“Are my parents here?” Marcus asked.
“Lord and Lady Ramsdale are involved in a waltz,” Wilkins informed him.
“And my sisters and their husbands?”
“Lord Phineas and Lady Claire are in the nursery, I believe, checking on the twins.”
Marcus chuckled beneath his breath. Claire was infatuated with her children and insisted on taking them everywhere with her and Finn. “And Robinsworth and Sophie?”
“Meandering about the room,” Wilkins said.
Marcus’s sister, Sophie, had stepped into the life of a duchess as though she’d been born to it, instead of being born with wings and magic dust. Marcus ambled into the room and pushed to the edge of the throng, heading toward Robinsworth’s study. He was almost certain the man had some brandy secreted in a cabinet that would ease some of Marcus’s anxiety.
Marcus wasn’t at all comfortable in these gatherings. But he would someday step into the role of a viscount, and he supposed he had much to learn to be able to do so. His parents hadn’t even known of his existence until two years ago, when he was five-and-twenty.
Good God, he needed a drink.
He continued on toward Robinsworth’s study, stopping briefly to bow at people with whom he couldn’t avoid making eye contact. There were whispers behind his back; he could hear them all. But he chose to pay them no mind. Perhaps if they were whispering about him, they would cease their relentless whispering about his sisters and their chosen husbands. It was the price he was willing to pay. He might even choose the most scandalous woman in the room and ask her to dance.
Marcus stepped into the study and shoved the door closed. He leaned heavily against it and took a deep breath. These things rattled him more than he wanted to let on.
“It’s about time you arrived,” boomed a voice from the other side of the room.
Marcus searched the shadows of the dark room. But then the chair behind Robinsworth’s desk kicked back and he saw Ronald, the family’s garden gnome, resting there in the chair. Although he was no more than two feet tall, he was a sight for sore eyes with his purple waistcoat, green breeches, and pink cravat. He was familiar. And Marcus dearly needed familiar.
“What are you doing in here?” Marcus asked as he crossed to the cabinet and retrieved a crystal decanter. Though he was secretly happy to see the little man, he didn’t want to appear overly friendly. Ronald did live to tease him, after all. Marcus splashed a generous amount of the amber liquid into a glass and drank it in one swallow. Then he put the decanter away and turned to face Ronald. Marcus adjusted his waistcoat and wiped some invisible lint from his sleeve.
“I was waiting for you,” the garden gnome said.
“Why?”
The little man pulled a scroll from his inner pocket and held it out to Marcus. “You have a mission.”
A mission? Marcus hadn’t had a mission in months. He took the scroll and tucked it into his pocket.
“Don’t you want to read it?” The gnome’s red eyebrows drew together sharply.
“I think my attendance at the soiree is mandatory. Father sent a reminder of it. Three times.” Marcus heaved a sigh. “The mission will have to wait.”
The gnome’s voice grew weary. “How are things with your parents?” he asked.
“Things are fine with the parents,” Marcus said. His younger brother, Allen, was the problem of the moment. His brother had been groomed from birth to become a viscount, and now Marcus had stepped into his place. If given the choice, Marcus would have let his brother precede him, even though Marcus was the oldest male. But, apparently, it wasn’t a choice. He would have to step into his father’s shoes at some point. And in doing so, he would stomp all over Allen. “Allen isn’t too keen on me, however.”
“He’ll come about.” The gnome tapped the desk with one neat fingernail as his eyes narrowed. That look never boded well. But then his face softened, as if the thought had left his head as quickly as it had entered.
A flutter in Marcus’s coat pocket drew his attention. The soft shiver in his pocket always made him think of a trapped bird. He jerked the chain that was connected to the compass his grandparents had given to him on his twelfth birthday and pulled it out. He flipped it open. “Northwest,” he said aloud.
“That’s what I needed to know.” Ronald got up and stretched widely.
“You’re returning to the land of the fae tonight?” How he longed to go with the gnome.
“I am now that you have pointed me toward a portal.” Toward home. The compass always pointed toward home. The land of the fae. Marcus was the only one who had such a device, and no one was at all certain how it worked. But the compass always pointed him and others like him toward home.
He longed so deeply to go home. The rolling hills and the peaceful streams. The bare feet and the house he’d grown up in. Ladies with wings and faerie dust. Ladies who knew him. Ladies who didn’t expect him to be something he wasn’t. One lady in particular.
Ronald shoved open the shutters and began to climb over the windowsill.
“Will I see you again soon?”