Page 100 of Snapdragons
“The duke has his heir, and his heir has an heir. I assure you, neither could possibly care less about my marital status.”
“But the rest of us care a great deal,” Nicolette said.
Aldric didn’t allow that thread to be followed any further. “Niles and Mag’smarital status is the one we’re supposed to be focusing on.”
Both Aldric and Digby had painful relationships with their fathers. Henri’s connection to his father had also been difficult. It made Niles all the more eager to repair his relationship with his parents. He didn’t always appreciate them as much as he ought to.
“How long until we reach your parents’ home?” Penelope asked.
He swallowed down a sudden lump of nervousness. “A matter of minutes.”
Minutes.He released a tense breath. Minutes away from a reckoning.
Penelope sat up straighter, her posture taking on a bit of tension as well. “I hope Liam hasn’t already left for Ireland. What if we’ve missed him? What if he won’t sign the marriage agreements? What if your parents and grandparents don’t welcome you back?”
“Take heart, darling,” Niles said. “We can endure the coming storm.” He was reassuring himself as much as her.
“At least you look a little less like you’ve just lived through one,” Penelope said.
His eye was still a bit dark from the bruising, and the scab on his face was plainly visible. Digby had provided him with a wig that was not highly powdered, which looked a lot like his hair had before cutting it. His appearance would not pass close scrutiny, but he looked enough like himself to be able to offer an explanation other than “I participated in a prizefight under a pseudonym and got pummeled.”
“Is your family going to be very angry with you?” Penelope asked.
“I suspect they will be, but they’ll behave with company about.”
“Is that why we’re here?” Aldric asked. “To be a buffer between you and the anger of the entire Greenberry clan, all three or four thousand of them?”
“I thought we made that very clear.” Niles made a show of being confused. “Most of you will die, but your deaths will be heroic.”
“I will be certain to write a very moving poem honoring that sacrifice,” Henri said.
“What makes you think you are going to be one of the survivors?” Aldric shook his head. “I intend to rush in shouting, ‘Target the Frenchman!’”
“You will do no such thing,” Nicolette said fiercely.
The Gents and their ladies were godsends. From the moment Stanley had greeted him in that Cambridge courtyard so many years earlier, Niles’s life had been changed for the better. He had been helped through heartbreak and misery; he’d been uplifted by their laughter and friendship. And he thanked the heavens again for them in this moment.
“I don’t want your family to be unkind to you, Niles,” Penelope said.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “They won’t be unkind.Upset and disappointed, yes, but I’ve not known them to be truly cruel.”
“Requiring you to marry where you didn’t wish to is not precisely a kindness.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but it is such a common unkindness that it doesn’t overly matter to most people.”
“Your unhappiness matters tome.” She spoke every bit as vehemently as Nicolette had a moment earlier.
“A mutual sentiment, my Penny.”
“Now I almost hope they do target the Frenchman,” Henri grumbled before pretending to be sick to his stomach.
“First lies and now insults?” Penelope shook her head. “I begin to think your moniker was given ironically.”
Through the carriage window, Niles spied a stately Cornish elm, one he knew well. He grew very still. “This is my parents’ estate.” His stomach tightened and twisted painfully.My parents’ estate.He couldn’t even bring himself to call it home, no matter that it had been his home all his life and was still where he returned every time he completed a journey. “I can’t remember ever feeling so unsure of my welcome here.”
Penelope leaned against him once more.
“Take courage, you two,” Aldric said. “Remember, you’ve come bearing good news.”
