Page 59 of Romanced By the Orc

Since Dunc was well married and calmer because of it, perhaps the time had have come at last to confess.Hewas the Phantom. He could take care of himself well enough, even if this would be the first time he had actually traveled to Chamberly himself. Had he not planned the Langleys' trips and brought them safely home? He could manage the same for himself.

Looking about at the gentlemen in their stiff shirt points and fashionable tail coats enjoying their meals seemingly without a care, the public nature of the space stilled him. Albion couldn’t holdthatconversation here.

Dunc heaved a dramatic sigh and rose to his feet. “I find these seats unbearable for anything but the shortest of stays, and certainly see no need to indulge in a dessert this early in the day.”

“Or at any other time of day if I know you well, Dunc.”

His brother scowled. “Come. Let’s get a good round of exercise in while we discuss this matter. Like proper Orcan men.”

Albion dropped his serviette on his plate, and they headed for the door, passing between the white Corinthian columns outside the club and proceeding to the street. He tipped his top hat at a group of passers-by, a man and woman making a poor show of not staring at the Orcan brothers.

A brisk wind bristled the plane trees as Duncan advanced down St. James, pounding his walking stick furiously on the ground. He attempted to cross the carriageway, but Albion pulled him back from the path of a horse and wagon bearing a load of vegetables. The fellow driving the contraption shouted an impressive slew of profanities. Albie was only grateful that none included any slurs against the green-tinged skin the Englishfound so odd, or the horns he and Dunc could only partially hide under their bespoke top hats.

London disappeared. Albion returned to his school in the Hidden Realm. He was trapped in a corner near the latrine. The bullies closed in around him until he could scarcely breathe.String Bean! Coward!

But Duncan had appeared, as he always did to push his way through the circle and shove the boys away from his brother. Albion still felt the shame of relying on his older brother. Albion had always been tall, but for several years, the breadth of his body had not caught pace with his height. He was the bean pole. Their school masters called them all striplings, but to the bullies of the class, he was the stringling. The weak and awkward boy who was not naturally athletic, a high crime in the Hidden Realm. He was teased mercilessly. Even the odd color of his eyes had made him a target.

“I must insist you change your plans,” Duncan said, coaxing Albion back to the present. “I empathize with your concerns, but you ask too much of me to place you in peril willingly.”

“It cannot be news to you, brother, that His Royal Highness outranks you,” Albion said. “Are we not meant to be good citizens of this strange land? Is there any duty more sacred than obeying one’s monarch?”

“You were hardly obeying a command. How did you get the Prince Regent to agree to such a thing? He seems content with letting the situation in Chamberly unfold as it will, free from English intervention.”

“I confess I have not submitted the request yet but will do so later today,” Albion replied. “The Regent owes me a favor, so I feel assured of his assent. His Royal Highness knows something about twiddling his thumbs and feeling useless. He understands my need to act.”

“I am not trying to deter you from finding an honorable purpose, brother. But the Duke of Rostin has made no secret of his penchant for warmongering.”

“Come now, Dunc. Rostin might be a warmonger, but he’s no fool.”

“If anything were to happen to you—”

“With the Prince Regent’s favor, Rostin shan’t dare to touch me.”

Duncan propped his leather-gloved hands on his walking stick, hunching over so that Albion could not make out his features.

“It is hard for me not to see you as the boy you once were,” he said quietly. “And it is now, as it was then, my duty to protect you.”

“School life suited you, Dunc. I only feel grateful I was not the eldest. Father would have sent me away sooner.”

“I started at seven and was fine.”

“And I could wait until I was nine. Despite that, the program’s rigors did not suit me.”

“What did you find objectionable?” Duncan huffed. “Fresh air? Healthful food? A rigorous academic curriculum?”

“You see it as healthful, but I never felt I could get enough food and was denied a full stomach,” Albion said. “You know how skinny I was as a boy.”

“The regimen built mental fortitude. I believed you would benefit from it as I did.”

Albion thought back then to the schoolyard.Look here, stringling, two of his tormentors had yelled as he traversed the passageway from the bunks to the library. When Albion turned, rotting cabbage hit him square in the jaw. He still remembered the smell on his skin and the cruel laughter as the boys wrapped themselves around one another, all solid limbs and barrel chests. Duncan was at home that day, abed with a cold. Absenthis protector, Albion could do naught but hope they would eventually tire of this sport.

When Albion’s physical development finally caught pace with his height, he could have defended others in the same situation. Not everyone had the growth spurt Albion did. Those gangly boys continued to suffer the same taunts, the same cabbages in the face.

And Albion had walked away, not wishing to get embroiled once more in these terrible dramas of childhood. He could have stood up to the bullies as Dunc had stood up for him. The only problem was that long after he grew into a man’s body, he retained the fear of a boy.

A mistake that. For the past months, he had tried to rectify the mistake by working as the Benevolent Phantom.

“It did not build mental fortitude in me,” he told his brother. “The regimen made me scared and weak. I hated life there.”

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