Sword-Crossed Lovers by Gemma Blackwood

Author:Gemma Blackwood [Blackwood, Gemma]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 13

“Good morning, Hugo,” said Josephine, barely sparing him a glance over the top of the latest Belle Assemblée. “You look dreadful.”

Hugo gave a jaw-breaking yawn as the sunlight drilled directly through the windows of Thistle Hall’s breakfast room and into his exhausted eyes. The typical fashionable household would never dream of breakfasting before noon, but Francis kept schoolboy hours, and Josephine – well, perhaps she rose early simply to taunt her eldest son with her fresh-pressed elegance. She, by all appearances, had slept very soundly indeed. If she was surprised to find Hugo at home, she did not show it.

“Thank you,” said Hugo sourly, and hesitated a moment before catching Francis’s watchful eyes across the table. “You look very well yourself, Mother.”

He had the satisfaction of watching her startle.

“Are you unwell, Hugo?” asked Francis uncertainly.

“Not at all. Mother was only teasing me,” said Hugo. “I stayed up too late reading. That’s all.” Reading, pacing, failing to sleep… All the usual night-time activities.

Francis scrunched up his mouth, unimpressed. “Hugo, reading is dull.”

“Exactly,” he said, mustering up a smile. “Not at all the right way to spend our summer together. I am counting on you to liven me up, Francis. What mischief shall we get up to today?”

He’d need all Francis’s boundless energy to help him survive till the evening. It had been a long, sleepless night glaring at the ceiling in the master bedroom at Thistle Hall. Try as he might, he could not slow his juddering heartbeat. Not with the weight of the darkness pressing on his chest, and the knowledge that Francis was sleeping and vulnerable in the next room.

It’s a home he wants. Cass’s words rang through his mind, brazen as an alarum bell, though she’d spoken them so softly. And she was right. Hugo knew it. Francis needed more than Hugo could offer him.

Just as Hugo had needed more, at his age. He remembered all too well what it was to be that young, uncertain boy, unsure of his place in his family, let alone the world. Not knowing where his roots might take hold. Only sensing that the troubled soil at Thistle Hall would crumble away if he tried to set them down there.

“Mischief?” said Francis, with a gleam in his eyes. “No, no, I have promised Mama I will be on my best behaviour! She says I may come to the picnic in Westbury Wood. Will you bring your cricket bat, Hugo? And your fishing rods?”

Hugo glared at his mother, who returned his gaze with an impassive smile. “What’s this about a picnic?” he asked wearily.

Josephine sipped her coffee. “I always host a picnic to say goodbye to my country friends before I return to Paris, Hugo. You know that.”

Francis’s eyes widened in panic. “You are coming, aren’t you, Hugo? You really must come. It will be great fun if you do, I promise it will. I won’t do anything to bother you. I –”

“Of course I’m coming,” said Hugo. “I only wish I’d been given a little notice, that’s all.

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