She called out to the twins, “I will be with you in a moment. I want to speak to Freddy.”
“Good idea,” Francine said.
“I don’t think I can…” Felix returned quietly.
Francine hurriedly pulled him along.
Cherry hurried down the stairs to Freddy and said as she took up his hand, “Time for you and me—”
He shook his head. “I know you want to help … but it is more than I can bear, and I am so very ashamed.”
She stopped and held both his arms. “Why, Freddy? What can you mean?”
“Sky told me that you were accosted on the road, and, Miss Cherry … I feel a cad …”
“Absurd boy!” she answered him at once and took his hand. “Come with me to the study. I am a very good listener as well as a good talker, and you need to have a little of both. Freddy, I have been in the suds more than I can count, so I understand, I do.”
He allowed her to pull him along and plopped himself down heavily on the sofa as she sat beside him. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “I have made a mull of it, and what you must think me …?”
“What I think is that you have been playing deep and need a hand to help you out of the mire. All of us do from time to time, you know.”
He looked at her sharply and breathed on a whisper, “You don’t know how deep. And there is no help for it now.”
“There is always help, though we don’t always recognize it. Come on, Freddy, what is it? Gotten yourself into debt?” It was a guess, but one based on many small things that Cherry had noticed in the last week.
“How could you know …?” he was startled into replying.
“Never mind that. How much do you owe, Freddy?” she pursued on a gentle note.
“More than I was able to pay, and it was a debt of honor.” His voice dropped an octave. “I had no choice you see—I had to pay it.”
“A gambling debt? Of course, oh, Freddy—I see it all now,” she said sympathetically. “You are honor-bound to pay it and have not been able to?”
No point in dressing him down. What was done was done. Now they had to find a solution.
“No, I paid it. I went to … a moneylender.” He closed his eyes.
“You what?” she was shocked into shrieking. “Never say so. You are underage—never say he loaned you money?”
“I don’t know about that. He didn’t seem to care about my age. Knew I was Lord Bromley and that one day … well, never mind all that. I had to put up m’father’s ring. It is an old emerald worth a fortune … more than he gave me. At any rate, I don’t wear it. But I liked it … was m’father’s, and I am sick about it.”
“How much do you owe him?”
“You don’t want to know.” He looked away.
“Oh, but I do. How much, Freddy?”
“A thousand pounds.” Again, he looked away.
Cherry swallowed the words that sprang to her lips. She took a minute to compose herself and asked gently, “And of course you did not confide in your brother?”
“No—how can I? He already thinks me irresponsible …” His voice trailed away.
“I shan’t go into that. There is no point dwelling on how it happened. It did. Now we must set it right. You must tell Skyler. Come clean, Freddy. He will be angry, of course, but he will think more of you for confessing the whole like a man.”
“No.”
“Freddy, trust me. Allow your brother to be a brother to you.”