But apparently sensing my earnestness, Devlin grumbled under his breath, “Then let’s just hope Kurt won’t mind us staying next door. I’m too old to be living with my parents.”
“Never too old, son,” Harold said placidly, glowering at his water as if that would turn it into wine.
“No, but,” Clarice inserted with a shudder, “I remember having to live with your parents. Dear God, you’re right, Devlin. Get out of here before we drive you mad.”
I snorted. “That bad, were they?”
“Oh, for certain. His father was obsessed with my periods. Honestly, he knew my cycle better than I did. And even after Devlin was born, he’d ask me the most intrusive questions.”
Harold scowled. “I didn’t know that.”
“Because, as per usual, you didn’t bloody listen,” she snapped.
“None of his business if you’re bleeding,” he grumbled, then, he turned to Devlin. “You know, you’re lucky. You won’t have to deal with that.”
“I thought it was an issue that Micah didn’t possess the appropriate equipment,” was Devlin’s snarled response.
“Well, Hendry says there are ways and means nowadays. I told him to Google it.”
“Jesus,” Devlin muttered, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, a movement that came more and more frequently as the meal continued, until I felt sure that his thumbs were glued to it.
By the time we made it upstairs, Devlin’s face was bright red and stormy with emotion, and I didn’t really blame him.
Dinner time with his parents was hardly restful.
“We can eat out tomorrow,” I told him the second the door was closed and he leaned against it like he was a soldier who’d just made it back from war.
“We’d better,” he replied grimly, “or I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
My lips twitched. “You did look a little handy with that knife.”
“I usually get stabby around them both. I forgot how irritating they are when they’re together.”
“You don’t usually see them as a pair?”
“Before he got sick, Father rarely left the UK, and though Mother’s obsessed with London, she treated me to dazzling visits from time to time in New York.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s incorrigible, but one can deal with her when she’s on her own.”
“One can, can one?” I mocked with a laugh. “The royal ‘one.’”
“I told you to stop watching ‘The Crown,’” he muttered, dragging out his cellphone.
“It’s addictive,” I countered.
“I’ve met the Queen. Trust me, she isn’t that cheerful,” he grumbled, then, his eyes twinkled as he looked up at me. “Stick around and you’ll get to meet her when one of them gets married. There’s always an Astley at a royal wedding.”
Mouth gaping, I muttered, “No way!”
“Yes way. Unfortunately,” he grimaced. “Mother hates the damn things, so it’ll be down to me and you.”
Like a real couple.
Going to weddings.
I knew he didn’t realize it, but that floored me. Totally. Floored. Me.
Not the fact that it was a royal wedding which, I knew, was absolutely crazy, but the way he said it. So blasé.
We were that now.
I mean, I’d known that. Truly, I had. But it just came as a shock.
I was his plus one.
A Viscount’s plus one, no less.
And when Harold did dance off this mortal coil as he’d phrased it, Devlin would be a Duke.
My eyes flared wide and for the first time, I understood why he could stare at me like I was Harry Styles.
“What is it?” he asked, frowning at me over his cell.
“Nothing,” I retorted, shaking my head as I moved over to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
“Kurt?” I heard him say from the bedroom. “Mate, please, can you help me? My parents moved down from Cumbria, and if I stay with them a moment longer, I’ll kill them. I just know it. Save your publisher, the man who’s paying for all your PR, and let me stay at your place?”
I laughed a little around the toothbrush, amused at his plea because it was heartfelt.
Devlin wouldn’t hurt a fly—well, I made no promises about Rhode, but she was less than a fly, wasn’t she? Flies had a proper place in the ecosystem. Rhode didn’t, so she didn’t count. But he truly sounded on the edge, and they’d only been home two days.
What would happen when we’d been here two weeks?
“You’re a lifesaver, Kurt!” Devlin boomed, making me wonder if he knew just how like his father he sounded. He looked like him too—now probably wasn’t the time to reveal that fact to him. “Seriously, patricide was going to be a real threat.” He laughed. “I really appreciate it. Thanks, Kurt.”
As he made his farewell, he moved to the bathroom where he stood staring at me in the mirror.
“I heard.”
He rubbed his hands together after he dumped his cell in his pocket. “Life is normal next door. They have furniture that wasn’t stuffed with horse hair and a kitchen without an Aga.” He shuddered. “Let’s pack now.”
I laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Clarice! Where’s Hendry?” Harold boomed, sounding as if he was right outside our bedroom.
His eyes were wild when they caught mine in the mirror. “No, I’m bloody not!”
Thirty-Three
Devlin
“This seems stupid.”
“You need to relax more. When was the last time you looked up at the sky and just stared at the clouds?”
I frowned. “Is that a thing?”
“Were you ever a kid, Devlin?” he queried dryly.
“I don’t think so. Astleys are never children. We’re not allowed to be.”
He heaved a sigh. “I’m not sure if you’re joking or not, but that’s really sad.”
“It is sad,” I confirmed, “but, it’s the truth. We pop out fully grown, you know? At least, I think so. Mother’s told me several times I ruined her vagina.”
He snorted out a laugh, then leaned up on his elbow to stare down at me. “Why is that something I can totally hear Clarice saying?”
Wryly, I replied, “Because she’s told me it several times over the course of my life?”
His nose crinkled. “Maybe you were fully grown?”
“I think so too. Diapers are so undignified.”
“I’m not sure they are when you’re a baby.”
“Ah, but I wasn’t a baby. I was an Astley baby.” My lips twitched when he rolled his eyes. “Anyway, what am I looking for?”
“Shapes in the clouds.”
I scowled past him to the unusually blue expanse overhead. There weren’t many clouds in the sky, but what was there were cotton-wool like concoctions.
I doubted it would rain, but it was the end of a crappy English summer—the threat of rain was as constant as the threat of Hannibal Lecter being a cannibal.
“Why?”