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A pounding on the door stopped my retreat into the bedroom area. Oliver opened the door. “Pascal. Son. How are you?”
“I’m good.” He hugged his father. “Thank goodness you brought her back. We heard she was back. Jayne has not been…happy that she hasn’t been here. I guess you did things to make Sloane upset, she’s sure about that, and if you are all assholes, then we must be, too. So thanks for that. The first days of our marriage have been strained.” He looked at me. “Could you please come see Jayne?”
I almost laughed. He seemed sort of…desperate. “Sure. After I see Judge. Tell her I’ll come tonight. Also, there’s some sort of meeting you need to attend so you don’t die.”
“Yes, we just heard. Okay. I’ll tell her. Thank you, Sloane. Please don’t run from my family again. I’m not sure I can take it.”
This time I did laugh. What was my sweet, easier-than-me sister doing to these guys? “I’m not going to run.”
I was just not going to stay. Maybe.
The manor where I stayed on my last visit might have seemed huge, but it was nothing compared to where Judge lived. I gasped, and Freddie bumped me gently, in a playful way. “I still gasp at a lot of things, too. When I first went to our house, I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I shouldn’t be allowed in the door.”
Well, at least I’m not alone in this. “Just very foreign to me.”
“I know.” He nodded toward the place. “Both Truett and Pascal grew up in those walls.”
They did. Wait a second. “Why was Pascal there? You guys have a whole house, right?”
“Yes, but no one to raise him. He had to be raised as a noble. When Sadie died, we could have brought in a nanny, but his aunt, Judge’s wife, wanted him to be with her. She has six children of her own, so it seemed like a good idea. Truett had grown up here. It would make him high nobility, and he would have a lot of kids around instead of being left in our house with staff for long periods of time while we hunted monsters and maybe didn’t come home.”
I supposed that made sense, but it begged another question. “How do families work? I mean, do you go running around with your kids? Like, if Sadie had lived, would Pascal have just come on the road with you?”
“Yes.” He side-eyed me. “It’s not ideal, if everyone isn’t happy, but it works. Sometimes. we brought Pascal with us for a little bit without Sadie, but it was too dangerous without someone to watch him during the battles. It was…stressful. And sort of awful to let him go.”
I took his arm. “Sometimes doing the right thing is awful.” I was learning so much in those moments. “Why did Truett grow up here?”
The person in question turned around. “Judge ordered me to come. He’s an older, distant cousin. I think he wanted people around. His first wife never gave him any children, and then she died. He was lonely until the marriage with Miranda was arranged. She wasn’t gifted, but he saw her after the ceremony, and he wanted her. She’s five years older than Sadie, so she went through the ritual the session before. It’s a long sordid history.” He pointed at the door. “And here she comes, now. “
Freddie leaned over. “They hate each other. Truett did not want to leave Pascal behind. She insisted. We were on the fence. She made it really difficult. Pascal is clearly fine, but it’s an ache because he didn’t know us as his family in the way he should have.”
He’d thrown himself into Oliver’s arms for a hug earlier. I didn’t think he seemed particularly upset with them. That ache was probably one-sided. Pascal seemed happy and pretty easy going, except for when it came to Jayne. I still couldn’t believe that.
“I see you have found your wife who ran from you. That was smart, Sloane. I wouldn’t want to be married to them, either.”
Miranda was rough, which I thought the first time I saw her, too. Charles put his hand on Truett’s back. Did that help restrain him from whatever Charlie thought he might do?
“Or maybe I was just out of my mind.” I stepped forward. “I should never have been awake. We sleep through the beginning, right? But then I awoke and I was half-crazed. Sure, they weren’t particularly gentle with my feelings, but it’s never wrong to speak the truth.” I took a deep breath. “I’m grateful they came and found me.”
Miranda stared at me for a long moment. “Well, if you say so. Do be careful, they let my sister die, and I don’t know that they cared.”
“Miranda,” Freddie said her name. “That…”
I had to interrupt. “I’m sorry, but while I haven’t known them long, I know that what you said isn’t true. They mention her quite often. I think her death weighs on them a great deal, not to mention everything that happened afterward. We never really can tell the depths to which others are feeling things, particularly those trained to hide their pain, lest it be seen as weakness, right?” I smiled. “Is your husband available? I understand that I owe him an apology as I made quite a scene here.”
The other woman blinked rapidly and then extended her hand, indicating that I should follow her inside. “You remind me of your mother.”
I had no idea Mama ever met the woman. Really, for someone who had so rarely left our home, she made quite an impression on people. I never realized that before. The house was large and ornately decorated. Gold-tinged walls matched accents on the furniture. Judge wasn’t technically our king, but he was in all the ways that mattered. At least that’s how my father once described the situation. He was a magistrate that held rank over all the other magistrates and never had to be elected. Then again, none of us did. My father held rank because that was how it worked.
And Judge was the highest ranking of them all.
It was hard for me to imagine any children growing up there. Where did they play? Did they spend all day outside? Was that why Truett lived his life as a child on horseback? Where did they go to school? At home or elsewhere?
“Sloane.” Freddie caught my attention. “There’s Judge.”
Of all times for my mind to wander. I tried to stand up straight and came up short. The man in a chair on the other side of the room regarding us was very old. He had to be four times his wife’s age. I’d seen him before, when he’d been roaming the halls of the manor where I stayed. That is Judge?
I never would’ve pictured him like this. In my mind’s eye, he had been ready to charge ahead in battle on a horse to protect us all.
