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"I have to pee," I say, the absolute first thing that comes to mind as a quick escape that guarantees he won't follow. The shock on his face turns to mirth as soon as I take a step away, but I run up the stairs, as his laughter follows me. It's like the night at the huntsman's cabin.
Except this time, he doesn't sound horrifyingly evil, a madman plotting the death of his brother. This time, the sound that bounces after me, chasing me along the hallway, pulls me in asopposed to chasing me away. It calls to me, even as I end up at Lady Madeline's door just in time to meet the doctor who's arrived by helicopter.
That laugh. My reaction to it.
I don't, can't, think about it.
20
Benedict
You’d think with all my experience in machinations, I’d be a lot better at engineering ways to pull Evangeline into my company. I’m guessing at some level that my brother is interfering, but he does it in his own quiet way. Eva is never where I expect her to be. I go to the riding ring when Maddie should have her lessons, except she’s not there. The music room is empty. When I ask Mrs. Harris, she says that Eva and Maddie are out looking at butterflies in the vineyards.
“What do you have need of Miss Bell?” Mrs. Harris asks me, a frown on her face, her eyes narrowing. Mrs. Harris has been around since I was in diapers, and there’s very little that I can do that’ll pull the wool over her eyes. Or the linen-apron.
“I wanted a better idea of Madeline’s schedule,” I say quickly, the excuse springing to mind as I try not to sweat it out obviously.
I still remember Mrs. Harris and her wooden spoon. She wasn’t the cook, but she’d carried it all the same when we were younger. Thankfully it’d been retired when I turned fifteen and never came out again after Maddie was born.
But that doesn’t mean Harris won’t crack me over the head with it if she gets the chance. The staff don’t love me like they love my brother. But then, he’s not the heir, he’s their patriarchal leader. He means something to them.
I’m still the spare. And if something happens to me? There’s Noah. It’s not like the duchy is hanging on the brink of ruin.
Which is why, when I take the helm, no-one will protest. We’ll have Noah as the spare until I can produce my own lineage.
Mrs. Harris taps her finger on her hip and I know that look. I have about three seconds to explain myself. It doesn’t matter that she’s the help and I’m titled and landed. There are some people you don’t cross. She’s one of the very few in my world I don’t like to piss off. Her, and my valet, Timms.
Nothing is worse than a pissy valet. You want all your favorite cufflinks to get lost, or worse, the women you want in your bed to ‘accidentally’ get shown to a different man’s room on the way to yours? Piss off your valet.
“Is there a particular reason you need to know of Lady Madeline’s schedule?” Mrs. Harris asks, rightfully suspecting me of plotting something. It would be unfair if it weren’t true.
I am plotting something.
“I’m going to have a house party,” I say, “next week.” Her eyebrows lift, and her lips purse. I know the next question out of her mouth will be—
“Here, my lord?” She asks, because I should be having it in my own home, down in Hollywood. But I don’t want to. My place is fine. It’s just… not here.
It’s not where she is. And there’s too many stupid fucking memories haunting the halls of my estate.
“There’s no good riding,” I say with a shrug. Mrs. Harris’s lips get even thinner and whiter, and if I’d stuck a grape between them to begin with, I’d be wearing juice on my shirt by now.
“Has his grace said yes?” She asks, and my temper, already roughened, begins to fray.
“I have rights as heir, to this property and the use of it,” I can’t keep the acid out of my tone, and her back straightens, the grey in her hair glinting under the lights in her downstairs office. I’m being unspeakably rude.
And I don’t fucking care.
I’m going to have my house party if I goddamn have to do every bit of work myself. Not only will my co-conspirators in the Mission come if I ask, further cementing their loyalty to me as they wine and dine and fuck women I have brought up for them specifically for that purpose, but it’ll be an opportunity to show more of my world to Eva.
So she knows what she’s getting into.
Why am I saying that like she has a choice? She signed her fate the moment she stepped foot onto the estate property. She was meant to be mine from that very day. My brother thinks he brought her here for his own use, but really he delivered the most beautiful, useful, tool into my lap.
“Very well, my lord, a house party,” Mrs. Harris says. “I’ll speak with Mr. Matthews, and we will sort the details if you give me the number.”
“I think fifteen,” I reply, thinking of who I know will be free and, more importantly, who will make themselves free at my request, “men and women of note, and we’ll need all the entertaining rooms opened, as well as the pool house.”
“Quite the party,” she says and then dismisses me with a flutter of her hand, turning to her computer. “In a week, I think we can manage with the staff we have.”
