The next morning, the manor hummed with a suspicious kind of peace, the kind that always came before a parade of fashion, clashing matriarchs, or urgent palace summons. Lucas sat in the sunroom with his legs tucked beneath him on the chaise, a book open but thoroughly ignored in favor of sipping iced tea and pretending the world didn't exist. He wore loose clothing, his hair damp from the garden breeze, and his eyes narrowed slightly like someone who had survived battle but not its paperwork.
The butler's soft knock on the glass door announced the arrival of something worse than responsibility.
"Your Grace," Windstone intoned with dry precision, "Lord Benjamin is here to see the Grand Duke."
Lucas didn't look up. He simply took another long sip of his iced tea, the kind that spoke of summer rebellion and a refusal to entertain drama before noon.
