Chapter 57：CHAPTER 57: IF YOU EVER NEED ME, SEND THE WORD.

Still the Earl made no response, although the small garnet stickpin that held his carvat shimmered with the force of breathing. His lips were firmly set, his jaw rigid with the force required to keep them that way. Dare waited, unspeaking, apparently recognizing that there would be more to this tirade. 

Did he believe that whatever anger his brother felt would fade once he had expressed it?  Ian wondered. Or believe that he would never again interfere in his life? 

Even anticipating, perhaps, that when he had given it, things would go back to the way they had always been, back to the lifelong camaraderie and friendship they had shared? As the silence lengthened without that request, however, the fury slowly seeped out of the Earl's eyes to be replaced by something Ian was not sure he had ever seen in them before. 

Seeing it there now, he went on, pressing his advantage, "I would like to ask that you leave this house. I know I have no right to make that request, since it and everything within it belong to you. I assure you that if it were possible..."

He broke the sentence, unwilling to admit that he himself was physically unable to leave. He had found that realization, reached within the hour since his ward had left, to be the blackest moment of his prolonged convalescence. 

What a satisfaction it would have been to slam out of his brother's home, rejecting both his charity and his concern. Since he was incapable of doing that, the next best thing was, Ian had decided, to attempt to throw Dare out. And, judging by what was in those blue eyes, his brother might be shocked enough by his uncharacteristic anger to let him get away with it.

"You have my apologies—" Dare began. 

"I don't want your bloody apologies. I want you gone."

There was another silence as the Earl evaluated his tone.

"I was wrong to interfere," Dare said finally, the last of the lingering anger wiped from the darkly handsome face. "I shall speak to Annie and tell her so."

"I have spoken to Annie. You have no idea of the harm you have done. If you dare speak to her before you leave, I swear to you, Val, I shall never see you again. And whatever has been between us is in the past, what ever love and brotherhood..."

"No," Dare said softly, refusing to allow that particular threat to be articulated. 

"Then get out," Ian said relentlessly. 

"If I understood..."

"What you must understand is that this is my decision. Believe me, it is not one I make lightly or without valid reason. And it has nothing to do with vanity or pride or any of the petty causes you have assigned to it." 

"If you love her..." Dare began. 

"If I do, it is none of your concern," Ian said implacably. 

Another silence. "You are my concern. Grant me that."

"I am not," Ian said. "I know you are accustomed to thinking of me as a boy in need of your guidance. Perhaps at one time that was true. After Iberia, I assure you it is not."

"I am afraid..."

"Ian," Dare called softly. 

The fear he had seen in his brother's eyes before was expressed in that single word. And, hearing it, Ian relented enough to offer what explanation he could. 

"Believe me, if there were any way I could make her mine, I would find it."

This time the silence stretched too long, and in it echoed all the memories of what they had meant to one another through the years. And finally, against the force of a structure neither of them could bear, the Earl of Dare nodded. 

"If you ever need me, you have only to send the word." he said. 

He inclined his upper body in a small and formal half bow before he turned on his heel and crossed the room to the bedroom door. And, as Annie had done before him, he did not look back before he closed it behind him.