Mr. Lewis paused and rang a small bell. Immediately, the pocket door to the dining room pulled back, and two of Mr. Lewis’s clerks scurried in. Both were holding flasks shaped like small, angry sturgeons.
“‘As neither of my sons has developed any ability to handle their liquor with dignity, these containers are filled with naught but water. Drink up, my sons. This toast is on me,’” Mr. Lewis continued reciting.
The words were unnecessarily cruel but not entirely fiction. Both men had been ejected from polite society shortly before the death of Eoin’s father. Perhaps Hugh and Francis could have emerged from their twin scandals of nearly vomiting on the queen at a ball (Hugh) and drunkenly crashing a carriage into the prized glasshouse of a royal duke while attending a house party (Francis). But their elder brother’s treason had sealed their fates.
“This is unacceptable!” Uncle Hugh smashed his fist against the table, causing Aunt Eliza to jump before she slumped back into her chair.
“That can’t be all!” Uncle Francis shouted. “There must be more. The solicitor hasn’t finished speaking yet!”
“Yes. Read on. Read on!” Hugh demanded.
As Mr. Lewis picked up the will once more, the clerks hurried from the room. Eoin followed their movements suspiciously. Were they running to retrieve an equally insulting gift for the women? Yet no one else noticed their exit as everyone’s attention was upon the lawyer.
“‘To my daughters—’” Mr. Lewis read.
“No!” Uncle Hugh’s denial was angry and loud. “He cannot be moving on to my sisters already. Where is my inheritance?”
“And mine!” Uncle Francis echoed.
“You!” Uncle Hugh roared as he turned and hurled his fish flask at Eoin’s head. “You knew of this, you damned sycophant.”
Eoin didn’t dodge the silver missile. Instead, he simply snatched it from the air. He’d always possessed an uncanny deftness that his grandfather had dismissively attributed to his common blood.
“No,” Eoin said. “I did not.”
“Like everyone says, you were his bloody shadow—following him everywhere, doing his bidding. Of course you knew about this bloody letter!”
“C-e-e-ease !” Aunt Eliza’s voice was wavery and faint. “My nerves are already strained, and my head is beginning to ache. Please stop your shouting.”
“Eliza’s right. Yelling won’t solve anything,” Aunt Joan interjected grumpily as she crossed her arms.
“Venting your spleen will at least rebalance your humors,” Uncle Francis announced in his most sagacious tone. He rather sounded like a pompous nincompoop.
“You just want to hear what Father left you, Joan, but I doubt it will be any better than our fish flasks,” Uncle Hugh ground out.
“Ahhhhhhh,” Aunt Eliza breathed out as if she were inphysical pain, and perhaps she was. She did seem to suffer from megrims, but Eoin couldn’t assist. She wouldn’t welcome his help, and anything he said would only make her siblings shout more.
“Proceed,” Uncle Hugh snapped at Mr. Lewis, the annoyance in his voice almost palpable. “We might as well get this intolerable exercise over with.”
Mr. Lewis immediately began reading again as if he’d never stopped. “‘As for my girls, I leave them these laying fowls…’”
Again, Mr. Lewis halted to ring the bell. Before the door even opened, Aunt Joan had leaped to her feet, and Aunt Eliza had slumped fully onto the table.
“A laying fowl? What does that even mean?”
As if in answer to her question, the two clerks emerged once more. They each carried a large basket containing a hissing goose.
Uncle Hugh and Uncle Francis laughed almost as uproariously as they had after witnessing Eoin’s ash-filled box. Aunt Joan gasped in horror while Aunt Eliza seemed intent on ignoring the situation.
Mr. Lewis, however, chose to continue his recitation. “‘As Eliza and Joan are nothing but silly geese who lounge about my home, I am providing them with companions who perfectly suit their temperaments.’”
If Eoin had allowed any emotion to show on his face, he would have frowned. Unlike his uncles, his aunts were not deserving of such condemnation. Their misfortunes had been brought upon them by the misconduct of their late husbands—husbands who their father had selected for them. It was not their fault that their spouses had died scandalously and in debt.
“Get that filthy thing away from me!” Joan backed away as one of the clerks approached her.
As Mr. Lewis’s other subordinate placed the second fowl in front of Aunt Eliza, she lifted her head a scant inch. Unfortunately, the bird chose that moment to extend its ghastly-looking tongue, which was shockingly lined with what looked to be serrated teeth. Eliza’s high-pitched scream echoed through the large room and bounced off the ceiling.
Her caterwauling caused the unwanted goose to rise. Below its flapping wings lay a cache of eggs. Abandoning its nest, the bird leaped onto the table. Its webbed feet struggled to find purchase on the lace-covered surface. Slipping and sliding, it waddled frantically, pulling the fabric every which direction.
