Page 40 of Worse Than Wicked
He smiles only a little, but his eyes crinkle at the corners. “No problem,” he says, dropping his hand. “Should I take that as a rejection of my reunion with the family, or just good hygiene?”
“More of a personal space issue,” Baron says, extending a hand. “Mabel doesn’t like touching strangers. I’m her boyfriend, Baron.”
They shake, and any sense of awkwardness brought on by my refusal to shake hands melts away as we take our seats around the room. Baron smoothly and easily answers my estranged uncle’s obligatory questions—we met in high school, we’ve been together a year, we go to college together. I marvel at him, how completely at ease he is, how seamlessly he fits in when he wants to. While I struggle to understand the norms that seem to come naturally to others and still manage to make people uncomfortable without even trying, he’s a social chameleon, saying just the right things, smiling at the appropriate times, asking polite questions in return. I know he finds small talk tedious, but an outsider would never guess.
While they chat, I turn to my brother, who’s taken a seat next to Aurora.
“Why is he here?” I whisper.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure your inheritance is intact,” he says, but he can’t be sure of that at all. He should have gotten Summer House, and he would have if Grandpa Darling wasn’t so angry that our father didn’t stay married to the woman he chose for him. I’m the only offspring from the sanctioned union, so I inherit a property instead of Colt. Grandpa’s pettiness took precedent over tradition that time.
But if one more of my uncles is added to the will, maybe he’ll inherit the house, or his son after him, if he has one. Grandpa disowned two sons before I was born, and I’ve never met either of them. Colt already told me Preston’s been trying to find our relatives around town, both legitimate and illegitimate children that the Darling patriarch fathered through the years. What he hopes to gain from the endeavor, I don’t know. Maybe I should have gone outside to talk to him and Devlin when we went by our old house on the way here.
“How can you be sure?” I ask.
“Be sure of what?” Dad asks, sitting on my other side from Baron.
Mildred comes in with a tray bearing sweating glasses of sweet tea and hands them around.
“She’s just curious about our uncle,” Colt says to Dad.
“You don’t have to worry, I’m not here to disrupt your lives,” James says. “I’m not a Darling and haven’t been for a few decades now. I have no interest in anything our father has to offer, and I’ve done well for myself without him.”
I realize he must have overheard my whispered conversation with Colt, and I try to smooth things over, since I know it’s tacky to talk about money. “What do you do?” I ask.
“I work for an indie music label,” he says.
“James is being modest,” Dad says. “He founded one of Europe’s biggest labels.”
“Co-founded,” James says mildly.
I glance at Baron, knowing he’ll like my dad talking up his brother. I try to imagine him and Duke like this someday, as easy as if no time has passed. It strikes me that maybe he was right about this being a big deal. I’m not nervous about seeing my family after all this time. They’re still my family. But I’m on edge, knowing that Baron will be judging me based on them, and they’ll judge me based on him. More than that, they’re judging me for bringing him here, for being with him. They don’t know him, though, and they don’t know my reasons. They could never understand.
But he did. He understood this was an important meeting, even if I didn’t. Even without knowing that one of my grandfather’s disowned sons would be here.
I try to think of what a normal person would ask, what small talk an uncle I’ve never met might enjoy. It’s a ludicrous idea, but I know that’s what they’re all expecting. A girl like my cousin Lindsey, a mild girl, unobtrusive, a reflection of her aristocratic upbringing.
“You live in Europe?” I ask, sipping my sweet tea like a lady, the way my mother taught me.
“At the time, putting an ocean between myself and the rest of the family seemed like a good idea,” James says with a wry smile towards my dad.
“Then what are you doing here?” I ask.
Colt rolls his eyes, and Dad frowns, and I know I said something wrong, though I’m not sure what.
Baron smiles and picks up his tea. “What she means is, what brings you back to the States?”
“That’s what I said,” I mutter under my breath.
“My son,” James says. “But when Preston contacted me, I thought it might be nice to meet all of you. Even though I’m not a Darling by name, I do appreciate being asked to weigh in on the decision.” He smiles at my father.
“What decision?” I ask, glancing from one of them to the next, aware that I’m missing some pivotal piece of information.
“What to do with Grandpa Darling,” Colt says.
My heart does a sick little dive into my stomach, and I take a sip of sweet tea to wet my mouth that’s gone suddenly dry. “What do you mean?”
“As you know, he’s been living at the manor house with Preston,” Dad says. “Now that he and Dolly have the baby, though, they’ve decided they don’t have the bandwidth for him too.”
