Chapter Two
Writtlestone Manor, Lancashire
Dubhán Seymour, known to everyone other than his parents and grandmother as Duke, had completed his studies at Cambridge mere days earlier. He’d left that venerable institution with an admittedly pointless knowledge of Latin, a completed study in moral philosophy that promised to be equally as useless, and a group of friends who had utterly changed the course of his life for the better. It was on their behalf that he had already packed a small traveling trunk and was, in less than a half hour, leaving for Ireland.
“Must you depart so soon?” His mother had been in his bedchamber as he’d put a few things in a small bag to keep with him in the carriage despite the excessively early hour. “You only just returned home yesterday.”
“I need to be in Dublin the day after tomorrow,” he reminded her.
“Why could not one of the others fetch the O’Doyle sisters? You ought to be here with us for a few days more, especially as you will not be here at Christmas.”
Duke set the last of his traveling things in the bag, then moved to sit on the bed beside his mother. “I am sorry to be missing Christmas, especially our annual gathering of greenery.”
Mother leaned a little against him. “Who is going to help me choose the greenest branches and the reddest holly?”
“Father has an excellent grasp of color,” Duke said.
“But gathering greenery has always been our special tradition, Dubhán. It will hardly feel like Christmas without having that time, just the two of us.”
He put an arm around her shoulders. “Those are some of my favorite memories, Mother. I will miss that.”
“And the Christmas goodies? You’ll miss them as well. Your father and I cannot enjoy the gingerbread and shortbread and Christmas pudding nearly as much without you here.”
Duke’s home life wasn’t always ideal, but Christmases were special. His parents were happier. He was happier. During those few weeks, he would build enough pleasant memories to get him through the difficult months that always followed. And in those enjoyable interactions, he’d found reason to believe his could be an amicable family. It was a hope he still clung to and leaned on.
“Could you not cut your house party short and return in time to have Christmas here?” Mother pleaded. “It is such a special time for our family.”
“This is the last time our entire group will be able to be together, perhaps ever. Being away from our families during Christmastime is not ideal, but it was the only time all of us could gather.”
“I, of course, don’t wish for you to not see your friends. They have been good to you, which, as your mother, is so very important to me. Surely they would wish to continue being good friends to you by not taking you away from your parents during the holy season.”
“This is only one Christmas.”
“But Christmas is special, Dubhán. Please reconsider.”
“We can have Christmas puddings and cakes and biscuits when I return.”
“It won’t be the same.” Tears clogged her words.
“But we’ll be together. That is the important thing.” Duke always disliked the placating approach he had to take when Mother was inconsolable. But it was what worked. And not doing what she expected when she was upset simply made her more upset. “I will have all the rest of my Christmases here.”
“Until you have a wife and her family wishes for your Christmases to be spent with them.” Mother wasn’t usually consoled on the first attempt; he ought to have expected further complaint. And predictions of her suffering when Duke eventually married numbered among the many reasons he didn’t even entertain the idea of courting anyone. Any lady he brought into this whirlwind of familial wretchedness would be made miserable. “Her family will demand all your time and attention, and I will receive none of it. Marriage has a way of tearing families apart, after all.”
“Most would argue that marriage creates families,” Duke reminded her.
“Your aunt’s marriage certainly tore your father’s family to bits.” Mother crossed her arms in a posture of disapproval. Duke could—and did —predict her exact next words. “And she doesn’t even care.”
“I don’t imagine she would have married Uncle Niles if she didn’t care.”
“Of course she cares about him . But not about me and the difficulties I endure. She certainly doesn’t care about your father. I suspect she has taken actual delight in our suffering these past thirty years.”
“Mother, you haven’t even known Father for thirty years.” Duke immediately regretted the correction. His parents could be very defensive, regaling him with litanies of complaints, declarations of disloyalty, pointed silences that inevitably left him feeling deucedly guilty.
“Twenty-five years,” she conceded in sharp tones. “Perhaps in five more years, my suffering will be considered sufficient for my own son to think I don’t deserve to be miserable.”
“That is not what I meant, Mother.” Duke returned to his detestable tone of consolation in an effort to restore their more companiable conversation of a moment earlier. His parents were difficult when focused on their grievances. But when they felt appeased and heard and cared about, there was peace and a degree of closeness among them all. He preferred those times. “Twenty-five years is longer than anyone should spend being unhappy. I want you to be happy. I have always wanted you to be happy, Mother.”
“Oh, Dubhán. You are so expert at giving me a measure of peace.” Mother’s voice quivered with emotion. “How very good you are at helping.”
Being rubbish at it had never been a viable option. He was the ambassador, the peace negotiator, the one who redirected their declarations of injustice. He had been since he was very young, and he would continue to be for, he suspected, the rest of his life. But if it kept the household peaceful and afforded him pleasant times and memories with his parents, it was worth it.
“Do you truly have to leave today for Ireland?” Mother asked once again. Apparently, his reassurance a moment earlier that he loved her had not proven sufficient. “Could you not wait another day or more? My heart can’t bear to have my only child leave me so soon after returning at last.”
Starting the whole mad cycle anew, he repeated, “If I am to fetch the O’Doyle sisters and we are to reach Fairfield in time for the beginning of the house party, then I cannot wait even another hour.”
From the doorway, Father said, “I still don’t understand why Fairfield, of all places, was chosen. I assume Penelope convinced all of you that she and Niles would be better hosts than your mother and I could be.”
Duke undertook an immediate change of tactic. While Mother responded best to repeated reassurances that her place in his life and esteem was sufficiently high, Father calmed fastest when provided with proof that in matters pertaining to his sister, he was not perpetually second best. “Newton and Toss are in London, and neither can travel far or for long. We had to choose a location near Town.”
“I suppose Lancashire is quite a distance to travel,” Mother conceded.
“I assure you,” Father said from far atop his high horse, “Lancashire was not my first choice.” Then, under his breath, he added, “We ought to be living at Ballycar.”
Ballycar had been the family estate until a few years before Duke was born. Father had fallen on financial difficulties—through no fault of his own, when he recounted the experience, but as a result of his poor choices, according to Aunt Penelope’s recollections—and had lost the estate and the successful stud farm the Seymour family had run there for generations. Father blamed Aunt Penelope for not coming to the rescue at the time, her finances having been in a better state than his. Aunt Penelope insisted she’d not been as flush in the pockets at the time as Father had believed and that she had done nothing wrong in not trying to pay off all Father’s debts.
Through years of listening to and then being required to mediate arguments about that point of contention, Duke had discovered that the Seymour family blamed each other for most every difficulty they’d had in life in the years that had followed.
“Surely someone else in your group lives at a convenient distance from London,” Father said. “It didn’t have to be Fairfield.”
“Newton’s flat is barely large enough for him and his wife. Toss and his wife live in another family’s home while the family is away from Town and are not in a position to offer it for our use.” Giving logical explanations for the slights Father felt in far too many aspects of his life helped soothe his wounded pride. For a while, at least. “Charlie is in Northumberland. Scott is in Nottinghamshire. Tobias is in Yorkshire. I am in Lancashire. None of those options is anywhere near London. Colm is the only one whose family home could work. That’s why it was chosen.”
“We could have returned to Town and let the same house we did during the Season,” Father insisted.
“There are fifteen people attending. The London house wouldn’t be large enough,” Duke said. “Fairfield was chosen for purely practical purposes.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
Of course he did.
“Do you truly think I wouldn’t have objected if Fairfield were selected as a way of slighting our branch of the Seymour family?” Sometimes reminders of his past fealty helped ease contradictory accusations.
Father, at last, looked a little less offended. “You have always spoken in defense of us.”
“And always will.” It was, in many ways, a matter of survival.
Father’s posture stiffened. “I trust you will do so again during this house party when your aunt inevitably begins belittling us to anyone who will listen.”
Duke knew full well his aunt would do nothing of the sort. She had enough decorum to not air family grievances in public. Even in private, she was never the instigator of the family rows. She was seldom even a true participant, choosing instead to either silently endure the barbs aimed at her or to defend herself against them when the complaints didn’t end in a timely manner.
“I will not allow you or Mother to be unkindly or unfairly treated,” Duke promised. It was a promise he knew he could keep because they were seldom the recipients of unfair treatment from Aunt Penelope or Uncle Niles.
Father nodded firmly.
Hoping the topic was done with, at least for the time, Duke said, “I need to be on my way.”
“I talked with Mrs. Smedley last night,” Father said. “She won’t be traveling with you to Dublin.”
“Is she unwell?” Duke hadn’t heard that his former governess had fallen ill or become injured.
Father shook his head and sat on the other side of Duke. “She is as hale as always.”
Duke was relieved to hear that, but there was yet another difficulty. “I cannot undertake a several days’ long journey in the exclusive company of two unmarried young ladies. Their reputations would be ruined, and I would gain one I’d rather not have.”
“That is not what I’m suggesting, I assure you,” Father said. “Your grandmother is journeying here from Dublin, having decided to do so with the intention of seeing you , but since you will not be here...”
Clearly, Duke was meant to piece together what came next, but his father had left too much unsaid to fully grasp his intent. Duke didn’t have to wait long to learn the rest.
“As your holiday plans with your friends have robbed your grandmother of the opportunity to see you, which she is taking great pains to do,” Father said, “you will travel with her from Dublin. That will afford her some time in your company. I cannot imagine you would deny your grandmother a few days with her grandson. And her presence in the carriage will lend the propriety you require for your journey with the O’Doyle sisters.”
Duke shook his head. “Writtlestone is not at all on the way to Surrey. I cannot detour so far without—”
“I meant that you should take her with you to Surrey .” Father then added with unnerving satisfaction, “To Fairfield.”
Fairfield. Father hadn’t revoked Duke’s arrangement with Mrs. Smedley in order to give his mother time with her grandson but rather to cause Aunt Penelope consternation by sending their mother, unannounced, to her home, a mother who managed to regularly torment her children. Father’s interference was an act of petty revenge that perfectly suited the decades-long family feud.
“Do Aunt Penelope and Uncle Niles know that Grandmother is coming to Fairfield?”
Father’s mouth pulled tight. He arched an eyebrow. “She is Penelope’s mother. What kind of daughter would be horrified at the idea of her mother visiting?”
The issue, if one were being fair, was not with the daughter but with the mother. But Father was never fair in matters involving his sister. And his evasive answer to Duke’s question was all the answer Duke really needed.
“Will you at least send word to Fairfield that Grandmother is arriving so preparations can be made?”
Father’s expression hardened. “I will write to your aunt when she writes to me, which she never does.”
“By not telling her, you are requiring me to do so,” Duke said.
“I have full faith in your ability to smooth things over. You are very good at that.”
Did his family have any idea how exhausting it was to fill that role? He wanted his family to be at peace, to be happy together, but all his efforts felt, and often proved, insufficient.
“Does Grandmother know that I am fetching her?” Duke asked.
“No.” That didn’t seem to strike Father as odd or inappropriate.
“Does she know she is no longer traveling to Writtlestone?”
Father didn’t answer. Duke looked to Mother.
“I spent countless days and endless effort attempting to prepare Writtlestone for her arrival. And the time was running so horribly short.” Mother pressed a hand to her heart. “This change of plans has eased a tremendous burden on me, Dubhán. Do you begrudge me that?”
He took a breath and managed to keep hold on his patience. Frustration only ever made things worse. “If Grandmother doesn’t know of her new destination, one I suspect she will not approve of, how am I to convince her to make the journey?”
Father held a hand up. “You need only tell her that you are making the journey back to England with her. It is not untrue, and it will be less likely to inspire objections from her.”
“I suspect she will notice when we don’t depart Holyhead in the direction of Lancashire.”
“The path is the same for quite some time.” Father would have struggled to sound less concerned about the situation he was placing Duke in. “I suspect she won’t realize until well after you have turned toward Surrey that the plans have changed.”
“And that will be the point when I reveal that I have kidnapped my own grandmother at the behest of my father and am taking her to the home of her daughter, with whom she has a strained relationship?”
“Do not be flippant,” Father said through tight teeth.
“You wouldn’t say it like that, would you, Dubhán?” Mother’s voice quivered. “Your grandmother would be livid. And you know how horridly she treats me when she is upset. I would be berated within an inch of my endurance. You would not do that to me, surely. Surely.”
“I do not care to lie to my grandmother,” Duke said. “But how do I manage this without lying and without Mother suffering a berating?”
“If you tell your grandmother about the change in her journey from the moment you see her in Dublin, she is unlikely to agree to go,” Father warned. “And if she does not travel with you, then you cannot travel with the O’Doyle sisters to Surrey.”
It wasn’t, then, so much a kidnapping as it was a blackmailing. A lifetime of being manipulated and blamed and required to bear the burden of his unhappy family’s temporary bouts of happiness had, somehow, not rendered this latest situation less surprising.
“I would have told your grandmother about this change of arrangements myself,” Father said, “but I did not know of your journey to Ireland until you arrived last evening. And rather than struggle to scrape together the funds for your journey as well as my mother’s, which I will remind you, she planned specifically with the intent of seeing you , I found it prudent to combine the two and lessen the strain on my finances.”
They weren’t poor, by any means, but they hadn’t money enough for heedless spending. He could concede that point.
But there was another point he was unwilling to accept. “I will not bring my aunt Penelope an unannounced guest when she and Uncle Niles have already agreed to host fourteen others, a gathering of which I am a part and from which I will be benefiting. I will not further complicate the situation. But neither can I bring Grandmother here when I have given my word to bring the O’Doyle sisters to Surrey. That is unfair to them and would reflect horribly on my integrity.”
That clearly gave his parents pause. They had their faults—plenty of them, in fact—but they had always encouraged him to be a person of honesty and to behave as a gentleman ought.
Duke pulled his pocket watch from his fob pocket and checked the time. “I am departing in ten minutes. Talk it through, and let me know the third option you have formulated before I must begin my journey.”
He took up his traveling bag and snatched his leather gloves and tall beaver hat from the dressing table. He stepped from his bedchamber and walked down the corridor. He could hear his parents following behind, talking quietly. If he were remaining at Writtlestone for more than those ten minutes, he likely wouldn’t have been so short with them.
But he didn’t have time for the usual looping discussions. They would sort out an answer; they usually did when he insisted on it, though they were nearly always frustrated with him afterward.
Regardless, Duke didn’t have the mental space to sort out their difficulty this time. He was plagued by a puzzle of his own, one he needed to keep entirely secret until he had answers. He’d intended to ponder it on the way to Ireland and further mull it over on the journey from Dublin to Surrey. Eve and Nia would likely gab with each other through most of their days on the road. And Mrs. Smedley would have spent those days with her nose in a book; his one-time governess was a prodigious reader.
But Grandmother would be with them instead, which meant Duke’s time would be taken up with listening to a litany of complaints, attempting to prevent another Seymour family altercation, and doing his utmost to shield the O’Doyles from it all.
There would be very little time or energy remaining for him to sort out his own difficulties, ponder his own concerns, and, as a result, begin to lay the foundation of a future he could feel excited about.
A footman met him in the entryway with Duke’s greatcoat and thick-knit scarf. He helped Duke pull the coat on before handing him the scarf, followed by his gloves and hat.
“Thank you, John.” Duke wrapped his scarf around his neck. He pulled on his gloves. Taking time to breathe in silence had always helped him maintain his equilibrium and extend his endurance. He set his tall beaver hat on his head, then turned to face his parents, who had only just reached the bottom of the stairs. “Do you have a solution?”
Father nodded. “We will meet you in Epsom at the Wren and Badger. Your grandmother can return to Writtlestone with us, and you and the O’Doyle sisters can continue the hour or so to Fairfield, if that is what you choose to do in the end.”
Duke dipped his head. “I will meet you at the Wren and Badger on the thirteenth.”
It would, of course, have been far more convenient for Father to meet them at Holyhead or, better still, the village where the road to Surrey diverged from the road to Lancashire, bringing with him Mrs. Smedley to swap out for Grandmother. With a bit more time, Father might have stumbled upon that adjustment. Whether or not he would have chosen it was another matter entirely.
Being away at school as often as he’d been the past years had made Duke’s time at home less draining. His parents were usually happy enough at his return that the limited time he’d spent there had been relatively pleasant. They’d taken walks around the grounds, visited the local village, reminisced about family holidays in Ireland and Scotland. And he’d usually returned to school or joined his friends in London before the situation had devolved too much. He loved his parents, but limiting the time he spent with them helped him remember that.
He kissed his mother’s cheek and shook his father’s hand; those were their usual departing gestures.
“Do not let your aunt berate you while you are at Fairfield,” Mother said.
“I won’t.” Without the tension of warring siblings, his aunt and uncle’s house had the potential to be peaceful. His parents’ absence would allow Fairfield to be truly tranquil. He was counting on it.
“When Penelope inevitably speaks ill of me”—Father spoke through a tense jaw—“remember that you have promised to defend your parents.”
Duke nodded.
There were no declarations of love as he climbed into the waiting carriage. He’d given up on those efforts years earlier. Even when his parents had returned said declarations, the effort had inevitably come with caveats. From the time he was a child, he’d told himself they did love him. He had enough nice memories with them to believe that he was cared about. But having every acknowledgment from them attached to requirements and spoken alongside doubts was harder to endure than not hearing the words at all.
The carriage pulled away from Writtlestone, and Duke slowly emptied his lungs. He had until his arrival in Dublin to think. But he knew it wouldn’t likely be enough time. The puzzle he was sorting and the secret plans he was keeping were complex and fraught with potential pitfalls. But it was the only thing keeping him from losing all hope now that his time at Cambridge had come to an end.
He was journeying to Fairfield, which his parents considered enemy territory, and was doing so with every intention of finding a way of asking his aunt and uncle to let him stay indefinitely.
No matter the answer he received, if his parents heard of what he planned to do, they would never forgive him. And that would break his heart.