The Courting

by Bella Bryce

  A high-pitched and unrestrained scream escaped Alice’s lips and didn’t stop until her body was forced into an unexpected embrace.

  “Alice!”

  Her eyes bulged open and she saw a pair of arms surrounding her body. She realised where she was and pulled away.

  “Where’s my father?” she asked, breathing heavily as tears akin to the ones in her dream began to fill her eyes.

  “Alice?” Brayden asked, as he walked briskly across the massive, luxurious bedroom.

  Celia moved away from the bedside and worriedly watched as Brayden took her place and pulled Alice into his arms. “Darling, you’re shaking,” he said, glancing up at Celia before he secured her more tightly against his suit.

  She closed her eyes and huddled against Brayden’s chest, remembering the comfort of his waistcoat and blazer as his arms held securely. His cologne drifted into her senses as she continued to inhale deeply. It was definitely a nightmare and the familiarity of Brayden’s touch and smell reminded her of it.

  Alice hadn’t seen her mother since November - for less than an hour - and prior to that not since the night she left home to live with Brayden James at Waldorf Manor ten months before. Christmas and New Year had just passed so if the nightmare was a reaction or realisation from the breakdown in November, Alice thought it was rather late. Or timely, considering the beginning of February was approaching and would mark one year since moving to Waldorf and being adopted as Brayden’s ‘ten-year-old’ daughter.

  He kissed Alice’s forehead and stroked the relaxed ringlets from within her hair ribbon, which had come loose over the course of the night. Brayden looked down and was tempted to ask why Celia hadn’t French plaited Alice’s hair, as it was his preference, but providing comfort to his daughter was by far of greater concern.

  “She was a monster,” Alice shoved the words out of her mouth as if without serious effort she mightn’t speak them. She didn’t really want to speak them.

  Brayden watched her pull away from his embrace and meet his eyes.

  “Her face was all contorted and she sounded like a dragon, and I couldn’t find the light switch. It was like she was waiting for me. She wanted to frighten me,” Alice’s eyes emphasised her fear more than her voice did.

  Brayden wouldn’t have spoken ill of Sally Oliver in front of Alice or in private. He had been raised better than that. But his thoughts tempted him to correct Alice by saying, ‘I’m not surprised, your mother is quite a monster.’ Of course he didn’t. Brayden was a gentleman and to remind himself of that he dismissed the private thoughts which were just as incriminating as any verbal admission. He was raising Alice to know the same standards.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” Brayden said, pulling her back into an embrace. “I’m sorry you were frightened.” He softly kissed her hair and stroked her back.

  Celia watched Brayden, her eyes still a little wider than normal at the idea of Alice being trapped inside of a scary dream only to be pulled out of it by her own terror.

  “A bath for Miss Alice, please,” Brayden requested, quietly, without looking up at his head housekeeper.

  “Sir,” she replied, just as gently and vacated the bedside.

  Brayden closed his eyes and kissed Alice’s head once more. It was inevitable that renewed feelings of anger began to rise, which he suppressed again. He reminded himself that Alice’s life prior to Waldorf Manor was broken, abused and neglected because her mother had been all those things. Sally Oliver hadn’t been a whole person for most of her life and didn’t know how to give her daughter a secure, disciplined or loving childhood. Alice had often been left to her own devices and Sally left to hers – which had been alcohol. Sally would bring home a new boyfriend as often as once every week and consumed entire bottles of Vodka four times that. The men always stayed longer than the alcohol.

  “I will have Wellesley delay breakfast slightly. Celia will see you into the bath and help you dress.”

  Alice pulled away and looked up at the man she’d come to love as her father, and the only one she’d ever known.

  “No,” Alice frowned. It was far beyond customary for her to outwardly disagree with Brayden – he had laid out clear and rigid expectations for her behaviour in his household – none of which included disobedience or backchat.

  “I don’t want her to be the reason our routine changes,” Alice clarified, as if her mother might hear the annoyance in her voice and somehow feel remorseful for being the cause of the nightmare or countless painful memories. She was certain that would never happen.

  “Alice,” Brayden’s fatherly tone refocused her attention. “The routine of this household is not changing because of her. You had a nightmare, my darling, and I can see that you’re quite shaken up. There is always grace in this household when it’s needed.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, wiping her eyes with both hands. “I’m hungry.”

  Brayden wanted to smile as her implied age reappeared. Alice’s eighteen years were useless when she’d arrived at Waldorf in February the year before due to the lack of proper upbringing. Brayden felt the best way to integrate her was both to adopt her as his own, and to regress her age to ten years.

  Firstly, Alice had no frame of reference for how to behave as an eighteen-year-old under his expectations. She also hadn’t understood the mechanics of a healthy upbringing – understandably – which included learning how to obey one’s guardians or authority, being accountable for one’s actions, receiving correction and internalising it for the prevention of further misbehaviour. Lastly, that none of those former things were negative and failure to adhere to such things made her ‘bad.’ Alice wasn’t bad; she hadn’t been taught. So Brayden removed those expectations and promptly told Alice that she would be raised from the point where her behaviour reflected, which was ten years old. Brayden also realised that Alice hadn’t needed an adult, platonic disciplinary relationship such as the one they both understood her to be entering into – she needed a father. His grief for Alice’s past and incredible lack of ‘fill in the blank here’ had moved him to care very deeply, very quickly for her. That’s when he decided to adopt her.

  Brayden had been raising Alice as his ten-year-old daughter for nearly a year, keenly aware that her chronological, nineteenth birthday was fast approaching. That made no difference to him. He would move her age up (or down, if required, although he hadn’t thus far) when he’d seen appropriate growth, maturity and trust where it was needed. And admittedly, he dreaded an increase to her age. Brayden loved Alice exactly as she was, even when she looked at him with furrowed eyebrows and articulating in a tone, which she had no business taking with him.

  “Look at me, please, young lady,” Brayden said.

  Alice reluctantly removed her hands from her face and obeyed.

  “Speak to me properly,” he requested, in his usual fatherly tone.

  “May I please forgo my bath, Sir and descend upon the dining room to digest my eggs benedict with joyful candour? Please? Father dearest?” she asked, her tone returning to the politeness Brayden expected.

  He raised expectant eyebrows, extracting a small sigh from Alice.

  “Sorry, Sir,” she admitted.

  “Thank you. I don’t need to remind you what sarcasm earns,” he warned, his expectant eyebrows doing all the reminding Alice needed.

  “No, Sir.”

  “Right,” he said, glancing at his watch. It was the one designed by his late parents and given to him the night they were killed, on his twenty-sixth birthday ball. “I will let Celia carry on as usual then, my darling. Would you like anything before you come down for breakfast? I can have Wellesley bring you a drink,” Brayden said, stroking her loose ringlets.

  “May I have orange juice, please?”

  “Of course,” he replied, then stood up from her bedside and pressed the discrete button surrounded by a brass plate near the exquisite king-sized, four-poster bed. One press from Alice’s bedroom meant the bell rang in the kitchens fo
r orange juice, two presses meant a tea tray and three meant Wellesley reported to her bedroom to find out what she wanted. The chefs, who never seemed to leave the kitchens, relayed the message after starting the kettle or preparing a tray that Wellesley finished and then delivered.

  “I’ll put your dress for today behind the changing screen and see you in the dining room spot on time,” Brayden said, then kissed her forehead.

  “Yes, Father,” Alice replied.

  Brayden stroked her cheek for a moment, then crossed the spacious room to recall her bath.

  Alice exhaled as she flopped back down onto the layers of luxurious bedding and stared up at the canopy above her head. She listened to the sound of Brayden politely informing the head housekeeper that his daughter would no longer require a bath and that he would choose her dress for the day and hang it behind the changing screen. The respectful and very typical response to Brayden by everyone who wasn’t his equal, ‘yes, Sir,’ was genuine as Celia turned the water off. Alice listened as his sturdy, expensive shoes walked confidently out of the marbled floor en-suite bathroom on the opposite side of the room then crossed diagonally toward Alice lying on the bed before veering to the left and her four-door wardrobe placed between two massive windows.

  He opened two doors at one time and didn’t take more than a few seconds to locate the dress he wanted his daughter to wear that day. He’d had every single dress, blouse and skirt made to measure and to particular design specifications; meaning they had to be prim, charmingly juvenile (without being infantile) and inspired by vintage. Alice’s wardrobe consisted mainly of sailor dresses, box pleat pinafores, Peter Pan and scallop-collared blouses, pleated skirts, kilts, tights, knee socks, ribbons and patent shoes in pastel and primary colours that would make any preppy girl drool, and then some. Alice always looked like a child model out of a vintage catalogue and carried off the look with incredible confidence, considering for eighteen years prior to living as Brayden James’ wealthy child, she’d dressed as society pressured her to – and that was to follow convention and copy the runway. At least, that was the running fashion for English teenagers most of the time. The stores always sold runway knockoffs and once out of school uniform that’s exactly where the girls turned for their inspiration.

  Brayden was of a very different mind-set when it came to wardrobe compared to anyone outside of his social circle; he dressed every day in three piece suits of varying colour and design, embracing the sophisticated prints of stripes, crests and discrete dots as were prevalent amongst young millionaires (and a select crowd of discerning twenty to sixty-year-old working-class men). He had an entire wardrobe of shoes ranging from brogue, boot and loafers to classic shiny black and two-toned Oxfords, amongst an impressive selection of braces, belts, ties and pocket squares. So it was no question when Alice moved to Waldorf that she would have anything less in her own wardrobe. It also meant that his butler, domestic staff and guards in the brick building at the end of the half-mile gravel drive also looked their best and wore a very smart uniform every day.

  “Celia will choose your tights and shoes, darling.”

  “Can’t I wear knee socks?” Alice asked, through the pillow she’d placed over her face. She loved feeling the cold side of her 1,000 thread count Egyptian cotton pillowcase. They always smelled divine, just to tempt her further.

  “No,” Brayden replied, his eyes scanning the meticulously ordered display of clothes for the precise dress he wanted to put her in. “It’s still winter and regardless of the countless number of fireplaces in this house, Alice, I won’t have you catching cold. Your bare knees need to be covered up until spring,” he said, as he turned around with a satin hanger and a navy blue and white two-piece woollen sailor dress with red necktie.

  “Be a good girl and sit up, please, Wellesley will be here in a minute with your tray,” Brayden said, as he walked across the large room and disappeared behind the extravagant twelve foot high, six foot long Victorian changing screen.

  Below a set of intricate brass hooks on the wall a Louis XV chair was diagonally positioned where Alice either perched or was ushered depending on how much dawdling Celia caught her doing in the mornings. Alice always had Celia’s help doing up unreachable buttons and zips in the morning and very often if Alice fussed about too much, Celia would hurry her to the chair behind the screen and kneel down to get the girl’s knee socks or tights started. Having fully embraced her ten-year-old state from the beginning coupled with the attitude of ‘I hate mornings’, Alice never rejected the head housekeeper’s sometimes rather motherly assistance.

  Alice was responsible for getting downstairs to the dining room and into her place at the table on time for every meal, which were at set times because Brayden’s chefs cooked gourmet, multi-course menus for every meal and his butler and other staff were expected to serve and wait at table at coordinating time. Brayden taught Alice to respect their domestic staff’s schedules as they were paid for much more than serving meals and their own routines didn’t allow for lateness. Celia also knew that if Alice was late she would expect to hear from Brayden on the matter as she was also responsible for curling Alice’s hair and tying in her hair ribbons before she left for breakfast in the morning, then tidying Alice again up before dinner in the evenings.

  “Good morning, Miss Alice,” Wellesley, the loyal and long-serving butler to Waldorf Manor and the late Oliver James, said humbly as he entered the bedroom and took a left to the fireplace and formal sitting area.

  “Morning, Wellesley,” Alice chimed, her spirits instantly brightened by the faithful presence of the man who ran Waldorf directly under Brayden.

  Alice was met halfway to the formal seating area in front of her fireplace by Brayden, who held out her dressing gown and gave her an expectant look. He had opinions about Alice getting out of bed and walking about her bedroom in her cotton nightdress. Brayden fully expected his daughter to put her slippers and gold quilted dressing gown with the cord sash tied neatly until she changed into her clothes for the day. He did the very same, although he never spent much time in his pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers because he went to bed not long before midnight and woke rather early, then dressed soon after.

  “Thank you, Wellesley,” Alice said, as she looked up at the butler she adored as Brayden finished tying her dressing gown sash about her small waist.

  “Sit down and drink it properly, please,” Brayden said, leaving her with another kiss on her forehead before exiting her bedroom in front of Wellesley.

  Once the door was closed, Alice sat back against one of four Louis XV chairs arranged around the crackling fireplace in the ten foot stone inlay, holding a crystal glass full of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  The pace at Waldorf was much slower than anything she’d been accustomed to previously. Alice had never ‘sat down’ to ‘drink orange juice properly’ before she became Brayden’s daughter. She used to wander out of her bedroom at noon on the weekends in an oversized t-shirt and mismatched spotted socks to drink orange juice directly from the carton in her mother’s house. But Alice didn’t miss that at all. Waldorf was good for her and she knew it.

  Alice took one set of the grand, double staircase which led down into the marbled foyer and Waldorf’s entrance. She instinctively smoothed down the pleats of her navy blue woollen skirt and straightened the red necktie of the traditional woollen sailor top. Her navy blue tights nearly disappeared beneath the matching skirt, although a pair of grey patent t-strap shoes accentuated her tiny ankles. She also pulled a clump of her ringlets over her shoulder so the long locks gave her face and shoulders a bit of definition.

  She hated having all of her hair curled and kept behind her shoulders. Celia had tried to tightly pull half of Alice’s hair into a red bow at the back of her head, but she managed to persuade the middle-aged housekeeper to instead loosely gather one section on either side. Celia had sighed and obliged Alice’s request, glancing at the girl in the mirror as she sat at the beautiful cherry-wood
dressing table looking innocent. She’d tied two red satin ribbons on either side, which Alice insisted should be visible without having to face the opposite direction.

  Alice turned left once she reached the foyer, entered through the double doors to the dining room and took the long walk along the twenty-person dining table with chairs pushed obediently and to the spatial exactness of military precision. Alice was fully aware that Wellesley measured the distance of everything with a measuring gauge, although the idea no longer entertained her since she’d become accustom to both the particular and familiar of Waldorf Manor. In the beginning, however, she would gasp out of disbelief and then snort in hysterical giggles (out of everyone’s earshot, of course). It was more her insecurity with Waldorf than anyone else being overly formal.

  “Father,” Alice said, when she reached Brayden at the head.

  The top half of the table was always formally set and was where he and Alice dined, as did Elisabeth and Bennett when they were present for meals. Before Alice, Brayden used to sit at the head alone with the formal setting before him and the remaining chairs to remind him that apart from his staff, he was alone. Having only been responsible for Alice for approaching one year, those days felt strangely unreal when at the time it had been terribly lonely; he’d just hidden it quite well.

  Alice planted a kiss on his cheek after greeting him as she always did at breakfast then returned a few steps and claimed the grand upholstered and intricately carved dining chair to his left. Wellesley had pulled it out and subsequently slid it in to precisely the right place Alice liked, then took Brayden’s empty cup and saucer.

  “Has Uncle Bennett been to collect Elisabeth already?” Alice’s posh accent rang sweetly in Brayden’s ears as she laid her cloth napkin neatly in her lap. The way she spoke was nearly indistinguishable from Brayden’s own upper class accent