Page 24 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
Casssnuck into his parents’ home through the servants’ entrance dressed head to toe in footman’s livery. He’d owned the outfit for years and had used it to creep in and out of the house before he and Bax had moved into their bachelor lodgings together. Not because he needed to, but for a spot of fun, a dollop of mischief.
Now, he ducked his head low and avoided eye contact. He knew the route to his father’s study well, and he stopped before the worn door and pressed his ear to the cool wood. No sounds at all. Cass opened the door and slipped inside.
Empty. Good. He needed time to collect his thoughts.
Why had he come here again, risking discovery?
Because he’d craved home.
After yesterday’s kiss in the greenhouse, his skin had crackled, and his feet and fingers had danced until night fell, a nervous jig, a lonely one, despite a companionable dinner with Nathan and Lola and a nice little argument with Hughes before he’d climbed into bed. He’d lain beneath the cold counterpane thinking of the day’s kiss and why he’d done it—to push Miss Ada Cavendish away.
Kisses should connect—lips, skin, teeth, tongues, souls.
But he’d used it to frighten.
And of course, she’d run. It’s what he’d been aiming for. Bull’s-eye on that one.
He’d run, too, when he’d realized the restlessness coursing through him all day after waking from an equally restless sleep was the desire to go home, to connect, to feel part of something instead of separate from… everything.
He closed his eyes and soaked in the warmth of home. A low fire crackled in the fireplace, and ivy crawled up the sides of the window. Peaks of green from outside wafted into the window with the wind, and vines gently scratched against the glass. The familiarity of the old, sturdy, and slightly faded furniture, the same he’d played on and under and round as a child, and that he knew almost as well as his own limbs.
The door creaked. Cass whipped his head around. He could duck behind a couch if it were his mother.
But his father stood before him, stunned. “Cassius. Son. What are you doing here?” He closed the door softly behind him and locked it. “You are supposed to be at Graceling.”
Was that a flicker of fear in his father’s eyes?
“Graceling is fine. Better than ever. Or getting there. I’ve been in London for a few weeks now.”
His father smiled, a sad thing. “We’ve missed you.”
“Bax and his wife are not visiting today?” It would be a danger if they were, but he wanted it anyway. He wanted to feel close to his brother, even if his brother did not want him.
“No. I take it you have not yet apprised your brother of your return.”
Cass shook his head. “If I did, I’d have to hightail it back to the Continent or he’d have my balls.”
His father snorted. “He wouldn’t. He might give you a lovely shiner, but he’ll forgive you.”
Cass could snort too. “Not likely. No. He can’t know I’m here yet, but I have to be here. I…”
“Yes?”
“I can’t make it all better if I’m at Graceling. I have to beherefor that. It’s easier being a better man in a different place. The real test is to be a good man in a place I’ve been an evil one.”
“I wish you would not refer to yourself as evil.”
If kidnapping didn’t make a man evil, he wasn’t sure what did. “You cannot make the things I’ve done disappear.”
Cass’s father dropped into a chair. He stared across the room, his face as blank as Cass’s felt. Finally, he lifted his gaze to Cass. “You have done bad things. I still love you.”
Cass turned to stone. His father had often uttered those words to him after finding him drunk and ill in Paris. And they always fell like a boulder on Cass. They were never words he’d believed before. Now he did, but he did not deserve them.
He sat in a chair next to his father with the groan of a man who carried a boulder.
His father flicked him a glance. “You sit as if your muscles ache. Surely you’ve not been to Jackson’s.”
“No. I’ve been planting vegetables.”
