Page 8 of The Best-Kept Secrets
Being away at school as often as he’d been the past years had made Duke’s time at home less draining. His parents were usually happy enough at his return that the limited time he’d spent there had been relatively pleasant. They’d taken walks around the grounds, visited the local village, reminisced about family holidays in Ireland and Scotland. And he’d usually returned to school or joined his friends in London before the situation had devolved too much. He loved his parents, but limiting the time he spent with them helped him remember that.
He kissed his mother’s cheek and shook his father’s hand; those were their usual departing gestures.
“Do not let your aunt berate you while you are at Fairfield,” Mother said.
“I won’t.” Without the tension of warring siblings, his aunt and uncle’s house had the potential to be peaceful. His parents’ absence would allow Fairfield to be truly tranquil. He was counting on it.
“When Penelope inevitably speaks ill of me”—Father spoke through a tense jaw—“remember that you have promised to defend your parents.”
Duke nodded.
There were no declarations of love as he climbed into the waiting carriage. He’d given up on those efforts years earlier. Even when his parents had returned said declarations, the effort had inevitably come with caveats. From the time he was a child, he’d told himself they did love him. He had enough nice memories with them to believe that he was cared about. But having every acknowledgment from them attached to requirements and spoken alongside doubts was harder to endure than not hearing the words at all.
The carriage pulled away from Writtlestone, and Duke slowly emptied his lungs. He had until his arrival in Dublin to think. But he knew it wouldn’t likely be enough time. The puzzle he was sorting and the secret plans he was keeping were complex and fraught with potential pitfalls. But it was the only thing keeping him from losing all hope now that his time at Cambridge had come to an end.
He was journeying to Fairfield, which his parents considered enemy territory, and was doing so with every intention of finding a way of asking his aunt and uncle to let him stay indefinitely.
No matter the answer he received, if his parents heard of what he planned to do, they would never forgive him. And that would break his heart.
Chapter Three
“Of all the members ofthe Pack, Mr. Seymour did seem to me the least likely to forget his traveling companions at a posting inn and not realize his mistake for several counties.” Father walked beside Eve and Nia, their arms hooked through his, along the newly completed harbor at Dunleary, where they were meeting Duke. “But see if you two can’t manage to make the lad smile between here and Surrey. He seemed to be in desperate need of it.”
Father had met the members of the Pack very briefly during the last London Season. Eve’s family was firmly ensconced in the gentry, but being Irish was a point against them in the eyes of far too many people in Society. That their financial woes had become almost impossible to hide had dealt their standing another blow. Eve had seen her father treated with arrogant dismissal, disdain, and indifference so significant that it felt dehumanizing. Even those a generation younger than he looked down on him.
But the Pack didn’t.
If Eve hadn’t already adored that group of gentlemen, she would have been utterly devoted to them for that. There was soul-deep goodness in every last one of them.
“We’ll miss the two of you at Christmas,” Father said.
“It’ll be strange not being at home.” Eve had thought on that often since the timing of the party had been decided upon.
“I think you mean ‘it’ll bequietnot being at home.’” Father had always enjoyed teasing, a trait all his children had inherited from him.
“No gathering of the Huntresses or the Pack is ever quiet,” Nia countered. “Having both groups together?” She shook her head. “You’re likely to hear us all the way from Surrey.”
“A joy, that’d be.” Father shifted his arms from being looped with theirs to wrapping them around their shoulders and tucking them closer. “I love you girls, you know.”
In perfect unison, they said, “We know it.”
This was a well-known exchange between them. Their father was not one to leave expressions of love unspoken.
“’Tis a difficult thing for a father, having his daughters grow up.” He squeezed their shoulders. “I’ll miss you when life takes you away from Tulleyloch and to a home of your own.”
Father leaned a bit closer to Nia as he spoke the last bit. Eve suspected he didn’t do so intentionally. But he knew that of his two daughters, only Nia was now likely to have a future home and family of her own.
Up ahead along the harbor sat an elegant enclosed carriage. The coachman sitting up front and the tiger standing in back wore perfectly matched livery. The carriage showed not a single sign of wear. Not a scratch marred its deep-red paint. This was a carriage carrying a person of class and distinction.
And standing beside it was Duke.
“Who’d he find to act as chaperone?” Eve said out the side of her mouth. “Queen Charlotte herself?”
Nia looked over at her and lifted an eyebrow. “Why do I feel as though we’re about to wish ’twas the queen in that carriage?”
Father let out a low, quiet whistle. “I’m having a touch of that feeling my own self.” But then he grinned at them. “Should be an adventure for you, girls.”
They’d come near to where Duke waited for them. He offered a very polished bow, which they answered in the expected way.
