22. Cassian
CASSIAN
The ring sits on the desk in front of me for a count of forty before I move.
I count it because I cannot, currently, do anything else with the small mechanical part of my brain that works in numbers. My hand reaches for the phone before my body has caught up to it. Sebastian picks up on the second ring, which means he was, even at one in the morning, awake.
"Sir."
"She's gone to bed."
"Sir."
"She left the ring."
There is a small breath at the other end of the line. Sebastian does not say I told you. Sebastian, in nine years, has never once said I told you. It is one of the reasons he is paid what he is paid.
"Instructions, sir."
"The Vance group has a follow-up at eight.
Becca's bringing in two of the analysts.
I want her at the breakfast. If she will not come to the breakfast I want her seen on the property between seven and eight — anywhere they will not be, but somewhere a member of staff can confirm her presence if asked. "
"Sir."
"Tell the kitchen the orchids on the breakfast table — the ones she pointed at on Wednesday — I want those orchids. If anyone asks why we have them at breakfast, the answer is she likes them. Roland will register it. He registers it when a man knows what a woman likes."
"Sir."
"What."
"Yes, sir."
"And — I want a flower delivery to her room at six. Six on the dot. Six is when she wakes up. Not roses, Sebastian. The thing she had at the front desk last summer in the small ceramic jar — the white things, the small cluttered ones, the — "
"Snowdrops, sir."
"Snowdrops. Then. With a card. I am still here. No name. No more than that."
"Sir. I will do this. I want to say one thing first."
"Sebastian. Don't."
"Sir."
"Don't."
He does not. The line is, for a count, only the sound of his breath and mine and the small distant tick of the radiator in his apartment two miles down the coast. Then he says, "Six o'clock. Snowdrops. Three words."
"Yes."
"Good night, sir."
He hangs up.
He doesn’t ask anything. He pockets his phone and walks out. The study is quiet. The ring is still on the desk. I look at it and keep my hands to myself.
I slide the calendar out from under the blotter and flip to Sunday. At the top, I write appearances. Then nine items, one under the other. The handwriting is the same as it was on September fourth, when I wrote Maren refs implied. The underline matches too.
The list is, when I am done, an itinerary. It is the itinerary of a fiancée who is, on Sunday, going to be seen.
I look at the list. I close the calendar. I pour, from the decanter on the credenza behind me, a finger of whiskey. I drink it. I do not pour another.
By six a.m. she has not picked up the snowdrops.
Sebastian texts me at six oh two. Tray placed outside her door per instructions. Knocked twice. No response.
Seven fifteen. Snowdrops still on the tray, sir. Door has not opened.
Seven thirty. Snowdrops moved inside. Per kitchen, the maid was instructed. Card was not opened.
Seven forty. Maid reports she was awake and dressed. She did not, per the maid, look at the tray.
The Vance breakfast is at eight. I am, by a quarter to, already on the upper terrace, in the dark suit I wear when I want a man to look me in the chest before he looks me in the face, and Becca is already there, with a small folder and the small pleasant face she puts on for any meeting where she is, in fact, going to test me.
"Cassian."
"Becca."
"You look well."
"I look exactly the way I looked yesterday."
"That is what I mean."
She smiles. She does not believe a word of it.
She does not have to. Roland comes through the door with the two analysts behind him.
We sit. The orchids are, as instructed, on the table.
The orchids, which Maren did, in fact, point at on Wednesday, do their work — Roland touches the petal of the nearest one with one knuckle as he sits, an unconscious register, and I see Becca see him do it.
"Where is Maren this morning?"
The question is Roland’s. It slips in between the second course and the coffee, delivered in that soft, unhurried tone meant to sound like a question but isn’t.
"Resting. She had — frankly, Roland, she had a long week. The dinner, the briefings — I asked her to take the morning."
"Mm."
"She says she will see you both at the cocktail hour tomorrow."
"That's so."
"Yes."
"Hmm."
He does not press. He does, however, look at me — for a beat that is not, in another man, a beat — and I do not, in that beat, allow my face to do anything. I have been doing this for thirteen years. I do it now. The coffee comes. The orchids stay. The breakfast finishes at nine forty.
Becca catches me at the door.
"Cassian."
"Yes."
"Walk me to the car."
I walk her to the car. The valet brings the car. She does not get in.
"He's wondering."
"I know."
"He likes her."
"I know."
"Whatever is going on — and Cassian, I am not asking, I am telling — whatever is going on, do not let him meet her on Sunday and find a stranger. He will close. But he will close differently."
"I understand."
"Good."
She gets in the car. The car goes down the drive.
I send Maren the first text at ten.
Please come down to the office. We need to talk.
Nothing. No read receipt. The message sits in the small green column on my screen for twenty minutes and is then a single grey check.
At eleven I send the second. Maren. I am asking, not telling.
Nothing.
At eleven thirty Sebastian comes through the door of the study without knocking. This is, in nine years, the second time he has done so. The first time was the day my second wife's lawyers served the papers.
"Sir."
"What."
"She has left her room."
"Where is she?"
"Lower lawn. With her father."
"Doing what."
"Walking."
"Sebastian."
"Sir."
"Get a member of staff out there. Anyone.
The lawn boy. Have him deliver — have him deliver a glass of water.
To both of them. With the small folded napkin from breakfast, the one with — Sebastian, the one with the small hand-pressed mark, the one Roland picked up and remarked on.
Put the napkin on the tray. She will see it. She will know it came from me."
"Sir."
"Just do it, Sebastian."
"Sir, I will do it. I am also asking. Have you considered?—"
"No, Sebastian. I have not considered. Go."
He goes.
The water goes. I see it from the window — the lawn boy crossing the long green at a respectful angle, the tray, the napkin.
I see Graham accept the glass. I see Maren — small, distant, in a soft yellow this morning, her hair pinned up in the small gold clip — accept the glass.
I see her register the napkin. I see her hand hover, briefly, over it, and then her hand goes back to her hip and she does not pick the napkin up.
Graham picks it up. Graham folds it into his shirt pocket.
I close the window.
The bar is in the small reading room off the lower hall, the one with the bottle-green walls and the two leather chairs that nobody sits in but Owen, who has, this week, claimed it. He is in the chair facing the door at half-past three when I come in, which means he was waiting.
"Cassian."
"Owen."
"Sit."
"I'm not staying."
"Yes you are."
He pours me a finger from the bottle on the side table. I do not, in the end, sit. I take the glass. I lean against the doorframe. He looks up at me.
"My sister has not come down to lunch."
"I am aware."
"Has not, as far as I can tell, eaten today."
"I am aware."
"My mother does not yet know. My mother does not yet know because my sister, this morning on the lawn, told my father something my father has, in his way, declined to share with me.
My father is, in his way, the kindest man I know.
So I am asking you, Cassian, instead of asking him. Did you use my sister."
"Owen."
"Yes or no."
"Owen. It is more — "
"Yes. Or. No."
I look at him. I look at his hand, around the glass, which is steady. I look at his mouth, which is not quite the mouth of his sister but close enough that the question, asked through it, is not, currently, a question I can answer with anything other than the truth.
"Yes."
He closes his eyes. He closes them for a beat. He opens them.
"Thank you," he says. "For not lying about that one."
"Owen—"
"Don't. Cassian. I am asking nothing else of you tonight."
"I have to ask one thing of you."
"Don't."
"Sunday. The cocktail hour with the Vance group. I am asking you — for the property, for the staff, for the four hundred jobs that are riding on the close — to not, in front of Roland, do anything that — "
"Cassian."
"Owen."
“I’m not touching your deal, Owen.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m leaving it alone because my sister is not, at this moment, the kind of woman who would want me to interfere. That is the only reason. You’re welcome to it. Do not, however, mistake that for me being on your side. Are we clear?
"Yes."
"Good."
He finishes what’s left in his glass. He pours a second measure. His focus stays fixed on the bottle, never on me. I walk out. The whiskey I brought sits untouched on the little table by the door.
Sebastian finds me at six.
"Sir."
"What."
"I went to her room."
"And."
"She has informed me, through the door, that she will not be attending the formal dinner tonight."
"Did she tell you why?"
"No, sir."
"What did she say?"
“She said—sir, and I’m quoting her exactly—Tell Mr. Rourke I have nothing to say to him at this time, and I will not be performing.”
"Mm."
"Sir."
"Sebastian."
"You can have me drag her down. You can have a staff member knock on the door every twenty minutes. You can have her mother fetched."
"I can."
"You can. Sir. You cannot, however, do any of those things without your investors, your staff, and her family understanding that something is wrong. The narrative will, sir, not survive that volume of fetching."
"I know that, Sebastian."
"Yes, sir."
"I — yes. I know."
"What would you like me to do?"
"Tell the kitchen there will be six at table, not seven. Tell Delilah that Maren is unwell and will eat in her room. Apologize to the Castellans on my behalf. Do not — Sebastian — do not, this time, send her snowdrops."
"No, sir."
"Sebastian."
"Sir."
"That will be all."
He goes.
Two weeks, and I’ve driven one woman to stop being seen. And I can’t force her back into view. Not with a tray, not with Sebastian, not with Becca and a folder. I don’t have the leverage to steer anything now.
It is—though I’ll only admit it to myself—the first thing I haven’t been able to control since I was nineteen.
I do not pick up the ring.
I sit and I look at it and I count, the way she counted my breaths last night, until I lose track and start again.