“Listen to yourself,” said Nora, lowering her voice and stepping closer. “Are you accusing our father of wrongdoing? Or something worse?”
The fellow paused, his brows rising. “I didn’t say that. What makes you think such a thing?”
“You are acting like a sneakthief,” she replied, motioning to the mess he’d made of Papa’s things. Stepping around, Nora reached for the next ledger he grabbed, but Lionel pulled it out of reach. “What has taken hold of your senses?”
“I am doing what I must because my father refuses to trust me,” said Lionel, dropping another heap of letters upon the desk.
“And you believe that tearing through his things will encourage him to trust you?”
“As much as I am loath to say it, he shan’t be here forever. How will Eden & Co. continue to function when he is gone if he does not teach me how to run it?”
“Mr. Treadway will teach you,my boy.” Papa’s voice cut cleanly—and calmly—across the room.
Nora turned sharply to find the gentleman standing inside the open doorway, one hand resting lightly on the handle as though he had only just arrived, though judging by the cold stillness in his expression, she suspected he had heard more of the exchange than either of them would like.
Lionel stepped slowly away from the desk, though he made no move to hide the scattered papers surrounding him, and for several long seconds, Papa said nothing at all. His gaze moved across the disorderly room: the open drawers, the ledgers spread untidily across the desk, the correspondence abandoned upon the carpet. Then at last his eyes settled upon Lionel with a look so shuttered and unreadable that Nora felt the hairs along her arms rise.
“I am glad to know I have at least one loyal child,” said Papa at last, his eyes flicking to her.
The silence that followed settled thickly in the study, the afternoon light catching dust motes drifting lazily through the stillness whilst somewhere deeper in the house a clock chimed the quarter hour with maddening normalcy.
Lionel swallowed, and for a moment Nora thought he might apologize and smooth over the ugly tension gathering in the air, but the whiskey burning through him had evidently stripped away the caution that usually governed his tongue.
“I need to understand the business,” said Lionel at last, the words emerging rougher than usual though he held Papa’s gaze steadily enough. “I have worked hard to build up this company, and I deserve to know the whole of it.”
Papa’s expression did not alter, and Lionel pressed onward.
“What if you are unable to guide the company?” He gestured sharply toward the scattered ledgers around him. “What happens to any of us then? To Mama? To Nora and the younger children? Eden & Co. supports your family and mine, yet you refuse to teach me half of how it functions. I cannot risk my wifeand my children’s welfare. It is reckless. Surely you can see that—”
“Be silent!” Papa’s voice cracked through the room so sharply that Nora flinched, and his quiet restraint vanished as he crossed the study in several swift strides. She kept very still beside the desk, scarcely trusting herself to move or speak; experience had taught her too well how swiftly Papa’s temper could be redirected to anyone who caught his attention.
“How dare you come here with demands!” One hand sharply motioned to the room around them as Papa’s eyes blazed. “This house. Your servants. Your fine clothes. Your wife’s comforts. Your children’s nursery. Every blessed thing you enjoy was purchased with money I earned whilst you were still too young to understand the difference between profit and debt. You ought to be thanking me, yet you demand answers as though I owe you.”
Lionel’s face tightened, but Papa did not allow so much as a breath for interruption.
“And now you stand in my study—drunk, no less—lecturing me about recklessness like the spoiled brat you are. You think because you sit in meetings and sign correspondence that you understand what it takes to build an empire from nothing?”
Papa scoffed. “Do you imagine I can trust you with my business? You, who have never known true hardship a day in your life? You were born into comfort and werehandedevery advantage imaginable, yet you expect applause for arriving at work each morning. What makes you think you could ever step into my shoes?”
Something in her brother collapsed inward beneath the onslaught. Outwardly, Lionel still stood upright beside the desk, broad-shouldered and properly dressed and every inch the respectable businessman he worked so hard to appear. Yet allhis fire and fight drained visibly, and Nora gripped the edge of the desk to steady herself.
“I beg your forgiveness, sir,” whispered Lionel, his gaze fixed upon the floor.
Papa pointed sharply toward the door. “Get out.”
Lionel obeyed at once, and Nora hurried after him, relief washing through her so swiftly that her knees nearly buckled. Behind her Papa’s voice rang through the study once more, this time bellowing for servants to clean up the mess littering the room, and Nora did not stop until the door of her bedchamber shut firmly behind her.
Moving to the window, Nora stared blindly across Berkeley Square whilst the late afternoon sunlight stretched across the trees. The sounds of the household faded, leaving only the lingering echo of Papa’s raised voice rattling through her thoughts.
The familiar comfort of her room settled around her in pieces: the fading warmth of the afternoon sunlight stretching across the rug, the quiet ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece, the faint scent of paper and binding glue drifting from the stack of newly purchased books sitting on the foot of her bed. Yet when Nora closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands against them, the sight of Papa tearing Lionel apart piece by piece remained etched in her mind.
Chapter 26
The bedchamber glowed warm beneath the gas lamps, the soft light catching the silver-backed brushes and hairpins carefully arranged on Nora’s dressing table as the maid’s deft fingers secured the last stubborn locks into place.
The deep blue of her gown was as rich as midnight, complementing her coloring to perfection. And the bodice and skirt looked as though they were fashioned from a single piece of fabric, wrapping around her in a manner that was reminiscent of Grecian draping.
It remained one of her favorites despite being so severely out of date that it drew attention whenever she deigned to wear it, the wide skirts and faint bunching at the back standing out amongst the silhouettes that demanded the former to be narrower and the latter to be larger. But one does not simply abandon an old friend for fashion’s sake, and tonight, Nora needed her dearest companion at her side.
