Chapter 2

2

R oland had not been certain what sort of welcome would await them when they arrived at Alnwick, but ‘decidedly anticlimactic’ had not been one of the possibilities he had considered. A part of him was glad that their arrival was short of drama and fanfare. Grace had been in a nervous flutter for days.

Their pre-wedding meeting with the Breaker during the summer had nearly been a disaster of epic proportions. After the way he had declared a woman’s only value lay in her ability to bear heirs, Roland could scarcely blame Grace for not looking forward to spending the winter cloistered with his grandfather.

He looked at the closed adjoining door between their rooms, considering. Grace had claimed travel fatigue shortly after their welcome at the front of the castle, and had gone with Elsie to their room for a short respite.

“Your burgundy coat, my lord.”

Jolted out of the mire of his thoughts, Roland’s attention turned towards his valet, standing there with one of his least-favourite coats. “Er, thank you, Briggs. Did… did I choose this?”

“No, my lord,” Briggs said, keeping a carefully expressionless face. “You seemed to have other things on your mind. I chose it for you.”

Roland stared hard at his valet, reminded again that his brother had recommended this particular replacement to him. Perhaps not coincidentally, Briggs had first been Thorne’s valet. For only one week. Roland feared the man’s tenure in his employ would be similarly short. “I despise this coat.”

“But your lady wife adores the way it makes your eyes seem darker and more mysterious. And it is warm. The wind has picked up outside, and the lower halls are rather… draughty.”

Blinking, Roland consented to allow himself to be put in the horrid coat. He would have done without a valet on their trip if he had dared, but they had been on a timetable, and Thorne had correctly—if somewhat gleefully—repeated his own words back to him about hiring new hands to keep up with the expectations of his position.

“Has there been word back from my grandfather?” Roland asked, changing the subject. “I was hoping we could find a few minutes to meet privately before supper.”

Pursing his lips, Briggs shook his head, lifting his hands to straighten Roland’s cravat. “Mr Withers assured me your message had been delivered to the duke, but there’s been no response yet, my lord.”

“You do not have to call me that so often,” Roland gritted out, feeling irritation creeping back.

“You are Lord Roland Percy, Earl Percy, my lord. Only one frail heartbeat separates you from the dukedom, and Sir Nathaniel made it quite clear that I would be doing you the greatest disrespect in being informal with you.”

“I suppose my brother was also the person who told you not to let me have an opinion on what to wear?”

He could see Briggs trying to restrain a small smile. “He did imply that allowing you too much choice could be a terrible disservice to everyone.”

“That does sound very much like him,” Roland said dryly, focusing on Briggs’ expression. “It surprises me that the two of you didn’t get on better.”

“Ah. Well, we perhaps were rather too much alike in some respects. It is said that there is a peculiar charm in contrast.”

Peculiar, indeed. The valet was in his early thirties, a handful of years older than Roland and Thorne, a few inches shorter, fair haired, and slender. It was hard to imagine finding more contrast from his strapping, dark-haired, blue eyed brother. But Briggs wasn’t entirely wrong that there was a decided similarity in their bearing.

In better humour, Roland allowed Briggs to finish dressing him. “If there has been no word from the duke, has there been any from Thorne?”

“Oh yes,” Briggs nodded. “Sir Nathaniel has been out riding, and he will be ready to meet with you and Lady Percy in the drawing room before dinner.”

“Out riding! In this cold?”

Briggs’ briefly quirked eyebrows were as expressive as a shrug. “He may be downstairs already, my lord. You may castigate him for his rash choices at your leisure.”

“Well, now that you have given me your permission, of course,” Roland drawled, heading for the door as Briggs gave him another small smile.

As he stepped out into the hallway, Grace’s door opened and Elsie poked her head out. “Lord Percy! If you wish to wait a moment, Lady Grace is ready to accompany you downstairs.

Roland’s heart lifted, glad to hear Grace was ready to face whatever awaited them below. He didn’t even have a chance to acknowledge Elsie’s request before the door opened wider, and the maid withdrew to let Grace pass.

“My lady,” Roland greeted her, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to it before he flattened her palm against his cheek. “You look better. You seemed so tired earlier.”

She smiled at him in response. “Just a bit of travel weariness, love. You look very lordly. I like that coat on you.”

Yes, Briggs did kindly inform me he was dressing me solely for your pleasure.”

Her smile grew wider. “Did he? Even though you hate this coat?”

“If you knew that, I see I have no hope of keeping any secrets with our servants around. What else do the three of you whisper about when I am not listening?”

He had couched his grumpy words in a teasing tone, but she grew more serious. “Does it bother you? That they… whisper? If it bothers you, I will tell Elsie not to talk to him if you like.”

“What? No, I do not care. As long as they are loyal to us, I expect their communication will be a godsend when our duties inevitably drag us apart. Why do you ask?”

Grace paused, as if thinking other thoughts, but then she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “If you are not troubled, that is a relief, because I rather think Elsie fancies Briggs.”

“She does?” he stopped, surprised, and the corner of her mouth turned up again. “To think I was just fantasising about dismissing him. I suppose this means I will be stuck with him forever—or at least until Elsie turns her nose up at him.”

Grace’s hazel eyes sparkled at him, warming him through. “You would really keep him just for Elsie’s happiness when Nathaniel sent him packing with us so quickly? I think you are a romantic,” she teased.

“Truly, the man is fine as a valet. And it seems heartless to send him off without employment now. He would be stuck in Alnwick until spring with nothing to do.”

“Fine as a valet, but… Briggs is not your brother,” Grace said shrewdly, identifying the very heart of his discontent. “I think you have been unhappy to be apart.”

“A better way to put it might be that I have grown far too accustomed to his endless skulduggery and the jests at my expense. With no one to incessantly batter my ears with nonsense, now, I find myself quite at a loss. Fortunately, that will soon be remedied. He is waiting downstairs as we speak, likely holding his breath, eager to crow about how he has foisted his valet upon me.”

His wife laughed at the picture of it. “Then perhaps we should go join him before he faints.”

“Yes,” he agreed, offering her his arm. “Let us face our enemies—together.”

She grew a little pensive despite the humour he used in referencing their last misadventure. He wondered again, as he had many times before, if she was more worried about this reunion than she let on. But he had no time to dwell on those thoughts, because a familiar pair of bright blue eyes locked on theirs the very moment they began to descend the stairs.

“Nathaniel!” Grace greeted him, letting go of Roland’s arm to hurry down the stairs.

Thorne’s welcoming smile turned to a look of alarm, and he opened his arms to catch her in an embrace as she hurtled towards him in her unsteady descent. “Go carefully, Lady Grace,” he chided her softly, looking embarrassed to be the one to do so. “Like a few other things at Alnwick Castle, the steps can be a bit treacherous.”

Roland’s more sedate pace closed the gap within seconds, but hearing the caution and painfully mindful of the watching footmen nearby, he quickly shepherded his brother and wife around the corner into the drawing room, waiving off their offers of assistance. Only once the door was shut on them did he feel comfortable enough to clap Thorne on the back. The man answered Roland’s first unasked question with a hearty squeeze.

“Your arm is better?” Grace asked him, lightly touching the shoulder he had injured during their summer misadventures.

“Nearly normal again. A little weaker than it was before,” he confessed. “And this confounded chill makes it ache. But I hope that will pass soon, otherwise it will be a very bothersome winter. Nevermind that! What of the two of you? Have you any… good tidings to share?”

Tactfully phrased, Roland thought, stifling a small smirk as Grace flushed an unexpectedly deep red when Thorne’s eyes glanced at her belly. His grandfather, propriety be damned, would not be nearly as discreet in asking the question.

“Yes, Bath was a lovely destination, thank you for asking,” she replied acerbically, but her eyes slid to the side.

Both men frowned, and Roland wondered if she was regretting their decision to delay trying for a child. Their courtship and the wedding had been a forced march to the beat of other people’s drums. With his grandfather’s ultimatums in securing a woman’s hand in marriage satisfied, the danger faced during the season, and Thorne safely out of the Breaker’s reach, Roland and Grace had agreed privately to take a little time to enjoy their marriage—and each other—before worrying about any begetting. They would learn the important details about managing Northumberland this winter, and in the spring, they could travel to Ireland, or perhaps Portugal. After that, time would tell.

“Yes. Our lives have been quite dull,” Roland said cheerfully, turning the subject. “How much could one say about beautiful countryside, taking the waters, and quaint castles? It would be far more interesting to gossip about you.”

“Gossip about me, in front of me?” Thorne smirked. “There is little to tell. Whatever else one might say about Danforth, he chose good people to manage his lands in his absence while he was at court. I also have a letter for the both of you—from my mother. I suppose my tale made for some brief but scintillating gossip for her. She is showing improvement, and sends you her regards.”

Before they could talk further, a clatter in the hallway turned their heads towards the door. The three of them turned politely, expecting the Breaker to stride into the room. But when the door to the parlour flew open, however, two small figures tumbled in—wide-eyed and breathless, their cheeks flushed with mischief.

Behind them, Miss Fenton followed. "Come along now, bairns. It’s time ye bid your goodnights to his lordship and her ladyship, afore ye’re off tae bed."

Grace immediately sat down on the nearest couch, extending a hand to each child and drawing them towards her knees. Roland and Thorne withdrew slightly as they chattered with Grace about their day, lingering and asking if she would be able to read them a bedtime story.

“I cannot read you a book tonight, dear Sprouts, but I promise we will read one soon. How are you settling in with Miss Fenton?” she asked kindly. “Do you like it here at Alnwick Castle so far?”

Wes looked reluctant to answer, but Willa shook her head fiercely. “I don’t like it. I hear noises in the hall sometimes. It’s scary!”

"Mice, I’m sure," Miss Fenton murmured with quiet reproach when Grace cast an inquiring look her way. "It would be a task indeed to keep them out of an auld castle like this!"

“Tis not mice!” the boy retorted sharply, before dropping his voice to a whisper. “It might be ‘the Snatcher.’”

Wes’s voice might have been whispered, but it was still loud enough that Roland heard him quite clearly. “A snatcher! I have heard of the Alnwick Vampire, but never a snatcher.”

“My goodness, Roland!” Grace scolded him as the children’s eyes grew round. “Are you trying to make sure they do not to sleep at all?”

Thorne smothered a laugh. “Don’t worry, sprouts. If he ever existed at all, the angry villagers of Northumberland bur— er, did away with the vampire a very long, long time ago, a hundred years and more before you were born.”

Both children looked mollified that they weren’t in imminent peril from a vampire, but Wes’s face still held an air of uncertainty.

“Here,” Roland murmured, sitting on the couch beside Grace. “Tell me why you are so worried about this… man?”

“It’s not a man, it’s a monster,” Wes muttered. “The others in the village say it steals kids from their beds and eats them.”

Willa scoffed. “Do you believe it’s seven feet tall and has horns, too? There’s no such thing as monsters like that. Or vampires,” she added with a cross look at Roland.

Roland magnanimously ignored Thorne covering his mouth on the far side of the room. “You are as clever as Lady Grace,” he told the girl. “There are no such things as monsters and vampires. Most noises have far more mundane causes.”

“Like mice,” Grace agreed, smiling. “Or perhaps a certain duke wandering the halls late at night?”

"Exactly," Miss Fenton said firmly, taking a child by each hand. "Say yer goodnights, children. We’ll go find a bonnie, happy tale tae read."

“Goodnight!” both chorused dutifully, exiting the drawing room, but the boy’s eyebrows were still drawn together in unhappy thought as he left.

“Well!” Grace exclaimed with a sigh. “I suppose with such a large, draughty old castle, it was only a matter of time before little imaginations ran wild.”

Roland chuckled and shook his head. “Alnwick’s young ones are making up new legends to replace old ones. I suppose each generation must create their own. The duke has not said anything about missing children to you, Thorne?”

“No,” he finally said. “Nothing on that topic or anything else, to be honest. I have scarcely seen the Breaker. I have been here nearly two weeks, and he hasn’t joined me at the breakfast or the supper table even once. I thought he might be avoiding me after what happened in Brighton, and truthfully, I was glad for it.”

Before either of them could reply, a soft knock sounded on the door, and Withers, the duke’s ageing butler, let himself in following it. “The dining room is prepared, my lord, my lady. Dinner is now served. His Grace regrets that he will not be joining you this evening.”

Though he had been working on tempering his reactions to befit his rank, Roland could still feel his brows drawing together in consternation. “Thank you, Withers. Is His Grace unwell, or is he merely occupied this evening?”

“His Grace asked for some solitude this evening. I believe he simply requires a bit of rest, Lord Percy,” the butler temporised. “He will see you instead at breakfast.”

“I see. Convey our regards to His Grace. We will follow you shortly, Withers.”

The butler gave a respectful nod and exited the room. The door latch barely clicked before his lady wife, tense with suspicious energy, turned to his brother. “You have scarcely seen him... But you have seen The Breaker?”

“Aye. A few times,” Thorne answered her. “We crossed paths actually, the day before yesterday as he was leaving the library, and he seemed as hale as one might expect a man of his years. But we have exchanged only perhaps five words the entire time I’ve been waiting for you to arrive.”

“How strange,” Grace murmured. “That does not sound much like His Grace. I wonder why he is being so insular.”