Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
BELVEDERE
James
Callum bestowed words of wisdom. The twins thumped my arms. Gordain gave me hugs, readying himself to leave. To return to his base.
All had wet eyes, unashamed of their feelings.
The hole in my chest, left by Beth, widened. I was losing my family all over again.
I flew to Manchester, hired a car, and drove home.
“Did you ever try to change it?”
Beth’s words played over in my head as I punched the code into the gate keypad. Ahead, the wrought iron rattled, and the ornate gates parted, opening onto a tree-lined road. I slid the car into first and, after months of living in Scotland, I rolled over the boundary of my English estate.
Belvedere. Home.
It had been months since my last visit. Half a year. Richard found the place frustrating as, until I inherited, we couldn’t make any changes, so I knew he hadn’t visited while I’d been away. But the more time I’d had apart from my uncle, the more I wanted to decide my own plans. Carve my own path.
The smooth road wound around a horse chestnut grove and, in slow flashes designed to tease and tantalise, the house came into view. Seventeenth-century Palladian-style, symmetrical with round pillars and built of pale sandstone.
Majestic.
I’d never truly appreciated it. Now I imagined showing it to Beth and I inched forwards in my seat, trying to picture how she’d see it. Imposing, maybe. Hopefully intriguing.
It had rooms I barely knew. Halls I’d ran through as a child but ignored as an adult. So much to explore once I took ownership. Old treasures and newer artefacts collected by my parents.
Beth would like the garage. Dad’s car collection. For the first time, the idea of entering that space didn’t unleash panic.
Instead, a frisson of excitement had me drawing breath.
“Did you ever try to change it?”
I put my foot down and sped around the final approach. No, Beth. I’ve never tried. But I would. I had to.
My uncle might have his plans, but I’d woken up to my own.
“James! It’s been so long!” Mrs Hinchcliffe clasped her hands to her chest and bore down on me, her shoes squeaking on the marble floor of the hall. Bright eyes, lined with age, met mine, and she halted two feet away, inspecting me like a mother hen.
The Hinchcliffes had managed the house for my family since before I was born, and Ella and I had spent as much time in their cottage as we did in the manor itself.
As a ten-year-old, I’d have run right into her arms, demanding a hug.
Now, she held back, and so did I.
She dipped a curtsey. “My Lord, I should say.”
“Don’t, please.” I grimaced.
She chuckled, a happy sound. “It’s good to see you and so healthy-looking, too.
That Scottish air is doing you the world of good.
Your mother would love knowing you’d embraced that part of your roots.
When will your uncle get here? We had no notification he’d changed his plans, but it’s no bother to prepare your rooms.”
I paused, drawing my eyebrows in. “Richard’s here already. Isn’t he?”
“Not unless he’s hiding, and we both know how unlikely that is.
” Her eyes darkened, and her so-familiar Derbyshire accent broadened.
It was no secret she didn’t approve of my uncle’s methods.
Either in raising his niece and nephew, or in his instructions for the house.
The feeling was mutual. He’d have sacked her long ago if she hadn’t been employed directly by the trustee board, of which he was only one third.
A protection that allowed her to speak her mind.
“On his last visit, he ordered the place prepared for a week from now. You’re early. Maybe the message to you got mixed up in communication.”
“My uncle visited recently?”
Mrs Hinchcliffe confirmed the fact and went through the plans for my meals and arrangements. I accepted on autopilot, my mind distracted over why Richard had demanded I leave Scotland early if he hadn’t intended to be here.
I could have remained with my friends. Had more than a brief farewell.
I could have asked Beth to stay another night.
Now I had to wait to get answers, and waiting was the last thing I wanted to do.
By early evening, after I’d tried his number for the fourth time with no answer, a hot coal of temper burned in my gut.
I paced down the long gallery, warring with myself.
The Hinchcliffes had invited me to dine with them.
I intended to go, but I’d be poor company.
Seldom had I let myself succumb to frustration, to any kind of emotion, but recently a floodgate had opened.
I flung open the doors to the darkened entry hall, marching through.
Unlike Mrs Hinchcliffe’s squeaky shoes, my boots crashed down, making echoes, the racket satisfying.
Too long had I been passive. I’d been a man for years now, but only Gordain’s respect, Callum’s instruction, and Beth’s kiss had made me feel like one.
A man gathered information and made choices. I’d let myself be blindly led.
My parents had raised me to be strong. Adored and cherished me. Instant, crushing pain hit me at the memory. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been alone in my home, and the difference was stark to when a happy family lived here.
I missed them. I missed my sister.
Despite my decision to reject Richard’s marriage arrangements, I did want a family. A wife. Children, one day.
So, I needed to address an issue I’d blocked out for years.
I took the steps of the grand central staircase two at a time, urgency propelling me.
At my parents’ bedroom, I flipped on a lamp.
Memories haunted the dusk-laden space. My sister jumping on the bed.
Both of us hiding from our parents behind the heavy brocade curtains.
Mum’s books on the shelf. Minus one. Her collection of Tennyson’s poetry which she’d given to me. That remained untouched in my room.
Excruciatingly familiar family pictures lined the dresser. My handsome father. My beautiful mother. My baby sister and me, the boy who ruined it all.
This hadn’t been my purpose, to tear my heart in two all over again, but it happened all the same. Waves of nausea floored me.
Beth. Beth, Beth, Beth. Your enchanting grin. The way your head feels against my chest. Like you’re counting my heartbeats and care that they continue. Like I can keep you safe by holding on.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared at her number. The messages we’d sent. I could call her, but my throat had seized, and I owed her more than silence.
I’d never felt so alone.
And I always would be if I didn’t change.
So I did what I came here to do. I took control. With renewed energy, I sought out my parents’ safe. Fat stacks of papers waited. I only needed one piece.
The statement of exactly what my bride needed to bring to the wedding. I’d been told she needed wealth, but I had a burning hope that this, like so much else of my life, was wrong.
Half an hour later, and no luck. Files sat around me, spread over the rug. Labelled in Mum’s neat cursive, the family history had been well-documented, but not the reference I needed.
I huffed at the mess and carefully replaced the archives. The next step was putting in a request to the trustee board. As a member, Richard would know of my action, so I’d have to find a way to broach it with him first. It was only right.
My gaze snagged on the last set of papers. Ella’s.
My clever, musically gifted sister. I hated how Richard had abandoned her to a boarding school, and I intended to move her back to Belvedere as soon as I had control. She should be with her family, even if that was just me, and even if she didn’t want to know me.
I leafed through the papers: her birth certificate, the details on the investments my parents had made for her, the legal order that made Richard her guardian on the event of their death, just as he was mine.
No. I squinted at the paper.
Then I sat back, staring at the blinding difference.
I recalled my parents telling Ella her rights.
How, on her twenty-first, she’d be independent with access to a fortune.
Few limitations to what she could spend it on, unlike mine.
Yet according to this, Richard had the option to control her finances until she turned thirty, if necessary, to support her. And he’d activated it last year.
Thirty?
I turned the pages over, scanning for information. It was dated just before my parents’ death. Dad had signed another decade of my sister’s life to his brother. The decision ultimately being Richard’s.
Then another detail stood out. My uncle’s date of birth. Two years different to what I’d always known. It made him older than dad, but that wasn’t possible, because otherwise, he’d be the heir.
None of this made sense, but one thing was clear. If Ella didn’t know, I had to tell her. I grabbed my phone and shot her a text. Hi. I’m home. Can we talk?
Her response came back in seconds. Hey, big brother. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw your name. How’s the old man?
Richard isn’t here.
You’re alone? Shit. I wish I could call but I’m in class.
I frowned at my phone. I couldn’t tell her about this in message form. I need to talk to you about something.
Her reply made me almost smile. *plays ominous music* Face to face?
That would be better.
A pause came. I closed the safe and left behind my parents’ space, turning off their light before emerging into the gloom of the corridor.
Ella’s reply came in. Let me work something out. I need to see you, too.
In the Hinchcliffes’ cosy kitchen, I ate chicken pie with green beans, talked, and they spoiled me like the grandparents I’d never had. Mr Hinchcliffe had made a dessert of pear crumble, and Mrs Hinchcliffe forced seconds on me, served with cream and heavy with sugar.
I had words enough to tell them about the McRae family.
I found, with a thudding heart, I wanted to talk about Beth.
Mrs Hinchcliffe gave me the opportunity as she asked about my birthday. The marriage requirement was no secret.
She patted my hand after I mumbled about not having made a choice. “Arrangements are a bad business. Your father and mother found one another late enough, but they did it their own way. I remember their wedding happening scarcely two weeks before your father’s birthday.”
“I didn’t know that.” After my visit to my parents’ bedroom, this little view on their history was a ray of sunlight.
Mrs Hinchcliffe eyed me cautiously then continued, “Well, they eloped, of course. Your grandfather had other ideas, but your father loved who he loved.”
“Other ideas?”
“He’d chosen another woman. So determined was he to avoid the mistakes of his own past that he and your father nearly fell out about it.”
I stared, putting aside the “Mistakes of his own past” comment for later. No one had ever told me that my parents were a love match. But then, I had never asked.
“I met someone,” I blurted. “Beth. Her name is Beth.”
Mr Hinchcliffe returned to his seat. He exchanged a loaded glance with his wife then leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees.
“In that case, I should tell you how I had this exact same conversation with your father twenty-two years ago. And I’ll give you the same advice I gave him, if you’ll hear it? ”
I did. Through a lens of almost a quarter of a century, I witnessed my parents’ brief and urgent courtship. Their happiness and their joyful life.
The pain of missing my family doubled.
The void left by Beth ate me whole, though a tiny seedling of hope unfurled.
By the time I hugged the Hinchcliffes goodnight, I was a mess of emotion.
The sweetness of the garden’s night-scented spring flowers marked my path back to the manor.
A plan clicked into place in my mind, and I leapt up the first two steps of the terrace then sat with my back against a stone pillar.
I gazed into the black space where the lake and the summer house lay.
Invisible now, but there, and waiting to be enjoyed by a visitor.
On cue, my phone buzzed. My uncle finally returning my calls.
“My Lord,” he began.
“Where are you?” I snapped. I had never before spoken to him like this.
“Manhattan.”
“Then why am I here in an empty house?”
My uncle paused, the clamour of a bar or restaurant in the background. “A change in plan delayed me a few days. I…apologise.”
Not good enough. I bristled but forced myself to remember my plan. Then words fell from my lips. “I need to tell you that I’ve met someone.”
My hand shook. Whether from the fear of admitting to myself how momentous the weekend had been, or through anticipating Richard’s reaction. But my plan had been made, and I had committed to it.
“I’ve met someone I care about and I’d like to show her my home.”
“What?” he said. “Fine, fine. You go ahead.”
I jerked. “This is what I want. To be able to fall in love with someone I’ve chosen. And who has chosen me.”
“Whatever gave you the idea you couldn’t? Look, I’ll be back in a week, and we can discuss the matter then. I still have that surprise for you, so remain at Belvedere, will you?”
He hung up on me before I could make any more sense of the whirlwind.
He said I could choose.
No more profiles, no more talk of loveless marriage and locking down my emotions. Joy lifted me until I laughed out loud into the night air.
I didn’t need his permission, but having it gave me hope for a happier relationship with the man. For now, I had a direction, a car, and one objective in mind.
Find Beth Grace and test just how real our connection had been.