by Sofia Daniel
“Leopold?” I whispered.
Although Cormac had started the snide comments, Leopold had been the first to resort to profanity. Hypocritical, I knew, but Cormac’s resentment of the boys was understandable. Something had happened to his sister, and they had been involved to some extent.
Leopold inclined his head. “My apologies, Mr. Gibbons. Please insult me as you will. I, as a gentleman, have shoulders broad enough to withstand your insults.”
Cormac walked away.
I placed a hand on Leopold’s bicep. “Sorry. I keep taking his side.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pressed a kiss on my forehead. “Gibbons has more problems than I can imagine. Understandably, you’d want to protect him.”
My stomach muscles clenched with guilt. Over the past few weeks, Leopold had become more to me than Sebastian’s sexy friend. While I still didn’t know as much about him than I would have liked, there was a kindness beneath his flirtatious exterior that warmed my heart.
He had been so generous and loving and patient during the Christmas break, and seeing him bicker with Cormac tore me in two different directions.
We continued down the hallway wrapped around each other.
“As I was saying before the interruption, Master Chang might be able to give you an alternative diagnosis. And he also combines TCM with conventional medicine.”
“He’s a western doctor, too?” I asked.
“Which is why he’s so popular.”
“Do you think I’ll be able to get an appointment so soon?”
A lazy smile spread across his features. “Master Chang is on retainer for Brunswick Bank. He’ll make time for you if I call.”
On Saturday, Leopold borrowed Sebastian’s Jeep for the journey south, and we set off at five in the morning to reach a row of Georgian houses on Harley Street, a prestigious road in London famous for private and specialist doctors.
Not so strangely, the headaches faded to a background ache for the journey, confirming my suspicions that Brittas Academy, and not my injuries, was the cause of my problems.
Master Chang was a lot younger than I had expected. He was a tall, Chinese man who wore a white doctor’s coat over a matching tunic and pants, and spoke with a slight American accent. While Leopold leafed through magazines in a plush reception area, the doctor took me into his room.
With its jasmine-scented air, white walls, and massage table, it reminded me of a spa. But the posters of skeletons, acupuncture points, and the spine reminded me that this was a place of treatment, not relaxation. My throat dried as I looked around for acupuncture needles, but I couldn’t find any.
“I’m going to ask you a series of questions about your health,” said Master Chang. “Most won’t be related to your head, but I need to get a full picture of Willow Evergreen.”
With a shaky smile, I nodded and prepared myself to respond to his inquiries.
After asking a bunch of questions, including some hair-raising inquiries about my periods, urination, and bowel movements, he finally focussed on my headaches and spent more time examining me than the neurologist at the Royal Infirmary.
He took my pulse, pulled down my eyelids, studied my tongue, and made me lie on an examination table while he twisted me in various positions to test the strength of my muscles. The entire process took about ninety minutes, and I wondered if this was normal in Chinese medicine or just a quirk of Master Chang.
Afterward, he asked me if I was on any medications. I pulled out the baggie of prescriptions I had received from the hospital, along with my discharge notes.
He read the labels. “It’s no wonder you’re struggling. Most of these contain ingredients that will make you drowsy, and this one is a sleeping aid, which you should only take at bedtime.”
“I did—”
“But your stomach and liver qi have stagnated, your spleen is overactive, giving you a cumulative effect of headaches and drowsiness. This combination is suitable for convalescence, not calculations.”
My shoulders slumped. “If I don’t take them, the pain gets worse.”
“According to your discharge notes, you should be coming off them soon. I can help you with TCM, but the pain won’t go away immediately.”
“How bad will it be?”
“A background pain that will require paracetamol or ibuprofen only at night time if you need help to sleep.”
He scribbled down a list of things in Chinese characters. “Most practitioners give bags of herbs to prepare at home, but I’m assuming you’re a busy student and would prefer sachets of pre-boiled herbs?”
“Yes, please.”
“Alright. The boiling process takes us four hours in-house. I can FedEx them to your school when I’ve finished.”
“That will be great. Thank you.” I placed my hands on the arms of my chair and readied myself to rise.
“You haven’t had your treatment, yet.” Master Chang raised his hand and ushered me to remain seated.
Sweat broke out across my brow, and my gaze darted around the room for signs of needles. The doctor guided me back to the examination table and made a few chiropractic adjustments to my neck, then pressed down on one of the bones in my ankle, explaining this was a technique called injury recall.
When he finally said it was time to go, relief whooshed through my lungs at having escaped the acupuncture needles. I headed for the door and bounded into the reception area, feeling as light as I had before my memories had disappeared.
Leopold stood. “How was it?”
Rolling my head from side to side, I grinned. “Very thorough. My head feels amazing.”
I handed the list to the receptionist, who went to some shelves and picked up a CD, and two bottles of supplements with instructions in English. She took down the address of the academy and said she would send out the boiled herbs in the evening.
“How much is it for today, please?” I reached into my purse.
“My treat. This place is on my list of authorized retailers.” Leopold pulled out a black credit card and froze.
“What’s wrong?” I turned to look in the direction of his gaze.
Two women strode through the door. One was a statuesque beauty about Mom’s age, whose golden hair hung in a severe bob. She wore a knee-length, emerald-silk coat tailored around her slim figure that flared out at the waist.
The second was our age and stood a few inches shorter than the first. It was clear they were related, as the girls, shoulder-length hair was the same shade of gold.
The older woman narrowed her eyes into emerald slits. “Leopold.”
He stiffened. “Mother.”
Chapter 7
Mrs. Brunswick glowered from Leopold and me as though personally insulted that we were in her presence.
The girl, who had to be his sister because of their physical similarities, bit down on her bottom lip, not even bothering to suppress her smile. Her aquamarine eyes shone with the kind of glee kids had in junior school when the teacher told off a hated classmate. I guessed this was another form of sibling rivalry.
“You’re supposed to be at school,” said Mrs. Brunswick.
“It’s Saturday.” Leopold’s reply was deadpan.
“They have prep on the weekends,” the sister added in a faux-helpful tone.
My heart twisted. I knew the feeling of having an asshole sibling. Hopefully, this one wasn’t as proactively vindictive as Ashley.
The sister tilted her head to the side and swept a lingering gaze up and down my body. “Who is this?”
“Willow Evergreen.” I held out my hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Of the Evergreen medical family?”
My insides cringed. What would Mrs. Brunswick say when she discovered I wasn’t part of a centuries-old dynasty? Straightening my posture, I said, “The Evergreens of Cumbria. My mother and father were teachers.”
She raised a brow. “Were?”
“They’re recently deceased,” Leopold said w
ith iron in his voice.
The older woman turned her head and sniffed. It was the kind of dismissive gesture I’d seen people make when they’d lost an argument or made an embarrassing faux-pas. I had no idea what she might have said if Mom and Dad had been alive.
After an awkward moment, Leopold’s mom asked, “Are you a scholar at the Brittas Academy?”
“Yes, Mrs. Brunswick,” I replied.
“I hope you’re keeping my son out of trouble.”
“She is.” Leopold placed an arm around my shoulder and walked around his Mom and sister toward the door. “Now, we will take our leave, and I’ll see you in the directors’ end-of-year meeting.”
“Not so fast,” said Mrs. Brunswick from between clenched teeth.
Leopold deflated, and the lining of my stomach rumbled with dread. Was this where she would tell me to stay away from her precious son?
Mrs. Brunswick turned from Leopold and stared down her perfectly straight nose at me. Her eyes hardened into chips of aquamarine. “Understand this. Leopold is free to engage in as many dalliances as he wishes, but once he has completed his MBA in finance, he will marry an heiress of my choosing. Is that understood?”
My nostrils flared. What did she think I was? Some gold-digger waiting to get my claws into the Brunswick banking fortune? She was just like the queens from Brittas Academy but without the nighttime abductions.
Pulling my shoulders back, I said, “I came here to seek alternative advice about my headaches, not to get a lecture on your plans to tie a noose around your son’s neck.”
The sister snorted.
Mrs. Brunswick’s face remained as hard and as unmoving as stone. The woman was probably used to intimidating everyone she met, but her glowers wouldn’t work on me. Not when I had enemies bigger and badder and more murderous than a snobbish banker.
I held her gaze with a glower of my own. She’d be wasting her time if she wanted me to lower my eyes and stutter out an apology.
The older woman’s nostrils flared. “I will have words with Mrs. Benazir about the breakdown in discipline.”
“Bye, Mother.” Leopold steered me around the blonde pair, and we walked out of the reception area into the building’s burgundy-carpeted hallway.
Neither of us spoke as we took the stairs to the ground floor. Outside, our feet crunched over a thin layer of frost, and we continued along Harley Street toward the multi-story parking lot where Leopold had left Sebastian’s jeep.
My breath fogged in the cold, January air, and my memory rolled back to my encounter with Sebastian in the girls’ changing room. “Is that why you warn girls that nothing will come of sleeping with you?”
His shoulders slumped. “That’s part of it.”
“Why don’t you tell her you want to make your own choices?”
Leopold ran gloved fingers through his hair. “That woman is itching for an excuse to oust me from becoming the next leader of the bank. Its succession policies only go through the male line, and she hasn’t been able to change it so that she can take control.”
“I thought your father was the banker.”
Leopold shook his head. “Her father was the bank’s chairman, and he didn’t have any sons to take up his position. My great-uncle is serving as the interim chairman right now, and Mother holds all my votes until I’m deemed fit to take up the reins.”
“Oh.” I wrapped my arms around my middle. “That’s sexist.”
“Indeed.” He blew out a breath. “The worst part is that she would have made an excellent chair, but the board of stuffy old men won’t acknowledge all that she’s achieved from being head of the UK branch.”
We rounded a corner and crossed into a road lined of tall, Georgian townhouses with stone-faced walls covering the ground floors. From what I knew of Brunswick Bank, it was a global, family-owned institution that operated from a small number of branches. I supposed that being relegated to a lower position for being female had turned her bitterness toward her son.
“That explains their sour faces,” I muttered.
He shrugged. “Mother wants my sister to become the next heir, but that’s never going to happen with the succession policies that favor men. Now, she’s doing everything she can to secure both their positions when I become the chairman.”
“When’s that?”
“At the age of thirty.” He grimaced and opened the door to the parking lot. “If I marry earlier, twenty-five.”
I stepped into the darkened building and walked alongside Leopold to the elevator. “I’ll bet she’ll arrange a marriage to a girl who’s just like her.”
“Or someone pliable.” He pressed the call button.
I shook my head. Things were different in centuries-old dynasties. Mom and Dad would never dictate who I dated as long as he was of an appropriate age and without a criminal record. Even though Leopold was as wealthy as a duke and would own a considerable share of a bank, I didn’t envy him one bit.
As we stepped into the elevator, I wondered whether Leopold’s mother exerted control over him by not letting him have a car. He had also said that Master Chang’s clinic was on an authorized list. Did that mean he couldn’t use the card in most other places?
That evening in the swimming block, he had been particularly keen to earn a share of Geraldine’s ten-thousand-pound challenge. Perhaps his mother didn’t give him a cash allowance.
The elevator reached the top floor, and I bit down on my lip. Other people’s financial affairs were none of my business, and I wouldn’t bring up the subject if it was a sore point for Leopold. We stepped out, and he unlocked the jeep’s doors with Sebastian’s remote.
After settling into the front seat, I asked, “Isn’t your sister supposed to be at school, too?”
His hands gripped the steering wheel. “She lives at home and is a day student at Chelsea Ladies’ College. Mother keeps her close.”
And she sent Leopold away to the other end of the country. The academy was only thirty miles from the border of Scotland. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “It’s for the best. I hated feeling like an interloper at home.”
“What about your father?”
Leopold barked a laugh. “Uncle Bertram?”
My brows drew together. This was already sounding like a peculiar arrangement. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Mother’s trusty PA, henchman, and former husband. It was a marriage of convenience that was supposed to last until I was born, but she had a son.”
“Right…” I couldn’t imagine growing up with Dad taking on Uncle Trevor’s role. I also didn’t understand what was so bad about Leopold having been born male, so I waited for him to continue.
“She wanted a little girl to prolong her hold on grandfather’s shares. If her only child was a girl, then the board would have had to wait until that daughter gave birth to a son, which would give mother control over the bank until her grandson turned thirty.”
I rubbed the side of my head and grimaced. “But she had a boy.”
“I should count myself lucky she didn’t abort me and try again.”
My insides cringed with discomfort. This entire situation sounded awful. “Was she a cruel mother?”
“Nannies brought me up, and mother spent her spare time with Beatrice.” He drove through a maze of backstreets, some with frost-covered garden squares bordered by wrought-iron walls. “It wasn’t until I joined the academy and befriended Sebastian that I understood what it meant to be part of a family. The Garraways were great.”
We drove past a deserted, frost-covered Regents Park, and a chill permeated my bones. What would it have been like for Leopold to see his mother being a parent to his sister while he was relegated to nannies? Part of me wondered if that was why he had never formed deep attachments with girls, but I didn’t dare ask for fear of sounding judgmental.
“What was Sebastian’s family like?” I asked.
Leopold chuckled. “I spent my first real family Christmas wi
th the Garraways. They were warm and boisterous and loved to hug strangers. His parents kept a small, cozy farmhouse, and his mother loved to cook. Sebastian had two much older brothers and a sister-in-law who had been expecting when the plane crashed.”
A muscle flexed in Leopold’s jaw, and a lump formed in my throat. Not only had Sebastian lost his entire family in that plane crash, but Leopold had also lost a surrogate family.
“That’s… It sounded like you were close.”
“Mrs. Garraway meant more to me than my own mother” His voice was thick with emotion. “After the crash, Sebastian’s grandfather set us a little project to keep ourselves busy.”
“The hideout?”
“It was one of many necessary distractions during a brutal year.” The traffic lights turned red.
“How else did you both cope?” I asked.
Leopold took my hand and pressed my knuckles to his lips. “I can’t speak for Sebastian, but I distracted myself with girls.”
A laugh bubbled up my throat. “From the looks of things when we met, you were still coping.”
He flashed me a grin, and the lights changed back to green. “I would say it’s a force of habit, but until now, I haven’t wanted to spend more one time with one girl.”
A tiny breath caught in the back of my throat. It was one thing to have caught Sebastian’s attention. We’d connected during the drive back to Mom and Dad’s, but I got the impression that Leopold had worked his way through nearly every girl in Brittas Academy over the age of consent.
A silence stretched out as the jeep left Regent’s Park behind and passed a statue of Saint George on horseback, slaying a dragon. I’d always accepted Leopold as a sexy bonus, but I had to take this opportunity to discover more about his intentions.
“What makes things different with me?” I asked in a small voice.
“I’ve never quite had a girl turn me down so emphatically,” he said with a chuckle. “Or one who immediately got my reference to Les Liaisons Dangereuses.”
A laugh bubbled up in the back of my throat at the conversation we’d had in Economics class about his supposedly fractured penis.