“Do you boys know I’ve not met me a blessed one of these Aurics since I got here? They promised me’d find they, friend me, at least talk to me, for Christ’s sake. But nooooo. Not a peep from the peeps at Auricville. I think,” and she slung her arm over Kingsley’s shoulder, “they think they’re too good for me. What do you think?”
“I think you’re the belch of this ball. Um, hang on...”
“What?”
“I mean you’re a peach, the belle of this ball.”
“Aww, you’re sweet, Thursday...I mean Thurston. Hey, why did your parents call you Thursday?”
“Because I was conceived on Weddingday. You smoke it?”
“Um, not entirely. I’m immune to puns, you know, ever since your pal Slocombe belched one to many into my face at Pocock’s, the oaf.”
“Slo—hey, how did you know I knew Slowcoach?”
An alarm bell rang through the fog in her brain. She gathered herself. “I saw you leave together.”
“Oh.”
“Say, who’s that haranguing Nickson?” Despite his finger’s wonky aim, Saunders managed to point out two men reprimanding his Eurasian friend on the opposite side of the floor. One of them grabbed Nickson’s shoulder. Nickson threw it off. Now Saunders jerked up and stood hunched, bear-like, ready for action. “If they touch him again, I’ll deck ‘em both.”
As sobering a sentence as Meredith had heard all evening. It flooded in—the importance of this party for Sonja’s future. Her new family. Her social standing. Somehow, Meredith’s own selfish issues had exiled her to this tipsy sideshow with her new best friends. But it was now up to her, inasmuch as she could think straight, let alone talk straight, to prevent her boisterous friends from causing irreparable damage to Sonja’s big day. “Stand back, Saunders. There’s a good boy. Everything’s fine. See, Nickson’s on his way over here to tell us everything’s fine.”
“Bloody well better be,” Saunders muttered.
“Well?” Kingsley asked Nickson as the Eurasian man approached, on none too steady a heading, it had to be said.
“That was Brunnie Auric and his toady. They’ve asked the six of us to leave. The cheek, eh?”
“What did you reply?” asked Kingsley.
“That we’ll leave when Miss McEwan leaves and not a micro-second before. He said he didn’t want to call the police, and that if we leave now, quietly, our shameless behaviour will be overlooked along with Miss McEwan’s.”
“Shameless, am I?” Meredith said.
“I’ll kill him. Where is he?” It took the three of them to hold Saunders back. For the first time since The Gambling Six had arrived, Meredith cringed at her own behaviour. The other guests were all watching her, judging her. And that would reflect on poor Sonja.
Maybe it is time to leave.
It wasn’t long until Fraser, Donzelot and Mears joined them, having been given similar ultimatums by Brunnie and his cronies.
“Have any of you done anything to cause offence?” Meredith had to know.
“Not a thing,” came the unanimous response.
“Then my conscience is settled. Come, let’s away from this mausoleum,” she said. “I’ll bid my sister goodbye and then we’ll find somewhere less...”
“Dead,” finished Nickson rather too loudly. “I sincerely hope Auric summons more life on his wedding night.”
“No, you...” Meredith’s attempt to shush him was in vain. He’d overstepped the mark, and everyone knew it—several nearby couples stopped dancing and walked away. This couldn’t end well. After Meredith had punched his arm in punishment, Kingsley and Mears did likewise. Nickson took his licks without reply, head bowed contritely in full awareness of his gaffe.
Then the thing she’d feared more than anything, both here and throughout the day, happened. The entire Auric clan gathered in force across the room, glaring at her, bristling and ready for war. A sight ripped from a bad dream. Sonja weaved through the crowd, as though she was an envoy sent to procure a peaceful capitulation lest things turn ugly.
But she was also Sonja, a McEwan to the bone. Surrender was not in her vocabulary. Nor, she must also know, was it in Meredith’s.
***
A few minutes earlier...
All magic carried a price. Sonja had read that once, but she’d never really considered it applicable to the real world...until now. The uneasiness in the room, a palpable raw dislike of the six boisterous strangers and their paramour in the far corner, had been evident from the start, and was festering among the guests. Already Dame Elsie and her nieces had quit for the evening, and others closer to the Aurics were whispering mutiny. It was as though the temperature of gaiety in a ballroom was pre-set to a cordial, happy, moderate level; anything exceeding or falling short of that would spread intolerance like a fever, until a cure was administered—namely removing anyone who displayed excessive high spirits or frostiness.
For some reason Meredith had given to cavorting with these six men, carving her own tropical niche in this otherwise temperate climate, and people gave her a wide berth. Daft really—she hadn’t offended anyone and they’d hardly danced. They were simply minding their own business away from everyone else. But they were loud, and they were drunk: a combination tantamount to a cyclone in a place like this.
All magic carried a price. Dancing with Derek, who possessed enough grace and timing for the both of them—a good thing, too, as Sonja possessed none of either—should have provided her magic for the day. It had in fits and starts. The women appeared to watch her with envy, which had never happened to her before. That had given her confidence, more than she’d ever thought possible in such company. But whenever the waltz took them close to Meredith and her gang, that uneasiness, that sense of disappointment clawed through the magic. And she’d been so glad to see her sister! After weeks apart, during which so much had happened, having Meredith here to celebrate her big day had completed it somehow, had somehow made it all right to enjoy the experience.
Her big sister clearly didn’t feel the same way about their reunion.
“Who are those cretins?” Mr. Auric demanded to know as he met with Brunnie, Uncle Rufus, Derek and eight or nine of Brunnie’s friends near the ballroom entrance. “They weren’t invited, were they?”
“Actually, Sonja and I invited two of them on Meredith’s behalf: Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Nickson,” Derek replied. “But we don’t know the others.”
“They seem to be having a good time,” said Sonja. “Maybe we should just leave them be.”
“I’ll not have any gatecrashers in my house.”
“But what should we do, Father?” asked Brunnie. “I’ve already asked them to leave.”
“And they refused?”
“Quite rudely.”
“In that case, I think the police—”
“No. There’s no call for that,” Sonja insisted as gently as she could. “Let me talk to Meredith. She’ll listen to me.”
“And if you can’t convince her to get rid of them?”
“She’s my sister.” So don’t be a boorish prig, would have been her natural reply. She went to see Meredith on her own, with an unusual solution she prayed would work.
“You want us to leave?” Meredith was flush and bleary-eyed. But even though her six strapping protectors surrounded her, she didn’t sound as though she was spoiling for a fight.
“On the contrary—that’s what they want.” Sonja motioned to the posse across the room. “I merely came over to ask this gentleman for a dance. Mr....?”
“Saunders, ma’am. I’d—” The big man paused as if waiting for permission from his friends, and from Meredith, “—I’d be delighted.”
“I’m glad. Shall we?”
It was an especially difficult Viennese waltz, but to her great delight Mr. Saunders proved more nimble than his appearance suggested, if not quite enough to escape her frequent chronic missteps. And even at those he smiled, once or twice laughing aloud along with her. Not once did she make eye contact with anyone
but him.
Her gamble paid off. It counteracted the toxic tension in the room, so that tongues now began to wag openly and couples took to the dance floor as though by royal permission. The princess had favoured one of the enemy, which automatically made him a friend? Shallow though the idea was, it seemed to work. For if the climate in a ballroom was so susceptible to capricious weather, why not throw a ray of sunshine into the mix and get people seeing blue sky.
“I’m sorry they were so rude to you, Mr. Saunders.”
“I’m not, ma’am. It was worth it for this dance.”
When the waltz ended she picked another partner from Meredith’s retinue, a Mr. Kingsley, in truth the best-looking of the six. He danced blindingly well. Seeing how much fun the two of them were having seemed to spark a rash of unexpected partnerships on the dance floor. Derek’s mother and Parnell enjoyed a few turns. Ethel was soon whisked into the middle by Brunnie Auric. Derek managed to pry Meredith away from her suitors for two sublime, spirited dances that Sonja couldn’t help but weep tears of joy at. Before long there was not a seat filled around the perimeter; everyone was either twirling away or on their feet enjoying the spectacle.
The evening she’d almost lost to disaster had refound its magic.
It all ended with a single spill.
“What did you say, you insolent pup?” A screeching, old-fashioned insult flung by the man with prodigious mutton chops, Uncle Rufus.
“I said kiss my full moon, you old coffin-dodger.” Mr. Nickson, not a politician in the making.
At once Derek’s father jumped between them, pulling them apart. “Stop this immediately. What’s it about?”
“This arrogant Jap told me to mind what I say. The nerve! He’s lucky he’s not ballast on some leaking rice boat...coming here, telling me what I can say in my brother’s house.”
“That was after he impugned Miss McEwan’s reputation, and mine.” Nickson threw the referee’s hand off his shirt collar, which tore the silk. “And you’ll bloody pay for that.”
By this time the battle lines had been drawn. Meredith and her men stood with Nickson, while the Auric brigade backed up their elder statesman. Meanwhile, Derek hooked a strong, reassuring arm around Sonja as they stood in the middle.
“What did he say about me?” Meredith balled her fists at her sides. “I’m getting sick of this.”
“I...I merely...I mean I meant to...”
“He suggested all six of us had shared your bed,” Nickson finished the idiotic Rufus’s stuttering for him. “Yes, that’s right, all six of us. A buttered bun was the term he used. I for one demand satisfaction.”
Five angry voices concurred.
“Rufus? What on earth were you thinking, man?” Even his brother, the master of the house, couldn’t believe it.
“That’s not the whole story. He provoked me into it. I-I must’ve snapped, that’s all.”
“Then retract it—right now.”
“Why should he?” Brunnie glanced over his shoulders to drum up support from his lackeys. “We all saw her have her way with the six of them. The tramp’s done her best to ruin my brother’s evening. She oughtn’t get away with it scot free. None of them should. Right, lads?”
A few murmurs of agreement backed him up, not quite the cavalry bugle he’d counted on. But something in that attempt to belittle Meredith, the same way Brunnie and his wretched family had tried to belittle Sonja that day in the living room, scalded her deep inside, mounting heat upon heat as though her chest were an over-pressured boiler about to bust its rivets. Without warning she marched into the ring and slapped Brunnie as hard as she possibly could—
To her astonishment, Meredith caught her swing before it hit. She held it here until Derek arrived to pull Sonja away.
No sooner had Brunnie heaved his sigh of relief than Meredith unleashed her own stinging punch, catching him flush on the nose. A sideways spurt of blood splashed Uncle Rufus’s jacket. Enraged, Rufus slapped Meredith, conceding nothing to the fact she was a teenaged girl and half his size.
“You bastard!” Sonja struggled to free herself from Derek’s hold, finally back-heeling his shin to get loose. But Meredith’s men and Brunnie’s men and even little Parnell were first into the fray, colliding at such velocity they might have been two vicious scrums scrapping in the final minutes of a grudge match. Bowled to the floor, Meredith scrambled through a melee of knees and feet. Sonja tried to pull her free but quickly found herself on the floor too, trampled on by two insane pugilists trading blows in a terrible flurry.
She hit her head and blacked out. Awoke seconds later, how many she had no way of knowing. She crawled free into a fog. Made her way to the nearest chair. Dragged it back to the spot where she’d lost Meredith. Picked it up and swung it at anything that moved until a space appeared. There two of Meredith’s chaperons, Saunders and Kingsley, rescued Meredith from the free-for-all, carrying her, bloodied and dazed, to safety.
Through Sonja’s fury now blazed a colder, sickening realisation—things as they absolutely were, without the heat of the moment licking them with anger. It shrank her to a small girl again, lost, helpless to stop the giant tidal wave in Niflheim as it collapsed in front of her, washing away everything in its path.
Parnell lay unconscious on the floor. His sobbing fiancée, Ethel, aided by an elderly gentleman who hadn’t joined the fighting, dragged him free. Brunnie Auric crouched against the blood-spattered wall, nursing his gushing nose with his mother holding him. Old man Auric lay facedown across Nickson; neither of them moved. Uncle Rufus received the last of several thumps to the stomach and doubled-up in severe pain, quickly throwing up into the bargain.
Lastly, the sight of her Derek, her one and only sweet Derek, who’d done nothing more than protect her on the fringe of it all, curled up on the deck, motionless, one arm bent at an odd angle behind his back. Seeing that knocked the wind out of her in one horrid convulsive punch of breath. She saw only the end of their future, their happiness, their life the way she’d dreamed it.
All in ruins.
No one tried to stop her, nor would she have let them. Sonja could think of nothing except getting as far away as she could in the shortest time humanly possible. Not even the ferocious downpour or the savage winds outside or the waterlogged interior of Meredith’s racer—the collapsed tent was festooned across several trees behind—could dampen her desire to flee.
Somewhere along Elm Grove a lightning flash revealed forty miles an hour on the speedometer. She pressed the accelerator to the floor, wiped her eyes, and wondered why the car was starting to race downhill on a very uneven surface. The chassis clattered, then sounded as though it was scything corn. The slope steeped further.
Oh God.
Maybe it wasn’t Elm after all.
Chapter Seventeen
Sisters
At the first glimpse of Mrs. Van Persie inching onto the front step, shawl hanging from her fist, not even bothering to close the door behind her, Meredith knew something was amiss. She asked Kingsley and the remaining gamblers—Nickson and Mears were recovering in the hospital—to stay put in their taxi a moment.
The housekeeper saw her and sprang to life. “Miss Meredith, Miss Meredith, come quick!”
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s Miss Sonja, she’s—oh, you’d best speak to the doctor. It’s...it’s too upsetting.” The old woman’s shawl now doubled for a handkerchief over her mouth to hide how shaken she was—but Meredith knew, saw it her chalky pallor, how unsteadily she negotiated the steps, her hunched posture as though she’d spent hours bent over something...or someone.
Sonja.
The memory of Mother’s final days, a slow, insensible slipping away from the vibrant woman she’d always been, haunted Meredith as she looked up to the bedroom window. A hundred alien aches she’d buried long ago now sloughed her adult skin and bared the raw, core-sensitive nerves of childhood. Every inch of her felt tender, woundable. She started a walk down a garden
path to a door and a house from a dream, and watched herself walking, wondering why she didn’t turn and run, why the garden path seemed to have always been here, unchanged, waiting for her to return on days like this she couldn’t escape from.
Mother had died on a Tuesday. The paving stones had been wet then. They were wet again today.
“Miss McEwan, is anything the matter?” Kingsley called after her.
“Is anything the matter?” she repeated to no one in particular. And to Mrs. Van Persie, “Does Mr. Auric know?”
“No, miss. I tried telephoning him back but there was no reply. That’s where we thought you were. What without your car and all...”
Meredith didn’t know why that snapped her from her funk but it did, as though some malign force had pointed its finger at her, blaming her for whatever had happened, whatever was yet to happen. She hated the accusation but there was truth in it. The awful turn of events last night had been partly her doing. She spoke over her shoulder, almost on the run into the house, “Kingsley, fetch Derek Auric at once, please—from his home, from the hospital, wherever he is. It’s urgent.”
“Aye. What shall I tell him?”
Mrs. Van Persie replied, “Tell him Miss Sonja’s taken a very bad turn after her car overturned. She was out in the storm for Lord knows how long last night. Old Joe Berwick found her in his field, managed to revive her and bring her here, but she wouldn’t stop shivering. The fever got worse and worse, and we did everything we could, but...” There the story choked her, and Meredith couldn’t wait any longer. She bolted upstairs into the master bedroom and found Dr. Marsan in his shirt-sleeves, measuring out a tincture of medicine and tipping it past Sonja’s quivering blue lips.
“What have you to say, doctor?” The words somehow came out accusingly, quite by accident.
Marsan, a wiry middle-aged man with a mop of blond hair and piercing blue eyes, sighed, set his instruments on the bedside table, and ushered Meredith onto the landing. “I wish I had better news. I’ve done all I can for now but she was exposed to the elements for such a long time, and the elements were so unforgiving last night, it’s a wonder she’s lasted as long as she has.”
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