“I think that we could help these people. Some of them, anyway. If my parents speak the truth, I am owed an inheritance. Property that could be used as a haven for young, ill girls like myself. Girls who have nowhere to go.”
“We?” Clara asked. “You’d take me with you?” Her voice was fragile and quiet, so unlike her that Della did something equally out of character. She stood from her chair and lowered herself to the floor next to where Clara sat. The motion was ungraceful and inelegant, butshe made it.
“Clara,” she grasped her hands, “that day at the lake, I told you to run ahead back to the house and I’d make it there eventually. You wouldn’t leave me, not for anything. We both nearly caught our deaths out there, together. No one is left behind—I’m fairly sure that is the entire point of the idea.”
Clara smiled. She was so rarely emotional like this with anyone. Radiant happiness was at the core of her personality, but there was also a deep vulnerability to her that not many ever got to see.
“I’ve no idea how we are ever to act on such an idea,” Della sobered. Reality was swift in setting in, as soon as she’d formed this grand idea, she’d realized the magnitude of what she was actually trying to execute. “My parents will never allow me my rightful property.”
“Well,” Clara smiled again. This one was cunning and almost smug. “Thankfully you’ve retained the services of an excellent solicitor.”
Chapter Eighteen
Andrew hadn’t beento Morley House in years. It was in an overly regal neighborhood, somewhere he’d never had a reason to be outside of his father’s work, and he’d been too young to realize it the last time his boots fell onto the stone steps. A chill of terror ran through his body as he thought of that last time. He’d been such a fool. It was a moment of desperation, and it had broken his heart. Upended his entire life. His memories of this place were fond outside of that one ruining moment, but something about the grandeur of it all made him ill at ease.
He was sure it was beautiful, but all he could see was a place where Della wasn’t welcome, and that was nowhere he wanted to be.
The butler opened the tall, heavy door, and he and a footman bowed as Andrew approached. He wanted to tell them such an action was wholly unnecessary, but he didn’t want to let on just how out of place he was here. Though he was sure as experienced domestics in a home like this one, they could smell the commonness on him. They could probably tell by his lack of finery and general disposition that he belonged with them more than he did with the viscount. Truly, it was an act of boldness in and of itself to be standing in their front hall. He had no right to, and he certainly hadn’t been invited.
He’d come here to give them the benefit of the doubt. He remembered the Harrises as kind people. They’d treated his father well, andthey’d let Andrew spend most of his childhood roaming about the grounds of their estate. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Della, it was just that he had trouble reconciling the owners of the home he’d practically grown up in with the people who would do such a thing to their own daughter.
He was about to ask to see if the viscount was seeing visitors, but the man himself walked through the hall just then, seemingly headed for the grand staircase. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of Andrew, and it seemed that neither man had any idea what to say. Andrew braced himself to be swiftly thrown out by the aggrieved looking footman who stood in the corner. The man seemed to be prepared for some kind of violence. Instead, Viscount Morley’s face broke out into a wide smile. Andrew barely recognized that face. It was staggering for a moment, how much older Morley looked. Andrew realized he’d been robbed of the opportunity to see his own father age in the same way.
“My God, Andrew Lockhart, that must be you.” Morley stood in front of Andrew, vigorously shaking his hand. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were your father. I haven’t seen you in an age, my boy.”
At that very moment, Andrew regretted even coming here. He was still shaking his hand, and Andrew was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. It wasn’t just that he didn’t belong there, though the gilded wallpaper and marble flooring were clues that led him to that conclusion, it was the overly familiar greeting. Despite his words, Morley acted as if they’d just spoken last week. As if they often played whist together at a club somewhere in the city.
How could the man in front of him greet the son of an old business associate with such demonstrative familiarity when he didn’t even care to see his own daughter more than once a year?
Andrew withdrew his hand as swiftly as he could. Something about being so close to the man made bile rise up in his throat.
“Yes, well...” Andrew started to respond, once he realized that was what was expected of him. Of course, if you called upon someone at their home, you would be presumed to speak. “I’ve been abroad for many years.”
Practically since the last time he’d walked these halls. Much had changed since then, Andrew noticed as he looked around. He wasn’t surprised. Della had always lamented her mother’s constantly changing the furniture and the paint and the carpets. Della had always preferred to be outside because the landscape didn’t change nearly as much as the interior of the home, only once a season. Andrew was amazed he could still recall memories like that, happy ones, as he stood in the place where his world had been shattered. That was the power of Della, and that was something he should never doubt.
“Come and sit, we’ll catch up.” Morley smiled, and Andrew felt himself grin in response. He hoped the discomfort he felt wasn’t showing through his face. It was a relief to be invited in, and he hadn’t even needed to ask.
As he walked further into the home, relief turned to dread. Andrew’s stomach turned as they headed for Morley’s study. He still knew where it was, because it was where he’d always been able to find his father if he needed him. Andrew felt as if he needed him now, and there was a pinch of grief in the hollows of his chest at the thought that he wouldn’t be there this time.
“I had heard you left for the Continent some years ago, just after your father went to his rewards, but I hadn’t realized you were back.” The viscount sat behind his large oak desk and fixed Andrew with a gaze that made him squirm.
For a moment, Andrew just looked around. He was taken back in time. Nothing in this room had changed, it seemed it had been spared from the viscountess’s garish taste. In fact, the room reminded him of the study at Westfield Manor. Sitting here with Morley was nothing like sitting across the desk from Della, though. It was night and day.Harsh cold and searing warmth.
“I am,” Andrew answered, because he was. He found he didn’t have much else to say.
“And how is your mother?” Morley asked. He picked up his spectacles off the desk and began to sort through a slurry of papers strewn about the surface.
“She’s well,” Andrew answered. He wasn’t making eye contact. He was focused on those papers. He might be a bit of a mess in other aspects of his life, but he was ruthless in the organization of his work. The sloppy bookkeeping he saw before him was maddening.
They fell into silence, and something about it made Andrew bold. Everything had been so easy so far, he decided to test the waters. See how far Morley could be pushed before he fell.
“And how is your daughter?” Andrew asked. He was almost proud of the way he feigned nonchalance. As if his daughter was an old acquaintance, or she was just the subject of a natural progression of polite conversation. As if she weren’t the fulcrum Andrew wanted to balance his entire life on.
The last time he’d been in this house, the last time he asked anyone about Della, it wasn’t her father. Andrew hadn’t even made it that far. Now, he didn’t know how much Morley knew about what had happened between them. About what Andrew had wanted to happen, anyway. It was a risk to even mention her name.
The viscount put down his papers, somehow leaving them in more of a tangle than when he’d started. He must be trying to bait Andrew into anger at this point, the disorder was so deliberate. He took off his spectacles, leaned his elbows on the desk and intertwined his fingers as if in prayer.
“She is ill,” he said, on a long-suffering sigh.
