Chapter 21 The Return
THE RETURN
I was sitting cross-legged outside the threshold to the ballroom, staring into it.
I was terrified of going in after what happened the first, and frankly, only time I ever wanted to walk in that room, so I stayed out.
I should be upstairs, freshening up, because my man was going to be home any minute, but even if not, it was almost time for cocktails, one of my favorite parts of the day at The Downs.
I’d showered after my riding lesson with Scotty that morning, and because Battle was going to be home, I took special care with my makeup and hair, so it wasn’t like I was gross.
But still.
My man was coming home.
However, for some reason, the ballroom called me.
No, I knew the reason.
Scotty and Harry had helped Prue drag a bunch of stuff out of the attics to line the upper hall so she could get around better in the space, and even if she’d unearthed an ancient filing cabinet that could prove useful in authenticating some of the pieces up there, still no letters.
I had the book totally outlined. I’d been through all papers, journals, letters, ledgers, notes, and nothing more on Harmony and Charlie, or Marie’s cryptic journal entry.
I was raring to dive in.
But it stunk that it seemed that mystery was to go unsolved, and I was going to have to make it up, augmenting what I had only from Harmony.
I felt movement at my side, startled, and looked up to see Chastity folding down beside me.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Trying to get the dead to speak to me.”
She started and looked at me. “What?”
I tipped my head to the ballroom. “Harmony and Charlie fell in love in there. I’m going to start my book on Monday, but I only have half the story.”
“Yuck,” she replied.
“Yup,” I agreed.
She turned to the room. “Are they talking?”
“No.”
“Ulk,” she replied.
“Yup,” I agreed.
We sat there, both looking into the room.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked the room.
Oh shit.
I wasn’t a huge fan of her tone.
Even so.
“Anything, honey,” I answered.
“Something really bad happened to me a while ago.”
Yeah.
Shit.
“I guessed that,” I said gently.
She looked at me. “I got raped at my flower shop.”
I closed my eyes, opened them, there were tears I would not shed, but they were there, and I whispered, “Chassie, baby.”
“After, I did something really stupid.”
Three years of healing.
“Nothing is stupid.”
“After it happened, I went to Battie.”
My body wound up so tight, I thought it would snap.
“I was…in bad shape,” she continued. “Bleeding and stuff.”
Battle didn’t tell me that.
“I refused to go to hospital,” she carried on.
“He and Mrs. Pattinson cleaned me up. I closed my shop. Battie had to pay back a ton of money because I pulled out of contracts for events I agreed to do. I stayed in London for a long time with Battie. Then Tempie came to get me and brought me home. And I’ve been here since. I haven’t left…until Glastonbury.”
I nodded, fighting very hard to tamp down my response to Battle opening the door to his bloody, violated, beautiful, dainty, frizzy-haired sister who he adored (rightfully so) beyond reason.
God, it was testimony to how much he loved her that he didn’t leave her to Mrs. Pattinson in order to go out and commit murder.
But what he eventually did was even further explained.
I also had to hold my tongue, because, if she drove from Bath to London in that state, she could have further harmed herself. It was a miracle she made it.
However, this wasn’t the time for admonishments (far from it).
And it totally tracked that the only thought she had at that time was to get to Battle.
She leaned into me and put her head on my shoulder.
I wrapped an arm around her.
“Now, I’ve messed up, Vivi,” she whispered.
“How did you mess up, honey?” I whispered back.
“I scared them so much. I worried them so much. They aren’t living their lives.”
“This is what I know,” I announced grandly.
She just tipped her head back but kept it on my shoulder as we looked at each other.
“If that happened to my sister, I’d be on her like a rash, until I knew she didn’t need me. And I wouldn’t give that first fuck if she needed me for twenty years.”
“Really?” she asked softly.
“Absolutely,” I answered resolutely. “But what you’re missing is, they can look after you and live their lives too. You can’t be responsible for the decisions they make.”
“But…Tempie—”
“No, Chassie. You heard Ravenna. It’s on her now.”
She lifted her head, but I kept my arm around her.
“I know she was worried about me going to London,” she said. “Seeing Mrs. Pattinson again. All of that. And she didn’t see him when she was there. She goes there, not much. Not enough, if he cares about her. And obviously he does. Their row on the phone didn’t sound good.”
“Her decision to make.”
“But—”
I shook her. “You have enough to worry about seeing to you, don’t take on Tempie.”
Her face grew stubborn, and damn, I was loving Chassie getting back to Chassie.
“So they can take on me, and I can’t take them on?”
“They didn’t take you on, my lovely. They stuck close to support you. I think it’s important you know the difference.”
She scrunched her nose, still stubborn, and I’d take it.
Though, I wasn’t done.
“But just to say, that would be my advice to anyone. Worry about yourself. What you can do. What you can control. Trying to take on responsibility for another person’s happiness is like trying to change the past or manipulate the future. It’s fool’s work and doomed to fail every time.”
She bit her lip and gazed into the ballroom.
I wasn’t sure what I said sank in, but I didn’t get the opportunity to pursue it.
We heard Prue shouting, “Battie’s home!”
We both twisted to see her at the end of the hall.
She then disappeared.
And I didn’t know what came over me (I did, I was very fond of him).
I immediately jumped to my feet, raced down the hall, turned the corner, raced down that hall (damn, this house was huge), hit the foyer, and there he was, wearing a dark-gray shirt, the sleeves rolled up, the tie was gone, the shirt open, this over charcoal-gray suit trousers—tall, broad, beautiful.
Mine.
I threw myself at him, heard him grunt when he caught me, but his arms locked around me as I slid my hand into his hair to pull his mouth down to mine.
I didn’t have to expend much effort. He took my mouth, and we made out hot and heavy in the foyer.
When we finally broke, he purred, “Much better than you draped longingly over the balustrade.”
“I thought so,” I replied breathlessly.
He kissed my nose (a thing for him, since my freckles were a thing for him).
Then he let me go so he could kiss the waiting cheeks of Prue and Chassie while I greeted Bartholomew, who came home with him.
Prue clapped. “You made it in time for cocktails.”
“And a drink is precisely what I need, sweetheart. Traffic on the M4 was a nightmare,” he replied, rounding my shoulders with an arm and turning us to the plum parlor.
When we made it, Chassie asked, “Should I ring Fitzy?”
“I can manage,” Battle said, because not a single Talyn could toast a slice of bread, but I figured they all could make a variety of cocktails. He let me go and headed to the drinks cabinet, asking, “Orders?”
I tried to think of one to stymie him.
But he called me on it, saying, “I have a phone, Vivi. Whatever you cook up, I can look it up.”
“Martini,” I ordered on a huff.
He smiled at me.
I got over my huff.
“My usual,” Prue chirped.
“Me too,” Chassie surprisingly said (she was a non-frozen daiquiri girl, for the most part).
Battle got to work, and we took our seats, me in what had become my chair, next to Bartholomew, who put his slobbery snout on my leg, making me happy I was wearing jeans.
I stroked his head.
Battle had made the drinks, passed them around and folded into the chair beside mine when Tempie floated in looking her usual fabulous in a pair of wide-leg white pants and a red and white sleeveless blouse with a complicated bow at her neck.
She was accompanied by Fitzy.
“Good,” she said upon spying Battle. “I missed the reunion. But do tell. Was it mildly pornographic, or wildly pornographic?”
On his way to the drinks cabinet, Fitzy’s eyes went to the ceiling, but he was smiling.
Battle grunted disapprovingly.
“Blurgh! Tempie!” Chassie cried.
At that, I saw Battle’s body jerk in his chair, and I looked at him to see his eyes narrowed on his sister.
Yeah.
There it was.
“Stop doing that,” Prue ordered Tempie. “It probably makes Battie and Vivi really uncomfortable. I know it does me.”
“That is the point, dear,” Tempie replied blithely as she floated her long, lean body down to sit in the sofa opposite Prue and Chassie.
“There’s martini in the shaker, Fitzy,” Battle called. “That was also Vivienne’s selection for this evening.”
“Excuse me, I do not do watered down vodka,” Tempie replied.
“It’s been in the shaker maybe five minutes,” Battle told her.
“That’ll be acceptable, Fitzy,” Tempie said to the butler.
As he poured, he called, “Miss Vivi, if you don’t mind, Patsy was hoping you’d pop down and let her know what you want brought in for the weekend. She’s sending Harry to the market tomorrow. We’re off early to visit the youngest for a couple days.” He grinned madly. “We have a new grandson.”
Yes, I’d asked Tempie if it was okay.
And yes, I’d told Patsy she didn’t have to cook dinner for the throng when Emily was away.
So yes, she took me up on it.
No shade on being served delicious cocktails and meals at home. Especially no shade on not having to do dishes.
But getting to cook a couple of nights a week for people I loved so did not suck for me.
“Oo, do you have baby photos?” I asked Fitzy.
He offered the martini on his tray to Tempie, she took it, then he dug his phone out of his inside jacket pocket, engaged it, slid his finger on the screen and offered it to me.
“You can scroll for probably fifteen pictures. They’re all of our new little bundle,” Fitzy said.