Page 17 of Dukes Do It Better
“But aren’t you enjoying your time with Freddie? It will be months before we see him again.”
He shook his head. “Freddie is mean,” he said against her skin.
Emma started at that. “What did Freddie do?”
“Tonight he said my papa was dead and I couldn’t get another one, because getting a new papa wasn’t like getting a new pair of boots after you ruin your old pair, and now he’s not my cousin anymore because I hate him.” The words tumbled out, one rolling over the other without a breath in between. Purging the explanation seemed to calm him, because Alton quieted on the pillow beside her.
“Oh, little love,” Emma whispered. “Frederick should never have said such a callous thing about your papa. We should always try to consider other’s feelings, right? You can be upset with him, but he won’t stop being your cousin because you’re cross.”
“All I did was say I wanted a papa like his, because Uncle Cal is capital. Then he said I couldn’t just wish for a new one since mine died. But Papa died before I was born, so how is that my fault?”
A dagger through the ribs would be less breathtakingly awful. Emma closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the pain, willing her tears to remain unshed. She’d thought she was doing the right thing when she and Phee had concocted their plan.
Phee had been impersonating her brother, Adam Hardwick, in those days. When Roxbury showed his true colors and left Emma pregnant and alone, she and Phee made their own solution.
Emma married Adam Hardwick on paper, then she and Phee moved to Olread Cove for the pregnancy. While there, they published Adam’s death announcement and Phee began again with a new female identity as Adam’s cousin, Fiona. Somewhere in there Phee and Cal fell in love, and Emma was able to keep her new best friend around. It worked out beautifully for everyone involved.
Everyone except the sleepless boy in her bed.
“I’m so sorry. Papa dying isn’t anyone’s fault. Maybe someday we could find a new papa. Who knows what the future holds? At least we have Uncle Cal in the meantime.” It was an empty suggestion—she was unlikely to marry again—but a valid distraction. Alton had a wonderful example in his uncle, which lessened the guilt somewhat. It helped to focus on the good. Which in this instance, was her brother.
Alton lived in a world where Adam Hardwick had been a real man. A father who never parented. A newlywed taken from his young bride too soon. While Emma’s and Phee’s conniving provided legitimacy for Alton, she feared their plan served her more than it did her child.
The freedom of widowhood was hers to enjoy, while Alton walked around with a hole where his idea of a father should be.
“How will a new papa find us if we’re not home?”
Emma sighed. Alton’s little heart was so tender. She brushed her fingers through his fair hair, the ends sticking up in all directions like soft hedgehog quills.
“I think, if we are to get a new papa, he shall have to find us. If he’s meant to be ours, it will all work out.” That must have satisfied him, because Alton didn’t argue. “Do you want me to walk you back to the nursery? Freddie shall miss you in the morning if he wakes and you’re gone.”
“Can I stay in here? Pleeeeeeease?”
She rolled her eyes, grateful he couldn’t see. “Very well. But the minute you kick me in your sleep, you go back to the nursery. Agreed?” He giggled, then rolled over to face the edge of the bed.
It took her longer than expected to fall asleep again as her mind continued to roll over each word of the conversation with Alton.
Consequences had a way of finding a person. She’d once been a selfish, willful girl. Alton paid the price for that, much as it pained her to admit it. Just as she and Cal had paid for their parents’ scandals, affairs, and battles. For all they’d put their children through, their parents had been remarkably uninvolved in actual parenting.
Which was one way she could do better. Be better. As soon as she looked into Alton’s eyes, she’d known this was one way she differed from them. Emma would be an involved parent and a loving mother. Her gratitude for Cal’s providing a reliable, affectionate role model for her son was bottomless.
A twist of unfamiliar grief rolled through her chest at the thought. No, Father hadn’t been a particularly good parent, although he’d loved her in his shallow way. A sigh released some of the tension under her ribs, but no tears came to wash away the lingering ache.
Finally, the soft piggylike snores from beside her lulled her back into dreamland.
In the morning, she awoke when her son jabbed her in the side with what had to be the sharpest little elbows in the country. Rolling away, Emma sat up and glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping little boy. Their conversation in the middle of the night had haunted her dreams, until each one starred a scene in their cottage on the cliff. Homesickness settled around her heart. Before her feet touched the chilly floor, a plan had taken root.
She needed coffee and her brother—preferably in that order. But first, Emma leaned over and gently nudged Alton’s shoulder. “Wake up, little love. Momma needs coffee.” His face scrunched and his eyes stayed stubbornly closed. “Fine. Be like that. But don’t wake up wondering where I am.”
“Breakfast room,” Alton mumbled.
“Yes, I’ll be in the breakfast room.” She kissed his cheek and he scrubbed at the spot with a grumpy hand. Donning her wrapper, she padded out the door.
In the hall she stopped the first servant she saw. “Could you tell the nurse that Alton is in my bed? I’m getting breakfast, but he wants to sleep awhile longer.”
There. Someone would be there when he woke.
Maybe having an army of servants was convenient after all. This was an informal household, evidenced by Phee and Cal, also in their banyans at the table sipping coffee with twin tired expressions. Or rather, Phee was in a banyan she’d stolen from her husband years ago and refused to give back. Cal loved clothes, so it wasn’t a hardship for him to visit his tailor on a legitimate errand to get a new one.
