First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4)(2)

Nicholas rubbed his eye. Good God, he was tired. “Do you enjoy being cryptic?”

“Not particularly.”

Which was an utter lie. Wheelock loved the special brand of understatement that was available only to butlers who were very secure in their positions. But Nicholas could tell that Wheelock was not finding anything to love in this particular conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said. “It is badly done of me to put you in such a position. No need to announce me. I’ll take my muddy boots and find my parents.”

“Gold-and-green,” Wheelock reminded him.

“Of course,” Nicholas murmured. As if he’d forget.

The entrance to the gold and green drawing room was at the end of the hall, and Nicholas had spent enough time making that short journey to know that his parents had to have heard him enter the house. The floors were marble, always polished to perfection. Stockinged feet slid like skates on ice and shoes clicked with enough volume to percuss a small orchestra.

But when he reached the open doorway and peered inside, neither of his parents were so much as glancing in his direction. His father was by the window, staring out over the verdant lawn, and his mother was curled in her favorite spot on the mint green sofa.

She’d always said the left side was more comfortable than the right. All five of her children had tested this hypothesis, scooting from one side to the other, and no one had managed to reach the same conclusion. To be fair, no one had reached any verifiable conclusion. Mary had declared that both sides felt the same, Edward pointed out that the only way to be truly comfortable was to put one’s feet up, which was not generally permitted, and Andrew had hopped back and forth so many times he’d busted the seam on one of the cushions. George had declared the entire exercise ridiculous, but not before making his own perfunctory test, and as for Nicholas …

He had been but five during this family experiment. But he’d sat himself down in every spot before rising back to his feet and declaring, “Well, we can’t prove her wrong.”

That seemed to cover a lot of life, he’d come to realize.

Proving something right wasn’t the same as proving the opposite wrong.

And if the left side of the sofa made his mother happy, who was he to say otherwise?

He hesitated for a moment in the doorway, waiting for one of his parents to notice his presence. They didn’t, so he stepped inside, pausing at the edge of the rug. He’d already left a trail of mud in the hall.

He cleared his throat, and finally they both turned.

His mother spoke first. “Nicholas,” she said, stretching her arm in his direction. “Thank God you’re here.”

He looked warily from parent to parent. “Is something wrong?”

It was the stupidest of questions. Of course something was wrong. But no one was wearing black, so …

“Sit down,” his father said, motioning to the sofa.

Nicholas took a seat next to his mother, taking her hand in his. It seemed the right thing to do. But she surprised him by tugging it away and rising to her feet.

“I will leave the two of you to your discussion,” she said. She laid her hand on Nicholas’s shoulder, signaling that he did not need to rise. “It will be easier if I am not here.”

What the devil? There was a problem that needed sorting and his mother was not just not taking charge, she was voluntarily exiting the scene?

This was not normal.

“Thank you for coming down so quickly,” she murmured, bending to kiss him on the cheek. “It comforts me more than I could ever say.” She looked back at her husband. “I will be at my writing desk, should you need me to …”

She seemed not to know what to say. Nicholas had never seen her so uncomposed.

“Should you need me,” she finally finished.

Nicholas watched as his mother departed, silent and likely slack-jawed until she shut the door behind her. He turned back to his father. “What is going on?”

His father sighed, and a long, heavy moment passed before he said, “There has been an incident.”

His father always had been a master of polite understatement.

“You should have a drink.”

“Sir.” Nicholas didn’t want a drink. He wanted an explanation. But this was his father, so he took the drink.

“It concerns Georgiana.”

“Bridgerton?” Nicholas asked in disbelief, as if there was another Georgiana to whom his father could possibly be referring.

Lord Manston nodded grimly. “You haven’t heard, then.”

“I’ve been in Edinburgh,” Nicholas reminded him.

His father took a sip of his brandy. A rather larger sip than was normal this early in the morning. Or any time of the day, for that matter. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Respectfully, sir, I would ask you to be less opaque.”

“There was an incident.”

“Still opaque,” Nicholas muttered.

If his father heard him—and to be honest, Nicholas rather thought he had—he made no reaction. Instead he cleared his throat and said, “She was kidnapped.”

“What?” Nicholas sprang to his feet, his own glass of brandy sliding from his fingers to the priceless carpet below. “You didn’t think to begin the conversation with that? Good God, has anyone—”