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"Yes, per... haps, perhaps you're onto something, Egan. Perhaps she ought to see her father," Ms. Mulwray sighed; she seemed a woman broken, not the unflinching and proud servant Nadia had known all her youth. The majordomo took Lady Nadia's hand and led her through the foyer, its vaulted ceiling and ornate oak reliefs spotless and gleaming with polish. Atop the stairs, their carpets plush and springy as she remembered, her heart began to fill with a dread that only worsened the further down the second-floor hallway Ms. Mulwray led her.
"We've quite... missed you, in your time away. Especially your father," Ms. Mulwray said, her voice cracking, the majordomo clearly as startled by... something, as Egan had been. "How have you fared? Your letters, sparse as they were," Ms. Mulwray commented with mild bitterness, "told of some rather surprising and unusual ideas and encounters."
"I've missed... father, myself. My time out was... quite enlightening," Nadia said, distracted by her muddied thoughts.
"Please don't speak of any of that... confusing, startling nonsense you've learned of abroad with your father," Ms. Mulwray stated starkly and plainly. Nadia sighed, remembering quite well the admonitions so common from Ms. Mulwray, who chastised Nadia regularly in her youth about how women were supposed to act. "You're... liable to hurt him, to give him a terrible heart attack and just kill your loving father," Ms. Mulwray added, her voice increasingly addled with pain and sadness. Finally, the majordomo's eyes filled with tears as she chided Lady Nadia, who shook, realizing it was something more that drove Ms. Mulwray's sharp criticisms.
"Ms. Mulwray, what's wrong with my father?" Nadia asked plainly. Ms. Mulwray shook her head, wiping away tears; trying to face whatever waited on the other side of the door they now stood before with strength.
"He's a fragile man, Lady Nadia. Please, take that into your heart, and listen to him," Ms. Mulwray pleaded, as she threw the door open, wearing the same mask of a smile that Egan had put on. "M'lord, I present the lovely Lady Nadia, returning from travels to exotic lands to see her father," Ms. Mulwray exclaimed. Nadia took a step in to her father's bedchambers - the curtains pulled shut, with only the faint flicker of lit candelabras and hung lanterns to light the dark room, its lavish furniture and accoutrements cloaked away from dust with heavy sheets. Nadia's vision took a moment to adjust, and she wondered just why the curtains had been drawn shut; why her father lay in bed so early in the eve. Confused, Nadia stepped in, and the strong scent of stale herbs and incense immediately struck her nose.
"My daughter! Nadia—" Lord Havenshire could scarcely finish a sentence before a hoarse cough gripped his throat and squeezed deep, wheezing, painful-sounding noises from his chest. Nadia recoiled; she may have spent years away from the family estate, but she had not forgotten the tenor of her father's voice - proud, full, confident, and always mirthful, even when life felt its bleakest. What had been the voice of true Lord had somehow been reduced to a ghastly, strained whisper; the closer Nadia drew to the bed, the more of her stricken father she began to see.
"I've missed you dearly, Nadia," he added, another ashen cough thick in his throat. Though the low light of the candles obscured the finer details, she could see her father - weak, his once-robust chest and shoulders shriveled; his body withered as a dried-out corn husk. Nadia's features fell, her voice quivering; her father's head had been shaved, his eyes sunken, his skin pale, sweat beading at his brow. Her lips gaping in pained shock, Nadia took a deep breath and gathered herself up.
"F... father, I've... I've missed you, too," she said, avoiding the topic of the painful, obvious issues that had befallen her father and chained him so weak and fragile to the bed.
"Is the manor what you remember of it? I've tried to have Ms. Mulwray, lovely woman she is, keep it up, just the way it had been," he smiled, or tried to smile, as best his shrunken face would let him.
"Yes, it's... it's lovely," Nadia responded absentmindedly. She fought the urge to gawk, to see what possibly could've befallen her father, but she found her eyes wandering nevertheless.
"I certainly hope our family fortune paid off. Did you learn a lot? What did you see, out there in the world past the manor?" he asked, and she could hear even through the hoarse whistling the coy playfulness in his tone.
"Wild ideas, father, about the world, and about life," she chuckled; she could feel Ms. Mulwray's eyes burning through her from the doorway. "Women with their own families, women teaching, women as hunters, women as equals... such pernicious ideas," Nadia joked.
"Women hunting? Come now, is that truly what you want to do? Lady Havenshire, a gameskeep?" her father laughed.
"Not a job for me, though I think a woman as a hunter, and a leader, is a curious, and useful, thought," Nadia smiled.
"I suppose that quite starkly brings into focus what I obviously need to address. Nadia, my daughter," her father sighed, and she felt her breaths wobble, nervous and weak. "I'm... certain, you can see, you're a smart young woman, as smart as ever have there been in all of England, my darling. You've no doubt already seen something awry in the household. The doctors haven't a clue of what's afflicting my head, but it's worsened and worsened until... well," he exhaled gravely. "There are matters that need tending to before... this situation worsens."
"Worsens? Father..." Nadia's voice trailed away, shaking, a tear stinging the corner of her eyes. "What's... what's happened to you?" she finally asked flatly.
"I can feel myself at the end of this journey, Nadia, but I need to get into order the matters of my household - and my daughter - a
fter death takes me," her father stated bluntly. She swallowed, fighting away tears, her fists tightened.
"Death? Certainly... you're exaggerating, father," Nadia stated with a muted hopefulness in her tone.
"I'm not certain, darling girl, we can never be. But the taste in my mouth and the pain in my head, as every expert in England comes to my bedside, have brought into stark importance the necessity of pressing into you the importance of your inheritance, Nadia."
"My inheritance?" she asked weakly. She had an inkling of what the inheritance meant, but denial took her mind more than any other thought. She couldn't dare think of parting with her father... not so early into her adult life. "Father, we only need worry about your health."
"Your inheritance... Nadia," he said with a sigh. "I'm certain you're not terribly amenable to this idea. But the way our world works, is the way it works, and as smart and free and capable a woman as I've watch you grow in to... there are things not even you can change, my darling." Nadia fought away the tears, unsuccessfully, as they ran across her cheeks in stuttering streams. "I have to be certain of our family's future... of your future, my daughter."
"Father, you know me capable of taking care of the estate," Nadia chimed. "You know you can trust myself and the servants to—"
"I have full faith in you, my daughter," the stricken lord coughed hoarsely. "That's... not what concerns me. You know the world that you live in. And you know that to inherit the estate and to carry on the family legacy... you need to be married, Nadia," he added gravely. "I'm old, and hurting. I'm dying, Nadia. I need to know that you'll be safe. That our name, our manor - that it will live past me."
"Father..." Nadia's voice trailed, her thoughts clashing in scattered directions. Indignant was she at the fabric of society that forced this onto her; the world where men controlled wealth, men controlled lands; men controlled names. It opposed everything she had learned, everything she had thought whifle traveling the world; more than anything, it made no sense. "I'm the person most capable—I know this land, our people, our name..."
"I understand your trepidation, my dear, but... I can't bear to see my only daughter stand alone, unwed, should I die," her father said. A coughing flurry filled the air as he held his hand over his mouth; it seemed almost skeletal, skin stretched tight against each finger. "There are fine men, Nadia, across all of England, you know... fine men more than deserving of your attention," he tried to convince her. Nadia looked away; sighed. She could scarcely bear to see her father so weak and wracked with these concerns, but she hated the thought of giving her life away to be another trophy on some sleazy 'gentleman's' shelf.
"Father, I'll..." Nadia closed her eyes. She hated lying. "I haven't returned from my travels simply to settle in to an existence that goes against who I am. On my way back here, I spoke with Egan, and he reminisced on you in your younger days, commenting on how strong-willed you had been. If you had been a woman, as I am... do you think you would rejoice in the thought of consigning yourself to subordination? To a life as a symbol, and not as a person, father?..." a feeling of guilt crept into her knotted stomach; she hated to bring such philosophy to her clearly ailing father, but she knew what his answer would be - if he answered honestly, at least.
"Please... consider, for my own sake, Nadia," he implored. She swallowed, looked away. Her pride bristling, her emotions on a wire, she at least needed to put his heart at ease... even if hers was afire.
"I'm sorry, father," she exhaled deeply, spinning away on her heels and, eyes closed and tears on her cheeks, hastily retreated into the hall.
