Page 59
Story: Duke of Gluttony
“Uncle Graham?” Mary Ann peered anxiously over her coverlet, voice small. “Are you happy now that you’re married?”
He drew a measured breath, feeling raw and terribly conspicuous. Happy. A word that belonged to songs and stories. Still, there was earnest hope in his niece’s gaze and Abigail’s soft attention felt like a question pulsing in the hush.
“Yes,” he managed after a faltering pause, the truth unexpected on his lips—unexpected, yet not untrue.
“Good,” Mary Ann said as she curled into a ball apparently satisfied.
The noise of the day still buzzed in his ears—the clinking of glasses, the scrape of chairs, the constant hum of conversation he couldn’t escape. Each moment had required a response, a smile, a nod. Like a slow bleed, draining him drip by drip.
But this moment was important.He pried himself out of the door frame and moved to the foot of their beds, straightening the edge of Heather’s coverlet so it was even on both sides. Her incessant movement pulled it immediately back out of place. He resisted the urge to fix again.
Abigail looked up, catching his action. She smiled in encouragement.
She shouldn’t have to shepherd me through something so simple.
“You looked frightened during the kissing part,” Heather said, twirling the ribbons of her flower crown around her fingers.
“I did not look frightened,” Graham replied, his words coming out too sharply. The accusation stung absurdly, and he had the ludicrous urge to defend himself to a seven-year-old as if she were a member of Parliament.
“Yes, you did,” Heather insisted, unperturbed. “Let’s have another wedding tomorrow and you can try again,” she offered magnanimously.
“One wedding is entirely sufficient,” he replied, tension snapping in his tone.
Abigail looked up sharply. He caught himself, colored faintly, and retreated a step, adjusting a wayward lamp wick as though it mattered.
The side door clicked open and Ms. Norwood swept in from her adjoining chamber. “Time for sleep,” she declared.
“But we’re not tired,” Mary Ann mumbled, words slurring together.
“Of course not,” Ms. Norwood agreed solemnly, taking the flower crown from Heather and setting it on the bedside table. “That’s why you were practically falling asleep in your soup earlier.”
“It was pudding,” Mary Ann corrected, sleepily slurring her words.
“Even worse. Waste of perfectly good syllabub,” Graham said and they all stopped to look at him.
The girls giggled.“Uncle Graham, you didn’t even try yours,” Heather said.
“Miss Norwood is right,” Abigail interjected, coming to his aid. “Rest now.”
Mary Ann caught Abigail’s hand before she could move away. “You’ll come for breakfast? Even now you live here?”
The question, weighted with the fear Graham recognized too well—that people left, that happiness was temporary, that safety could vanish without warning—hung there.
“Every morning,” Abigail promised. “Being married simply means I live here now. Nothing else changes.”
Everything changes.He kept the words locked behind his teeth with an effort.
Ms. Norwood extinguished all but one lamp, leaving the room bathed in gentle darkness. “Sleep well, ladies. And no midnight expeditions to find Uncle Graham if you imagine strange noises. Married people sometimes discuss important matters late into the evening and should not be disturbed.”
Heat crawled up Graham’s neck. The woman possessed an alarming talent for innuendo disguised as propriety.
“We won’t bother you,” Mary Ann promised solemnly. “Even if there’s thunder.”
“Even if Mary Ann has a nightmare,” Heather added.
Graham tugged at his cravat and nodded. He crossed to the beds, movements stiff, and patted each of the girls awkwardly on their heads. “Good night, girls.” His voice came out rougher than he intended, strained by the day’s accumulated tension.
“Rest well,” Abigail murmured as they slipped into the hall.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59 (Reading here)
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114