Page 72 of The Best-Kept Secrets
She stepped up to him and took his face gently in her hands—a feat, as she was quite a lot shorter than he was. “If I’d fully realized just how much you’ve been burdened by all this, we’d’ve long ago brought you here to stay.”
“Uncle Niles told you?”
She smiled. “Almost the instant he returned from Penfield.”
“Thank you for letting me stay,” Duke said.
She dropped her hands to his upper arms, still looking directly into his eyes. “There is peace in this house and in our London home. You’ll find respite with us. The harmony here is a bit shattered at the moment, but it always returns.”
“I am increasingly desperate for it.”
Aunt Penelope did something next that Duke couldn’t even remember his own mother doing in years: she wrapped him in a loving, maternal hug. After a lifetime of being broken by the family’s animosity, he felt he finally had a chance to piece himself back together.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Pack and the Huntresseshad settled upon a parlor game for that night’s entertainment. Nia felt equal to participating in something sedate and quiet, and everyone wished for her to be part of the festivities as much as she was able. Unfortunately, all the people gathered at Fairfield would be participating.
Duke wasn’t overly worried about his aunt and uncle being disruptive. And he suspected the Fortiers would not cause difficulties either. But his parents and grandmother were another matter entirely.
“Do we place the warring parties on the same team or on opposing ones?” Charlie asked Duke under his breath as everyone was settling into the drawing room.
“It won’t matter,” Duke said. “They’ll make trouble no matter which we choose.”
“I’m beginning to understand a little better why you never seemed eager to return home during school holidays.” Charlie shook his head.
Duke nodded. “The trouble they cause never ends.”
“You know that you are always welcome at Brier Hill, don’t you?”
Duke smiled a little. “I know, and I’m grateful to you and Artemis for that. For now, I’m heading to London after the house party and will stay there with my aunt and uncle.”
“And when the Greenberrys leave London?” Charlie asked.
“They’ve said I can stay here, which I intend to do.”
Charlie didn’t look surprised, but he did seem a little wary. “Do your parents know yet?”
“No. And I likely won’t tell them until the last possible moment.”
Charlie nodded with emphasis. “Maybe wait until they’re home and send a letter.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, actually.
Duke’s gaze wandered, as it had all evening, to Eve. She sat beside her sister on a sofa. Nia looked spent, but so did Eve. Was anyone comfortingher? She needed a respite from everything weighing on her. Duke was being granted that by his aunt and uncle, but Eve seemed to be drowning.
There had to be something he could do that would help in the moment without hurting in the long term. There had to be.
“What game are we playing this evening?” Grandmother’s disparaging tone indicated that she would be unhappy no matter what had been chosen.
“We have decided on three kingdoms,” Ellie said with a perfect mixture of excitement and deference. That might help lean Grandmother toward graciousness.
“An entirely unchallenging game.” Grandmother proved Duke wrong in an instant. She meant to be petulant.
They’d been freed of Mme Dupuis’s presence, who had shown herself entirely capable of ruining even the most enjoyable of games. How frustrating that Grandmother was filling those shoes so readily.
“I hope you will be on our team, Mrs. Seymour,” Newton said in what they had labeled his “barrister voice” while at Cambridge. “You must be very adept at Three Kingdoms to find it so simplistic.”
Grandmother seemed to sense that there was a hidden criticism in that but couldn’t quite identify it.
