Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
This is how it must have been before—the two of them knit inside each other, limbs woven together like fresh, green saplings, lungs breathing as one as they ran through the halls of Hazelthorn.
Laurie is in front, moving fast, with Evander behind like a ghost on a string twined through Laurie’s fingers.
Their voices spill over dusky corners and dislodge the thick, deadened drapes.
It’s like being ten again with stick swords and hollyhock crowns and grass-stained knees and mouths smeared with blackberries from the gardens.
They would have been fervent terrors back then, riotous with life and each other; now they only haunt the places where together they once were lovely.
“Who even told you Carrington was hospitalized, anyway?” Evander is saying.
“Dawes,” Laurie says, “the bastard. Told you he was sketchy. Let’s corner him and you can torment him with one of your fun interrogations.”
“Maybe Carrington was in the hospital and then…” Evander struggles to keep up. “His family took him home?”
“Does he have a family?” Laurie says. “Thought he was bound in servitude to Grandfather—Okay, fine, I’m kidding. Stop looking at me like that. I just think Carrington married his job. Did he even take days off?”
Evander pulls his attention away from the walls lined with ferns, dead leaves flaking onto the carpet from neglect. Without Carrington, no one is caring for the plants.
“No.” Evander skids around a corner after Laurie. “He brought me meals and meds every single day.”
Always in silence, his movements stiff with distaste, his gaze never resting for long on the wretched charge he was forced to tend to—forced for no reason, Evander now realizes. If Byron was in the house, he could have cared for Evander. He just didn’t want to.
It hurts, but in a dulled way, like an unsharpened blade pressed against a throat.
“See, he totally has no family,” Laurie says. “So he probably served the poison tea, stole a bunch of random shit, and then took off. Ta-da, motive.”
They’ve reached the grand staircase, both of them slowing as they descend.
Evander’s smile is slightly smug. “Okay, Watson.”
“I am not Watson.” Laurie genuinely looks offended, but then he pulls up short in the middle of the grand staircase.
They had been too absorbed in each other to notice the massive blackwood front doors have been flung open and several bags are stacked on the floor.
The foyer is an imposing introduction to Hazelthorn, a vast cavity with tall, arched ceilings and a massive chandelier that looks ready to drop crystals like shards of ice through unwanted guests.
A deep forest-green carpet runner stretches from the foot of the grand staircase to the front door.
To stand in the midst of this room is to feel like a leaf, insignificant and blemished, blown into the mouth of Hazelthorn to be toyed with by a heavy, humid tongue before being swallowed.
Laurie slowly continues to the last step and Evander decides to stand behind him. It hits him, how he’s never seen the front doors open before.
He’s also never seen this man strolling in with a thousand-dollar smile and a rolling suitcase.
One of Oleander’s new staff is ready to receive the guest with murmurs of “Welcome to Hazelthorn.”
The guest sweeps forward with arms spread wide in greeting. “Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour!”
The urge to bolt sends electric shocks up Evander’s spine, and he is only held in place by the promise of Laurie’s confusing offer of protection—he crosses his arms and stiffens his stance, surreptitiously turning so his body is a wall between Evander and the world.
“Bane,” Laurie says without inflection. “The cousin I never wanted to see again, how fun.”
Bane has the look of a prepackaged tourist who just stepped off a private jet and is ready to complain about the exotic location.
He reeks of new money in tight white chinos and an even tighter silk shirt, aviator sunglasses perched on his blond hair, and a heavy gold watch glinting on a perfectly tanned wrist. Odd scratches line his arm, but he twists so his cuffs cover the scabs.
His cologne is a choking haze of something that is probably labeled Adonis Masculinity Dipped in Gold, and he is, overall, too much.
His eyes skim past Laurie to rest on Evander with unmasked hunger. He stretches out a hand, but Evander shrinks into the shadows of the staircase. Laurie stares down at Bane’s hand until he drops it.
Bane casts him an annoyed look and steps sideways to try to see Evander again. “Evander, right? Evander. So, so good to finally meet you. I’ve heard incredible things about you. You’re one impressive kid, no doubt about it.”
Laurie leans against the banister, his eyebrow raised. “Exactly how is he impressive apart from inheriting the old bastard’s billions?”
Sometimes Evander forgets about the money. All he thinks of, all he obsesses over, is owning Hazelthorn.
“Well…” Bane looks like he’s struggling to put actual substance behind the flattery. “He’s a, uh … regular brainiac! Reads all those books and things? Anyway, Uncle Byron was very proud of you and, of course, I am proud to have this chance to meet you.”
Evander is pretty sure his face is undiluted confusion right now while Laurie’s drips with condescension.
“This is Great-Aunt Oleander’s son, Bane Burnett,” Laurie mutters to Evander. “He’s my second cousin or something.”
“The fact is we’re close, close family,” Bane says warmly, then he adds in a dismissive tone, “By the way, I reverted my name back to Lennox-Hall when Mother did after the divorce.”
“Yeah, gotta keep the same name as your rich uncle.” Laurie couldn’t sound more mocking, and Bane narrows his eyes.
“Surprised to see you’re well, Laurence.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I live in hope you’ll meet with an untimely accident.” Bane gives a wolf’s smile. “Hope you haven’t corrupted Evander here with your intolerable pessimism. Is he bothering you, Evander? Feel free to let me know if anything bothers you and I would be more than happy to—”
“You sure brought a lot of luggage for an overnight stay,” Laurie says.
Bane’s snarl is masked as a smile. “It will be longer than ‘overnight,’ but that’s not all mine. Unfortunately, Azalea just arrived. I think she’s still out there flirting with her driver.”
He says the name like an infected splinter has been lodged in his gum, and when Evander peers around Laurie to count the stylish suitcases, he instead sees straight out the wide open double doors.
With his bedroom facing the back of Hazelthorn and the riotous gardens, Evander barely even remembers what the front of the estate looks like.
From this angle, he can make out the long stretch of driveway lined with hazel trees that leads to wrought iron gates strangled in ivy and honeysuckle.
Marble fauns flecked with lichen stand like eerie sentinels.
The part that confuses Evander is how several white vans are parked beyond the gates.
Indistinct blurs of reporters rush around trying to snap pictures as the iron gates swing closed on an automatic mechanism.
Disgust shadows Laurie’s face. “Is that the press?”
“What do you expect?” Bane has an obnoxiously loud voice.
“A billionaire passed away suddenly and an unknown heir was gifted the crown. People eat this up. We should be offering exclusive interviews with Evander to top publications. Get a crew in here for a tour of the estate and grab that attention while we can.” He bounces up a few steps and tries to get in Evander’s space.
“You know why we’re never doing that.” There’s a sharpness in Laurie’s voice, apathy gone, and he pushes away from the banister and shoves Bane back.
The vicious crackle of anger between them is unmistakable.
“Still an ungrateful little brat, I see,” Bane hisses.
“At least I’m not past forty,” Laurie says evenly, “and still sponging off my mother while dating teenage models.”
Bane’s voice drops several degrees. “I can’t wait until you get what’s coming to you.”
Laurie’s smile could cut ice. “Likewise.”
Evander’s heartbeat crawls up his throat and he has the sudden, suffocating urge to flee back into the north wing, where life was a lot simpler and he didn’t have to see the rotten underbellies of Lennox-Halls.
He has no idea how to feel about Laurie protecting him.
His head is a waspish, buzzing mess, but a sliver of curiosity locks onto the way everyone seems to unequivocally hate Laurie.
Not that Laurie does much to mitigate those reactions or make himself likable.
In fact, he seems to go out of his way to be unpleasant, but a small part of Evander can’t ignore the part where Laurie’s truest crime seems to be telling the truth, brutal and honest and scathing, instead of simpering around and folding himself into shapes his rich relatives want to see.
It must hurt him, though, the constant hate and rejection from his own family.
Evander needs to analyze all of this, write it down and understand.
But maybe the thing he truly wants to understand is how he, too, can hate this boy and yet long to use his own bones to build a shelter around Laurie’s raw, bleeding heart. It is unfathomable to feel that way. Yet he can’t make himself stop.
There’s more commotion on the front stairs as another Lennox-Hall sweeps inside in a cloud of floral perfume.
She’s decked out in a flattering black dress with a plunging neckline, a wide-brimmed black hat netted with a pearl-beaded veil over her face.
She owns the word elegance. She takes off her hat and holds it out as if a hatstand will materialize at her convenience.
The footman obliges while she pets down her immaculate chignon and doesn’t spare him a glance.
Then she sees Evander.