Royal Pain (29 page)

Bronte sat up a while later and pulled Max’s hands into hers. “Please tell me more about what this all means.” She gestured vaguely around the two of them.

He was momentarily confused; he didn’t know if she wanted to talk about
Wolf
Hall
or Dunlear or their relationship. “What exactly?”

“You know, the dukedom, this place… the reality of your life here at Dunlear—”

“Our life,” he corrected.

“Okay, our life. But… what do you envision? How will it all work?”

They had spoken very little about what it would really mean for him to assume the full spectrum of his ducal responsibilities with her as his partner, and everything that simple, loaded word
partner
implied. He had no sexist notions of Bronte quitting her job to attend to their marriage, but he shyly confessed his own secret desire to give up his so-called real job and devote himself entirely to Dunlear and its numerous possibilities.

“It sounds so old-fashioned, I suppose,” he continued haltingly, “but I think my father’s love of this place… and what it meant to him, to us… represents something profound and worth… maintaining.”

Bronte saw a shining glimmer of hope in that desire to carry on his father’s legacy, but it was clouded, as if he had tamped it down or, at the very least, postponed it for months, or maybe years. She felt a sudden, deep sadness for those lost years, the ones he had taken for granted while his father was still alive, when he might have shared and formed new hopes and plans with his father’s input and blessing. Those years he could never regain. “Of course it is worthwhile,” Bronte encouraged. “Your father would have loved that. What do you have in mind?”

“Oh. I don’t know exactly, but there are so many options… for agriculture and education and the arts and… making this place a teaching institution or think tank or a cultural center of some kind… it’s all just silly ideas that probably—”

“Stop that. It sounds glorious.” She rubbed the back of his hand. “You are allowed to make something beautiful, you know?”

He leaned in and kissed her; it felt like gratitude against her lips. He withdrew and continued speaking. “For so many years, my mother pounded all of that
weight
into my brain… the ponderous importance of it all, the weight of the responsibility, what it meant to be a Duke with a capital
D
, to live up to the title… that I still feel a whiff of dread and, oddly, shame about the whole enterprise.”

Bronte felt the slow rise of sadness and then anger on behalf of that little boy who’d been made to fear and worry over his inevitable future. One day, when she was in full possession of her confidence and wits—and maybe even her own ducal son—she would take her mother-in-law to task for such a wretched parenting failure. Max may have been a duke in training, but he was still a boy in need of a mother.

“Why are you crying, Bron?” He smiled as he wiped the solitary tear from her cheek.

“Because I love you so much and I can’t believe your mother—”

“Shhh. It doesn’t matter. She’s not worth fighting against… I promise. She thrives on getting a rise out of people.”

“Then she must grow like a weed!” Bronte joked.

Max smiled, then stilled. “Seriously, I am not trying to avoid anything that needs to be addressed or to put off some confrontation between the two of you—I suspect it will come regardless—but she decided to show up this weekend, after all, and that has to be a victory of some sort. She’s not heartless, she’s just… a product of her misconceptions, I think.”

“You are too good, for which I suppose I owe her some reluctant debt of gratitude.”

He smiled again, but this time with a sweet, childlike innocence. Bronte had the fleeting desire to slip her entire body inside his shirt.

“I suppose I should be grateful,” Bronte conceded, “that your mother, albeit inadvertently, taught you patience and tolerance… especially for those of us who are hamstrung by our own misconceptions of what we can or cannot be.”

Max pulled her up along the full length of his body and stretched the two of them out along the soft red velvet cushions. “I think you are quite aware of your own capabilities, my darling lady wife.”

“Oooh, I love it when you go all medieval—”

He pulled her face to his and kissed her before she could finish her sentence, and the two of them set about the happy task of necking like a pair of teenagers in the middle of their historic, learned surroundings. A few long minutes later, an unmistakably aristocratic “ahem” punctured their careless fun.

Bronte flew up to a sitting position and quickly looked down her front to make sure Max hadn’t commenced unbuttoning her shirt, only to realize she was (thankfully) wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt. Max sat up more slowly, completely unperturbed.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Hello, Max.” Sylvia paused. “Bronte.”

“Hello,” Bronte replied, proud of the even tone of her voice, despite the fact that her flushed face, plump lips, and disheveled hair cemented every hideous prejudice the duchess probably held regarding the unsuitability of her future daughter-in-law.

The three of them stayed silent for a few seconds and Bronte was surprised to acknowledge that Max’s mother didn’t look particularly judgmental or angry. In fact, Bronte was the one most ready to pick a fight. On the other hand, the duchess would probably look equally beatific—pale-peach Chanel summer jacket, off-white trousers, perfectly unscuffed shoes—as she drove a stake into the heart of her sworn enemy.

Max sat patiently. Bronte turned toward his chiseled profile and marveled at the power of that patience. She had a split-second vision of him at some imaginary negotiating table in London, and feared for his pitiable opponents.

At last, the duchess spoke, her gaze resting on Max. “I was just looking for you since we didn’t really get a chance to speak at dinner last night. I hope it’s acceptable that I decided to come down for the weekend. I may have been a bit peevish on Wednesday.”

Bronte thought she’d misheard. It almost sounded like an apology.

Max stared at his mother for a few seconds. “Of course it is all right. I was very much hoping you would change your mind… about everything.”

“Well…” She looked from Max to Bronte—more of a flash of her eyes than an actual look—then back to Max. “Let’s take it one thing at a time, shall we?” She nodded her head in a single, conclusive gesture, as if to answer her own rhetorical question, then turned on her heel and left.

Bronte marveled at the sheer audacity of the receding duchess. “I think I just got the cut direct… what say you?” She turned to challenge him.

He reached over and pulled her back into his embrace, then leaned both of them down and resettled her on top of him. He nuzzled her neck, and when he spoke, his words blew hot and seductive so close to her ear. “I say that was the closest she’s ever come to penance since the dawn of time, and you should take it as a triumphant approval of our pending nuptials. She practically asked to help with the flower arrangements at our wedding reception.”

***

That evening, just before dinner, Abigail finally arrived. Max was refilling his drink at a large sideboard between two grand windows and had just made a joke to Devon over one shoulder. He was still smiling to himself as he put fresh ice into his glass. Everything was looking up. Over cocktails, his crazy, frosty, difficult mother seemed to have undergone a slight thaw toward Bronte—she was able to look at her, for example—but Max couldn’t help notice the return of the maternal ice princess when his younger sister Abigail made her rough-and-tumble entrance.

His mother often joked—if you could call it that—that she would have no gray hairs if she had stopped having children after Devon. No one really thought it was funny (at all), but Abby, through no real effort,
was
forever disrupting her mother’s equilibrium. Bronte hated to admit that the duchess was partially right: Abigail could not have been more disruptive had she worn a Halloween costume and come into the room blowing a kazoo.

The youngest Heyworth sported a prehistoric pair of black, military Doc Martens, laced almost knee-high; a Yasser Arafat black-and-white keffiyeh wrapped carelessly around her neck; a mane of black, wavy hair flying in every possible direction; and her girlfriend clomping behind her in Birkenstocks. Both of them hauled multiple backpacks over their shoulders. The two young women entered the room like a couple of midnight messengers in the midst of a Napoleonic War. Breathless. Eager.

“Max! Where is she?”

Abigail Heyworth was like a compact superheroine brought to life. It was impossible to imagine her quaking with fear or even contemplating that she might be wise to acknowledge her fearsome mother. Apparently, she never paused long enough to let her mother—or anyone else, for that matter—pose a threat.

Lady Claudia and her husband, Bertrand Seeley, Earl Rothwell, had decided to come for one night only and had arrived that morning. Claudia spoke with conspiratorial tones to Bronte, who happened to be sitting by her side. “Can you imagine draping that stellar feminine figure in those rags? It’s a couture tragedy of the greatest proportions!” Bronte laughed despite herself and then watched as Claudia schooled her expression into a benign smile. After years of seeing their wild niece fly into drawing rooms dressed like a terrorist, Bertrand and Claudia were perfectly accustomed to the ruckus that always accompanied Abigail’s theatrical entrances.

Abigail smiled broadly, removed her neckerchief in a sweeping circular motion, and tossed it on a (probably priceless) side table. Her girlfriend, Tulliver St. John, better known as Tully, held a similarly blasé view of family pressure and casually dropped her backpacks, Birkenstocks, and worries at the door. The two of them traipsed down the length of the formal, Elizabethan drawing room hand in hand and proceeded to greet everyone as the unified couple that they, very obviously, were.

Any worries Max may have had about the arrival of his (sometimes needlessly rebellious) sister were put to rest when she and Tully reached Bronte Talbott’s side and gave her two warm, substantial hugs. The three of them exchanged a few words, and then Tully plopped down in a seat next to Devon and started laughing almost immediately.

Abby said she needed to clean up a bit and asked Bronte to join her. Max smiled as the two headed out of the room through a nearby side door and into the large hall.

Bronte was thrilled to finally meet the independent, hippie, lesbian sister who had defied the dragon lady. The two of them left the drawing room, smiling in a conspiratorial way. Bronte had been in the house only two days, so the general layout was still pretty mysterious. She deferred to Abigail.

“Where are we going?”

“Follow me,” the younger sister chimed happily, grabbing Bronte’s hand as she pulled her down the corridor.

They reached a small sitting room a few seconds later. The door was not immediately visible, and Abigail gave Bronte a mischievous wink over her shoulder as she pushed the hidden door into the nearly invisible hall paneling.

“This is too much,” said Bronte.

“I know, isn’t it the best?” Abigail smiled over her shoulder again as she shut the door behind her. “I’m so sorry Tully and I have been up in Scotland this whole time. We have been having such fun at Findhorn. You and Max have to come up. Or maybe not. I don’t know if that is your thing. We love it, but it’s not for everyone. But—” Abby grasped both of Bronte’s hands in hers and looked into her eyes with the same slate-gray Heyworth wolf eyes.

“You and Max have exactly the same eyes,” Bronte said slowly. “I don’t know whether to kiss you or to run as fast as I possibly can in the other direction!”

Abigail laughed with wonderful abandon. “You should definitely run!”

Bronte laughed as Abby’s grasp fell away and the younger woman turned to go into an adjacent dressing room.

Bronte spoke toward the open connecting door. “I know we need to go back to the drawing room, but just give me a little family history—some of the dirty stuff that I will never get from your brothers.”

Abigail had changed out of her farm wear into nothing particularly festive: a clean pair of jeans and a white Oxford shirt. The Doc Martens were tossed into the closet, and she slipped on a pair of expensive driving loafers. Only someone who could afford to volunteer in New Zealand and wear keffiyehs could afford to leave a pair of five-hundred-dollar shoes in the closet at her parents’ house for the rare visit. Bronte was shaking her head from side to side when she realized Abby was asking her a question.

“What was that?” Bronte tried.

“I asked if Max is demanding. I never thought he was—he dotes a bit on me, I think—but he has that tendency and I was just curious if he tends that way when he’s, you know, in love…”

Bronte stared at Abigail Heyworth. She was, quite plainly, the female version of Max. Direct. Eager. Sure.

Bronte wondered if she should use Abby to plumb the depths of her own relationship or leave it alone, thus preserving her own privacy. A little of both, maybe.

“He can be, I don’t know, a little controlling. But always with my best interests at heart, so how can I resist?” Bronte smiled at Abigail. The smile said it all:
every
fiber
of
my
being
wants
to
resist
him, but it’s not a factual possibility. I am devoted.

Abby looked at Bronte and tilted her head, as if to better acquaint herself with the shape and form of the woman who was Bronte Talbott. “He has that effect on people. I’ve never been able to lie to him. That’s why I have to go for months at a time without returning his calls. How can I possibly let him know what I really think until I have had a few months to ponder the truth of my own feelings?” Abby, by that time, had finished adjusting her clothes and sat on the edge of the small settee alongside Bronte. “He has that quality that demands the best, right?”

Bronte hung her head and then turned to this young woman, with whom she felt unaccountably connected despite never having had a conversation before this one.