Chapter 9
“Is that a snout?” Madeline asked as she entered a room to find the Duke’s niece and nephew crouched over their sleeping father on the couch. “Or is it a turnip?”
She had been searching for her husband’s study, but this one looked more like the sunroom.
Mrs. Gaines’ tour was so quick that she had not fully registered all the rooms, and she ended up getting lost. Her hand was still on the brass door handle, not quite crossing into the space her husband’s family had claimed.
Oddly enough, the air also smelled of turpentine and gin.
“Oh, it is a snout, Aunt Maddy!” Alexander exclaimed, jumping up and down. “Do you see how I painted the nostrils?”
“Why are you painting your papa’s face, though?”
“I thought he looked like a wild boar with the way he was snoring.”
That made sense. The boy probably thought that some men in the house, including his father, acted like boars—hard-headed and unwilling to listen. Whatever the case, it was quite entertaining.
Alexander dipped his brush into some pink pigment, ready to continue his work of art on his father’s face. Emily stood behind him, looking scholarly and intense as if they were in a schoolroom.
“The left nostril needs to be rounder, Alex,” she instructed, tilting her head to one side. “A boar’s nostrils are not symmetrical.”
Meanwhile, their father was unconscious on the sofa.
His mouth was wide open, and his cravat was loosened around his neck.
A low, rhythmic snore came from him, the vibration adding to the challenge of staying focused on their brushstrokes.
The children did not mind. A boar, indeed.
Malcolm was sleeping prey, his face, less striking than his brother’s but charming in its own way, transformed into the wild animal his children had decided he resembled.
“I am not sure this is proper, children,” Madeline tutted, stepping closer to inspect the work.
“Are you going to punish us?” Alex was suddenly concerned.
“No, it is just... You may want to use more water with the black to make it look grayer in some parts,” Madeline advised softly, entering the room and closing the door gently behind her.
The latch did not click. She did not want to lock it; she just wanted to close it enough to hide the children’s mischief from other adults’ eyes. She hoped she knew what she was doing.
“W-will you be waking up Father?” Emily asked.
Madeline could not see any fear in the child’s eyes. They did not seem scared at all, not of their father anyway, as they kept hovering over him. They were more worried that their fun had been noticed and would be stopped.
“No, I will not,” Madeline replied.
She watched Alexander’s brush hover over Malcolm’s cheek, the pink pigment in stark contrast with his skin.
Madeline was a grown woman and the new mistress of Huntington House.
Her every instinct told her that the whole situation was inappropriate.
Normally, she would have already taken the brushes away and sent the children to their rooms as punishment.
However, she did not feel like she was on stable ground. She wanted Alexander and Emily to see her as more than just another authoritative figure. She did not want to lose them in her first few days as their aunt. Perhaps being a confidante would have them listen to her better.
“However, I am told that you must prepare yourselves for Monsieur Piotr’s piano lessons in a few minutes,” she added gently.
“Ugh,” Emily protested, her eyes still on her and her brother’s masterpiece on their slumbering father. “I cannot stand Monsieur Piotr. He is too strict and dull.”
“I believe tutors need to be strict, do they not?” Madeline explained, as she approached the trio even more, taking care not to make noise.
She bit her lip at taking a closer look at the Duke’s brother’s face.
The pig did not look like a turnip at all.
Perhaps the youngsters actually had talent in painting.
Their uncle should take this detail into consideration.
“You may also need to leave before your father rouses and feels the weight of paint on his face.”
The children exchanged glances. They knew their new aunt was right. Their eyes were dancing with calculation and further mischief at the thought of their father finally discovering the muck on his face. Madeline might just have some entertainment in Huntington House, after all.
“Of course, we will do just that, Aunt Maddy,” Emily declared, straightening her back.
It was amazing how the two children managed to grab their paints and put them back in the box without making any noise.
Then, they offered her small bows before leaving the room.
Their tiny footsteps faded away into the distance.
However, those footsteps were apparently enough to wake even the drunkest boar.
Madeline turned toward her brother-in-law on the sofa. The duke’s brother had been peaceful earlier, but this time, the snoring had stopped, and he moved subtly to his right. The man was stirring, but the children should be far enough away at this point.
“Who is there?” His eyes flew open, and he bolted upright. He clutched his chest and wheezed, “I... Where are those infernal creatures? Why were they making so much noise?”
He was not even that old yet, but his eyes had dark circles around them that seemed permanent.
She suspected that his weariness was not just due to late nights and gambling.
Something else was weighing him down. Something that had made him begin drinking in the first place.
She recognized it well enough. She had seen the same look in her own father’s eyes for years, that particular kind of exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with grief.
“Miss Madeline? I mean... Your Grace,” he mumbled, his eyes still unfocused. He blinked at her as if she might disappear if he looked too hard. “Wait, am I still drunk, or are you actually standing there?”
“You are not drunk. At least, not anymore,” she replied, keeping her voice gentle. “I am very much here, I am afraid. I got lost looking for my husband’s study.”
Malcolm groaned, scrubbing his face with one hand. The paint smeared spectacularly across his cheek, and Madeline pressed her lips together very firmly.
“Lost? Right. Yes, of course you are. You only arrived yesterday, and Mrs. Gaines moves through these hallways as if she is being chased.”
Ah.
So, she was not the only one who had been served the quick tour.
“Do you know the way to His Grace’s study?
I mean... Kenneth’s study,” Madeline replied, the pulse on her neck thrumming at the mere mention of him.
Of course, she would have to utter his name.
He was her husband, after all. However, each time she thought of him as such, and not using his title, she remembered her duties as his wife.
“I need to discuss my new... responsibilities with him. I have been going back and forth in the same hallways, but I have merely gotten myself confused.”
Of course, she did not add that she would rather see her husband in his study, rather than create the wrong notion that she was ready to surrender.
The duke’s bedchambers had become a dangerous place for her.
Meanwhile, Malcolm struggled to rise from the sofa.
His face was full of torment, one that she had often seen too many times in her own father.
Then, he seemed to be more alert, with even a hint of a wry smile on his face.
Madeline swallowed a gasp when his eyes scanned the room and landed on a mirror.
Oh, no.
He stared at his own reflection for a long moment.
“What in the name of—” he began, reaching up to touch his face. His fingers came away black. He turned to look at Madeline in disbelief.
“The children?” he asked flatly.
“I truly cannot say,” she replied.
Malcolm looked back at the mirror. Something shifted in his expression, and to her surprise, the corner of his mouth twitched. “I will take you to the study,” he muttered, smoothing his rumpled waistcoat to no avail. “It will give me something to do before I find those two little monsters.”
Malcolm gallantly gestured toward the door, making Madeline smile. When they stepped out into the corridor, she could feel Huntington’s gloomy atmosphere pressing her again.
“Your... children are quite a bundle of energy, are they not?” Madeline remarked, trying to get rid of the awkward silence between them. She could understand that her brother-in-law was still barely conscious and not too keen on having a conversation.
“They can be a handful,” Malcolm admitted. “So much so that Kenneth believes I am a lost cause for not being able to discipline them.” He let out a short, humorless laugh. “He is probably right. The problem is that he usually is.”
“Nobody should be called a lost cause while one is still living,” Madeline murmured, trying her best to comfort him while also stomping on the urge to ask about the children’s mother.
She remembered how they claimed that they had been abandoned.
“You still have plenty of opportunities to correct their ways.”
“You are right,” Malcolm said with a sigh. “They simply miss their mother, that is all.”
Madeline craned her neck, eagerly waiting for Malcolm to say more about his wife, but they had already made a stop in front of two large doors. Kenneth’s study. Of course. How did she miss this room?
“A word of advice, Madeline, if I may be permitted to call you that,” Malcolm said.
“My brother has a strong will. He does not know how to bend to other people. But please, keep that light in your eyes. Neither of us is coping well despite his insistence on being seen as strong. My children may be a handful, but I do not want them to become like their father or their uncle, either. They need your help. In the process, you will need help, too. You must not expect more from him than what he offers.”
“Thank you for telling me that, but I was wondering,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Could you tell me more about my husband? What does he like? What makes him happy? I would very much like to get on his good side.”
If such a thing exists. She almost laughed at herself. She was asking his brother, a man who had a pig painted on his face not ten minutes ago, how to win over the most intimidating man she had ever met in her life. And yet, here she was. She supposed that was as good a place to start as any.
Malcolm glanced at her sideways. “Nothing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing makes Kenneth happy,” he said softly, as if delivering news he had long since come to terms with.
“He does not have emotions. I know how that sounds, but it is the truth. I have known him my entire life, and I have never once seen him display a single one. Not grief. Not joy. Not anger. He is simply not capable of it.”
Madeline opened her mouth to tell him that this was ridiculous. However, there was no more time to respond. Malcolm had already knocked on the double doors. Three quick and sharp raps. Then, he pushed the door open. It must have been a signal between brothers.
“Your wife is here to see you, Kenneth. Please do not kill her with boredom before the midday meal,” he jested.
Madeline stepped into the Duke’s study, her eyes widening. The room was full of leather-bound books, filling almost every inch of two walls from floor to ceiling. The place had its own personality, with its scent of old parchment and choice tobacco.
Kenneth was already at work at his desk. He was dressed in a charcoal-gray coat that easily contrasted with her yellow muslin. His quill made quick, scratching noises over his ledger. His brows were furrowed. As his lips moved, she could also see that his lip was obviously injured by her bite.
“What happened to you?” Malcolm demanded.
“Have you looked at yourself in a mirror? Your face is far worse than mine,” Kenneth said dryly, making his younger brother frown in confusion. “Let me guess, your children found you sleeping somewhere you were not supposed to be sleeping again. As for me, my wife bit me last night.”
Madeline felt the blood rush to her face so quickly she thought she might faint.
Of all the things to tell his brother!
However, Malcolm seemed unaffected. Instead, he grinned. “Biting, nice. I thought choking was more your thing.”
“Oh, I would gladly choke him as he can be insufferable,” Madeline said, folding her arms across her chest.
“I do not think that you would be the one doing the choking, wife,” Kenneth murmured, something dark flashing in his eyes. “Now, what did you need?”
It took her a moment to understand what he meant, and when she did, the heat that flooded her face was immediate and merciless. Malcolm was chuckling, and Kenneth was watching her with that infuriating stillness of his, and she suddenly found that she could hardly breathe.
“I... I have just remembered something I must attend to for the... for the children,” she announced, already moving toward the door. “It is very urgent.”
Madeline changed all shades of red as she left the brothers in the study, their eyes following her all the way to the door.