Elise found Great Aunt Annalies already in the library, pouring over a pile of heavy volumes she had withdrawn from the shelves, her glasses at the end of her nose and a small smile on her face. “Just catching up with old friends,” the Princess said, her tone wistful.
Danyal moved around the two of them and over to the wing chair and footstool farthest from the big desk. He settled into it without comment.
“Uncle Ben and Uncle Iefan will be here shortly,” Elise told Annalies. “We are to deal with the house business and then enjoy the rest of the day.”
Great Aunt Annalies shut the book she had opened with a heavy thud and moved over to the wing chair in the corner of the room by the bright window. “You are to deal with the house, my dear.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I will merely listen and sign anything which needs to be signed. This is your project, my dear.”
Ben and Iefan arrived, both looking sober. “I brought Ben into this for the legal side of the matter,” Iefan said, “and because it is you, Mother. If we’re both here, you cannot bamboozle me into yet another wild idea.”
“Oh, that is unfair,” the Princess said calmly. “Especially as this idea is not mine, but Elise’s.”
Both men looked at Elise.
She squeezed her fist around a fold of her tweed travel dress. “The idea is really mine and Ann’s,” she amended quickly. “And it is not an idea, but a necessity.”
“Modernization is a necessity?” Iefan asked.
Ben tilted his head. “You plan to modernize the old house on Grosvenor Square?” he asked Elise, sounding neither surprised nor condescending.
“Something must be done,” Elise said firmly. “People cannot continue to live in the house without some improvement, and as our borders pay for the privilege, it seems to me we should be providing a minimal amount of civilized conveniences.”
Uncle Iefan and Uncle Ben glanced at each other.
“What do you feel needs improvement, then?” Uncle Iefan asked.
Elise pulled her notebook out of her pocket and opened it to the page where she had been adding ideas and thoughts about the house as she moved through her days. There were several pages of notations, now.
She went through the items, explaining each one to the two men, and explaining how she thought it would benefit Great Aunt Annalies and the borders who lived there.
Uncle Iefan asked few questions, Uncle Ben even less. Those they did ask were highly practical, including expected costs and how long the larger projects would take to complete.
The entire time she spoke, Elise was aware of Danyal sitting in the armchair, visible in the corner of her eye. He neither moved nor spoke and she wished she could know what he was thinking about her.
When she had reached the end of her list, Elise closed the notebook once more and put it back in her pocket. “The truth is, there is much, much more about the house that needs updating,” she finished. “Much of it merely enhances the appearance of the house. These things I’ve mentioned, though—the water closet is the perfect example—these are items which can affect one’s health…or so the journals say, at least.”
Iefan rubbed the back of his neck. “I have no argument against anything you have said. The house we’re using in Paris was improved in these ways years ago and I know how much easier and pleasant they make life. Ben?”
Ben stroked his beard thoughtfully. “It isn’t just a matter of pleasantness. Any improvements to the house would add to its value, should you decide to sell the house in the future.” He glanced at Iefan, who was the owner of the house.
Iefan crossed his arms. A deep furrow ran between his brows. “It is a pity these improvements were not brought to my attention years ago, before Vaughn’s bank collapsed. As it is, while I agree in principal, funding the improvements is not as straight forward.”
Elise pressed her hands together to fight off the tension coiling in her chest. “I have already made arrangements to have the house painted in exchange for storing the painter’s supplies in our stable over the winter.”
Iefan laughed. “A fair exchange indeed. It is a pity we cannot arrange all these projects in the same manner.”
“We might be able to arrange some of them,” Ben said thoughtfully. “You spoke of a spare bedroom, Elise, yes?”
“The attic bedroom, yes.”
Ben considered. “Iefan’s old room. It is quite large, I remember.”
“Huge,” Iefan replied. “When I was twelve, it seemed very large.”
“Even better,” Ben replied. “Two young ladies—sisters—could share that room.”
“They could,” Elise said slowly.
Ben nodded again. “Then would you consider two more borders in exchange for the funds to bring the plumbing up to today’s standards?”
Annalies pressed her hands together. “Oh, you’re thinking of Jennifer Jane and Alice! How delightful!”
Ben nodded. “They’re old enough that our life and ways in the house are stifling to them. Stephen is willing to employ them, which will provide them with an income. If they boarded with you, Mama, they would truly experience an independent life, which is what all modern young women seem to demand, these days.” He cocked his brow at Elise. “Would that be a satisfactory exchange for you?”
Elise nodded. “I can certainly make that work,” she decided. The plumbing was the most pressing matter on her list. With that taken care of, she could focus on the other items and find arrangements and exchanges as she had for the painting of the house.
The two men sorted out some of the more practical matters of the exchange, including the finding of tradesmen and the timing of the work, which Elise badly wanted done before Christmas.
Great Aunt Annalies took a stronger interest in the arrival of the two new boarders. “New people are so invigorating,” she declared. “It will be wonderful to have them in the house, Ben.”
The sound of voices raised drifted through the closed library door, calling Elise’s attention away from the small group standing in front of the big desk. The voices were coming from the back of the house, and they did not sound happy.
“Perhaps we should complete the formalities later?” Ben said, turning his gaze toward the door.
A shout sounded, too muffled for the words in it to be clear.
“That doesn’t sound good at all,” Iefan muttered and moved swiftly toward the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Everyone hurried from the library to the wide drawing room at the back of the house, and through the French windows, which provided the view of the sea to those using the drawing room.
Most of the windows were open, allowing all of them to move outside without a crush at the door. That was why the shouting had reached them in the library. Elise came to a halt upon the top step, afraid to move down onto the gravel.
A tall man stood upon the gravel in poor workman’s clothes, his hair in disarray, his face red with anger, while Cian and Iefan stood before him. Behind them, Uncle Raymond had his hand over his eyes, shading them. Or hiding them?
To one side of the tense group, his face very white, stood cousin Richard. Éve stood behind his shoulder, her eyes very wide. The lady in yellow, Cian’s wife, Lady Eleanore, stood motionless upon the croquet court, her mallet resting on the ground, her hands upon the top of the shaft. Her expression was wary as she watched her husband confront the angry man.
“All I want is a moment alone with my brother and father. I am still a member of the family,” the man ground out. “Or have you struck me from the records while I was away?” His tone was just as angry as his face. The tendons in his throat flexed. So did his hands, as if he longed to wrap them around something.
“No one is denying you anything, Vaughn,” Cian said, his voice even, as if he was in a polite conversation about the weather. “I simply ask that you give us all a moment to collect our composure and adjust to your presence.”
Vaughn! Elise felt her own heart thud he
avily. This was cousin Vaughn? She stared at the man she no longer recognized.
Danyal leaned toward her. “Vaughn…is that not your cousin who…?”
“Yes,” she breathed back.
“Lord…!” Danyal uttered. “Did you know he was to be released?”
“No, of course not,” she said swiftly, her discomfort rising. She spared a glance at Danyal and could feel her cheeks growing warmer. “I suppose, as I wanted you to see the very worst of my nature, this aspect of my family is perhaps the perfect sample. Yet I find myself mortified that you must see this.”
Danyal’s eyes narrowed. “The criminal in your family is, at least, not a murderer and rapist,” he said softly. Gently.
Elise pressed her lips together. “Am I a terrible person for finding comfort in that?” she asked, for she did feel a touch of relief.
“At least the blackguard in my family tree is useful for something,” Danyal replied.
Cian said to Vaughn, “You did arrive without warning, cousin.”
“What of it?” Vaughn growled. “Is that an indirect way of saying I’m not welcome here, anymore? I lived here! This was my home!” His voice rose.
Elise found herself shrinking back upon the step. She was a good dozen paces away from Vaughn, but even this far away did not seem very…well, safe.
Vaughn had changed. He was not the happy man she remembered, with the gentle brown eyes and elegant bearing. She had not realized that being imprisoned could change a man so much, but then, she did not know anything about prisons. Until Vaughn had been put on trial, years ago, she had not known that there was more than one prison in England, or where any of them might be located.
Could putting a man in a cell and keeping him there change him in such a way? Vaughn’s fists, his angry face and the tension in his shoulders were unmistakable signs of a man on the verge of violence.
Vaughn and violence had been strangers when Elise had known him, growing up.
“I have withstood much,” Vaughn said. Even his normal speaking voice seemed unnaturally loud and grating. “Laura’s marriage, Mother’s…Mother’s passing…but to be turned away from my own home…my God!” His feet shifted in the gravel, as if he was preparing to strike out.
Apparently, Elise was not the only person to think so, for Danyal moved down to the next step, then moved along it.
Elise stared at his back and shoulders, her heart thudding.
Danyal had put himself in front of her. He was shielding her…when he had been raised to stand behind household guards of his own.
Danyal was not the only man to move in an imperceptible way that put him in a better position. Ben had also drifted around behind the taut group confronting one another, to bring himself up by Richard. His big hand rested on Richard’s shoulder.
Was he discouraging Richard from acting? Uncle Ben had been a successful boxer in his youth, Elise remembered.
Even Uncle Iefan had eased over to the main group, to stand just to one side of Cian, which put him within a pace or two of Vaughn.
Cian threw out a hand, his own patience wearing thin. “No one is turning you away, Vaughn! For heaven’s sake! This persecution is purely in your mind. Will you calm down and discuss this civilly, or must we make you calm down? And I promise you, we will if necessary.”
Raymond, Vaughn’s father, made a soft, harsh sound in his throat, one of distress.
Vaughn drew in a breath. Then another. “Then let me speak to Richard and Father,” he said, his volume lower, but still taut and thick with anger.
“If they wish to speak to you, I will give you the library,” Cian said, and looked at Richard.
Richard nodded. He was as tense as Vaughn, but there was no anger in his eyes.
Raymond sighed and dropped his hand. “Yes, of course I will speak to you, Vaughn.” His voice was strained.
Cian took a step back and waved toward the French doors. “You remember where the library is, I presume?”
“You do not insist upon Travers showing me the way?”
“Travers died, last year,” Cian said shortly. “Yours is not the only life which has been disrupted, Vaughn. And as you pointed out, you are not a guest here. Make your own way to the library.” There was a snap in his voice.
Vaughn looked around, as if he was only now taking in his surroundings. “I expected more people to be here….”
“We have not had a gather since you left,” Cian said.
Vaughn let out a gusty sigh. “Another thing I have done to you, then.” He met Cian’s gaze. “I apologize. I was braced for rejection.”
Cian nodded stiffly. “I’ll have your room prepared.”
“No,” Vaughn said sharply. “I won’t be staying.”
Raymond made another strained sound. “But…”
“No,” Vaughn said, shaking his head. “I protest about rejection only because I have become well acquainted with it. I know what I am—how the world sees me now. I will not sully this house any further. A few minutes to speak to Richard and Father, then I will be gone from here and you can return to your…” He looked around. “What is this? A house party? One of those weekend things?”
“On a Tuesday?” Richard said, his tone light, as he moved up to his brother’s side.
“Is it Tuesday?” Vaughn asked. “I’d quite lost track.” He looked around. “Ah…the tent is not there. That is why this looks wrong to me.” He moved inside, with Richard and Raymond behind him.
Elise tried to tally this stranger with the cousin she remembered. As he passed, she noticed the lines in his face which aged him more than his actual years. There were creases around his mouth and a permanent furrow between his brows.
He did not glance at her as he strode by.
Richard followed Vaughn to the library, resisting the temptation to linger and help his father along. Raymond would resent the notion that he required help, despite the pallor in his face and his slow steps.
Richard felt the way his father seemed to feel. Vaughn’s appearance was so very shocking and unexpected. The lack of warning had made his arrival feel like a hammer blow to Richard’s chest.
Vaughn pushed the library door open not with a hand to the doorknob, but the flat of his palm against the door itself, thrusting it aside. He moved into the room and spun to face Richard as he entered.
Raymond closed the door behind the three of them with a soft snick.
“I meant what I said,” Vaughn began without preamble. “A few moments, then I will be gone.”
“You will not stay the night?” Raymond asked. “Not even for dinner?” His upset was plain in his voice.
Vaughn’s worn face moved into a knowing expression. “I know my worth at the dinner table, Father. I am more valuable away from the table, so others might gossip about me freely.”
“You know that is not how this family treats each other,” Richard said. “It never has, and it never will—not even with you. Imprisonment has scrambled your brain if you really believe we would talk about you in such a way.”
His father said nothing, but the agony in his eyes spoke eloquently enough.
“Can you stay even a little while, so Father, at least, can assure himself that you are well?”
“Well?” Vaughn replied. “Do I look well?”
“No,” Richard shot back. “Which is why you must convince Father you are well enough to leave this house once more.”
Raymond cleared his throat. “We cannot argue that your experience has not changed you, son, but I would like to believe that enough of your good character remains to counter what you have gone through. And you were that, before—a good man.”
Vaughn ruffled his hair with a hand and turned on his heel to peer through the lace at the window. “Being a good man did not serve me well, did it?” he said bitterly.
Richard could find nothing to say to dispute that. Apparently, neither could his father, for Raymond said nothing either.
“I’m not even sure why I came here,”
Vaughn added softly. “Only, I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.” He shook his head. “They gave me a pound note and these clothes and pushed me out the gate with five minutes warning. I couldn’t even linger to write a letter to anyone to let them know my release had been arranged earlier than expected. I was forced to walk to the station and there, I learned that a pound was insufficient for the train journey. Even worse, the station master recognized me.”
“He was rude to you?” Richard breathed, his heart aching for his brother’s misery.
“He took pity on me,” Vaughn grated. “He let me buy the ticket with my solitary pound. Third class, of course.”
Raymond moved toward the big desk at the far end of the room. “Then you’ve not eaten since this morning. A sandwich for your pocket, then.” He pulled the bell. “And cab fare, and train fare to get you back to London. That is where you are going, is it not?”
“I have no idea,” Vaughn murmured.
Richard stared at him, appalled.
Raymond opened a drawer in the desk and a box inside the drawer, and pulled out a folded stack of pound notes. He opened the stack and separated a good dozen of them from the others and put them on the table. “Take the money, or don’t take it. It is yours, indirectly.”
Vaughn eyed the pile of notes. “Perhaps it shouldn’t be mine, even indirectly,” he said softly.
Raymond lifted his head. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Father, that you should name Richard your heir.”
Raymond swallowed.
“I don’t want it,” Richard said. It was the utter truth. “You are the eldest.”
“I’m barely a human being, Richard!” Vaughn growled. “Take the damned title. You’ll be the heir of nothing, thanks to me, so it will make not a scrap of difference to your life.”
Richard’s throat hurt. His eyes ached. But even more painful to him was the glitter in Vaughn’s eyes.
Raymond moved around the desk swiftly, and over to Vaughn. “Vaughn…damn it, boy…” He reached for him.
Vaughn didn’t resist as his father pulled him against him. Instead he lowered his head and wept.
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