Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You wish to go and check on the boys before retiring?”
Lucy hesitated for only a moment. “Yes… I have a bad feeling. I ought to make sure that they are all right.”
Selina inclined her head, a small, knowing smile playing about her lips. “Very well. But you have been over to them before, have you not? Surely everything is in order?”
Lucy bit back a sigh. “I have, Auntie, and nothing has ever troubled me before, but…” Her gaze flicked toward the door.
“… tonight, I cannot shake the unease. It is not that I distrust them. Anthony and Daniel are ever so predictable, but Brook…” She stopped herself, not wanting to voice the thought entirely.
Selina’s expression sharpened, just slightly. “There is no need to imagine troubles where none exist, child. You are fond of the boys, yes, but you know the depth of their mischief, do you not?”
“Yes, I am fond,” Lucy said quickly, as though defending herself. “I will be more at ease when I see that they are fine. They are children, Aunt Selina. Vulnerable, spirited children with a father who loves them but is too busy to show it often.”
Selina leaned against the doorframe, her head tilted at a knowing angle. “I have been watching you all evening, Lucy. Ever since I arrived. There is a look on your face. There is a way your gaze lingers when you see the Duke. Even at dinner, I saw it.”
“It’s not just the boys you’re ‘fond’ of, is it?” Selina asked. “I know you, Lucy. You strive to be always professional. Always detached. But here? In this house? You look less like the matchmaker you want to be and more like a woman who is ready to go to war for the man at the head of the table.”
Lucy felt a hot, uncomfortable prickle of color rise to her cheeks.
She turned away, pretending to adjust a vase of wilting lilies on the sideboard.
“Don’t be absurd, Aunt. The Duke is a client.
A difficult, brooding, and remarkably stubborn client.
My concern for his welfare is strictly tied to the success of this contract. ”
“Oh, strictly,” Selina hummed, stepping closer.
“Is that why your breath hitches every time he steps into your personal space? Is that why you look at him the way that you did? There was a tension in that drawing room that has nothing to do with matchmaking and everything to do with the way he watches you when you aren’t looking. ”
“It is friction, nothing more,” Lucy countered. “We disagree on nearly everything. He wants a statue for a wife, and I refuse to provide one. If you sense tension, it is merely the sparks of two opposing wills clashing. There is nothing there, Aunt Selina. Truly.”
Selina let out a soft, melodic laugh that did nothing to soothe Lucy’s nerves.
“Friction creates heat, my dear, and heat, if left untended, tends to start fires. You can tell yourself it's professional all you like, but I know you. You’ve never been this invested in anything before. This is your first time in this profession. You aren’t just trying to find him a wife, you’re trying to save him. You have gotten too involved.”
“I am trying to do my job,” Lucy insisted, finally meeting her aunt’s gaze with a look of practiced steel. “Part of that job is ensuring he doesn’t marry a woman who will break those boys’ hearts. Anything else you think you see is a figment of your overly romantic imagination.”
A beat of silence passed between them. “Then go,” Selina said at last. “See that all is as it should be with the boys. But it is curious, though, how much you care for them.”
“Good night, Aunt Selina. Sleep well,” Lucy said.
She turned toward the door, her hand already reaching for the brass handle, eager to escape her aunt’s perceptive gaze. The conversation had hit far too close to a truth she wasn’t ready to examine, let alone admit.
“Lucy,” Selina called out.
Lucy paused, her shoulders tense, and looked back over her shoulder. “Yes, Aunt?”
Selina sat up on the bed. “We made a deal before we ever set foot in this estate. I told you that if you could successfully find a match for the Duke, I would finally stop trying to marry you off and instead teach you my trade.”
“I intend to keep that deal,” Selina continued, a warm, genuine smile spreading across her face.
The tension that had been coiled in Lucy’s chest since they arrived at Langridge finally began to unfurl. She smiled, a real, radiant smile that reached her eyes. “Thank you, Aunt Selina. That means more to me than I can say.”
“Don’t get too sentimental,” Selina winked, regaining her usual spark. “I expect you to be a very difficult student.”
Lucy giggled and left the room, shutting the door behind her.
The house felt unusually still, holding its breath with her. She moved from room to room, checking Anthony firsthand, then Daniel. Both lay deep in their slumber, tucked beneath warm covers, their chests rising and falling in steady rhythm. Relief curled in her chest.
Yet, when she reached Brook’s chamber, it was empty.
Her heart sank. The candlelight danced across the floorboards, casting long shadows that seemed to stretch unnaturally toward her.
A thousand small scenarios crowded her thoughts, and for the first time that evening, she allowed herself to consider that her unease might not be unfounded.
Brook had been unusually quiet all day. The usual spark of mischief that danced in his eyes, the restless energy that made him impossible to ignore, seemed to have dimmed, replaced by a heavy stillness that was obvious.
It had started during dinner. Something was wrong.
The thought clawed at her mind, insistent and troubling.
She had always known Brook to test limits, to seek attention in ways both exasperating and endearing, yet this was different.
It was as though he were carrying something alone, a burden he had chosen not to share, and it unsettled her more than any tantrum or outburst ever could.
She shut the door to his empty room gently and made her way down the hall. She went from room to room, checking carefully.
“Where could he be?” she murmured to herself, her voice catching in the stillness.
Following the faint echoes of movement, she finally reached the main library. The door was slightly ajar, and she could see the dim glow of the lamp within. Pushing it open, she found Brook slouched in a corner, his small frame hunched.
“Brook,” she said softly, stepping inside, “you are starting to worry me. What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be wandering about at this hour.”
Brook looked up at her from where he sat on the ground. “I want to be alone.”
“Why?”
“I said leave me alone,” he muttered. “You’re leaving anyway.”
Lucy sat down slowly beside him, letting her skirts spread lightly across the floor. “Brook, right now, I am not leaving, not until I understand what’s troubling you. You don’t have to tell me everything at once, but you must let me help you.”
Brook shook his head and sighed in response.
“How did you find out I was leaving?”
He shrugged, eyes fixed on the wall. “I overheard you talking with Father and your auntie. Do you really need to go?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “I found what your father needs, what you boys need.” His gaze shifted away from hers, vulnerable and unreadable in its intensity. “In a way, my work here is done. I’ve done what I came to do. Now, it’s up to you to make the rest work.”
Again, Brook remained silent.
“What is it, Brook?” she asked again, genuinely concerned.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he insisted. “I would like to be left alone.”
Lucy smiled, a faint, tender curve of her lips, but her eyes stayed on his. “No, Brook. Not yet. Not until I know you are understood, and that you can trust the choices being made for you.”
For the first time, he seemed to consider her words, the rigidity of his posture softening ever so slightly. He pressed his hands against the rug beneath him, staring stubbornly at the floor,
“I’m not leaving, Brook,” she said again. “You can tell me anything. No matter what.”
His lips pressed into a thin line, but still, no words came. Lucy’s eyes narrowed, and she realized that the tactic that might work for Anthony would not necessarily work for Brook.
“Then I shall have to resort to extreme measures,” she said and rose to her feet, reaching for the nearest quill on the desk.
“If you don’t confess to me right now, I will draw right on your face.
A bull, perhaps. Or a terrible moustache.
A mark that will haunt you for the rest of your days.
Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way? ”
Brook’s eyes flicked up at her, incredulous. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I absolutely would,” she said, daring him. “Try me.”
That tiny spark of mischief, or defiance, finally broke him. He shot to his feet, quivering with sudden energy, and bolted toward the shelves, knocking a stack of books over in his escape. Lucy sprang after him, quill in hand, as she gave chase through the dimly lit library.
Around and around they went, him weaving between tables, her laughing, dodging a fallen chair, calling after him. “Confess before I mark you permanently!”
The chase ended abruptly in the corner of the library, the scent of old parchment and beeswax hanging heavy in the air. Lucy had Brook pinned between a mahogany bookshelf and a velvet armchair, the quill in her hand poised like a weapon, its tip glistening with dark ink.
“Now,” she said, holding the quill above him with exaggerated menace, “tell me everything. Every last detail, or I promise, I won’t stop drawing. Anthony and Daniel will laugh at you for a long time.”
Brook’s stubbornness crumbled at last. His shoulders sagged, and the defiance in his eyes softened. “All right. I will tell you. I will.”
“Yes?” she prompted gently, lowering the quill but keeping him under her watchful gaze.
“She was in the hallway,” he whispered, his voice so small it was nearly swallowed by the shadows. “The day she arrived for dinner. Before we sat down to eat.”
Lucy lowered the quill, her playfulness evaporating. “Who, Brook? Judith?”
He nodded, his gaze dropping to his boots as he sat up to lean on the bookshelf.
“She was walking through the house, looking at the paintings and the furniture like she already owned them. She was talking to herself, saying how she would change the draperies and replace the rugs because they were ‘drab.’ She said she would transform the whole place the moment she became the Duchess. That everything was old, and she hated it.”
Brook took a shaky breath, his small hands clenching into fists.
“When she reached the hallway, she saw the painting of our late mother and said she was going to take it down. Make it disappear. So, I told her she was getting ahead of herself. I told her this was my mother’s house, and she didn’t have the right to change a thing. ”
He paused, a flicker of fear crossing his face before he forced the rest of the words out. “She didn’t even argue. She just… She slapped me. Hard. Right across the face. My face burned for an hour.”
Lucy’s blood ran cold. “What?”
“Then she leaned down,” Brook continued, his voice cracking. “She whispered in my ear that once she was in charge, she would make sure to teach me how to behave properly and how to speak. She said I would learn my place, or I would regret it.”
He looked up at Lucy, his eyes brimming.
“I didn’t tell Father. I couldn’t. He needs a wife, Lucy.
He’s so lonely, and he needs help with us.
I didn’t want to ruin it for him. He might be strict and demand order, but Father is a good man.
He loves us and wants to make sure we have what he thinks is best for us. ”
Lucy felt a surge of protective fury that nearly took her breath away.
She set the quill down on the floor, her hands shaking slightly from the revelation.
She could tell that Brook saw Rowan as a good father.
He was a good man, but he was about to invite a viper into his nest, thinking it was a dove.
All because of her.
“Look at me, Brook,” Lucy said, her voice dropping into a tone of absolute, unshakable steel.
She reached out and took his small, cold hands in hers.
“There is nothing wrong with you. Do you hear me? Not a single thing. You are brave, and you are loyal, and you do not need to change a single part of yourself to suit a woman like that.”
Brook’s eyes searched hers. “But I was rude at dinner. I made Father angry.”
“You did, and next time, you will be sure to control yourself, but you were protecting your home,” Lucy said firmly.
“While your father might not see what happened yet, that does not mean you deserved to be struck. You must never think that someone has the right to treat you that way, Brook. Not now, and not when she becomes a duchess... because she is not going to become the Duchess of this house.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “But Father said he was proposing.”
“I don’t care what he said,” Lucy whispered. “We will fix it. I will not let anyone treat you this way, and I will not let you walk through this house in fear.”
She squeezed his hands one last time. “Go to bed, Brook. Try to sleep. Tomorrow, we will come up with our plan for when Lady Judith arrives.”
Brook smiled and nodded passionately, rising to his feet and dashing out of the library.