Page 24 of The Homecoming (The De Montforte Brothers #6)

Chapter Nineteen

A ndrew awoke some time near dawn. He raised himself on one elbow, kissed his sleeping wife, and quietly got up.

Shrugging into his banyan, he left Celsie abed and crept downstairs, stretching and yawning as he went.

For the first time in days, he felt refreshed.

Awake. Outside the windows the eastern sky was pale pink, and the rain that had been intermittent throughout the night was now nothing but a few last ribbons of cloud skating rapidly across the sky.

It promised to be a beautiful morning, the kind of English spring day that poets praised and birds sang about and paintings immortalized.

The birds were already at it. He heard a blackbird’s call as it welcomed the coming sunrise, and wishing to fill his lungs with sweet, rain-washed air, Andrew headed for the Great Hall, still and empty except for its suits of armor.

His steps echoed on the marble flooring.

He pulled open the ancient iron-banded door and went outside.

He paused. Gareth sat there on the steps, head bent, the heels of his hands pressed to his eye sockets, his tawny hair splaying up through and around his fingers. On the grass some fifteen feet away, the puppy squatted, straining.

“What the hell?” Andrew asked.

“Poor thing has the trots,” Gareth said, looking up. His eyes were bleary and red-rimmed from lack of sleep. “Been out here half the night.”

“Really, you should’ve taken him somewhere else. Someone’s likely to step in it.”

“Ask me if I give a damn.”

“Obviously, you don’t.”

“You’re the dog expert here. How do I get him to stop shitting?”

“I’m not the expert, Celsie is. And she’s sleeping. But after what he ate yesterday—”

“Indeed.”

Andrew sat on the step beside his brother. The puppy finished, whined, and came up to them, pressing his muzzle against Andrew’s hand and licking his fingers.

“Hard to be angry with such a cute face.”

Gareth tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn. “Easy enough when you haven’t had any sleep all night.”

“I slept like a baby.”

“Rub it in, would you?”

“But only because he kept Celsie and me up the previous nights.”

“Lucien’s and Eva’s turn tonight.”

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t think so. Nerissa told me they’re taking him back with them. That he’s caused enough trouble.”

“Like hell he has!”

“Just telling you what she said.”

“Well, I’ll take him.”

“You’ll have to fight me for him. I’ve grown attached to the little rascal.”

The door opened behind them and Lucien came out. Though he was freshly shaven, his eyes were lined with fatigue, and he didn’t have his usual morning energy.

“Good morning,” he said amiably. “Fine day it looks to be.”

“If only,” Andrew muttered.

Gareth noted the absence of Lucien’s walking stick as well as the dogs he usually took with him on his morning jaunts. “Change in routine for you?”

“A mere delay. I feel compelled to check that tree, inspect it for insects or rot. That limb should never have broken. It’s dangerous.”

Gareth looked at him quizzically. “This early in the morning? Couldn’t it wait?”

“I have much to do.”

“How about finding a way to keep the family from dispersing?” Andrew stared flatly at him. “You do know that Charles is leaving today, and so is Nerissa?”

“Of course I know.”

“The whole damned visit has been completely bollocksed up.”

Lucien affected a heavy sigh and looked toward the brightening horizon. “If you will excuse me, I must have a word with my coachman before the day gets any older. Good morning, both of you.”

“Lucien, what are you going to do?”

Lucien, already partway down the steps, stopped, put an elegant forefinger to his chest, and inquired, “Me?”

“You’re just going to let them all leave?”

For a moment, a shadow of a smile played with the farthest corner of the duke’s mouth, come and gone so quickly one who didn’t know him well would have missed it.

Gareth and Andrew, however, knew him well.

“My dear Gareth,” he murmured, with a dramatic and affected sigh. “When will all of you realize I am nothing but a mere mortal?”

Inclining his head, he turned and continued toward the stables, a tall, confident figure who had never let them down before.

When will all of you realize I am nothing but a mere mortal?

Gareth and Andrew just looked at each other.

“ Never, ” they both echoed in unison.

The duke continued his walk, eventually pausing under the copper beech that had nearly claimed the life of his brother-in-law.

A brother-in-law who was part of his family, and as such, fell under his own sphere of protection.

A brother-in-law he had come to admire, respect, and yes, even to love.

He stood for a long moment, his dark eyes taking in the rotted timber, the visible evidence of insects.

He knelt, picked up a fragment of the broken limb, and pushed his thumb into the spongy wood.

Then he rose and put it into his pocket.

Whatever Charles imagined the rest of the family might think—and surely it was just that, imaginings—Lucien knew his brother was incapable of harming Ruaidri in such a terrible way no matter how much he might despise him.

Still, it was nice to have proof. His curiosity satisfied, he paid a short visit to his coachman, who was surprised to see his Grace purposely seeking him out at such an early hour.

Lucien glanced back toward the castle, only the great towers beginning to glow with the morning sun while the rest of his ancestral home was still in shadow. He smiled. According to plan, Eva was probably in the nursery by now, or would be before the children were given their breakfast.

The sun rose higher, the golden rays spreading over the downs, throwing long shadows across the still-wet grass from the copper beeches, the sycamores, the chestnuts.

In the stable, a groom and the coachman affixed the boot to the ducal coach and rubbed the vehicle, already and always gleaming, down in preparation for Captain O’Devir and the Lady Nerissa’s use.

In the great dining room, rolls, orange preserves, eggs, gammon, tea, coffee, and chocolate were set out for breakfast, an affair that everyone tried to pretend was normal when it was anything but.

Conversation was limited after family members inquired about Ruaidri’s health and again expressed relief that he had not been more seriously injured.

Eyes were downcast. An air of sadness hung over the room.

Charles didn’t even come down but took a tray in his apartments with Amy, and as the sun streamed through the windows and crept up the ancient walls, it was hard to believe such a perfect and sunny day would, before its end, bring such sorrow.

“I wish you would reconsider,” Juliet said. “Please, Nerissa. You only just arrived.”

Celsie reached out and touched Nerissa’s wrist. “None of us want you to go.”

Her brothers all joined in the clamor. All of them, except the painfully absent Charles who, she was told, was also leaving this morning.

Charles, to whom she had been particularly close all the years of their childhood.

Charles, who had become like a stranger to her with his behavior.

Charles, whom she loved.

Sudden tears sparkled in her eyes and she bent her head to hide them as a footman set another pot of tea down onto the table before her. Her husband, pale and quiet, covered her hand with his own.

“Please, mo grá ,” he murmured. “Listen to your family.”

“I have made up my mind,” she said firmly. “We’ve caused enough trouble.”

At her feet, Turnip stood on his hind legs and pawed at her knees, wanting a bite of her roll.

“Don’t,” Gareth warned, rubbing at tired eyes. “His stomach’s upset. Had me up all night.”

“Another reason to take him back with us,” Nerissa said brusquely.

And in the nursery upstairs the eldest of the de Montforte cousins, following a visit from their Aunt Eva, huddled together on the rug. Once Nurse went to tend to baby Aidan and Laura’s little brother, Justin, Gabriel was quick to whisper instructions while the woman was briefly out of earshot.

“But I’m afraid,” Mary said, her dark brown eyes huge with apprehension. “Everyone will be so angry...”

Gabriel shook his head. “If I were small enough I’d do it myself. I’m not afraid to get in trouble.”

“I’m not afraid, either, but it doesn’t seem right to make everyone worry so.”

Charlotte, to whom the others naturally looked up given she was the eldest of them all, laid a reassuring hand on Mary’s shoulder. “Do you want them to go home? After they only just got here?”

“Of course not, but...” She looked bleakly at the others. “Why does it have to be me?”

“Because Aunt Eva said it has to be you.”

“Aunt Eva didn’t exactly tell us to do this.”

“No, but she ... well, she gave us the idea, didn’t she?”

The children were silent, remembering the duchess sweeping into the nursery, her eyes full of mischief.

“I have come to tell you all that today will be a day of parting,” she’d announced sorrowfully, to a clamor of “ nooo s!” and protests and stricken faces.

“It seems that Uncle Charles will be going back to Lynmouth Park along with you and your family, Mary, and Aunt Nerissa is returning to America.”

“Why?”

“They just arrived!”

“We’re only just getting to know Uncle Ruaidri! He’s funny!”

“He taught me how to make knots!”

“He took me fishing in the moat!

Tears welled in little Mary’s eyes. “He rescued my kitten!”

“’Tis a pity, isn’t it?” Aunt Eva had shaken her head and moved to the window to look out toward the stables.

“Too bad that one of you, perhaps you, Mary ... couldn’t just .

.. oh, I don’t know ... hide in a trunk, or in the boot of the coach and .

.. disappear. Something that would force them to miss the stage and come back.

It would certainly give your Uncle Lucien and me more time to figure out how to .

.. how to make everyone happy together.”

“What she means is that Uncle Charles doesn’t like Uncle Ruaidri,” Gabriel had said baldly.

“Now, Gabriel,” Charlotte scolded him.

“Well, it’s not as if it isn’t obvious, or the truth. We all saw them coming to fisticuffs, didn’t we?”

“Enough of that,” the duchess said. “I just wanted to prepare you all for a parting ... I leave it up to you to ... to decide how you might, well—” she had given them a secretive little wink—“ prevent it.”

Now, the children listened to Nurse in the next room tending to littlest ones of their group, including Aidan, who would soon be gone from them.

“They might never come back,” Laura said.

Charlotte nodded. “Only we can stop them.”

“It’s up to us.” Gabriel announced importantly. “And Mary, it has to be you. Aidan’s too young, Laura probably is too. You’re one of the three oldest of us and you’re also the smallest.”

“But ... I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Gabriel’s eyes were sparkling with merriment. “If you do, I promise I will volunteer to take your punishment.” He paused as Nurse hustled back in, and looked at them each in turn. “Now, are we doing this or not?”