by Bella Bryce
Brayden stared at the telephone on his desk, but turned to his computer instead and opened a new email. He looked at the blank boxes and added Anabelle Greyson in the ‘To’ field and then clicked on ‘Subject’. He paused before typing the word Dinner, then watched the cursor blinking as if to taunt him. Brayden could just imagine the cursor as if it had a voice, saying, “Really? Dinner? Is that all?”
He promptly deleted the draft and sat back in the leather wing chair behind his desk, looking up at the intricately carved details of the ceiling. He’d had absolutely no issue asking Jade out for dinner earlier in the year, despite not even having a particular preference for her, although he previously thought they might have made a good match.
It was completely idiotic, as he considered it. Anabelle Greyson had consistently been on his mind since the day before the ball and yet he could barely manage an email to her. Brayden considered the possibility of his reservation being that he didn’t want to get involved with Anabelle if it wasn’t going to lead somewhere. Brayden didn’t have the time or energy to date a woman. He wasn’t looking for a date, he would either hold out for a wife and a woman he could love and who would love Alice the same, or he would remain a single father with a daughter ten years his junior and die an equally happy man. It wasn’t enough that he fancied her – he had to know it was worth the risk that either he or Alice might get hurt in the process.
Bennett Fowler knew Elisabeth was his future wife, Brayden only wished he knew Ana was. That was the difference.
Alice sat on a stool beside the junior chefs as they chopped vegetables for dinner that evening. Wellesley had escorted her into the kitchen and put in an order for her in a most professional manner, and although Alice was quite capable of asking for cheese on toast whenever she liked, the butler wanted to ensure she received a little special treatment on that particularly sullen day. Even Wellesley had felt gloomy when he let Bradley and Jemima into Waldorf that morning, realising that Ana would not be there.
“You’re quite good at cheese on toast now, Chef. Now that you know how to do it properly,” Alice said, in nothing less than a genuine complimentary tone.
The head chef looked over at the junior chefs and then back at Alice. “Thank you, Miss Alice. Perhaps we shall make you an honorary chef.”
Alice’s face lit up as she swallowed the last of her cheese and Worcestershire on toast. “Does that mean I could come in here whenever I like? Sometimes I fancy a snack after bedtime,” Alice said, sipping her tea.
The chefs glanced at each other and carried on cutting up vegetables. Alice was a welcome presence in an otherwise quiet and busy kitchen. She seemed so fascinated by the grand preparations done in Waldorf’s kitchens.
“I don’t know, Miss Alice,” the head chef warned, with a wink. “What would your father say?”
Alice rolled her eyes. The head chef emptied his vegetables into a roasting tin and returned to his chopping block.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked, wiping her hands on the cloth napkin. Wellesley had set a very formal place at the tall farmhouse table where she observed the chefs whilst she ate her snack.
“Roasted lamb, vegetables, mint sauce, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, stuffing, Brussels sprouts and gravy.”
“You’re not doing cauliflower cheese?”
“And cauliflower cheese,” he added.
Alice smiled. “You’re good to me, Chef.”
The junior chefs chuckled as they sharpened knives and chopped onions.
“Well, gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure. Oh, and can you give me a small portion at dinner? I don’t want Father to know I had cheese on toast this late. He’ll only fuss.”
The head chef tapped his nose and gave her a smile.
“Thanks,” she said, and hopped off the stool.
Alice crossed the foyer and gave a cautionary glance at the grand staircase as Bradley and Jemima directed the placement of several twenty-foot garlands at the top as though they were resurrecting scaffolding. She also noticed all the red poinsettias had been removed from the garland, making it quite bare. She masked a snort as she crossed the foyer. She would deal with her father’s wrath if it came to it, but she doubted Bradley and Jemima would dare tell their client, “But your daughter told us to remove the red ones.” She shook her head just thinking about it.
When the sun tucked itself away late that afternoon, Brayden appeared in the sitting room to find Alice at the chessboard in front of the darkening window. She peered around the side of the wing chair and her small face and one of her satin hair ribbons went along with her as she watched Brayden walk across the room slowly toward her.
“Have you nobody to play with?” he asked, as he kissed the top of her head.
Alice looked up and watched him take the opposite wing chair.
“Where have you been?” she asked, with a touch of sadness in her voice.
“I was upstairs doing some work, but I think it’s time I give you a good thrashing,” he said, then smiled as he moved a pawn forward one space.
Alice smiled back at him and moved a pawn from her side.
“The decorations are coming along. Have you seen them?” he asked.
“Hmm,” Alice said, avoiding his eye contact.
“Speaking of,” Brayden started. He also regained her full attention. “We’ve been invited to the Fowlers on Christmas Day.”
Alice looked up. “Will Uncle Damian be there?”
“No, darling, he’s really staying away an entire year. From what I hear he’s not been in touch recently, so I wouldn’t expect so.”
“He’s only sent me one postcard, I’m not impressed,” she remarked.
“Mind how you speak about your uncle,” Brayden said, looking up at her. “And mind out—”
“For my key pieces, I know,” Alice finished his sentence. “Says the father who just lost his knight to a pawn.”
Brayden furrowed his eyebrows and looked at her. “Did that really just happen?” he asked, folding his hands.
“Yes, Sir,” Alice smiled.
“You aren’t supposed to be able to win against me just yet,” he replied .
Alice exhaled an amused breath and then they were quiet as Brayden considered his next move.
“I might as well tell you now, Aunty Evelyn mentioned about Father Christmas being at Greystone,” Brayden said, keeping his eyes on the board.
Alice froze and looked up at him. “You wouldn’t let her do that to me.”
Brayden, shockingly, tried not to smile, “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”
Alice frowned, “Of course there is, remind her that I’m not really a ten-year-old child!”
“Darling, please try and see it from her perspective. She wants to be supportive in your life and she never had a little girl. Since my adopting you, she’s been able to enjoy a little bit of that.”
Brayden was terribly amused at Evelyn Fowler’s insistence on hiring a Father Christmas so that Alice could sit upon his lap and be asked in front of them all if she’d been a good girl.
Even he couldn’t deny how hilariously humiliating it might be.
“Father, please.” She couldn’t avoid laughing and whining at the same time. “This is really unfair.”
“You’ve braved my putting you through piano recitals, I imagine you’ll do just fine. You won’t be ten forever,” he said.
Alice covered her face in her hands and sat back in the wing chair.
Brayden couldn’t avoid smiling. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said.
It would do Alice no real harm and it was only fair that if she were viewed as a ten-year-old, he couldn’t very well get cross with those who were closest to him to fully embrace the ideal. Evelyn Fowler most definitely embraced it.
Chapter Sixteen
The time between Brayden’s birthday ball and Christmas seemed nothing short of a blink of an eye despite there being three weeks between the two significant events in December.
; Bennett and Elisabeth marked one month since their courtship and her moving to Waldorf Manor. The transition had proven to be beneficial to everyone in their circle; Brayden enjoyed the new relationship as uncle to Elisabeth, and Alice found a true companion in her. When Elisabeth wasn’t with Bennett, which was rare, and the three of them shared meals at Waldorf, it gave Brayden a sense of what it would have been like to have two daughters. He enjoyed their innocent conversation and their laughter, the way he could share more grown up conversation with Elisabeth whilst still including Alice, and all the while providing the same kind of structured and formal environment he had been raised in.
Alice’s new favourite time of the year to live at Waldorf was Christmas versus the rather ambiguous ‘winter time’, she’d previously claimed. The mansion needed no help in being gorgeous, but after the team from Tweed Events Company spent three days putting up the decorations Brayden had seen every year since his own childhood, Alice was convinced Buckingham Palace couldn’t beat Waldorf. Every room, bannister, door and ledge had plentiful, bespoke decorated garland. It was like eye candy to Alice, who had never lived in a house or a mansion, but aside from that, one which was so meticulously decorated she forgot she lived at Waldorf.
She managed a straight face when Brayden casually remarked being ‘quite sure’ the poinsettias were supposed to be red in the garland going up the grand staircase. Alice had hoped he would have told Bradley and Jemima to change them from the gold back to red; in her mind it would serve them right for being overtly oppressive and arrogant toward the team who had been hired to take the orders, climb the ladders and hang everything.
She’d also hoped that perhaps Anabelle Greyson would have shown up that day three weeks ago with a box of the ‘right’ coloured poinsettias and spent time there herself putting them in the garlands. It hadn’t happened and the idea of Ana ever returning to Waldorf seemed grim.
“Behave yourself, young lady. And keep your mittens on, please; it’s very cold outside. Bennett, if she loses one, here is an extra pair,” Brayden said, taking the pair from Wellesley as he offered them to him on cue.
“We’ll only be gone for a few hours,” Bennett replied.
“She’ll lose one,” Brayden confirmed.
Alice looked up and smiled as she buttoned her formal winter coat.
“Hold Uncle Bennett’s hand and no wandering off,” Brayden continued, as he bent down and straightened her scarf so it lay flat against her coat neatly.
“I’m not truly a child, Father, you know I won’t run off,” Alice laughed.
Brayden gave her a look. “You are, and this is the first time you’re properly leaving the estate since moving here nearly a year ago,” he said. “And I won’t be with you.”
Brayden kissed Alice’s forehead and watched as Bennett led her by the hand out of the front doors.
“Do all men get emotional when they age?” Alice asked, as they descended the front stairs.
Bennett stifled a laugh as they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the limo.
When the front doors closed behind Bennett and Alice, Brayden stood still. Wellesley faced his young employer after locking the doors and walked across the foyer, giving him a nod as he passed. Brayden stared at the doors a moment longer and then turned and looked up at the grand staircase. He knew Alice was coming back later that afternoon and he knew he had no reason to think otherwise, but her absence was so apparent. Brayden hadn’t been at Waldorf without Alice since her arrival in February, and he was certain that life had almost been sucked right out of the manor with her exit. Suddenly, the garland on the grand staircase seemed limp and the lights stopped twinkling. He’d felt a very similar absence earlier that month the night Anabelle Greyson left Waldorf.
Brayden quietly walked with his hands in his suit trouser pockets down the corridor, turned left and glanced at the three sets of closed double doors which led into the ballroom. During the days before and after his birthday ball, those doors had been open, filled with contractors and teams making preparations and then later, filled with guests and music and champagne. And Ana had been there whenever he passed by. Now the formal, wood-panelled corridor was dark because the ballroom doors were closed and the light couldn’t pour onto his path as he waked toward the music room at the end of the corridor.
His meticulously shined dress shoes made a satisfying clack against the wooden floor and then stopped when he reached the music room doors. Brayden let himself in and walked across the beautiful, formal room, then sat himself at the Steinway grand. It had been weeks since he’d sat alone and played piano. In his childhood, going a few hours without playing was unthinkable and as an adult he had the choice to neglect it completely if he desired. Brayden missed his regular evenings at the piano, but having Alice in his life meant that his evenings didn’t allow for reclusiveness, which he was grateful for. Life was a lot less lonely with someone to love, care for and look after.
His hands rested on the keys and he scolded himself for choosing an easy piece like Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C minor, but he justified it by reminding himself that it was best to soothe oneself with an easy piece one could think alongside. When one didn’t want to ‘think’ whilst playing piano, one chose something by Alkan. Inevitably, when he finished with Bach and Anabelle Greyson, he moved to Alkan.
“I hadn’t realised you were better than Bennett,” Elisabeth’s voice sounded from beyond the piano.
Brayden looked up, noticed his niece standing nearby and gave her a warm smile.
“Bennett is good, but Uncle Brayden... you’re really good.”
Elisabeth’s hunter green velvet A-line pinafore was stunning with her brown eyes. She also wore a cream blouse beneath it with hunter green elbow patches and a green satin ribbon at the collar. Her green cable-knit tights were tucked neatly inside of her ivory t-strap patent shoes.
“Thank you,” he said, and stood up from the Steinway. “Don’t let Bennett hear you say that.”
Elisabeth managed a smile.
“Let’s go out for a walk, shall we? I think the fresh air will do us good.”
Alice felt at ease holding Bennett’s hand, looking like a ten-year-old child, feeling the same and yet not thinking a second thought about it. She’d spent nearly a year at Waldorf Manor as Brayden James’ adopted daughter, Bennett Fowler’s niece and away from most of the usual conveniences eighteen-year-old girls found familiar. She’d given up a lot of her personal freedom and didn’t regret it, rather she relished in the fact she was walking down the cobbled streets of the quaint, English town, both of them dressed in their typical formal clothes, passing the boutique shops and bustling Christmas shoppers. Despite that it was nearly midday on Christmas Eve, the ‘bustling’ was more tame than Bennett had expected, although, his expectations and fears of an overcrowded town centre on such a day were fuelled by assumption. Bennett had never been shopping on Christmas Eve. He didn’t usually shop, he sent his staff to shop or he did it online. But this year was different.
“Where is Father’s gift?” Alice asked, looking up at Bennett as they stepped off the cobbled street and up onto the pavement as they passed more boutique shops.
It was a small town centre and all of the surrounding residents were wealthy. The residents further than five miles tended to be middle class and the further one got from Laithem the poorer they seemed to be. It was the same place he’d brought Elisabeth for her winter coats and haircut upon her arrival at Barton-Court and before he had any idea that they would court.
“We’re to collect it from the jewellers,” Bennett said, as Alice looked in the window of every shop they passed.
When they approached the doors of the stone building, Alice felt a rush of nervousness flow over her and the ease she’d felt walking down the street was exchanged for fear. She wondered if anyone was staring at her, suspicious that she was simply dressed as a child and behaving as one, although she wasn’t a proper child. She had never been in public as Alice James.
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“What is it?” Bennett said, as they stopped outside.
“I just feel a bit silly, is all, Sir,” Alice replied, looking up at him.
“What for?”
“It’s different when I’m at home. This is the real world.”
Bennett bent down slightly toward her so he could speak quietly. “It isn’t any different and I will put you across my knee to remind you of your age if necessary,” Bennett said, then raised his eyebrows. “Does that help?” he asked, and returned to his full height.
Alice’s face turned red and her eyes fell to the pavement as he opened the door and led her inside. Any kind of insecurity about not looking or feeling like a child disappeared as Bennett pulled her along toward one of the counters.
“Good afternoon, Sir, may I help?”
“Yes, I need to approve the engraving on a set of gold collar stays.”
“Mr. Fowler?”
“Yes,” Bennett confirmed.
“Excellent, I will be right with you.”
The man behind the counter excused himself and returned promptly with a velvet gift box, which he opened with white gloves, then laid out the two sets of gold stays onto a velvet tray in front of them for close inspection. Alice’s eyes widened when she saw them in person. It was her idea to give Brayden collar stays for Christmas and Bennett’s to have them engraved. And she had never seen real gold that close before. It was unmistakable that they were legitimate. Alice leant closer to Bennett and onto her toes to read the script as they were on the counter before them.