20. Tristan
20
TRISTAN
T he light flicked on, and I blinked against the sudden brightness.
“Tristan. And…Aria.” My grandfather’s brows rose. I quickly released Aria’s hand. I was going to have enough explaining to do without adding more complications.
“Grandfather.” I pulled out my best charming smile, flashing my teeth at him.
“Care to explain what the two of you are doing here in my private office, in the dark, instead of downstairs celebrating your father’s appointment as mayor?”
This wasn’t happening the way I’d hoped, but fuck it, he was here, and I had questions. But first, I needed to make sure Aria left. I didn’t want her to attract my grandfather’s wrath, and the only way to do that was to lie brazenly.
“I can certainly tell you what I’m doing here. As for Miss Harper, I’m afraid she’s here under duress. I wanted her opinion on a suitable gift for Father.”
“A gift which happens to be in my wing of the manor?”
“Yes.” I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping he’d buy it. “I was going to show her the watches in your safe. Your Robert Loomes Robin, to be exact. I always find it’s better to see these things in person, don’t you?”
There was a pause, and then he chuckled, shaking his head. “I suppose so. Go ahead.”
I confidently strode over to the dressing area, followed by Aria, and continued on to his wardrobe. Throwing it open, I crouched down to open the safe. I shielded my actions from Aria as if I was hiding the combination from her. When the safe opened, I reached inside, carefully extracting one of the watches I’d spotted when I’d opened the safe earlier.
“Here, Aria. See the leather…” I bullshitted about the watch’s qualities for a full minute while she nodded along with my explanations but remained silent for the most part.
Replacing the watch in the safe, I glanced back through the archway to my grandfather, who had taken up a casual pose at the edge of his desk, one hand in his pocket and the other playing with a paperweight. “Aria,” I said. “You can go now. I need to talk to my grandfather in private.”
I saw her staring at me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare to turn to look at her. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.
“Thank you for letting me see the watch, Samuel. Um. Mr. Smith-Chamberlain. Sir. Sorry. I apologise for…um…intruding in your room.”
“Don’t mention it,” my grandfather said drily. When Aria had left us alone, I leaned against the side of the archway, meeting my grandfather’s gaze head-on. He appreciated directness and honesty, and so that was what I was going to give him. Or an edited version.
“I wanted a chance to speak to you tonight. Not like this, perhaps, but now you’re here…” Trailing off, I cleared my throat and then straightened my shoulders. “I didn’t want to say anything while Aria was here, but I’ve heard rumours about a secret society at Hatherley Hall when you were a student.”
His gaze remained impassive, but I didn’t miss the subtle tightening of his jaw. Encouraged, I continued.
“Father said something about Aria’s great-uncle tutoring students. He said you wouldn’t have interacted with him much because you moved in different circles, but I wondered if you knew who he tutored. And whether he had anything to do with the secret society.”
I knew he had something to do with the society, for the fact his name had been on the list in the journal, and doubly so after his name had been mentioned in the torn-out pages regarding the initiation ritual. But my grandfather didn’t know I was in possession of that information—I hoped—and so I’d be weighing up his replies carefully, if he decided to deny it.
“Tell me what you know and where you heard these rumours.”
I shrugged. “Nothing concrete. Just rumours around school. All I know is there was a secret society at one point, and Aria’s great-uncle might have been involved.” Steeling myself, I added, “I heard you might have been involved in it, too.”
Slowly and deliberately, he lowered the paperweight and released it. It connected with the surface of the desk with a soft thud. He straightened up, heading over to a tall cabinet in the corner.
“Whisky?”
“Uh, okay.”
He poured two fingers’ worth from a crystal decanter into two whisky glasses and handed me one. Taking a sip and then placing his glass down on the desk, he sighed. “You’ll understand why I needed a drink after I tell you what I know. Before I say anything, I want you to promise me that what I’m about to tell you remains in this room. No discussing it with your friends or Miss Harper, or your parents, for that matter. Can we agree?”
“Yeah, of course.” Fuck, I hated lying to him, but if he told me something useful, there was no possibility I’d keep it from my best friends or Aria.
“Good. I see a lot of myself in you, you know. An inquiring mind is an asset, if one knows when to ask questions and, more importantly, the right questions to ask.” Picking up his glass again, he swirled the amber liquid, a faraway look in his eyes. “The rumours you’ve heard have some truth to them. There was a society at Hatherley Hall, the Brotherhood. It was very secret, very exclusive. Something like your elite group is now, I suppose, except no women were allowed, and everything was very cloak-and-dagger. There was nothing nefarious or untoward about it—I suppose, if anything, it was a schoolboy’s version of a gentlemen’s club. That sort of thing. As far as I’m aware, the society was disbanded while I was still a student and was never reformed again.”
“How does Aria’s great-uncle fit into all this?”
Pinching his brow, he exhaled heavily. “You must understand. This is…difficult to talk about. John was a bright boy. An exceptional student, despite his modest upbringing. He tutored…well, he tutored me. We became friends, of a sort, and I wanted him to join the society. The night of his initiation, he was to scale the bell tower. There was a great storm. It was an accident…he fell. I’ll never forget the cry he made?—”
Cutting himself off, he turned away from me, bowing his head. I’d never seen my grandfather show much emotion before, so I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I went through everything I’d discovered on the missing pages. Aria’s great-uncle was supposed to use a knotted rope to scale the bell tower from the ground outside all the way to the window at the top. Somehow, at some point, something had gone wrong. There was no information in those pages regarding what had happened, but based on the things Aria’s grandmother had said, it was easy enough to see that he must have fallen during the climb. Scaling a rope in a storm sounded almost suicidal to me. He must’ve wanted to be a part of that society badly enough to try despite the odds.
I swallowed around the unexpected lump in my throat. The whole thing was so fucking unjust and unfair.
“Were you in the tower?” I wasn’t sure why it mattered, but the thought of John being all alone when he began that climb…
“I was…no. I was with him at the bottom.” He drained the rest of his glass. “You’ll understand why it’s difficult to talk about and why you must keep this to yourself.”
“I get it.” My mind was racing, and I had to know. “Was that how my parents became Aria’s godparents? Because you were friends with her great-uncle?”
“Yes. The incident shook us all, and that was why we made a decision to disband the society. We couldn’t risk anything like that ever happening again. I wanted to provide for John’s family, and so I set aside a significant sum of money in his name. Aria’s grandmother refused to touch it, however. I believe she was too distraught by the loss of her brother and felt as if she would be almost profiting from his death in a way.” He sighed. “Grief has a funny way of distorting people’s minds.”
“She never took a penny of it?”
“No. However, I managed to speak with Aria’s parents when I found out her mother was expecting, and we set up a trust in Aria’s name on the proviso that it would appear to come from her parents themselves. They opened an account to be solely used to pay for Aria’s education, allowing her to follow in her great-uncle’s footsteps and attend Hatherley Hall. The rest, we set up as a small trust that would go to Aria in the event of her parents’ passing. That way, John’s family would be provided for despite Margaret’s objections. I don’t know if… Perhaps she would have eventually accepted it, if I’d come to her again and asked for it to be used for her granddaughter, but she refused to talk about it.”
Oh, fuck. “Does Aria know the money is coming from you?”
“As far as Aria is aware—as far as everyone is aware, including your parents—the money is coming from her deceased parents. I made a promise to her parents that we wouldn’t disclose the source. We didn’t want to risk Margaret contesting it.”
She wouldn’t have, surely? She loved Aria, and I was one hundred percent positive she only had her best interests at heart.
“I believe Aria’s grandparents would have greatly preferred Aria to attend a different school. In Margaret’s head, Hatherley Hall was solely to blame for her brother’s death.” Stepping over to the cabinet, he poured himself another whisky with trembling hands. In that moment, I realised how much this must have been weighing on him, keeping it all inside. How much he must have wanted to talk about this with someone.
“I’m sorry to ask more questions. I’m just trying to work it all out in my head. How does this fit in with my parents being Aria’s godparents?”
“Your mother was expecting at the same time as Aria’s mother. It was simple enough to arrange a few small social gatherings to engineer my desired outcome.”
My brows flew up. “Engineer your desired outcome?”
“To see that John had a legacy to be proud of. The legacy he strived for but was denied. Your parents becoming Aria’s godparents opened up doors to her that she would never be able to access otherwise. She has a bright future ahead of her.”
I tipped my whisky glass to my lips, grimacing at the burn as it slid down my throat. What a fucking mess. I could see why my grandfather had done what he did, and I did admire the fact that he’d tried to do what he could for his friend. To the Smith-Chamberlains, money and connections were everything. They equalled power, and he’d done what he could to ensure that Aria achieved that when her grandmother hadn’t been able to accept it. However, the fact that I now knew that he was the one financing Aria’s education and day-to-day spending, and my parents weren’t even aware of it…
Fuck. How the fuck was I supposed to handle this? How could I look Aria in the eye, knowing what I now knew, and not tell her the truth?
“Thank you for telling me,” I managed finally.
My grandfather gave me a sad smile. “See that the information remains between us.” He straightened up. “I believe it’s time to return to the party. What do you say?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We’ve been gone long enough.”
“I’ll join you in a moment,” he said as I moved towards the door. As I stepped outside, I caught the words he murmured softly behind me.
In nomine iustitiae, omnia iustificata .