by Lola Gabriel
“Thanks,” Claudia said, following after Cayden. Then she turned back. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Cruikshanks. I’m sorry to impose on your life like this.”
The older woman beamed. Living with, and apparently running around after, Cayden, she probably didn’t get a lot of politeness coming her way. “You’re no trouble, love. And I can’t imagine you ever will be in comparison to the day to day.”
With that, Mrs. Cruikshanks bustled away and disappeared down another set of stairs. Cayden looked over his shoulder and sort of grunted at Claudia. She assumed this meant she should follow him, as a second or two later, he started up the stairs. At the top of the first flight he said, “Office, library,” then he continued on and up another flight and took a left, opened an oak door like all the other oak doors, and led her into a dark room. There was the sound of him putting down the bag on a soft surface. Claudia assumed it was a bed… then the side of him bashed into her, warm and tall and musty-smelling.
“Shit!” Cayden said. “Sorry. The rug tripped me.” Then he moved away and a few moments passed full of the noises of him feeling about, and then the curtains were open and the bright spring light was streaming in. Cayden shied away from it. From his smell, he was very hungover.
“Okay,” her host said, turning around and almost bashing into her again. He stepped sideways. “Uh... sorry…” he said, “I really thought… I mean, I remember you much smaller.”
Claudia nodded. “I got that,” she said, “and I don’t remember you at all. But my dad talks a lot about your adventures when he has a drink.” A smile tugged at Cayden’s lips, and Claudia hated it. “I mean,” she said, “he calls them adventures. They sound pretty gross to me. Obviously he doesn’t give all the details, but I get the gist. His excuse is that you two were young and stupid, so I can assume you’re a reformed character?”
Cayden had the good sense to look a bit awkward here, shifting from one bare foot to the other. “Well,” he said, “yes. I haven’t robbed a tavern in a long time, and you can’t really get work on merchant ships anymore.”
Claudia rolled her eyes, but only gently. “Dad says you always got antsy on boats, because there weren’t enough women around.” She spat out women in a very distasteful way. Cayden’s cheeks were reddening, and she found, slightly to her surprise, that she was enjoying torturing the older shifter. His hair fell over his forehead, the dark curls reaching his eyebrows, and his downcast eyes and long eyelashes gave him the look of an embarrassed young boy.
“Are you hungover?” Claudia heard herself ask. She hadn’t meant to be so forward, but as much as this man annoyed her, with his blasé attitude and through the stories she had heard of his gross, womanizing exploits with her own father (ew!), she also felt weirdly comfortable in his company. She had grown up with his shadow in the house, she supposed; her father’s past was intimately tied up with him. Cayden was probably a part of who she was, even.
Cayden lifted his eyes to meet hers again. “If I admit that I am, will you let me go?” he asked, and now his voice matched his little-boy look. Pleading and a little weak. Claudia laughed.
“Maybe,” she said. She unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off, pushing lightly past Cayden to hang it on the back of the door. She had worn high-waisted black jeans and a cropped sweater to travel, but the outfit had been too warm, really.
“Do I have to dress properly for this dinner?” she asked, turning back round to Cayden.
He was staring at her. She snapped her fingers close to his face, and he jumped.
“What?” he said, and she could see him processing what she had just asked. “Oh… yeah… I mean, smart casual? I know that doesn’t really mean anything. A representative of the elders will be there, and he’ll be in all the garb. But I just wear a shirt and chinos or whatever.”
Claudia nodded slowly. “Cocktail attire,” she said, “got it.”
Cayden stared at her like she was mad, and she held her straight face for a moment before laughing. “Kidding, I’ll wear a dress,” she said, “which I think is cocktail attire.”
“Oh, yeah, I mean, I know what cocktail attire is, I lived through the last century, I just didn’t think you would. And I don’t think we need to go back to so many different kinds of attire, do you? As if life isn’t hard enough…”
Claudia scoffed. Once again, she was surprised at her openness around this practical stranger. “Oh yeah,” she said, “your life seems really hard.” She indicated the room. “I imagine you worked hard to afford this place, right? And your poor servant makes you do most of the chores?”
Cayden straightened his back, and it was his turn to cross his arms. The muscles of his shoulder were clear under the material of the old t-shirt. “Hey,” he said, “Mrs. Cruikshanks is family. And I’m an alpha. I… do shit…” He uncrossed his arms to fiddle with a curl. “And I don’t know why I’m trying to justify myself to you! You were born in that big old Edinburgh pile, and you’ll be alpha too! Christ, it would be less annoying to have you here if you were eleven.”
Claudia sat on the end of the big double bed and crossed one knee over the other. “Being the daughter of an alpha has gotten me here, running away from some fucking bad guys. Not my idea of fun.”
Cayden shook his head. “Okay, you win. I am, in fact, very hungover. Meet me downstairs at six, and I’ll talk you through the visitors.” He turned and made his way clumsily out of Claudia’s room. The door closed behind him, and Claudia sighed. Well, she had made it, and she was pretty sure she hadn’t been followed. Whoever was after her dad didn’t seem to be too smart. They’d spirited away advisors close to him, but no one from her family, and none of their staff either. They’d be caught, Claudia thought, even if her father wouldn’t let her help with the investigation.
At least Cayden had only thought she was a kid because he had no sense of time, and probably drank way too much. Her father genuinely believed it to be true. She lay back on the bed and kicked off her shoes. The ceiling had patterns of leaves and grapes around its edge and around the light fitting in the middle—crown molding? Something like that. She was gazing at it for a little while before she drifted off to sleep.
3
Cayden
Yes, he had woken up late for the second time that day.
Cayden tucked his shirt into his slim-fit, olive-colored cords, and then he untucked it. And then he did a French tuck—being a 200-plus-year-old wolf shifter didn’t mean he was out of touch with culture. He was pulling his shoes on as he ran downstairs, and he stopped on the landing below his room, almost tripping. Claudia’s door was closed, but she had to be downstairs already, right? Mrs. Cruikshanks would surely have come and gotten her. He continued his haphazard flight downwards, and almost smacked right into his old nanny on the next set of stairs. In fact, he stopped so quickly, he sat down.
Cruikshanks was wiping her hands on her apron. “You’ll do yourself a mischief!” she said, shaking her head, her hair falling out of its plaits. “Now, you go and let the visitors in, I’ll see to the girl.”
Cayden stood up and brushed himself down. “Ow,” he said. And then, “I don’t know how to deal with guests!”
Mrs. Cruikshanks sighed and pushed past Cayden. “You’ll work it out,” she said. “You’re a grown man. Allegedly.”
He wanted to huff at this, but that seemed like it would only underline her point about his maturity, so instead he just continued to make his way downstairs, in a much more careful and adult manner.
The dining room was set up for company, but he couldn’t usher people in and have them sit at the table, could he? There would be drinks and crap in the living room. His mother had loved entertaining, and there was a beautifully carved old drinks cabinet in there that had come from the continent back when that meant days on a ship. When she had hosted parties, she’d mixed the drinks herself, despite the fact that back then there had been several household staff. Okay…servants, but having servants had been normal.
Th
ere was the tinkling of a bell. Claudia hadn’t found it earlier, but there was an old doorbell. It was a wooden knob that the visitor pulled to jangle an actual brass bell that hung in the entryway. It wasn’t very loud, but it was weirdly creepy. Maybe Claudia had seen it, but she had just felt like smacking the wood of the door. Their interactions had been limited so far, but from what Cayden had seen of her, it seemed like her style. Irritatingly forward. A little scary, honestly. Well, she was Ali’s kid, wasn’t she? He’d never been a shrinking violet, which was why they had gotten into so much trouble.
Cayden wondered if he should feel like Claudia was family. Like an uncle, or something? So far, he felt the strange closeness of her being a little like her father, and apart from that…she was just a woman in his house. Maybe it was because he had expected a kid. He’d been ready to tell her a few scary stories and be a fun grownup friend. He laughed to himself. He was an idiot. And maybe he’d been stuck in the “late nights, no mornings” lifestyle for a little too long. He was certainly farming out the running of his pack to…
The bell came again, ding-ding-ding, eerie in the empty hall. Cayden shook himself. Some fucking host, he was standing there giving himself a therapy session and thinking about his long-dead mother while guests were at the door.
He headed through to the hall and opened the door. Ah, great, it was old Matherson, keeper of the keys. He was so old that even as an immortal, not aging beyond his late twenties, he looked old. He had a founding-fathers style ponytail, tied with ribbon, and some sort of a frock coat. And he held himself like there was a stick up his arse. His mate, Gertrude, was equally as strangely dressed, her heavily brocaded dress brushing the floor, her tiny feet moving like hooves in a pair of dangerously sharp-toed booties.
Behind them were their guards, aka, the reason the key keepers (one family, very inbred) always got to be so damn old. Rumor had it they also used one family and one family only of guards, basically breeding them personally, in order to avoid ever being betrayed. And they kept the keys to the old city walls, which at this point was merely a symbolic position to hold, but at one time…
“Good evening, Sir Southwark,” said Matherson.
“Matherson, Gertrude,” Cayden said. Then he didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t know what to say or what to do. Matherson stepped into the hall. Gertrude followed him and fiddled with the clips of her cloak.
“Oh,” Cayden stepped forward. “Shall I take…” he held out a hand for the cloak. As the haughty woman unclipped her covering and pulled it off, he realized that, for these two tricky customers, Cruikshanks would remove coats or cloaks for them, standing behind them and making faces at Cayden as she did so if he was nearby. Ugh, why had she left him alone? He couldn’t do this weird politeness shit.
Cayden put both coats in the big cupboard beside the door. He tried to catch the eyes of one of the guards, but the guard was stony-faced and pale, his almost see-through grey eyes pointing forward with total stillness.
Oooookay… Cayden thought to himself. And he imagined how it would feel to be followed around by those weird eyes constantly. He was glad he just had Cruikshanks.
Cayden found he had to push past the Mathersons to get through to the living room, or, he supposed they would call it the drawing room… he had once upon a time. When was the next guest going to turn up? It had to be these utter weirdos first, hadn’t it? And where were Cruikshanks and the kid? Or, the not so much of a kid?
“Drink?” Cayden asked. He could feel his face pinking up. He felt a bit like he’d run a marathon.
“You aren’t dressed like a barkeep!” Gertrude’s voice was high and wavering. Cayden didn’t know how to react to her. He had to watch her face for the smile that cracked it, along with a crackly guffaw.
Cayden managed a giggle.
“Oh, this is fun,” Gertrude said. Was it? Well, that was good.
“Hot toddy,” Matherson said, with real certainty.
Cayden nodded. “Uh huh?”
Gertrude turned to her husband, “Darling, it’s spring.”
Matherson shrugged and looked at his wife with a defiant air. “I have a tickle,” he said, “and the men will have ale.” He directed this last bit at Cayden.
“Of course,” Cayden managed. He looked at the liquor cabinet, and then at Gertrude.
“White wine spritzer,” Gertrude said, which was surprising. And did he detect just the slightest roll of her eyes, the slightest wither in her tone?
“Okay.” Cayden opened the liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottled of whisky…he shouldn’t use twenty-year-old in a toddy. He looked up at Matherson. Fuck it.
“It’ll just take a moment; make yourselves at home!”
Then there was a ding-ding-ding from the door. Cayden felt the fear on his own face as he looked toward it.
“I’ll get it,” came a voice from the hall. Claudia stepped into view and turned and smiled at him. She raised her eyebrows. Claudia looked… she looked good? Put together? So grownup. How could his best pal’s kid be this woman? She was wearing a green dress cut in a style women wore in the 1950s, wide skirt finishing just below her knees, short sleeves. The color complemented her hair and her eyes and her dark lipstick. Her hair was up in a loose bun, with tendrils framing her heart-shaped face.
Cayden stepped out into the hall, and Mrs. Cruikshanks took his arm. “How are you holding up, dear?” she asked him.
“That obvious?” Cayden asked.
“Oh, only to me, and probably to that one,” she indicated Claudia with a toss of her head. Claudia was welcoming what looked like all the rest of the guests, none of whom were likely to be as odd as the Mathersons. Some were even friends. “She’s sharp, isn’t she? And a looker.”
Cayden looked down at Mrs. Cruikshanks.
“I suppose so? What are you suggesting, Nanny?”
Mrs. Cruikshanks shrugged innocently. “Simply that Ali and Vanessa did a wonderful job raising her. A surprise, without me to help!”
Cayden laughed. “You are a wonderful caregiver, Cruikshanks, but not the only one in the world.”
Mrs. Cruikshanks gave an exaggerated sigh. “All I’m saying is, it’ll be nice when you have your own kiddies for me to spoil.”
Cayden shook his head. “I don’t remember much spoiling.”
“Well, it’s different with grandkids!” Mrs. Cruikshanks sounded genuinely a little misty-eyed. Cayden scoffed.
“Well, it’s not likely to happen soon. And right now, I need a hot toddy, ales for the creepy guards, and a white wine spritzer with ice for Gertrude.”
Mrs. Cruikshanks made a surprised noise. “Ice in wine, not very regal. I wonder who she’s been spending time with.” Then she bustled toward the stairs. “No bother, son. You go entertain, and I’ll bring up wine for the rest. Never offer any drink, they’ll want the world in a glass. Offer white, red, or water. Maybe I didn’t raise you well.” Cruikshanks was still monologuing as she disappeared around the corner of the stairwell.
In the hallway, Cayden almost walked into Claudia. “Shit!” he stopped just short of her. He could feel the warmth of her body.
“Watch it,” she said, “and your language!” But she was smiling up at him. She was glowing. One of those people who thrive on company? He supposed he was too, as long as he wasn’t in charge of everyone’s comfort.
“Does Mrs. Cruikshanks need help?” she asked. “You look utterly destroyed already. Did welcoming two guests do this to you?”
“Yes,” Cayden said, “but wait until you meet the—”
Claudia waved away this comment. “Gerty is hilarious. Her husband is a bit odd, I’ll give you that.”
Great. She was a miracle worker, and she was going to make him look so bad. This night was about welcoming her, but she was supposed to be a precocious child—not a deeply capable adult woman. It was much easier to compare how charming she was to how blundering he was like this.
“I really think I should help Cruikshanks,” Cla
udia said, and tried to move past Cayden. He caught her arm.
“Help me in there?” he asked. “I mean… she’ll be more efficient without you, I promise. And you need to be introduced to all these pack members. That’s the point of this evening, after all.”
She shook his hand off. He let it be shaken. She was half messing around, or the twinkle in her eyes said so, but maybe she was just twinkly? Maybe Claudia simply twinkled? How would he really know? Whatever she did, she was good with people, that much was clear, and right now he needed her.
“If you’re sure I’ll annoy her,” Claudia said, “I will help you instead. But really, I’m helping Cruikshanks, by making sure this all goes smoothly. Understand?”
Her smile twinkled, that was for sure, even if it was painted on and half mocking him.
4
Claudia
Cayden Southwark was barely an adult. He clearly got by on his looks alone. And, she had to concede, his charm. However, it was certainly the case that he couldn’t entertain, or cater to, a couple of important guests for ten minutes without help. And he was hundreds of years old. She wasn’t surprised, he had his ...well, his nanny, do everything for him. Whenever she thought about this, Claudia couldn’t help but smile, and almost laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. That was the fate of the playboy, she supposed. Her father might have been the same had he not met her mother a century ago. She dreaded to think. He presumably had been the same. Though without a staff member he took absolutely for granted, and used as a crutch.
Mrs. Cruikshanks liked looking after people, that much was obvious. She had come in and helped Claudia decide what was appropriate to wear to dinner. “It’s exciting to have a woman in the house!” she had said. Exciting to be spoken to, and listened to, as well, Claudia guessed.