Page 26 of Plucked By the Orc

She did calisthenics faithfully, and while she always had human food available for callers, she stuck to a nutrient-rich Orcan diet herself. Her skin glowed, and her black hair was still lustrous and abundant, even drawn back into the low chignon customary for Orcan widows. The slight wrinkling on her forehead and the corners of her lips only emphasized the elegant cast of her features.

Duncan leaned in for a hug, taking in the crisp citron scent of her favorite soap. She barely got up from her chair, which turned the hug into an awkward affair, but that was typical between mother and son. Or at least between Mother andthisson.

Albion received a different greeting entirely.

“And Albie!” she exclaimed as soon as she saw his younger brother walk in behind him, cutting a dash in a new white frock coat. “I didn’t realize you were coming.”

She stood nearly upright to greet Albion. Duncan tried not to let the difference in her greetings bother him. Albion was the baby and had always been coddled. It was the same in the human and the orc worlds: the eldest bearing the responsibility while the youngest complained not of an excess of discipline but occasionally of a lack of purpose.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Albion declared, tossing his top hat onto a stray armchair’s overstuffed cushion.

“What an odd thing to say. You are so good about attending my at-homes. Unlike …”

Mother allowed her voice to trail off, but Duncan could determine the rest well enough,unlike your brother.

“Why, he hasn’t told you yet? It merits forewarning.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“Albion means to say that I have invited a young lady to call on you,” Duncan told her.

Mother pressed her lips tight before parting them. “Duncan Higgins! If you are engaged, the least you could do is tell me. What am I to make of this?”

“I am not engaged.” Albion needn’t have made it sound so melodramatic. And he really didn’t need to be here, only he’d insisted, and Duncan hadn’t the energy to refuse him.

“After meeting Lady Margaret Hathaway—”

Duncan gritted his teeth at the name. “I have not brought Lady Margaret.”

“—one had hoped you would put notions of marriage into the human world aside. It’s not as though you couldn’t be happy enough with a woman from the Hidden Realm.”

“Oh, he might be happy enough,” Albion commented, still jolly. He leaned against the mantel behind Mother, arms crossed. “But why would you condemn a woman, human or orc, to deal with that sour demeanor day and night?”

“Now, come Albion. Your brother’s seriousness is to be commended.”

Duncan arched a brow. Had Mother given him a compliment?

“But that makes it all the more baffling as to why he has brought another young woman to be presented in this household,” she added.

There it was. Duncan sighed and looked down at the crimson and black Turkish carpet, noting the swirling pattern adorning it. “I have made her acquaintance for the purpose of contributing to my book on human customs and behavior.”

“Are you still composing that? I support your work, but who on earth will publish it?”

“What does it matter?” his brother said. “Book be damned. Duncan is out to win a wager.”

“A wager?” Mother’s eyes lit with interest.

“We cannot share more at present,” Albion told her.

“What is the prize?”

Even Albion wasn’t brave enough to tell their mother about Duncan’s prize—to be relieved of hosting her 60th birthday celebration. And Duncan felt assured of winning it.

“Ah, but it is bad luck to reveal the terms of a good flutter,” Albion said. “But I do think your visitor will intrigue you, Mother. Duncan rightly takes great pride in her.”

“Why would Duncan take pride in another sentient being with a mind of her own?”

Duncan clenched his hands into fists, the claws biting into his skin. Must everything be an argument with Mother? “At any rate, she should get here in …” He checked his pocket watch. “… ten minutes. I asked that she arrive at quarter past the hour.”

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