Page 50 of Twisted Kings

“Everyone will have their own valets and maids,” I point out, not liking the resentment in her voice. I go to her door, it’s ajar, and I turn back before leaving. “What was it you wanted to do this summer?” I remind her.

She glances back at me.

Her lips part in surprise.

“My sister’s birthday,” she says, almost in shock that I’ve remembered.

“You wanted to go on a trip with her, that cruise. I’ll pay for it. Just make this party one to remember. No expense spared.” There’s something in the way that her eyes light up that makes my heart clench. It’s not quite pain, but it’s not happiness either. I shove it away and leave the room, slamming into one of the footmen.

“Watch where the hell you’re going,” I thunder, glaring at him. It’s Wilder, looking stunned from the hit. Well, I top him by a few inches, and at the shoulders too. He stumbles back and bows his head.

“Sorry, my lord,” he mumbles, as I brush by him. There’s only one more person I need to track down and talk to.

Evangeline Bell herself.

I find her, hours later, ensconced in the library with Madeline at her side. The two of them are sitting on a low, green leather couch in the middle seating area. The walls are two stories tall, and lined with books, stained glass windows letting in a rainbow of light across the room, but it’s the pink and red dappling over Eva’s hair that has my throat going tight when I walk into the room and see her there.

The door slams, heavy, behind me. Both of them jump, a book in Maddie’s hands, where she’s been reading to Eva.

Madeline squeaks at the sight of me and tosses her book at Eva before slipping off the couch. She barrels toward me and I open my arms wide. She hits me like a baby goat, not even knocking me back an inch. I hug her tight. There’s so many reasons why I’m planning what I am. Her welfare is just one of them.

She deserves a father figure in her life who cares more about her than he does about the estate, and the city beyond it. She deserves a man who’ll make raising her his priority, instead of leaving it to lesson masters and nannies. When I’m her guardian, I’ll never go on trips without her. And any woman who wants in my life, will love her, more than the duchess ever did or would.

When I lift my gaze to Eva, she’s smiling at Maddie’s enthusiasm, regardless of how she may feel about me. Maddie is her priority too. That twists it in my gut. I know what I have to do. She might not be noble-born, but not every woman who graces the arm of a duke has to be. This is America, and the high-born ranks are littered with the lower class. We’re not like the fucking English, or the Canadians every fifty years who keep trying to have democracy and not recognizing that it’ll be an utter failure every time. The people need stability in their governance, after all, and that’s what the ruling monarchyprovides.

“I came to tell you both that next week, something exciting is going to happen,” I say, mostly to Maddie, but I watch Eva’s reaction out of the corner of my eye. Maddie bounces on her heels, rocking back.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to need you on your best behavior,” I say to her, and there’s a flicker on Eva’s face.

A twist of a smug, sardonic smile. Of course, it’s fucking rich that I’m asking anyone to behave themselves, especially to someone like Evangeline who knows all that I have planned for the future.

“What is it, what is it?” Maddie pleads, tugging on my hand. “Uncle, please.”

“We’re having a house party,” I say, and tap her on the nose. She squeaks again. “And you’ll ride out with us on your pony when we go, I promise.”

“Not like last time?” She asks, her face falling. I shake my head.

“Last time you had strep throat,” I remind her, “you were miserable and in bed for a week.” She huffs and then turns to Eva.

“There’s food, and music, and more food, and cake, and we get to ride every day—”

“If the weather is good,” I interrupt Madeline’s excitement, and watch Eva for a reaction. “My friends will be arriving toward the end of the week, and will stay through the weekend and for some of next week too. Mrs. Harris should be able to help you know what to prepare for Maddie, but I imagine she won’t have timefor lessons.”

“A house party?” She asks, blank look before swallowing. The column of her throat is bite-able. How is it that a woman with nobody and nothing in her background of note is so attractive? She shouldn’t be. She isn’t heroine-thin, doesn’t remind me at all of the women I’ve surrounded myself so far in my life. She’s nothing like the women who’ve been thrown at me, first and second daughters who would die to make a match with me. I might not be a duke, yet, but I’m still a marquis.

But—

“There’s a book I want to read with you tonight,” Maddie cuts in and then races off. This library has the seating area in the middle by the doors, and extends on either side nearly the full length of the width of the house, with a good twenty rows of bookcases at each end. The children’s section is at the very back of one end, and she disappears around a corner.

I look back at Eva. She’s still sitting on the couch, although etiquette dictates she should have gotten to her feet to greet me.

I’m not going to argue that, or point it out. There’ll be time for all of that. A house party is a busy, distracting event. Many people, mostly drinking, some taking drugs, making noise. Maddie will either be running around having fun and begging piggy-back rides, or she’ll be fast asleep in her bed.

It’ll be the perfect time to take what’s mine. What Mason thinks belong to him.

Evangeline Bell. Sitting there on the couch, watching me with confusion on her face. In another lifetime, I’d have been duke, and I’d be bringing her to her knees already. But I have to take my time, wait to fully have her asmine, and completely destroyany of Mason’s plans.

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