Chapter Thirteen #2
The thought crossed his mind that Margaret might attempt to lock them out.
She could be that stubborn and protective, but it wouldn’t make sense.
His sister wouldn’t openly defy him. No, she’d give him a tongue lashing in private.
He decided he’d best keep the boys close to him.
Not even Margaret could be immune to their enthusiasm, and they might offer him a spot of protection.
Lifting Christopher up in his arms, Neal tried the handle. The front door was unlocked. He opened it. The front hall was empty. “Hello?” he called. “Dawson?”
No one answered.
He smiled at Thea. “Dawson, our butler, is usually at the front door. I don’t know where he is up and about.” Bonner and the coachman were making arrangements to bring in what luggage they had to the servants’ entrance.
“Come into the side room,” Neal said, indicating a well-furnished sitting room in tasteful blue and green. He wasn’t particularly fond of the colors, but his mother had done the decorating. As Thea and the boys walked into the room, he realized how out of place they looked with so much formality.
“You have carte blanche with the house,” he said. “Choose the colors you like, the furniture. It makes no difference to me. I think I would like a change.”
“What of Margaret? She’s been your hostess. Perhaps she would have a say?” Thea suggested.
“Yes, she might,” he agreed, touched by Thea’s thoughtful consideration of his sister. Margaret would not have been that generous, and that was why he loved—
Neal stopped his train of thought, backing away from the word love. He couldn’t dwell on it. He mustn’t.
He nodded. “Yes, discuss it with Margaret. As for Margaret, I wonder where she is. I wonder where anyone is. Dawson usually has someone minding the door.”
Neal went out into the hallway and looked up the stairs. He checked the dining room. “Mrs. Tanner,” he called, referring to the housekeeper. “Dawson?”
And then he heard a sound from upstairs and footsteps on the stair treads.
He returned to the stairs. Margaret stood on the staircase landing.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders.
There were dark circles under her eyes and her dress was wrinkled, as if she’d slept in it.
“Neal?” she said. She sounded overwhelmed.
He came up the stairs, two at a time, alarmed.
“It is Harry,” she said. “He’s in a bad way.” She turned and dashed back up the stairs.
A bad way. It could mean only one thing, and that was not good. Damn his brother for choosing his homecoming to be an ass.
Neal looked to Thea, who had come to the side room door, her sons beside her. “Stay in the side room. Please make yourselves comfortable. I don’t know where the servants are, but I’ll be right back.”
He then hurried after Margaret up the stairs. She waited for him. “He came home around noon today. They carried him here.”
“Who did?”
“Two big burly men, like sailors. They didn’t tell me where they found him,” Margaret said. “Said I most likely would not like to know. They were right.”
“Wasn’t Rowan with him?” Rowan was Harry’s manservant.
He was a short Indian with close-cropped hair and solemn, golden-brown eyes.
Harry claimed that one day, while he’d been posted in India, Rowan had started following him around the market in Calcutta and had never left.
He was devoted to Neal’s brother and rarely spoke, but when he did, his accented English was excellent.
“No, Harry had escaped him. Rowan alerted me last night that Harry was out on the prowl. We both waited for him, hoping he would come home at a reasonable hour.” She stopped in front of Harry’s bedroom door and said almost defiantly, “I had him tied down, Neal. He can’t go on this way, and I won’t let him. ”
“Tied him down?”
“Yes,” Margaret said. “He has to stop. He can’t go on using that horrible laudanum.
I told Dawson to keep the servants below stairs.
You should have seen him when they brought him home.
He looked dead, and then he came to his senses and started drinking again.
We must stop him from destroying himself.
And now he is awake and crazed and mad. We had no choice but to tie him down.
You didn’t look in the dining room, or you would have noticed that he turned over the buffet and has chairs against the way. ”
As if to punctuate her words, there came a huge crash from the bedroom. Margaret shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. She never cried. Not ever. “You and Harry are all I have,” she said. “We’re losing him. He’s taking his own life and I can’t bear it, Neal. I can’t stand to watch this.”
“Then go,” he said. From the other side of the door, Harry yelled Margaret’s name, a shout followed by a string of rude curses.
“I’ll handle this,” Neal said. “You need a moment to yourself.”
“He’s going to hate me,” Margaret whispered.
“It’s not him right now, Margaret. He has the devil in him. Now, go, you’ve done enough. Let me keep watch.”
“He’s never been this bad,” she said before running for the haven of her room.
Neal turned the door handle, uncertain of what he’d find.
The room was chaos. A chair had been thrown against the door and a side table overturned. Rowan and a footman had their bodies on top of Harry, who was tied to the four corners of the bed with what looked to be Margaret’s scarves. He was doing his best to pull free.
Usually meticulous, unless he was on the prowl for opium, Harry had a day’s growth of beard, and his hair spiked every which way on his head.
His face was pale, and his deep-circled eyes seemed to glow with the fire of a thousand demons.
The room, its curtains pulled closed and lit by a single bedside candle, smelled of sweat and overindulged drinking.
“Neal,” Harry barked out, seeing him at the door. “Come here. Rowan won’t listen to me. Tell them to get off me and untie my hands.”
A stone’s worth of weight formed in Neal’s chest. Margaret was right. They had to do something to stop Harry from destroying himself. Perhaps if Neal had been sterner when Harry had first come home from war, things might not have gotten to this point. This was not what he wanted for his brother.
“I can’t help you, Harry.” Neal had to force the words out.