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 ifhe 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 andlanded 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 alsostomping 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.”
