“You seem rattled, my son. It is no simple matter to straddle two worlds.”
Nervous tics were more the provenance of his brother. Albion had always been more composed in that regard. He bent down to retrieve a scone that he then slathered with butter and elderberry coulis before taking a bite. Mother added little sugar to her preserves, preferring the Orcan preparation. Albion had developed a sweet tooth and longed for a marmalade or sponge cake.
“I hardly see the point of all this bother,” he told her. “I enjoy my freedom. You wouldn’t wish to rob me of that prematurely?”
“Are you not a man of four and twenty? I know you will make your life here. You won’t return to live in the Hidden Realm. And I understand why.”
A familiar sensation of helplessness prickled Albion’s chest. The taunts of school boys from his early days, when his clumsy body had not yet caught pace with his height, still rang in his head.Weakling. Coward. Stringling.
“I’m sorry, Albie,” his mother said gently. “We should have done more for you when you were a child. Your father wanted you to fight your own battles. He thought it best.”
“You needn’t apologize.” Albion straightened the lapels of his new white riding coat.
“You grew into a man of great courage.”
“Mother.” A warning note steadied his voice.
She switched to the Orcan tongue. “I have it on good authority that the Duke of Rostin has offered a substantial sum to capture the Benevolent Phantom. Seven thousand pounds.”
“How unsporting.” Apart from his trusted associates, Mother was the only one aware of the Benevolent Phantom’s true identity. Who knew Albion Higgins was the architect of the rescues in Chamberly.
Success in Society required skill, but anyone with half a mind could learn the tricks. Albion had done so quickly enough, affecting the airs of an aspiring but nonthreatening Corinthian who preferred a stiff drink and the gaming table to talk of politics or any emotion as weighty as love. Whose intellectual curiosity seemed limited to the latest results from the races at Newmarket.
In short, an orc never to be overestimated. And perhaps the only individual in Londonnotsuspected of being the Benevolent Phantom.
“Despite their politeness, the English see us as foreigners, which will always put our kind at unique risk. That’s why your father insisted on Anglicizing our family name for their benefit. Were you apprehended, you would enjoy none of the protections granted to the native-born.”
“No one thinks me sufficiently clever to take part in these exploits,” he replied in their language. “And I never travel to Chamberly myself.”
“You plan and fund the trips, and your men risk capture. Under duress, there is not any among them who would not betray you? I fear for your safety, my son.”
“You needn’t worry,” he told her. “I take all due precautions. But I shan’t change course.”
“I assumed as much. Could you not at least consider a strategic marriage? A match which might add a layer of protection to your status in this world.”
“So you want me to wed a human woman as part of the ruse?”
“Not any woman. One who wields social and political power. Perchance a family member in Parliament. A woman with useful connections if anything unfortunate were to occur.”
“Doesn’t a human woman deserve love the same as any other?”
“I only ask you to consider it, Albie. Many women are open to a practical marriage.”
He approached and gave her a tight hug, taking in the sharp citrus scent of the soap his mother favored. Imported from the Hidden Realm, like all other things she loved. Mother and Duncan pined for and idealized their homeland, while Albion couldn’t escape it fast enough.
He switched back to English.
“I know you’re worried,” he told her. “But when I take a wife, human or orc, it shall be because I wish to do so. Because the partnership brings us both joy. I reject anything less.”
“For the life of me, were you any more industrious, Lil, you would be the patron saint of handiwork. How many items can one woman knit?”
Though she hadn’t stayed overly late at Lady Talridge’s affair, Diana had overslept. Still in a morning robe and foregoing the breakfast room, she was only now catching up with her older sister.
Since calling off her engagement, Lillian had become a constant presence in the front parlor, hunched over her sewing. Shawls, socks, and petticoats were heaped in tidy piles, alldestined for those poor souls displaced by the Duke of Rostin’s occupation of Chamberly.
But for a small complement of servants, they were alone in the house, Father having no doubt departed at dawn for his office in the City of London. Finding himself unexpectedly in the position of inheriting a title never prevented Tobias Stewart, with his stoic banker’s heart, from pursuing more money.
It was a pressing enough concern given the disrepair of the family’s country seat in the Midlands, neglected by his elder brother before he passed away, childless, from the grippe. Then, there were the not-insignificant expenses incurred for Diana’s cabin on the packet ship to Philadelphia, as Tobias Stewart, now Lord Mercer, had no qualms about reminding her at the slightest provocation.
