Page 13 of The Homecoming (The De Montforte Brothers #6)
Chapter Ten
T hey searched the room. Gareth got on his hands and knees and peered under the table, the chair that Amy had been sitting in.
Ruaidri, his appetite gone, his nerves on edge after the confrontation with Charles, retraced Amy’s steps, wondering if she’d picked the ring up without remembering it, and perhaps dropped it on her way up to bed.
Lucien cast about the room, and then stood thoughtfully, thinking.
Calculating.
Eva found him that way an hour later when she came downstairs looking for him. He was alone.
“My dear husband,” she said, noting his face. “I’ve heard all about this missing ring. Are you certain Blackheath Castle doesn’t have a ghost that’s up to some mischief?”
“If there are ghosts here, I’ve yet to meet them.”
“What are you going to do to keep them from killing each other?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
She raised a brow.
“Oh, I can try to hold back the tide, but those two are going to come to blows and perhaps that’s exactly what needs to happen.
One cannot carry that much anger around without a suitable outlet in which to release it, and one cannot accept the number of insults and offenses that our poor captain has borne without finally defending himself, even if he’s been holding back for the sake of his wife and the sensibilities of his new family. ”
“Hmm. You do have a point.”
“Ruaidri has demonstrated commendable restraint thus far, but I’ve seen his temper and know what he’s capable of. He’s a proud man, and there’s most certainly a limit to his ability to weather insults.”
“Charles is also a proud man.”
“Indeed, and my brother is at his best when he’s cool, calm, and thinking with his head, not letting his emotions get the better of him.” He sighed and stared into the hearth. “What a confounded mess. I hope that damned ring turns up soon.”
“Well, at least they haven’t come to blows.”
“Yet.”
“You think it’s inevitable?”
“Don’t you?”
The “inevitable,” unfortunately, came a few short hours later when Ruaidri, Nerissa, Gareth, and the oldest of the de Montforte cousins were all gathered around the moat.
There, the captain was overseeing a fleet of paper boats, one belonging to each child.
They had chosen him to be the admiral (a worthy and distant hope for his own career) and he now squatted on the grass, hands draped over his knees, another piece of vellum rolled into a makeshift spyglass as he directed a “naval war” on the sparkling water.
The breeze that had ushered in the morning had long since faded, and in its absence—a blessing when one’s opposing navies consisted of paper ships with no means of steering—the children used long sticks to poke their vessels into positions deemed proper by their “admiral.” Gareth, grinning, leaned comfortably against a nearby tree, privately wondering, as Lucien himself was, how long it would be before things came to a head.
He didn’t have long to wonder.
Little Mary, holding on to Charlotte’s hand while her tabby kitten looked on, was leaning far out over the water, trying unsuccessfully to reclaim her boat with her stick.
Her actions only pushed the paper craft, beginning to get quite waterlogged, farther out beyond her reach.
As she was stretching far out over the water, still securely held by her cousin and keenly watched by both Ruaidri and Gareth, her father came striding up.
“Papa, I cannot reach my boat. Can you get it for me?”
“Against the rules,” Gabriel declared, shaking his head. “If he helps, you get an unfair advantage.”
Little Mary’s huge brown eyes filled with tears.
“Aw now, lad, I think in this circumstance her da should be able to retrieve her boat, eh? We’ll pretend it was a sudden gust o’ wind that sent her back into action.”
“Girls can’t be in the Navy, anyhow!”
“They can be in this one,” Laura retorted. “Is that not right, Admiral?”
“Oh, absolutely. Wouldn’t be a proper Navy without you three lasses. Besides, it’s—”
“Dangerous, that’s what it is.” Charles turned scathing eyes on his brother-in-law. “Whose idea was this, anyhow? Someone could fall in and drown.”
Gareth, watching this exchange, calmly pushed himself away from the tree and grinned. “Really, Charles, I’m right here supervising, and so is Ruaidri. Do you really think either of us would allow anything to happen? They’re all quite safe.”
Charles stood there stiffly, hands fisted at his sides.
He saw the worry in his daughter’s eyes, the way she was looking uncertainly between O’Devir and himself.
That would not do. Tightening his mouth, he sat on the grass, keeping a watchful eye on the children and resenting O’Devir all the more.
First he’d won over his brothers and sister.
Now, he seemed to have charmed the children as well, including his daughter.
Admiral, indeed , he scoffed under his breath.
Meanwhile Mary’s boat drifted farther out of reach and began to sink.
“My boat!”
“Looks like a gale might’ve swamped her,” O’Devir said good-naturedly. “It happens to the best o’ mariners. How about ye bring some paper over to yer da so he can build ye another one?”
“I am content to observe,” Charles snapped.
“I’ll build her one.” Gareth went to the small sheaf of vellum that was held in place under a large stone and quickly began folding a piece, fashioning a boat for his niece.
Charles, sitting nearby, felt his pulse beginning to pound with anger.
How could Gareth entertain and amuse the knave? Couldn’t he see him for what he was?
Gareth took the boat over to Mary, and the children all stood, waiting.
“Right, let’s line ’em all up on the shoreline,” O’Devir said. “Lie on yer bellies so ye don’t’ fall in, reach down, and give ’em a shove. Let’s see which one stays afloat the longest. We’ll declare that one the winner today, since we’ve got no wind to speak of.”
“That’s not fair because Mary’s boat is the newest one,” said Gabriel. “That gives her another advantage.”
“I concur with my cousin,” Augustus declared archly.
“Uncle Charles! Can you make me a new boat?”
“Can you make all of us new boats?”
Charles had no idea how to make a paper boat. To the best of his knowledge, neither did Gareth. O’Devir must’ve shown him how to do it, and Charles would be dipped in boiling oil before he either asked the rogue or even his own brother for a tutorial.
And yet here he was, stuck, his ignorance on full display to not only the children but O’Devir himself.
“This is a silly game,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “The boats are paper. They will all sink.”
“Charles, don’t spoil it,” Gareth said under his breath.
“There’s nothing to spoil. What sort of idiot makes a boat out of paper?”
O’Devir’s face had lost its genial good humor. He got to his feet, handed the paper spyglass to Augustus, and approached the two brothers. “Lord Charles,” he said with a forced smile. “I think you and I should go to the stables. Have a talk.”
“I would like nothing better.”
Gareth, suddenly worried, looked nervously between them.
“Are you coming?” Charles asked.
“I, uh... I’ll stay here and mind the children.”
“Fine.”
He headed for the stables, aware of the stares of the children on his back, aware of Gareth’s concern, aware of O’Devir walking beside him.
The idea that it had been O’Devir to direct even this walk to the stable, O’Devir to take control of the situation, made him see red.
How dare he set the terms, how dare he set any terms. Charles decided to take control back.
He waited until they were well out of earshot of the children and somewhat screened from them by the rosebushes, then stopped in his tracks to face the other man.
“Whatever you wish to say to me, O’Devir, say it here and say it now.”
The Irishman also stopped, and he was smiling.
“Right, then. I’ll say it.” He put his hands on his hips and the affable light went out of his eyes.
“I’ve been doing me best to get on with ye, I have.
I’ve held my tongue, held my temper, and held me fists, but ye’re pushing me to my very limit.
” The last of his smile faded. “Let’s have it out, right here and now.
Say whatever it is ye wish to say to me and get it off yer chest.”
“The ring I gifted my wife is still missing.”
“So it is.”
“You were sitting near us at the table last night.”
“And ye think I took it, do ye?”
“Who else would have done so?”
O’Devir’s face darkened. “That’s an ugly accusation, Lord Charles.”
“Prove to me that you didn’t.”
“How the divil am I supposed to prove somethin’ I didn’t do? ’Tis only when ye find the thing that ye’ll have proof of who took it. That is, if anyone even took it at all.”
Charles stared hard at him. He felt the blood thrumming through his arteries, every muscle in his body tensing and his very nostrils quivering with rage.
“I wish it had been me who had chased you across the Atlantic, not Lucien. Because I damned well wouldn’t have been as merciful as he was.
You may have charmed the rest of my family, O’Devir, but I see right through you.
You’re an opportunistic rogue, and the ring aside, I can’t forgive what you did to my sister. ”
The Irishman’s lips curved in a faint little smirk, and he dug at the grass with his foot. “And what d’ye think ye’d have done, Lord Charles?”
“I’d have beaten you to within an inch of your miserable wretched life.”
“Ye really think I’d have let ye do that?”
“You wouldn’t have had a choice.”