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"And I'm presuming your implication is that I grew up to be willful? Is a woman willful for wanting to hear a different tune, Egan?" Nadia responded with a grin. She had no shame in that title, though she knew it would be spoken scathingly in the whispers of crass bachelors discussing available brides with prestigious titles.
"I only know that when your father hired me he admonished me, asking me to hum a few tunes for him to break the silence. And now, with as much conviction as he had, you want me to stop. You're certainly his daughter," Egan said with a nod.
"I didn't say stop. Just a different tune, is all," Nadia protested.
"The classics never change," Egan joked. Concern crossed Lady Nadia's face; she reasoned that perhaps she could divine some of the details of this rather sudden visit of hers from Egan, who had always been one of her father's loyal and trusted servants. Before he began to hum again, she interjected quietly.
"Egan, have you any idea why my father's sent for me? I had not forgotten about him, or about the family estate, but I simply had been enjoying my time abroad, learning of the way of things. Certainly not something he could fault me for, yes?" she asked, guarded, fearing that perhaps something had angered her father and that on her return she would be subject to his wrath.
"Oh, no, I don't think your father considered you estranged or anysuch, m'lady, at least not by the manner in which he spoke of you. Not a fiber in him has lost love for his only child, I assure you, Nadia," Egan laughed. That did little to assuage her fears, though. Lady Nadia could handle an argument with her father - and if nothing so simple faced her when the carriage climbed the hill upon which Havenshire Manor sat, fear of the unknown struck her instead.
"Then... what could have troubled him, do you think?" Lady Nadia asked innocently. Egan hesitated; she could feel a tension in him, as his eyes kept to the broad and empty road; the silence mired her in dread.
"Begging your pardon, m'lady, but I think it... best, for Lord Havenshire to explain the situation to you himself. I'm but a simple driver, after all," Egan commented, and she knew what that particular choice of words meant; he was playing ignorant, perhaps at the direct request of her father. Frustrated and quietly frightened, Nadia's breath rattled as she exhaled deeply.
"Certainly, he wouldn't be cross with you for giving a single hint of a detail, Egan?" Nadia whispered, closing conspiratorially towards the window near Egan's ear. She could see his features - vexed, perhaps by his loyalty to her father, but most certainly vexed just the same with a deep-seated worry of his own.
"You're a woman who's come of age, m'lady, and your father has... concerns, quite reasonable concerns, as to the disposition of the family estate. These are, of course, concerns common to every man and woman of station, m'lady, and so you... need not worry too greatly, yes?" Egan tempered rather grave matters of speech with a comforting tone and a toothy grin, but Nadia could tell that whatever had happened troubled trusty Egan just as deeply as it troubled her father. Nadia saw no need to press; she knew Egan would reveal little else. With worry on her brow Lady Nadia reclined across the carriage's padded bench, watching the countryside roll by. She recognized the landmarks; the crumbled statue, an old guardhouse situated along a long-rotted wooden wall. Much of the manse appeared frozen in time; her father had little interest in the stodgy cobbled-together structures that had once littered the grounds, preferring the bright and dominant architecture of the new designers from London, with windows and white paints and swirling facades lit by the glow of the sun. Still, something cast a long shadow over the rest of the trip - and not just her own pained memories of men slighting her or the controlled society she had now chained herself to once more, the manacles tightening further and further with each step taken closer to the manse.
"We'll be scaling the hill soon, m'lady," Egan said, rather dour; the remainder of the trip came in silence. No more humming, no more curious questions; no laughs or boasts of joy. Whatever had driven this reunion weighed heavily on the both of them.
CHAPTER TWO
"Quite a ride, eh, m'lady?" Egan asked, once more wearing his usual manner of joyful grin, though it felt far more manufactured now than it had been in years past, as if he hid something beneath the mask of mirth. Lady Havenshire stepped out of the carriage, the breathtaking size of the manor reminding her starkly of how small the world here was, where a wealthy duke's manor, garden, and the bounteous lands beyond dwarfed so much of the surroundings. The sun setting as evening began to creep in, Lady Nadia yawned, holding her gloved fingers to her lips out of courtesy. The windows, an entire gleaming array of them, spat back her reflection as the sun shone brightly; dressed in her simplest dress, a lacy affair of golden-yellow with a laced bodice of brilliant pearly white, her hair fell in curled, vibrant fiery-auburn coils along her dainty shoulders. Though she had a reputation as trouble among the local nobles, she didn't quite have the imposing stature of the firebrand they certainly all imagined - a petite woman, of only five
feet tall and a thin, lithe figure, that small personage hid a vibrant mind and independent personality.
"One never quite realizes how large the estate is, until spending so much time away, Egan," she commented in a quiet tone. Standing tall and broad, with rows upon rows of windows and white pillars and archways, the mansion reminded her of the pictures of crumbling temples of classical antiquity, rebuilt to soar as they had in their prime, and glowing with a glorious marbled sheen. Egan offered his hand to escort her through the garden pathway and to the manor's front door; wrought-iron trellises overgrown with vibrant white-tipped ivy leaves lined the entrance to the mansion, beds of sprouting flowers nestled at their metal feet.
"Nelson has done quite well keeping the gardens as alive as I remembered," Lady Nadia observed.
"You won't let me escort you into the manor, m'lady?" Egan said with a frown, his hand still outstretched as the redheaded woman passed him by. With a playfully chiding look she turned to the aging chauffeur, her arms crossed atop her chest.
"You expect a willful firebrand like myself to take an offer, just because you're a man?" she joked. "Would my father have accepted such a request, had he been a woman?"
"I think he would have, if only to make a tired old man happy for a few moments," Egan said with facetious sadness. Lady Havenshire sighed, smiled, and finally took Egan's hand, its surface hardened like worked leather after years of laboring and handling rough, hempen ropes.
"Is this making the tired old man happy?" Lady Nadia joked, as the two of them walked to the manor's front door. Emotions overcame the aging driver, a longtime friend of the family; Nadia couldn't remember a time when Egan hadn't seen to her father and mother, before she passed. He looked away, sullen, and concern crept into Nadia's features.
"Very happy, just like when you were a girl," Egan said, his hand shaking.
"Is something wrong, Egan?" Nadia asked as they reached the door, noticing the portly porter had begun to try to hide tears forming at the edges of his eyes.
"M'lady, it's your father," he confessed, his voice wobbling. "He's called you back here for a very... very important, grave matter."
"Egan, please, if this is troubling you so deeply..." Nadia implored, her own breaths shaky and unsure.
"It's... it's not my business to say, m'lady. Your father is... is waiting for you," he confessed, composing himself and wiping away tears, his eyes reddened, his head held high. He rapped loudly on the manor door, and Nadia realized that something serious had so abruptly called her away from the world and back to her home. She had never in her life seen joyful Egan so despairing as that moment; it was a despair she, too, saw in the eyes of Ms. Mulwray, an elderly woman who had served as majordomo of the house staff since before Nadia was born, when the woman answered the door. She smiled, though it felt forced, and instead of curtsies and other such performative gestures, Ms. Mulwray caught the melancholy in Egan's expression and instead embraced Nadia deeply.
In that moment Nadia knew something very serious had happened. Ms. Mulwray could be quite charming, and had always looked out for the young Nadia as she grew, but Nadia remembered her as strict; as no-nonsense. Nadia could never have imagined returning home from an exploration of the world, and of herself - an exploration Ms. Mulwray had had serious misgivings about Nadia undertaking - and being greeted with a comforting hug.
"We're all sorry to have to see you again in circumstances so grave, m'lady Nadia," Ms. Mulwray cooed in that soothing fashion she had a knack for; the soothing coo she'd heard when Nadia had skinned her knee exploring as a child. Nadia blinked, swallowing hard.
"G... grave circumstances?" Nadia asked, her heart sinking. She searched the foyer for her father, and suddenly realized that he had not gotten up and come to the door to greet her - something she had expected, after being gone for so long. It felt... wrong. Ms. Mulwray glanced with widened eyes at Egan, who cleared his throat weakly.
"You haven't spoken to her about... about the nature of the visit, Egan? I quite figured you would've already had this conversation," Ms. Mulwray announced.
"I thought it best for her to... hear, from her father, the nature of the issues facing the estate, Ms. Mulwray. Beggin' your pardon," Egan bowed his head.
