. But that wasn't true either because he abhorred the Trelawny vices. He didn't much care for the taste of spirits, so he drank only in moderation. He never gambled; to risk money on the turn of a card or the fall of the dice seemed the height of foolishness to him. He liked girls well enough, but he'd never been moved to bed each one that looked his way. The Trelawny vices, all the vices that McCady had in such abundance.
    Perhaps he only wanted to be the man McCady Trelawny had the potential of becoming but never would be. For what was it that they said? The Trelawnys all died young, violently, and in disgrace.
    They had never spoken about the possibility that they might be half brothers.
    McCady had gotten up to splash more brandy into his glass. He stood before the fire, looking down at it a moment, then threw back his head and tossed most of the brandy down in one swallow. He swung around to brace his shoulders against the mantel, fixing Clarence with his penetrating gaze. The flames were reflected in his eyes, the flames and nothing else. Clarence could rarely tell what thoughts went on behind those dark, shadowed eyes. Sometimes he suspected that McCady was secretly laughing at him, and that hurt.
    "I still cannot believe it when I see you in that uniform," Clarence said. "I never had you pegged for a soldier."
    McCady's mouth twisted into something that was not quite a smile. "Doubtless my superior officers would agree with you."
    "I suppose you'll be off to rejoin your regiment soon, although you'll have little to fight now that old Boney's been breeched. Where are you billeted? I trust it's somewhere close to London."
    "The 54th is hardly such a fashionable regiment. We've been sent to the West Indies."
    "Good God."
    McCady's laugh held a tinge of bitterness. "I doubt God has much to do with the place, so I should be quite at home there. They say there is little to do but play for high stakes and fornicate with the native girls."
    And die, Clarence thought, of some exotic tropical disease. For they also said the life expectancy of a man sent for duty to the West Indies was six months. But he tilted his brandy glass in his cousin's direction, as if toasting to his good fortune. "So you'll get yourself a bevy of brown-skinned wenches to frolic with in the tropical sun and forget all about dreary old England and steam locomotion."
    A pain so dark it might have been agony flared in McCady's eyes before he veiled it with his lids. He looked down at his glass, but it was empty. "And forget about steam locomotion," he said, but softly, as if to himself.
    An intense emotion squeezed Clarence's chest, making him feel light-headed. It might have been dismay. But it might also have been relief. He wasn't sure why, especially since he himself had invested heavily in his cousin's experiments with steam and motion, but Clarence had secretly hoped all along that they would fail. For all that he loved McCady, Clarence preferred him best like this—trapped and slightly desperate. Defeated.
    Except that he wondered if it was really possible to defeat his cousin. There had been a story going around the London clubs that after Waterloo, Lieutenant Trelawny had been found on the battlefield, grievously wounded in the thigh and nearly dead from exposure and loss of blood. He had been carried back to one of the hospital tents to have his leg amputated. But when the barber-surgeon leaned over him, to give him a bullet to bite down on, he had grabbed the man's throat with a grip, the surgeon had said later, like a blacksmith's vise. "You saw off my leg," McCady had snarled, "and I'll come for you even if I have to crawl. I'll come for you, butcher, and I'll cut off