Chapter Twenty-Five
Duke had dithered long enough. He needed to stop standing at the figurative crossroads and start actually walking into his future. And he would find a way of convincing himself that he wasn’t utterly crushed by the fact that Eve couldn’t walk that path with him.
Keeping his distance from her, physically and emotionally, was agonizing. He’d seen the hurt in her eyes as he’d told her the night before that he couldn’t be the one she turned to with her worries. And he’d watched his words land a more stinging blow than he’d intended when he’d told her that all they’d shared during their journey to Fairfield had been a mistake. That, he felt certain, would haunt him for years to come.
Rather than go for a morning ride, he made his way to Penfield, having heard that his uncle meant to spend the morning there. The door was locked when he arrived, so he pulled out the key from the hiding place Uncle Niles had revealed to the Pack on their first day and let himself in.
He opened the drapes on the back windows, then lit various lanterns, the early morning sun not being strong enough this late in the year to adequately light the space.
Duke undertook the preparations he’d memorized during visits to Fairfield over the years, when he had joined his uncle here. He soon had a borrowed pair of trousers on, his shirt off, his knuckles wrapped in strips of fabric, and his gaze firmly on a hanging bag of hay ready to be pummeled while he waited.
His family was squabbling, as always, but doing so in front of others, which they usually managed to avoid.
He landed a fist against the hanging bag.
Father and Grandmother had declared their intention to remain at Fairfield specifically to make trouble for Aunt Penelope.
He landed another punch.
Though he hoped he was about to secure for himself a future that offered some respite from family discord, it was far from the dreamed-of future he and Eve had jokingly attempted to guess for each other, because none of the paths stretched out in front of him included her.
Two more punches.
The door opened, and Uncle Niles stepped inside. “Good morning, Duke.”
“Is it?” Another punch.
Uncle Niles hung his hat and coat on hooks near the door. He then walked around and stood on the other side of the bag of hay. He set his shoulder against it. They’d done this before; Duke knew his part. He lifted his hands into a fighting position once more. He gave the bag a quick jab.
Uncle Niles had a way of looking at him that said without a single word that he saw far more than he ever let on.
Duke landed another blow on the hay bag. “My family is driving me mad.”
“I suspect the Pack and the Huntresses feel the same way.”
“I managed to shield my friends from our family’s brokenness for years only to have it spill out all over this house party.” He punched the bag far harder this time. “And my only chance for having a bit of peace is—” He eyed his uncle hesitantly.
“Talk while you punch,” Uncle Niles said. “That often makes it easier.”
“Makes which part easier: the talking or the punching?”
“Both, I suppose.”
Duke stepped back from the bag. “I actually think better when I pace.”
Uncle Niles nodded. “There’s plenty of room.”
Duke began his pacing. Still at the hay-filled bag, Uncle Niles landed a series of perfectly executed blows, an almost graceful dance.
“I wish I could have seen you fight,” Duke said.
Uncle Niles grinned. “The Cornish Duke wasn’t half bad, if I do say it myself.”
“I don’t know how you kept it a secret from your family.” From what Duke had been told, not a single member of the enormous extended Greenberry family had ever discovered Niles’s alter ego.
“In the end,” Uncle Niles said, “I ran away from home.”
That stopped Duke’s pacing on the instant. “You did?”
“I realized that remaining at home meant abandoning the life I wanted to live. I did my best to try to make everything weave together happily, but in the end, it wasn’t possible. So I left and lived for a time with a friend.”
Uncle Niles had left home because living there hadn’t allowed him to claim the life he’d wanted. Of all people, Uncle Niles would understand why Duke needed to request what he’d come to Fairfield to ask.
“Did your family ever forgive you?” Duke heard the unease in his voice.
Uncle Niles clearly did as well. He stepped away from the hay bag and motioned to the sofa. “Have a seat, Duke. I know you think better when pacing, but I suspect you need to do more talking and less thinking.”
There was truth in that.
He sat, feeling nervous and hopeful.
Uncle Niles tossed Duke the shirt he’d pulled off upon arriving. “You’ll grow cold sitting there not moving about.”
Duke stood to pull it on, then dropped back onto the sofa. Uncle Niles sat beside him.
“What is weighing on your thoughts, Duke?”
“I can’t live at Writtlestone.” He slumped back. “I love my parents, but living with them is difficult at best. Whenever I am home, Father talks multiple times a day about his perceived ill-treatment and unfair life. Mother brings up equally as often how put-upon she is and how much happier life would be for her if Father hadn’t been so badly treated. And I have to try to soothe those battered feelings over and over again. And if I don’t do a good enough job of it, they grow petulant and sometimes insulting. The speed and aptitude with which I play the role of placater and ambassador is seen as not merely proof of whether I love them enough but also evidence of whether I am worthy of being loved by them. I can only endure that a few days at a time, but I no longer have Cambridge to escape to when it inevitably becomes too much.”
“Lud, Duke. I didn’t realize things were that bad.”
“I can’t do it every day for the rest of my life. I just can’t.”
“When Ballycar had to be sold, Penelope was heartbroken, but she was also furious. It was her childhood home. It had been the Seymour family home for three generations. It was her last connection to her father, an inheritance she had helped secure and build upon while she’d still been at home.” His eyes took on that far-off look of someone taking a moment to walk through the past. “Not long after that happened, she and I were here at Penfield.” With a besotted smile, he said, “Your aunt can throw a deuced great punch.” He lingered on that thought for a quick moment before returning to what he’d been talking about. “Penelope said she was afraid that if she dwelled on it, the loss of Ballycar and the blame her brother had put on her for it, would turn her bitter and angry. She’d lost enough, and she didn’t want to lose herself as well.”
“I wish I’d known my father before losing Ballycar. It would have been nice to be his son first and foremost instead of... whatever it is I am to him.”
“I wish, for your sake even more than his, that Liam had decided not to let that loss gnaw at him.”
“How often does Aunt Penelope talk about Ballycar or her frustration with my father or Grandmother’s treatment of her and Father?”
“Almost never,” Uncle Niles said. “She’ll sometimes talk about a horse she had as a child or memories of her father at Ballycar. And now and then, she’ll wonder aloud what her brother or mother are doing. But she’s managed over the years to create a separation between the difficulties in the Seymour family and her life from day to day. I think, in all honesty, it saved her.”
“I don’t think I could endure a lifetime at Writtlestone,” Duke said. “But though we aren’t poor, Father’s finances never recovered from losing Ballycar, though that happened before I was even born.”
“But you’ve been paying for that loss your entire life, in more ways than one.”
“I’ve spent many years telling myself that after I was finished at Cambridge, I’d find the resilience to endure a lifetime at Writtlestone.” But instead, he was giving up already, hoisting the white flag. “I never did have the fighting spirit that Colm has, as Grandmother has so often pointed out.”
“Do you know why she says that?” Uncle Niles asked.
“Does she need a reason?” Duke answered dryly.
“I think you need the reason. Your grandmother belittles you and offers unflattering comparisons to Colm because she knows it will hurt her son. It drives Liam to try harder to earn her elusive approval, not realizing even after a lifetime as her son that she approves of no one.”
Uncle Niles was usually rather quiet, keeping on the outskirts of family difficulties. This was blunt talk.
“She belittles Colm in her comparisons with you in order to punish her daughter. And ever since our Luke died, your grandmother has taken to unfavorably comparing Colm to him . That change was not difficult to decipher; your grandmother realized it would hurt Penelope more.”
“Grandmother is entirely capable of being peaceful, or at least not unkind,” Duke said. “I don’t understand why she so often chooses cruelty.”
“I fear she has allowed the habit to take deep hold, and she no longer notices how that continues to change her.”
Change her? “Did she used to be kind?”
Uncle Niles thought on that a moment. “By the time I met her, she was already rather inconsiderate and had no qualms about turning her children against each other in the hope of receiving greater attention herself.” It was, by far, the most unapologetic conversation Duke remembered having with his uncle on the topic of the Seymour family.
“I was frustrated when Father said I had to travel with Grandmother to this house party. I was worried about how she would treat the O’Doyle sisters.” He’d decided that referring to them together would be less revealing to anyone listening than if he talked about Eve specifically. “Grandmother wasn’t truly horrible on the journey, but she wasn’t pleasant either.”
Uncle Niles nodded. “There is a reason your aunt and I haven’t been to Dublin in years. A person can love his family and desperately need distance from them as well.”
It was the perfect return to the topic Duke needed to finally tackle. “I need distance too. It is the only pleasant future I can hope for any longer.” He certainly couldn’t hope for one with Eve. Her continued guesses about his dream-fulfilling future would all be wrong, no matter what they were, because she wouldn’t be part of them. “I’ll understand if what I’m about to ask is too much, considering how hard Aunt Penelope has worked to find peace and distance from the family’s troubles.” He took a quick breath. “Could I stay at Fairfield? Live here instead of at Writtlestone?”
Uncle Niles dropped a hand on his shoulder. “You are always welcome here, Duke. Whether you want to be with us permanently or temporarily, there is always room for you.”
“I’m asking to live with you,” he clarified. “Part of the household.”
Uncle Niles nodded.
“Instead of at my parents’ home.”
“I understand.”
Did he though? “My parents will likely be furious. They will, no doubt, blame and attack Penelope for my ‘defection.’” That had given Duke even more pause than the disapproval he himself would receive from them.
“When was the last time someone in this family fought a battle with you, Duke, rather than leaving you to trudge through the muck alone?”
“Likely never.” Why was answering that question proving an emotional thing?
“I think it’s past time that changed.” Uncle Niles nodded firmly. “I suspect you think I never stand up to any of them.”
“I wouldn’t say never .”
Uncle Niles smiled a little. “Penelope has pleaded with me repeatedly over the years to not rebuke them in front of others, even you. And while I haven’t always managed to abide by that request, I’ve done my best. But no public dressing down is not the same as no rebukes at all.”
“You have chastised them without witnesses?”
“More times than I can recall. It helps for a little while.”
“Nothing ever helps for long.” Duke sighed. “And if I push back too much, they’re even more bitingly angry when they eventually do react.”
Uncle Niles nodded slowly. “To buy us all a bit of time before the inevitable arguments arise from this, I would suggest you go with us to London when I return in January to take my seat in Parliament. You would be staying with us, but I don’t think your parents would realize that it was part of a more permanent arrangement.”
Duke stood also. “I’d like that. And I would enjoy hearing what you’re doing in Parliament and what Parliament is doing in general.”
“Do you have an interest in politics?” Uncle Niles asked.
“I don’t know what I would do in that arena, but I do find politics intriguing. And I like the idea of being in a position to do some good.”
Uncle Niles smiled. “The gentleman who has acted as my political secretary during my previous times as a member of Parliament is looking to pursue his own political ambitions, and he and I have agreed it is time to train a replacement for him.”
“Truly?” That caught Duke’s attention.
“Learn from him what the position involves. If you find it’s to your liking, then we might have shockingly easily solved a difficulty for both of us. Though I must warn you it is not a pursuit that will secure a gentleman enough income for a leisurely future.”
Duke nodded. “I understand. I have known gentlemen who have worked in that capacity. Thrice-mended coats were the order of the day.”
Uncle Niles had walked back to the bag of hay. “I wouldn’t leave you in that state, Duke. Even if the position earned you only pennies, which I assure you it won’t, you’ll have a roof over your head that you needn’t pay for.” He gave the hay bag a succession of perfectly executed jabs. “You’ll be in a position to tuck a few of those pennies away while still having ample funds for a new coat should yours grow threadbare.”
“I can’t guarantee I’ll be anything but rubbish as a political secretary.” Duke joined him near the bag. “But I can promise I’ll work hard.”
“I wouldn’t have extended the offer if I’d thought otherwise.” Uncle Niles dropped an arm around Duke’s shoulders. “If you discover that you don’t care to keep the position, there will be no hard feelings, I promise. And you’ll always have a place with us, no matter what you choose to pursue in the end.”
“Thank you.” Duke didn’t know what else to say. He’d stepped into Penfield that morning without a place to live where he could feel at peace. And he’d undertaken a guessing game with Eve about his future pursuits but had had no answer she could even stumble upon because he’d had no dreams beyond getting away from Writtlestone, no occupation that he felt was at all within his reach.
And now, he had both.
He just didn’t have her.