I huffed out a laugh. “By myself? That sounds pathetic.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he repeated, but this time, the feeling behind his words were genuine. “Perhaps if you’d like to go shopping ... we could go to Marks & Spencer. You always enjoy that. Or Selfridge’s. Have a bit of a wander, buy something pretty.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Harold, I think you’re having a brain blip. This is me, not Daisy or Alex or any of the cousins.”
“Oh, now, ma’am, you enjoy the stores sometimes,” he protested mildly. “But if that doesn’t sound like what you’d want to do, why not go visit your gardens? We could manage that. What is it you tell me? You could fly under the radar, since it wouldn’t be a scheduled visit.”
“I can’t.” My voice wobbled dangerously close to a whine. “They have a new group visiting today—a garden club from the local senior center. If I go over, it’ll disrupt all that.”
“Ah.” Harold made a noise in the back of his throat. “I see.”
“It’s all right.” I waved my hand. “I’m just going back inside. I’ll find a book to read or something. Watch a movie. Binge watch a season ofJessica Jones.”
“I thought you’d seen all of that one.” Harold’s eyes twinkled. “At least twice.”
“I have, but I think Jessica suits my mood just now.” I turned around. “Don’t worry, Harold. You can stand down. I’ll stay in for the rest of the day. Hell, at this rate, I’ll be in for the rest of weekend.”
I closed the door with a little more force than necessary and dropped my bag onto the chair. The day stretched in front of me, empty, and the aimless sense of restlessness that filled me was irritating as all hell.
Not for the first time, I was keenly aware of how alone I was here. As I was growing up, and then through college and grad school, I’d had a small but tight-knit group of friends. If a few were busy, there were always others who might be around. And of course, my best friend Shelby, whom I’d met during freshman year of college, was like another sister.
But every one of the women I used to count on still lived in the states, across the wide Atlantic. I missed all of my friends, and I especially missed my sisters, my grandmother and my mom. We tried to keep in touch, but the time difference and my various commitments made it a challenge.
However, today I was sitting by myself with nothing to do but fill time. Impulsively, I reached for my phone. My finger hovered over Shelby’s name for a moment, but I hesitated to call my best friend. Something had been going on with her for months—and whatever it was, she’d been close-mouthed about it. Her silence made me reluctant to call for a vent session on my own small woes.
Instead, I scrolled down further and hit a different saved number.
“Is this my daughter the duchess?” My mother’s laughing voice spilled out of the speaker on the phone, bringing a smile to my face. “Hello, sweetie!”
“Hey, Mama.” I managed to get out just those two words before sobs began to choke me. I sniffled, trying to disguise my tears, but it was impossible to hide these things from my mother.
“Oh, honey, what’s wrong? Are you all right? I haven’t watched the news all day, but is something the matter?”
“No.” I shook my head as though she could see me. “I’m just—I miss you, Mama. I miss you, and I miss Daddy, and I miss the girls, and I miss home. I miss Honey, and I miss Handsome.” Thinking of my grandfather, who had passed away last winter, brought forth a fresh spate of weeping.
“We all do.” Sadness tinged her answering sigh. “It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone. I still walk into the beach house and expect to hear him booming a welcome from the kitchen.”
“How’s Honey doing?” My grandmother was resilient. She’d promised to make multiple trips to England to visit with me, but she was so busy with Honey Bee Juices, the company she and Handsome had started up over fifty years ago and for whom I currently worked, that she hadn’t been able to carve out the days yet.
“She’s wonderful. Your father and I are actually down here at the beach with her this weekend. Right now, I’m sitting on the porch, reading, with my feet up and a glass of lemonade in my hand. Your grandmother’s leading a senior nature walk around the Intercoastal. Nothing slows her down.”
“I wish she’d come see me. Bria texted last week. She said she and Lisel were thinking about visiting around the holidays, maybe. Couldn’t youallcome?” It was wishful thinking, I knew. Even if my entire family flew over for Christmas, now that I was married to a prince of the British Royal Family, I was obligated to spend that holiday with his people. There was no way I could drag three generations of Duncans along with me to Windsor Castle.
“Maybe not this year, Ky. You know, we all spent two weeks in London earlier this year, for a little event where you got married.” Mama’s teasing was gentle. “You’ll have your own traditions to begin. You and Nicky need to establish how you’ll celebrate now.”
“Hmph.” I sniffed. Feeling the way I did at the moment, the last thing I wanted to think about was planning holiday fun with my husband.
“Uh-oh. Trouble in Paradise?” My mother laughed softly. “Is that why you sound so teary?”
“Maybe.” I wanted to dump the whole story on my mother’s lap so that she could tell me that I was right and Nicky was wrong. I wanted to be vindicated by her being onmyside. But the woman didn’t seem to be taking the idea of our disagreement seriously. Clearly, she needed details.
“Well, I don’t need to know anything about it.” Her swift declaration poured cold water over the woebegone tale I’d been about to weave. “One of the first things my mother told me after I married your dad was that she didn’t want to hear our troubles. She said that if I confided in her, eventually I’d get over my tiff with your father and move on, but she’d always remember that he’d said hurtful things to her little girl, and she’d resent him. It was good, solid advice, and I’m going to pass it on to you.”
“Thanks, Mama.” I propped my feet on the coffee table. “Just so you know, though, I was in the right. Nicky’s the one who started it all.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” She sounded just the tiniest bit snarky, which rubbed me the wrong way, too. Shouldn’t she be loyally standing by my side? Having my back? “Ky, honey, I’m going to let you in on a little secret that no one seems to want to tell newlyweds. This is it: marriage is hard. Especially in these early years, when you’re still finding out who you are as a person, and you have to do it while figuring out how to be part of a couple, too. You’re going to have disagreements. You’re going to have fights. You might scream and yell at each other until you wonder why you ever bothered to marry this man.”
“Well ...” That didn’t sound like anything Nicky and I would ever do. This little bump in the road had been traumatic enough for me. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I’d scream at my husband.
