Chapter 3
Waverly
Traeger Hall
“The terms of the will are quite simple, really.” The attorney overseeing the estate of Leopold Traeger lifted the sheaf of papers on end and tapped them on the tabletop to straighten them.
Like any respectable attorney, his gray eyes communicated shrewdness.
The strands of white hair combed over his balding head were obedient to his ministrations, as was his mustache that hugged the sides of his mouth and almost met the muttonchops that framed his round face.
Mr. Grossman was, after all, trustworthy. There was no way that Leopold Traeger would have ever gifted any man the time of day, let alone his confidence, were he shifty or unscrupulous.
“But, Mr. Grossman . . .” Waverly lifted her chin and peered down her nose at the man, hoping to convey a modicum of self-confidence by summoning the authority her uncle had always drawn upon.
Traeger authority. She cleared her throat and began again.
“I am quite concerned regarding the terms of my uncle’s will. They’re highly . . . irregular.”
Mr. Grossman eyed her, then shifted his gaze to the empty chair beside her.
More than likely he was wishing for a man to be sitting there, someone to speak on her behalf.
Someone with more than half a brain instead of a blond, curly-haired young woman with the innocent blue eyes and rosebud lips of a china doll.
That was how Waverly Pembrooke had always been described by the matrons in her boarding school for young ladies and in the social section in the newspaper.
And never did the critics mean it as a compliment.
They either seethed with female jealousy and contempt, or they alluded to a flighty nature and feminine disposition that would be better off serving tea and cakes than receiving legal advice regarding carrying on the business of a profitable estate.
Mr. Grossman cleared his throat, seeming to contemplate his response considering the lack of another male in the study. Leopold Traeger’s study. Uncle Leopold’s desk. A desk that she should be sitting behind as the new mistress of Traeger Hall. Instead, she had ceded her seat to the attorney.
“Irregular as it may be, it is binding by law.”
“I cannot contest it?” Waverly asked.
A flicker in Mr. Grossman’s eyes told her she was remarkably close to either impressing him or offending him. She guessed it would be the latter.
“No, you can’t contest a last will and testament.
” Mr. Grossman smoothed the papers with his hands—papers drafted according to the expressed wishes of Uncle Leopold.
“Your aunt’s and uncle’s remains are to stay at Traeger Hall for a full week.
Upon the surety of their deceased state, they will then be interred in the Traeger mausoleum at Newton Creek Cemetery. ”
There was only one mausoleum in the otherwise modest cemetery.
Waverly had no need for Mr. Grossman to identify it as belonging to the Traeger family.
Uncle Leopold had built the marble mausoleum in preparation of his death, much as he had the bell tower.
There, he would assume his position as founder of the village, in death just as he had in life.
“Once the funeral has concluded, you will have forty-eight hours to gather your personal things, leaving behind all that belonged to your aunt and uncle and taking nothing with you but that which you brought here.”
“My trunk of clothes and hats?” Waverly pressed her lips together, disdainful of her dead uncle’s lack of concern for her welfare.
“And what of Traeger Hall? I’m not allowed to stay, to make it my home just as it has been for the last year?
What provisions have been left for me? I was, after all, under his guardianship. ”
“My dear . . .” Mr. Grossman leaned forward, folding his hands and resting them atop the will.
“After said forty-eight hours, Traeger Hall is to be closed forthwith upon your departure.” The attorney then rephrased his statement as though Waverly were incapable of understanding the legal verbiage.
“The Hall is to be sealed, and it is not to be reopened.”
“Until?” Waverly pressed.
“Until what?” Mr. Grossman appeared peeved at her question.
“When may I reopen Traeger Hall?”
“You may not.”
“What do you mean I ‘may not’?” Waverly straightened her already quite prim figure. The padded velvet seat of the wooden chair on which she sat creaked as a spring protested the shifting of her weight.
Mr. Grossman released a heavy sigh that communicated how sorely Waverly’s feminine mind was trying his last shred of patience.
“Miss Pembrooke, must I read the will again? It cannot be that difficult to understand. Traeger Hall is to be sealed. It is to remain so. The windows and entryways shall be bricked shut. The roof will be maintained by someone appointed by my firm to help it avoid the rigors of time. Aside from that, no other means of upkeep will be spared for the estate. Under no circumstances is anyone to enter Traeger Hall again.”
Waverly adjusted the lace cuff of her crocheted gloves.
It was absurd. It was utterly ridiculous.
Uncle Leopold had been a force while alive, but now that he was dead, he’d become a monster.
“You’re saying that this house shall remain abandoned?
” She repeated what she had heard but didn’t genuinely believe.
“Until there are no longer any Traeger descendants to claim rights to it or a century has passed, yes,” Mr. Grossman concluded, a look of relief apparent on his face.
Waverly seemed to finally grasp the authority of the will. “But my aunt and uncle had no children. I am from my aunt’s side, and I bear no Traeger blood. My uncle had no siblings nor cousins!” Waverly’s frown removed the relief from the attorney’s expression.
“Then Traeger Hall will stand closed for a century, Miss Pembrooke.”
“A century? That is complete absurdity! Traeger Hall will be in complete ruins in a century.” It wasn’t that Waverly wished to become queen of sorts over her uncle’s amassed businesses and wealth.
It was just that she was desperate to have a place to live and her base needs met.
Uncle Leopold wasn’t the only one who had no more relatives.
Waverly would be destitute if what Mr. Grossman stated was upheld.
Mr. Grossman cleared his throat, followed by an uncomfortable twitch of his mustache. “What is absurd or rational matters not in light of this being the instruction of Mr. Traeger’s last will and testament.”
Waverly had already considered the seven-day wake over her aunt’s and uncle’s corpses uncomfortable at best and gruesome at worst. But this latest revelation was personal, Uncle Leopold’s last slap of abuse.
She tried again in the blind hope that she had somehow misunderstood Mr. Grossman.
“So Traeger Hall will be closed with all of its furnishings and my aunt and uncle’s belongings?
With their mementos? The family portraits, my uncle’s art collection, the books .
. . ?” Waverly could feel her disbelief turning into emotion, and she fought against it while still presenting her argument.
“The books will be left here to decay and be eaten by mice and moths. What about the fireplace poker?” She waved her gloved hand toward the cold fireplace and the iron poker that rested in its holder. “I must leave that too?”
An eyebrow rose. “You have sentiment toward the fireplace poker?” Mr. Grossman inquired.
“Well, if it’s the only thing I can take, then yes.
Yes, I do!” Waverly cursed herself for becoming unreasonable, but it was anger, not a supposedly witless feminine nature, which spurred her on.
“My uncle is leaving me destitute. With no home, no place to go, nothing but the trunks I brought with me from my boarding school. I can no more return there than I can turn back time and become sixteen again. On my eighteenth birthday I aged out of the school, and my aunt took me in.”
“Much to the chagrin of your uncle, might I add,” Mr. Grossman inserted.
He needn’t have. Up until his murder, Uncle Leopold had made it clear from the moment she had arrived that she was not wanted here. Her aunt Cornelia had also made it clear she had not taken Waverly in out of the goodness of her heart, but out of familial obligation as was customary.
Waverly attempted to calm herself. She cleared her throat. “Mr. Grossman, I am an orphan. My aunt was my last remaining relative on my mother’s side. Where am I to go?”
Mr. Grossman blinked and then had the decency to lower his eyes as he straightened the papers again. “The will does not give instruction as to what you should do, Miss Pembrooke, only what shall happen to Traeger Hall and the Traeger Estate.”
“And my uncle’s business interests? The sawmill?
His logging company up north? The bank?” Waverly scrambled to remember everything her uncle owned.
He held the monopoly on Newton Creek. The Newton Creek Bank held most of the mortgages and loans for the area.
The sawmill was just one spoke in a finely crafted wheel, attached to the northern logging company he also owned.
Not to mention his copious amounts of other investments.
Uncle Leopold had made no secret that his investments were none of Waverly’s business to even know about.
He had his own partners, his own board of managers, and even his own hobbies.
Waverly glanced at the painting on the wall behind his desk.
Uncle Leopold had dabbled in the fine arts.
She had no idea who had painted the landscape, but he had given strict instructions regarding its care.
Yet there was more than just Traeger Hall to be considered; there was the financial foundation of Leopold Traeger himself.
She snapped her eyes back to Mr. Grossman. “All of my uncle’s assets—what is to become of them?”