Page 10 of The Best-Kept Secrets
Duke looked to Eve and Nia. “Were your traveling trunks already taken to the ship?”
Trunks, he had said. Plural.
“We’ve only one trunk between us, and itison board already,” Eve said. “Our reticules we’ve chosen to lug about with us.” She raised the hand on which hung her drawstring bag.
If he was shocked by their lack of possessions, he didn’t allow even a hint of it to show in his face. He simply nodded and motioned for them to begin walking with him toward the ship.
“Thank you for arranging all this,” Eve said. “We’d not have been able to make the journey otherwise.”
“The Huntresses bested the Pack quite soundly in last Season’s competition. Though I feel I must point out, I was not present for the majority of it, which is likely why we lost.”
“And yet, you are the one making good on their debt.” Nia sighed quite dramatically.
“I am a saint among men,” Duke said dryly.
Eve grinned. He had a very subtle sense of humor, one she’d seen emerge now and then when their groups had gathered together. “I have never traveled in the company of a saint before. These next few days ought to be... heavenly.”
“I should likely warn you about the next few days.” Duke’s eyes settled on his grandmother stopped just ahead at the point where they would be boarding the ship to take them across the Irish Sea. “My grandmother is not overly happy about this arrangement.”
Oh dear.
“Does she not wish to go to England?” Nia asked.
“She’d been planning to, actually. My father was to accompany her directly to our family estate in Lancashire, but he changed the plan in what was, almost literally, the last possible minute. She is not best pleased.”
“With your father?” Eve guessed aloud.
“With me, unfortunately.”
They’d nearly reached the boarding spot. “Why with you?”
“Shoot the messenger, as it were.”
Nia tipped her chin at a defiant angle. “We will not allow her to shoot the messenger.”
“And why is that?” he asked.
Eve answered, knowing by instinct what Nia’s response would be. “Because the messenger is our only means of getting to this house party.”
He didn’t smile, let alone laugh, but Eve thought she saw a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
See if you girls can’t manage to make the lad smile between here and Surrey, Father had said. What would it take to get him to not merely smile but to grin as well? An unabashed expression of enjoyment and mirth?
Duke accompanied his grandmother across the short, temporary bridge between the ship and the dock.
Father hugged Nia and Eve in turn. “Enjoy yourselves, girls. Be happy and delighted, and look after each other.”
“We will,” Nia said as she stepped from the dock and toward the ship.
“Try not to let your mind be heavy,” Father said to Eve in quieter tones. “I have not abandoned hope of things turning around for us.”
Father always had been very hopeful and optimistic, even in the face of unbeatable odds. He wasn’t careless nor foolish, but neither was he easily defeated.
“Something will work out, Father,” Eve said. “It always does.”
Chapter Four
No one had thrown anyoneoverboard during the fifteen-hour journey across the Irish Sea. Duke claimed that as a victory, considering members of his own extended family were often sorely tempted to do precisely that to each other when in each other’s company for any length of time. Either the O’Doyle sisters were very patient, or they were plotting a more sinister demise for Grandmother and, quite possibly, for him.
