Free Among the Barons by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

than Luke’s parents, but their faces didn’t have lines and sags like Luke’s father’s, their eyes didn’t look frightened and defeated like Luke’s mother’s. The woman had blond hair, styled into a helmet of perfect curls. She wore a brilliant red sweater and dark pants. The man had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark suit Luke didn’t need to see any price tags to know that everything they wore was very, very expensive. He decided the couple didn’t look the least bit like parents. Luke couldn’t imagine either one of them bandaging a scraped knee, burping a crying baby, kissing a child’s forehead. Of course, if Smits’s stories about all the servants were true, they probably never had.
    “My boys!” the woman shrieked in a dignified kind of way. “We’ve been counting the minutes until you got home!”
    Luke braced himself to be ignored. He’d have to act normal, somehow, for the sake of the servants—the chauffeur and what looked like three maids peeking in from a nearby room. Luke just wasn’t sure what passed for normal behavior in a house like this. He watched Smits for clues, but Smits had gone all stiff, waiting for his parents to finish rushing down the hall.
    And then Mrs. Grant brushed right past Smits and
     
    grabbed up Luke in a dizzying embrace. Luke got a whiff of elegant perfume, and then she released him. She stood back, looking him up and down.
     
    “Oh, Lee, you have grown so much while you were away,” she exclaimed. “Why, last fall you barely came up to my shoulder. And now . . .“ Now Luke could look her straight in the face, eyeball to eyeball, if only he had the nerve. “Oh, I’ve missed you! Why did you have to stay away for a whole year?”
    She wrapped him in another hug. Over her shoulder Luke caught a glimpse of Smits’s face. His whole expression had crumpled in pain.
    “Smits,” Mr. Grant said, quite formally, and offered his son a hand to shake.
    Luke expected the two parents to trade off—with Mrs. Grant hugging Smits and Mr. Grant thrusting a stiff hand at Luke. But when Mrs. Grant released Luke a second time, the two grown-ups only stood there, staring awkwardly at the two boys. Smits made no move toward his mother, and he might as well have been invisible, for all the attention she paid him. At least Mr. Grant managed a curt nod toward Luke.
    “Well, you’ll want to get settled in your rooms,” Mrs. Grant said at last. “You must be tired after your journey Oscar, could you...”
    Mrs. Grant didn’t even have to finish her request Oscar stepped forward, practically standing on Smits’s heels.
    “I’m going, I’m going,” Smits muttered.
    Luke felt like saying, “Don’t you want to know what happened at school? Don’t you know that those two are dangerous together?” He was used to his own parents, who would have been curious. Who would have been concerned.
    He watched Smits step past his mother. She barely flickered her eyes in his direction. Her lips flattened into a thin line of disapproval. From the side Luke could see the emotions playing over Smits’s face: first pain, then fury.
    Smits had wanted his mother to hug him, too.
    Luke didn’t understand what he’d witnessed, or why he’d been hugged in Smits’s stead. He still didn’t understand why the Grants wanted him there. But he could tell that he’d just been sent to his room.
    And he didn’t have the slightest clue where it was.
     
    CHAPTER 18
     

     
    The chauffeur saved him. He came in just then carrying the luggage, and Luke simply followed him. Up the stairs, down a long, stately hail. Up more stairs, just a half flight, into an entirely different wing of the house. Finally, when Luke was sure he’d walked more than a mile, the chauffeur deposited Luke’s luggage and Smits’s luggage in adjoining rooms.
     
    Luke hesitated in the doorway of what must have been Lee’s room. He looked back at Smits and Oscar, who were still lingering in the hall.
    “Just leave me