Society Girl (Animos Society)

by Alys Murray

  He’d been doling out similar warnings since she decided to join the club. She didn’t want to admit he was right. Change the subject.

  “What the hell are you doing? This is my Rage.”

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “I don’t need your protection, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  “Believe me, protection is the last thing I think you need, but you might want it.”

  They’d been through this before. Not once, but countless times. He’d tell her some horrible thing about the Society, push her to quit, and then throw his hands up in exasperation when she wouldn’t listen to him. As far as Sam was concerned, he didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand.

  Or rather, Thomas didn’t want to understand her or why she had to do it. In her darker moments, she would bitterly curse him and make bold, internal accusations—like he didn’t want her to succeed because he wanted to remain their father’s favorite. Those baseless speculations didn’t stick for very long. Thomas was probably the most honest, forthright man she knew.

  Which wasn’t saying much. But it was saying something.

  “I’m not giving up, Thomas. Nothing you say can make me do it.”

  “These guys are ruthless—”

  Her fingers itched to throw her hands in the air.

  “Did you go through it?”

  “Yes, but I also have a cock and believe me, they’re easier on people who have one.”

  “I may not have a cock, Thomas…” Sam was unable to keep a smirk from breaking across her face. Her brother took everything so seriously. Couldn’t he relax? Take a joke? “But I do have balls. And I’m going to see this thing through.”

  “Jesus.” It was his turn to throw hands in the air. “Come see me in the morning so I know you’re still alive, at least.”

  He disappeared around a corner, leaving a trail of frustration and hollow disappointment behind him. Her conscience picked at her. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want him to be upset. She wanted him to be the happy-go-lucky guy who always knew how to put a smile on her face. She just couldn’t trade her chance at joining the club for it. He would see. Once she was in the Society, he would understand why she’d fought so hard and defied him so often.

  Shake it off. You don’t have time to worry about Thomas. You’ve got enough to worry about for yourself. Following her own marching orders, Sam slid into her bedroom.

  She shouldn’t have been shocked at what she found there. But she was all the same. As she’d predicted, in one corner, two of the men in blue suits were digging through her underwear, shoving lacy selections in their pockets. Graham’s feet hung out from under her bed, but whatever he was trying to do down there, Sam couldn’t even begin to guess. Wellington, a short stooge who panted at every word Captain said, turned out the drawers onto the floor. The saddest member of the party was clearly PJ, who’d tucked himself into a corner of the room so he could read Sam’s ancient copy of New Moon to the nearly empty wineglass cradled in his arms like a baby. Captain jumped on her bed. He shook a champagne bottle, twisting the golden cap.

  “Champagne, lads?”

  Pop! The cork exploded, firing champagne threads at the wall. He waved it, clearly trying and desperately failing to spell his own name. The entire display flushed Sam along her collar, but she didn’t dare speak.

  Don’t say anything, Sam. Don’t say anything. This is what they do. It’s harmless fun. Everything can be cleaned or replaced.

  “We need a fire!” Graham shouted from under the bed. “It’s cold as shit in here.”

  In a flash, everything changed. It was no longer fun and games, no longer harmless fun. Because when she looked up, it was not trash Wellington extended carelessly out for fire starters. It was her mother’s pictures. The only ones she had of the woman who gave birth to her. The only picture she had of her parents together.

  “Use these. Are these important?”

  She couldn’t control herself anymore. Call her girl. Call her Piggy. Steal her underwear and do God knows what with it. Ruin her room and drink all of her wine, but they couldn’t have her mom. With the ferocity of a wild cat and even less sense, she lunged for him.

  “Hey, don’t—” Sam roared.

  But she didn’t make it more than two steps before being caught by her collar. She didn’t know which one had her, and she didn’t care. Hard arms clutched her, trying to pull her toward the door. Her vision tunneled toward those pictures, the only evidence she had of her family.

  “Take her outside.”

  “I can take it.” She struggled to catch her breath, to seem cool long enough to be released. If she could get across the room, she could save her mom.

  “Oh, I’m sure you can. But you’re not allowed. We find people get very…” Captain took the pictures out of Wellington’s grasp. Sam’s entire world froze. All she could see were his spindly fingers along the edges, starting to tear the delicate paper. “…sensitive when their rooms are getting rifled.”

  “Give them back,” she commanded, cold and malicious. She dared him to deny her. There was a screaming part of her conscience telling her not to go down this road. All of her work, all of her machinations, all of her humiliation would be for nothing… But this time, her emotions raged louder than her rationale.

  “Are you Animos material?”

  “Give. Them. Back.”

  “I knew you’d fold.” Captain snickered and tossed the pictures at her feet, nodding his head at whoever was holding her. The arms released her. She dropped like a sack of potatoes, her knees colliding painfully with the hardwood floor. “I knew you didn’t have the stuff to make it.”

  His declaration wormed under her skin and bit hard, living there even when she left them all behind.

  Ten minutes later, Sam was sitting on the cold tile of the kitchen, clutching her pictures to her chest. She didn’t have the strength to look at them, but she couldn’t bring herself to watch the regents collect their things and pack, taking her hopes and dreams with them. Hiding was a better solution.

  “Shit,” she breathed.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Another surprise. On her feet in a second, Sam stood face to face with her father, Lord Dubarry. It might have been three thirty in the morning, but he looked like he always did. In his early fifties, tall and severe, he was exactly the sort of man someone might cast as a grown-up Mr. Darcy, if Mr. Darcy insisted on wearing 1960s spectacles and glowering at everyone all the time. Thomas always told her, “Dad doesn’t not have feelings. It’s that he doesn’t want to and therefore chooses not to show them off.” He was what Sam called “old school British.” Austere and stuffy. Dedicated to his family name and their respectability. A slave to appearances and tradition. And though Thomas didn’t agree, she knew one day she would dig beneath his crusty exterior and find the warm, loving dad she always dreamed she would have.

  She tucked the photographs in her arms tighter to her chest, not wanting him to spot them. Her father was also a bloodhound for weakness.

  “Dad!” Her heart pulsed. “Hey, I thought you were going to be in the city—”

  “Haven’t left yet. Been in the office all day dealing with damned paperwork.” He moved through the kitchen without looking at her. It was a bad habit of his. “Your brother and I were going to leave this morning, but Mrs. Long hired a new member of staff. Curator for the car collection.”

  “Oh.”

  Was there anything more pretentious than someone hiring a curator for their car collection? Sometimes, she found herself deeply resenting the two Dubarry men with whom she lived. Growing up, Thomas had gone to Eton and driven Aston Martins. Sam had made do with her public-school education and the cross-town bus. The greenest space she ever saw was the tiny park near her foster home, which was usually covered with McDonald’s bags and used needles; they sat on over a hundred acres of pristine emerald farmland. While they had been living it up in British paradise, going
to afternoon tea with the Queen, Sam had been bouncing around the system. Hearing her father talk about his private collection of antique cars still stung, even though he’d arranged for her to take ownership of one of his Audis. Young Sam would have been so conflicted, but grown-up Sam would take anything her father gave her if it meant they would have a conversation for more than five minutes.

  After a lifetime on her own, she should have been used to isolation. She shouldn’t care if her father gave a damn about her. But she did care. Deeply. She didn’t realize how lonely she’d been until she was so close to her father’s love and approval she could almost feel it. She suddenly saw a lifetime of lost opportunities, a million missed chances to feel the warm embrace of family. Now that it was just out of her grasp, it tore at her heart not to have it.

  “What are you doing?” He flicked the teakettle on and looked at her in the chrome reflection of the kitchen appliances, not turning to fully face her. Sam shoved the pictures into her back pocket. Lord Dubarry never talked about her mother; she had no idea what their relationship was like outside of the one picture she had of the two kissing and the few mumblings she’d managed to coax out of her mother. What would he say if he knew she’d given up Animos just to hold onto these scraps of paper? She decided she didn’t want to find out. She could live in the fantasy for a little while longer. Straightening, she locked eyes with his reflection, trying to hold his oblivious attention.

  “It’s my Rage Weekend. For the Animos Society.”

  “Animos?”

  Was it her imagination, or did he perk up? Thomas had told him about her joining Animos—hoping he would talk her out of it, no doubt—but it seemed he hadn’t been listening. Nodding, she tried not to look too excited that he was listening now.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “They’ve started letting girls in now, have they?”

  “I’m the first. Hopefully. If all goes—” From the floor above them, a loud crash sounded. So, they had abandoned her chances of joining the club but hadn’t passed up a chance to destroy her room. Great. “According to plan.”

  “You know, I was in Animos.”

  “So was Thomas. I’m a legacy, I guess.”

  “Well done. Let me know how it turns out,” he said as he poured his tea. “We’ll celebrate.”

  If she hadn’t been paying such rapt attention, she might have missed the quiet musing on his breath as he departed. “My daughter, in Animos. Hmm.”

  My daughter.

  Hope blossomed in her chest. He’d never called her that before. Never given her such affirmation. She’d been right. Joining the Society would win his affection. He would finally see her. They could be like a real family. It would prove her to him. The pictures in Sam’s back pocket tugged on her like a bag of bricks.

  You know what you have to do, a little voice whispered.

  Before she knew it, she was in her bedroom again, breaking up a mild fistfight that had apparently started over a copy of her high school yearbook. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to run to her father’s office and cling to him. She wanted Thomas here.

  But more than anything, she wanted to be in Animos. It would save her. It had to.

  “Hey!”

  “Yeah?” Captain looked up, his clenched fist hovering over Graham’s face.

  Her mother was never going to come back. Holding onto her picture would never drag her up from the grave. But her dad was downstairs, and she could rescue him from forgetting her entire existence. She could, for the first time in her life, have what everyone else had. She could have a family. Closing her eyes against the pain, she extended the handful of pictures, internally saying goodbye.

  “Here. I’m back in. Start the fire.” Her heart hardened even more than she thought possible. “I’ll get more champagne.”

  Mama… She waited until she was down the hall to let a few traitorous tears slip down her cheeks. Please forgive me.

  Chapter Two

  Daniel Best wasn’t having what anyone would call a great first day on the job. His alarm had gone off late. His favorite pair of jeans had gotten a rip right in the crotch, a rip that matched the one in his favorite pair of boxers he was wearing. His junker of a car had barely spluttered up the hill toward his new job. And when he’d arrived, he discovered the garage where he’d be spending most of his time in service of the Dubarry family was a catacomb of cobwebbed and barely functional shells of classic cars, a wasteland of wealth.

  None of it really bothered him. He was an optimist, or at least, he found it much easier to navigate life as one. After all, it was good for the heart to get it racing first thing in the morning, and beating the clock to get to work on time certainly did that. A few stitches would make his boxers and jeans good as new. As for all of the car troubles he’d faced, both his own and at work, he liked a challenge. There was nothing better, in Daniel’s opinion, than taking a broken thing in his hands and helping it to work again. It was one of the reasons he fought so hard for this job. He’d been pounding the pavement looking for a second gig, attending lifeless interview after lifeless interview until he finally found the Dubarrys’ listing for an automotive curator.

  The position required extensive knowledge of mechanics and classic cars, two things Daniel only possessed slight knowledge of when he first applied. But that was nothing a few days spent poring over books about engine repair and the Ford Model T couldn’t fix.

  No, despite a rough morning, Daniel chose to see the bright side of things. The sun was out, displaying a treat of clear, blue skies to all of Oxford, and he was happily at work on a poorly maintained 1943 Coupe. It wasn’t his dream. He’d hoped that by now he’d be playing music for crowds of screaming fans instead of scraping by to make ends meet. But for now, the sun in the sky and the promise of a paycheck would have to be enough.

  There was one small problem, though, with his new job. He didn’t know how to talk to aristocrats. Which made the appearance of the duke and his son more than slightly disconcerting. No one had briefed him on any kind of protocols and he’d only read a handful of Julian Fellowes novels, so he wasn’t entirely sure what to do when the two suited men opened the garage door at the precise stroke of nine o’clock to greet him.

  “You there, boy,” the duke called from his place at the top of the steps leading down into the vast, cavernous garage. “Are you our new curator?”

  Daniel wasn’t sure he particularly liked being called boy, but this job paid better than he could have dreamed for a part-time gig. He’d bow and fetch the duke tea if it meant he signed those paychecks. Living with a handful of part-time jobs, paycheck-to-paycheck, didn’t give him the luxury of being picky about his work environments.

  “Yes, sir,” he called.

  That seemed to be sufficient for the duke, who nodded for his son to follow him down into the pit of the garage; they joined him at the hood of the Coupe. Without thinking, Daniel thrust his hand out toward the peer.

  “Daniel Best, sir. Nice to meet you.”

  If the slightly horrified look on Lord Dubarry’s face was any indication, he’d both said and done the exact wrong thing. Daniel followed the man’s eyeline down to his hands, which he realized were thoroughly covered with grease. “Sorry about that.” He couldn’t hold back a self-conscious chuckle and a silent prayer that they wouldn’t fire him over this. Yanking a rag from his back pocket, he scrubbed at his skin.

  Thankfully, the younger Dubarry came to his rescue, offering his hand before Daniel could even consider offering his to the duke again.

  “Thomas Dubarry. This is my father, Lord Dubarry.”

  Their body language couldn’t have been any more different than that between Daniel and his own father. They kept themselves closed off, distant. And the son seemed intent on covering for his father’s coldness. Conversely, Daniel spent most of his time apologizing for his father’s exuberance. His mother, too. The family dynamics of the rich were clearly different than that of the peasants down below.

&nb
sp; “Nice to meet you both.”

  “And what experience do you have with cars?”

  The question was so abrupt, Daniel almost fell backward with the force of it. Recovering quickly, he chuckled and attempted to make a joke out of his shock. “Is this another interview?”

  Thomas answered, softening the edges of his reply with an understanding smile. “We’re just trying to get a feel for you. Mrs. Long’s an excellent judge, but—”

  “But you’re sitting on about nineteen million pounds’ worth of historical hardware.”

  Oh. Not another job interview. They were checking to make sure he wasn’t going to try and steal any of the merchandise. The subtle accusation stung.

  One day, when he’d somehow sold a million records and had more money than this duke and all of his peerage friends put together, he’d never treat his help this way. But, for now, with more dreams than coin in his pockets, he stretched a smile across his face and tried to look obliging.

  “Well, it’s a good thing I have my own car, then. Don’t need any of yours. You’ve got some real beauties in here. I mean, they will be once I get done with them.”

  The joke didn’t land on the duke, who leaned back on his hips and regarded him with a cold dignity that only a man with nineteen million pounds in cars could possess, but it did land on Thomas, who turned to him with new respect.

  “So,” Thomas began. “Tell us about yourself.”

  The duke offered a dismissive wave. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “Father!”

  Not even the stern rebuke of his son could stop the older man. He’d turned away from them both, showing himself back up the stairs, tossing words carelessly over his shoulders like banana peels. “Keep him on. He’s suitable. I’ll be in my study. Have my car out front in precisely two hours. And I mean precisely two hours.”

  The old man disappeared, leaving them alone in the garage. A wince passed over Thomas’s face.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No. I understand.”

  Truth be told, Daniel really didn’t understand. He’d never met a man quite like the duke, but perhaps that was just because he’d never met a duke before. Maybe they were all like that.