The Lost Son Returns as the Duke novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: What the Council Wants
I did not go to Tamworth.
I wrote to the eleven lords that the Duke would hold council at Thornwick on Martinmas Eve, under the oak on the green.
Any lord who preferred the Crown's feast could explain that to the Crown.
Seven of them came.
They rode in at noon on fat horses, in furs, with servants.
They looked at the mud, and the thatch, and the burned barn with the new floor already laid.
The captain's riders had set a chair under the oak, and a bench on either side.
I sat in the chair.
I wore the blue mantle.
I had not let anyone brush the dust of the lane from its hem.
The lords sat down slowly, as men do who expect to be asked to rise.
"Your Grace," said the eldest, a heavy man with white whiskers. "We are glad to find you hale."
"I'm glad to be found."
"We had expected you at Tamworth."
"I know."
"This is not a place for a Duke."
"It's the place I was born."
A silence.
A lean lord on the end of the bench let out a short, dry laugh.
"We have all heard the story," he said. "A moving one. A stolen child, a weaver mother, a dramatic restoration. Very affecting."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Lost Son Returns as the Duke are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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