The Duke’s Surprise Heir Intro

Macie’s story…

 

“What’s for dinner, Gran” Macie called out, dumping her towel and bag on the floor.  At the look in her grandmother’s eyes, twelve year old Macie turned and picked up the bag, carefully hanging it on the hook.  She also grabbed her towel and carried it into the adjoining laundry room, dumping it into the correct laundry basket. 

Then she turned and rushed out of the room, coming to a sliding halt right by her grandmother’s ancient wooden kitchen island.  It wasn’t really an island.  In reality, it was several pieces of old wood secured together to form a “table”.  Her grandmother did most of her baking on this table, as well as folding laundry, paying bills and listening to the tearful complaints of whatever tribulations had befallen on Macie during each summer day. 

“Thank you, dear,” Macie’s grandmother, Eleanor, greeted, enveloping Macie into a warm, gentle hug.  “How was your afternoon at the lake today?  Were there many people there?”

“Just Melissa and Sarah,” Macie replied, plopping down onto one of the old stools that her great great- she wasn’t sure how many “greats” grandfather had made.  The stool might have been bought at one of the retail stores and just beaten up over the years.  But the story about it being made by one of her ancestors was more interesting. 

“Did you see Jeffrey?” her grandmother asked, setting down a glass of cold milk and a plate of warm cookies that had just come out of the oven. 

“Nope.  He was at baseball practice.  Apparently, he has practice every day this week.  There’s some sort of big game this weekend with one of his rivals.”

Her grandmother snorted and snipped off the ends of two more green beans, tossing the stems into one bowl and the vegetable into another.  “Don’t even try to convince me that you don’t know exactly which game is happening this weekend, my dear.”

Macie had just stuffed half of a cookie into her mouth so the blush staining her cheeks was hard to hide.  When her grandmother continued to stare, Macie gave up and walked over to the bookcase that held all of the papers that no one bothered to file away.  She flipped through several old magazines before pulling out the paper she’d worked on yesterday.

Sitting back down and taking a large swig of cold milk, she turned the paper over.  “I charted out the games as well as the probability of his teams’ chances of winning based off of the strengths and weaknesses that I was able to read about for his opponents.” 

Dutifully, Macie’s grandmother skimmed over the data, but there were too many factors for her to absorb.  She looked across the wooden countertop.  “And what is the prediction for this weekend?”

Macie smiled, the hand with the cookie frozen halfway to her mouth.  “His team is going to win,” she sighed.

“Why is that a bad thing?’

“Because Mindy Trevalier is going to be there this Saturday.  She’s twice as pretty as everyone else that is around this summer.  And Jeffrey forgets how to speak whenever Mindy smiles at him.”

Eleanor Phillips stared at her beautiful granddaughter, snapping off the stems of several more greenbeans as she stared at Macie.  The girl was a whirlwind of energy, topped off with an intelligence that was impressive.  Soon, some boy was going to look beyond the tomboy façade and see the gorgeous girl underneath the smudge of dirt.  And that was going to be a dangerous day!  For him, perhaps.  Macie had a good head on her shoulders.  She would be fine.  The boys?  Eleanor shook her head, eager to watch the fireworks.  It was sad that she only got to see her granddaughter during the summer months, so Eleanor vowed to make the most of these eleven weeks. 

 

Edward’s story…

 

Sixteen year old Edward, the future Duke of Finhearst, sipped the warm lemonade as he watched the Queen.  The elderly woman stepped onto the carpeted pathway and looked around, her features stern and terrifying. 

Well, not terrifying to him, he thought.  The Queen was most likely intimidating to the line of teenage girls standing in a line, eyes straight forward as they awaited Her Majesty’s approval.  The girls, women, actually, were all around eighteen or nineteen years old and all of them had carefully chosen suits tailored in pastels, none of which were in the same shade of yellow that the Queen had chosen.  No one ever wore the same color as the Queen.  No one was allowed to “outshine” the famous lady. 

Smothering a bored yawn, Edward remained as still as possible, cursing his luck for being in the front row during this ceremony.  He’d been warned by his friends to remain towards the back of the crowed of onlookers, but somehow, he found himself at the front. 

Looking down the line of young ladies, he spotted Dorothy Cullins, daughter to the Earl of Manfort.  He recognized the mischievous sparkle in her eyes and knew she was going to do something outrageous.  Dorothy was known for being outrageious during these tedious, but required, social events. 

“Don’t look at her!” his mother hissed from right behind him. 

Edward mentally groaned, but suppressed the sound, pretending to be interested as the Queen greeted each woman, and each debutante performed the requisite courtesy.  The Queen asked a question, maybe two, then moved on to the next aristocratic daughter. 

“Leave the boy alone!” his father snapped to Edward’s mother. 

“Don’t be an ass!” she hissed right back. 

“He’s not doing anything wrong and you assume that Edward is going to make a scene!”

Edward could feel his mother roll her eyes, although he was sure that she’d maintain her social smile, barely moving her lips as she uttered epithets at her husband. 

In her defense, Edward’s father had most likely just come from the bushes where he’d been groping some giggling maid or one of his wife’s best friends. 

It was how they lived their lives, Edward knew.  They took pride at figuring out how to wound the other.  It was an art, actually.  If he was sometimes caught in the middle of tehir petty squabbles, neither of his parents cared, as long as they got in a good shot at the other.  Edward was actually superfluous to this whole conversation.  He knew that if he weren’t around, his parents would spar about something else. 

It was the way of this world, he knew.