With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense by Amanda DeWees Page B

with the theater that served as your introduction. Does that sound agreeable to you?”
    “It does,” I said, impressed that he had woven in an important element of my past that would doubtless emerge in conversation no matter how much I might try to suppress it. Having been so thoroughly immersed in the theater for the past ten years, I couldn’t be certain that I would not blurt out some recollection or experience connected to that part of my life. Tact was an unexpected gift to find in this man, and I was pleased to observe it. Atticus was proving to be far from the dull, gawping boy I remembered. In those days Richard had had all of the charm and quickness of tongue, whereas his brother seemed always tongue-tied.
    Thinking of Richard prompted my next question. “Now, as to your own story: how much do I know of it, and of Gravesend? My impressions of you from our shared past may not be what you would have told the woman you were wooing.”
    “I suppose you have a point. I would definitely have made myself out to be far more dashing and accomplished.” His smile was rueful. “I spent so much of my youth trying to catch up with Richard, it seems to me now. Both physically and in less tangible ways, I think. When I was a child I looked up to him so—and fell so far short of the kind of brother he could have felt a bond with.” He mused for a moment, and his fingers drummed on the handle of the walking stick that was now the most visible sign of his handicap. “We were so unlike, though.”
    There was no doubt of that. Abruptly grief for Richard rose up in my breast like a scalding tide, choking speech off in my throat.
    As if for the first time I felt the searing injustice of it, that someone so fully alive should have been struck down—and when he was so young. What might he have made of himself had he lived? Would he have had a brilliant military career, perhaps? Revived tin mining or other industries near Gravesend and built that quiet corner of Cornwall into a thriving, well-to-do community? Married and fathered a brood of many children? If he had wedded me and been disowned, his life might have been more obscure, but who was to say it would have been less happy than if he had lived to bring glory to the Blackwood line?
    “I’m afraid to someone as lighthearted as Richard I must have seemed pretty joyless,” Atticus said now, unaware of the direction my thoughts had taken. “When he gambled and won, he enjoyed his victory; I worried about whether those he had fleeced would be able to pay their bills. Competing with him was out of the question, but so was trying to force him to behave more responsibly. Of course, as the elder by some half an hour I was born to more responsibilities. Richard, as the younger, had no need of questioning the ramifications of his every move as I did. It was a long time before I could accept that I’d never be like him. That infectious charm and reckless energy—no, I was his opposite in every way.”
    Against my will I felt a grudging sympathy for him. With Richard’s natural gifts, any man might have felt at a disadvantage next to him; add the misfortune of a club foot, and it must have stung far more cruelly. “What a pity that the two of you didn’t have the chance to become better friends, Atlas.”
    His gaze returned from the far distance to find my eyes, and I felt the heat of a blush rise in my face as I realized what I had said. “I’m so sorry,” I exclaimed.
    “It is a long time since anyone has called me by that,” he said—mildly enough, but I knew he was not pleased. “It’s only natural that you should use Richard’s name for me, I suppose.”
    “I do beg your pardon, truly.”
    “Of course it would come to mind. Richard always warned me against being Atlas, taking the weight of the world upon my shoulders.” His tone was light enough, but there was a wry twist to his mouth. He shook his head ruefully, suddenly looking far older, as if the subject