Chapter Fourteen
If Duke never again traveled with his grandmother, it would be too soon. Most days, she had at least slept through part of the journey, offering him a momentary lull. But on the final leg of their trip, she remained awake and, he was quite certain, never stopped voicing her displeasure with every aspect of life.
That would have been unpleasant enough, but her unending diatribe meant that for the second day in a row, Duke didn’t have any opportunity to talk with or laugh with Eve. Though Nia slept on and off, Grandmother never closed her eyes for longer than a blink. Thirty-six hours earlier, Duke had held Eve in his arms and kissed her. He’d kissed her. He was still shocked at his own impulsiveness when he thought back on it. But he didn’t regret it. He only hoped Eve didn’t either.
He’d not been afforded a chance to truly speak to her. Under Grandmother’s critical eye, he couldn’t so much as momentarily hold Eve’s hand.
It was making the needed patience with his grandmother very difficult to come by.
By the time they reached the inn in Epsom where Father would be meeting them, Duke had to work very hard not to rudely bolt from the carriage and announce to anyone within earshot that he had an unendurable passenger he would hand over to the first person willing to take her. Instead, he sat calmly and waited for the carriage door to be opened.
“Would either of you care to step out and stretch your legs for a spell?” He asked Grandmother purely out of civility and Eve as an offered escape. Nia was sleeping.
Grandmother pulled back the curtain and eyed the establishment. “It looks questionable. I would rather stay in the carriage, if it is all the same to you.”
Duke had been to the Wren and Badger before, on those occasions when his parents had journeyed to Fairfield for a family gathering that inevitably turned into a battle. It was a perfectly respectable inn, hardly warranting the quick dismissal Grandmother was giving it. This was, more likely than not, her way of punishing him and his father for having inconvenienced her on her journey.
“I would appreciate a bit of fresh air,” Eve said.
A stablehand opened the carriage door and put the step down. Duke, sitting nearer the door than Eve, clambered out first. He waved off the stablehand, then turned back to the carriage door and offered his hand to assist Eve. She set her hand in his. Though excessively commonplace and made anything but intimate by their gloves, that small touch set his world to rights again. She had been sitting next to him for a day and a half, but he’d missed her.
Though he thought he kept his relief hidden, Eve took one look at him and grinned. Was he so transparent? Was he ready for her to know how much he’d come to care for her? He’d kissed her, so she must have some inkling. But this was all so new, and it felt frighteningly fragile.
They walked away from the carriage and toward the inn.
“How close were you to tossing your grandmother through the window?” she asked in a low voice.
Grandmother. Eve thought family difficulties were the reason he felt such relief in that moment. It was part of it.
“I had abandoned the window entirely,” he said, grateful for a topic he didn’t feel uncertain discussing with her, “and was planning to kick the door open and give the old lady a shove.”
“Duke!” Eve laughed, the sound one of amused shock. As always, he watched her eyes brighten with her laugh, her dimple reappear, her beautiful smile tug at her lips. Her gorgeous, captivating... tempting lips.
Pull yourself together. He set his gaze forward once more. They were nearly at the inn doors.
“I hope Nia remains asleep,” Eve said. “I don’t envy her the diatribe she would have to listen to should she awaken before we return.”
It really was frustrating that Eve and Nia had endured Grandmother’s penchant for causing distress, but that was what happened when one spent too much time with the extended Seymour family.
“If Nia is truly fortunate,” Duke said, “she will awaken only after Grandmother has undertaken her change of carriages.”
“We are amassing a worryingly long list of hoped-for outcomes that depend on us experiencing a shocking amount of luck.”
That was true enough. “I’ve spent the majority of my life waiting for luck to be on my side. At some point, I’m bound to realize that I need a new strategy.”
“Or a questionable arrangement with the fae.” She spoke too earnestly to be anything but jesting.
“You are a troublemaker, Aoife,” he said.
Her grin shifted to a soft smile. “It is nice to have someone know how to say my Irish name.”
“I think the Huntresses would learn if you asked them to,” he said. “The Pack would as well.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind my anglicized name. I like it, in fact.”
“Well, it is a great deal better than Scuff, which I have on good authority is the anglicized name of a certain unfortunate young Irishman.”
“The poor lad.” She shook her head solemnly.
They stepped inside the inn and were greeted almost immediately by a man Duke assumed was the innkeeper. “How may I help you, sir?”
“I am looking for a gentleman we are meant to meet here, Mr. Liam Seymour.”
The man shook his head. “Can’t say as I’ve anyone here by that name. But, then, not everyone tells me their names when they arrive. What’s he look like?”
“A lot like me but a generation older.”
The man’s brow pulled in thought. “We’d a fine couple here yesterday. Didn’t stay the night. They took a meal in the private dining room and waited for two or three hours. Then they up and left without a word.”
Duke asked the question he knew had to be posed, though he was embarrassed to have to do so within Eve’s hearing. “Did they pay for the meal?” His parents weren’t dishonest, but they were sometimes a little thoughtless.
“They did.”
That was a relief.
“And they gave no indication when they left where they were going?” Duke asked.
“None, sir.”
“Thank you.”
The innkeeper dipped his head. Duke guided Eve back to the doorway.
“’Twas your parents, then?” Eve asked.
“Most likely.”
“And they waited only a couple of hours before giving you up for lost and abandoning the arrangements?”
Duke shrugged. Father wasn’t always good about thinking of others, especially when he felt put upon by his mother or sister. And Mother tended to abandon anything that required effort if she felt at all disappointed in the people around her.
“Now what do we do?” Eve hadn’t looked away from him. “There’s no time for taking your Grandmother to Lancashire.”
“Unfortunately, our best course is likely to take her to Fairfield, though she’ll be livid.” Blast, Father. Duke had sworn to Grandmother that Father would not abandon them, that he would be in Epsom to greet them. And Duke had sworn to Father that he wouldn’t take Grandmother to Aunt Penelope’s home unannounced, but he was now going to be made a liar on both counts. Why was it his father, when given the choice between inconveniencing himself and causing tremendous trouble for Duke, always chose the latter?
He ducked his head back inside. The innkeeper was near at hand still.
“Do you have a horse and rider available to deliver a message?” Duke asked.
The innkeeper shook his head. “Not at the moment, sir. I’m sorry for that.”
It had been worth asking, at least. He walked out into the innyard, Eve walking along beside him.
“Will your aunt and uncle be upset at their unexpected visitor?” Eve asked.
“Yes.” They had every right to be. “But they will make the best of it. Grandmother, of course, will cause everyone distress. She might even ruin the house party.”
“In that case, you have very little to worry about,” Eve said casually.
He eyed her with doubt.
“Don’t you see? If your grandmother ruins this gathering, Artemis will murder her. Problem solved.”
He smiled. He couldn’t help it. She lightened him when his mind was heavy and gave him reason for amusement when he was frustrated. He thought about her when they were apart, watched her when they were together, let himself imagine smiling and laughing with her, and, if fate smiled on him, eventually getting to kiss her again.
But first, he needed to bring her and her sister directly into what was destined to become a field of battle.