“How can you say that? It’s your duty!”
“My duty is to myself. Your wife just told you she’ll be happy when you’re dead and that she’ll live a longer life once you’re gone—do you think I want a life like that? Fucking other women behind her back, well aware she’s fucking anything in a pair of trousers to get back at me? Do you think I want to snipe at her over breakfast, and have a child I don’t know and don’t care about because I’ve done my damn duty? NO!” I shouted. “I don’t want that. I want him.” I tipped my chin up, then a slight movement caught my attention.
He was there.
Listening.
A soft, frightened, wary smile on his face, but his eyes were incandescent.
With joy.
I’d done that.
Me.
My throat felt thick as I raised a hand. “Micah, darling?”
“Yes, Devlin?” he rasped.
“Come and meet my parents.”
Thirty-Two
Micah
“Are you aware, Harold, of how boring you are?”
My eyes flared wide at the insult, but it appeared to roll like water off a duck’s back when Harold merely ignored Clarice to boom, “I need more claret.”
“I need an Australian firefighter in my bedroom,” was her retort, “but we both know neither the claret nor the firefighter would be good for either of us.”
A tic started flickering in Devlin’s jaw, but it was the way his hands tensed around the cutlery that had me really on edge.
I could easily see Devlin hurling the damn thing at his dad, which was a blood bath none of us needed to witness.
“Are you supposed to drink with your treatment?” I asked quietly, trying not to get involved but pretty sure the atmosphere around the table couldn’t take another bout of Harold’s pomposity.
“Not exactly doing much, is it? A man needs his pleasures.” Harold squinted at me, before he raised a hand and jabbed a finger in the air—pointed at me. “You’re American.”
My lips twitched at the statement. “I am.”
He hummed, but eyed me warily. “Americans and the nobility never do well together.”
Clarice grumbled, “This isn’t the 1900s.”
“No? Look at that girl, pretty one.” He clicked his fingers. “You know the one. American.”
“That doesn’t exactly narrow it down,” Devlin ground out.
“The one Prince Harry married. Look at them now, living in Alaska.”
My eyes widened. “I doubt they’re living in Alaska. I think it’s California.”
“Either bloody way, it isn’t England, is it?” Harold rumbled. “I suppose you know that when I pop my clogs and dance my way off this mortal coil—”
“A day we’re all looking forward to,” Clarice said sweetly, and to which Harold ignored her.
“—Devlin’s place will be here. In the UK.”
My lips twisted into a smile. “I think that’s something I can handle. Especially if it’s London.”
Clarice released a whispery sigh as she concurred, “This is the best city in the world, Micah. Far better than New York. Steam everywhere, you know. Not good for the hair or the skin.”
Steam?
I cut Devlin a look, but he just rolled his eyes and chewed on his steak like it was a piece of old leather.
“No, it doesn’t sound good for the hair or the skin, Clarice.”
She nodded. “London has its issues with air pollution, but God, I’d deal with it to be here.” She clapped her hands together. “So good to be home. His Highness over there insisted that we while away his last days in Cumbria of all places. Don’t get me wrong, Micah, it’s a beautiful area, but the last thing I want to see are sheep shagging.”
I tensed and shot Devlin another glance. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
“Where did you see sheep shagging?” Harold grumbled. “The estate isn’t on a farm!”
“I heard something fishy going on out there. I looked. Horrific sight. All that green—isn’t natural, I tell you,” she retorted, despite the fact there was nothing more natural than all that green she was talking about. “Then there was the tinkling.”
Devlin heaved a sigh. “What tinkling, Mother?”
“You know, from the cow bells.” Her brow puckered into a scowl. “It was like a timpani band or something.”
“I was there just as long as you and I didn’t see a cow with a bell or a sheep fucking another sheep!”
“Don’t sheep mate with rams?” I queried.
“Don’t encourage them,” Devlin muttered grimly. “I think both of you need to learn what Wikipedia is.”
“Ignore her, Devlin. It’s a beautiful place. Just beautiful.”
“It’s frigid.”
“Just like you,” Harold slipped in.
“Only with you,” Clarice retorted, her smile as sweet as taffy.
“Enough!” Devlin boomed all of a sudden, his hands slapping against the table as he surged to his feet. “I didn’t come home to listen to the pair of you bicker like I’m eight again. Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t mind him, Micah,” Clarice soothed. “He always did have a temper.”
“Only when I’m living with my parents again,” he snarled. “Kurt left for Surrey yesterday. I’m going to ask him if we can stay there, and if we can’t, we’ll be moving to Claridges!”
The disappointment on both their faces was clear, as was the fact that bickering was as much a language to them as German was.
“Funny business next door,” Harold said uneasily. “Five men and one woman—”
“Lucky lady,” Clarice declared. “I like her. Sascha’s always been sweet whenever I’ve seen her. And that boy of theirs, so beautiful.”
I grabbed Devlin’s hand and, squeezing his fingers, murmured, “It would be a shame to leave. I’m really enjoying getting to know your parents.”
His eyes flared wide as he stared down at me, and I could literally hear him thinking, ‘What’s to enjoy?’ But truly, it wasn’t a lie.
They were both so different than my own mother and father, neither of them having found much of an issue in the fact that I was a man—Harold’s primary problem was that I didn’t have ovaries, first, and that I was American, second. As for Clarice, she seemed to think I worked for Vogue or something, and had taken to wandering into a room with the magazine in hand and asking if I thought she’d suit an outfit.
It was sweet.
Even with missing ovaries, Harold hadn’t been cruel.
And I knew cruel.
Devlin, did he but know it, did he but realize it, was lucky.
I didn’t want him to miss out on that, not when his folks were a lot older than mine, and when his father was so clearly sick. Harold had a wheelchair he refused to use, and instead of a walking stick, he propped himself up on a man called Hendry, who was a little like his PA, but more like his valet.
Yes, he had a valet.
No, it wasn’t 1900–just like Clarice had declared.