by E. Walsh
“What is your father ailed by?” Lucrecia asked, remaining one step behind Fausto and to his right.
“A malignant disease that has made him incredibly weak,” Fausto replied. “He is a tired old man, and he has been sick for years now. The doctors are amazed that he has managed to hold on for so long.”
Lucrecia examined Fausto as he spoke, and if she weren’t mistaken, an ugly look passed over his face as he finished his sentence. It made her heart leap into her throat, witnessing such ugliness spread onto his features and then vanish as though it had never been there in the first place. It had been a scowl, the likes of which would scare children awake at night. Just thinking of how horribly his mouth had twisted downward made Lucrecia shiver.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” she said. “But I’m glad that he has lived long enough for me to meet him.”
“I think he’ll like you,” Fausto said, his tone and voice having long since gone flat.
The room that they approached was on the first floor, and towards the end of a long hallway. Wide windows were plastered everywhere, allowing for fresh air and sunlight throughout the day. If he weren’t in there for an illness, Lucrecia might have envied Fausto’s father.
Fausto tapped against the door with his knuckles, and a young man soon opened the door. Lucrecia took a step back upon realizing that the man was the spitting image of Fausto, only shorter and with cheeks that were more rounded. He had to have been at least five years younger, but he was handsome all the same.
“I can’t believe that you came,” Nolan breathed, looking his brother up and down. Behind Fausto, he could see a young woman. “And you brought company.”
“My new wife,” Fausto explained, stepping aside to bring Lucrecia into view. “I wanted to introduce her to both you and father before I left and she was alone in the house for so long.”
Nolan frowned, but stepped aside and allowed the two access into his father’s room. Fausto brushed past him, surrounded in an air of disdain, while Lucrecia took her time to step forward and smile at him.
“My name is Lucrecia,” she said. Fausto sent her a glare over his shoulder, but she had to introduce herself. It was common courtesy. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
A little glow of red sprung up on Nolan’s cheeks, making him look even younger than before. “It’s nice to meet you, too,” he said, and stepped farther aside for Lucrecia to enter.
She walked into the room, making sure to keep her footsteps light. On a plush bed in the center of the room, was an old man. His eyes were closed, but Lucrecia could see the faint rise and fall of his chest. She joined Fausto at his bedside, although she was forced to stand while Fausto took the chair next to the bed.
He reached out and grabbed the old man’s shoulder to shake him awake, but Nolan was there in an instant. He smacked Fausto’s hand away with a stern glare.
“He’s sleeping,” he said, eyebrows furrowed. “I won’t let you bother him just because you’re looking to make a quick buck of your inheritance,” Nolan growled, his voice turning darker and darker with each syllable.
That ugly sneer that Lucrecia had seen before on her husband’s face returned, and he stood up in a flurry. Fausto pushed past both Lucrecia and Nolan, leaving the girl completely dumbfound.
“He’s always like that,” Nolan explained. He gestured to the seat, and Lucrecia warily lowered down into it. “I’m sorry that you have to be his wife. No good will ever come of that man. It doesn’t matter how rich he is, all he ever wants is more, more, and more.”
Lucrecia glanced between Nolan and his father as she allowed the words to properly sink in.
* * *
Chapter Six
“I’m sorry that your father is so sick and that Fausto isn’t here with him,” Lucrecia said after the silence had spanned out between herself and Nolan for too long. “It’s a shame that he got himself into such a bad mood before I was properly introduced.”
“Like I said,” Nolan interrupted, holding up his hand, “he’s always like that. Since childhood he’s had awful mood swings that never seem to go away or calm down. He’s always on top of the world or as angry as the fires of Hell themselves.”
“Is he really always like that?” Lucrecia asked, a twinge of fear creeping into her voice. When writing to Fausto and when boarding the train, she had convinced herself that it didn’t matter what kind of man he was. The kind of man that he was didn’t matter when she was faced with the opportunity of a lifetime. She had told herself over and over that even if he hit her, it wouldn’t make a difference to her. Right then, it made all of the difference in the world. “Always so… so angry?”
Nolan looked up at Lucrecia, sympathy spreading across his features. He had seen many a girl who thought that they were interested in Fausto. They thought that, despite his anger and his temperament, they could survive and understand that underneath it all, they were wealthy. Disgustingly wealthy. That would never change who Fausto was.
“Yes, he’s always like that,” Nolan said. It wasn’t a lie, and he wasn’t hyperbolizing it. That was just how Fausto was. “And I hate to break it to you, Miss Lucrecia, but I doubt that he even cares about you. In our father’s will, Fausto must get married and have a child before he can inherit his portion of the will. That’s the only reason he sought you out.”
Even though Lucrecia knew that it was the truth, the words stung her deeply. She smiled through it, and gave Nolan a little shrug. “I’ve known that,” she said.
“Then why are you here?” Nolan asked. He was shocked that a girl as nice as Lucrecia would suffer through someone like Fausto. “Don’t you know that you deserve someone so much better than he is?”
“When you find a man that’s better than he is and willing to take me in, you let me know,” Lucrecia said, a little laugh forming on her lips. “Truly, I would love to meet a man like that. It would make my day. I wouldn’t even care if he was poor or rich. All that would matter is that he would love me unconditionally.”
As Lucrecia spoke, Nolan felt a surge of emotion rush through him. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but he wanted to give Lucrecia hope. She didn’t deserve to be so broken already, not when she was so pretty and young. He wanted to tell her that she deserved the world, and absolutely nothing less. There wasn’t anything that she should want for, be it a beautiful jewel or a man that would know how to treat her right. She was worth more than the universe itself.
“Lucrecia, I…” he began, but trailed off, his confidence waning.
Lucrecia looked up, but Nolan’s luck couldn’t have been better. A shaky cough rattled through his father’s chest, making Lucrecia jump back. Nolan did the opposite, sitting forward and helping his father to lift his head. It always helped him to get rid of a particularly nasty cough. He wheezed like that for a long time, held in Nolan’s arms. Lucrecia had reached out and clasped his frail, bony hand in hers.
“Who might you be…?” he asked, his voice just as wheezing as his cough had been. He was trying to turn his eyes to look at Lucrecia, but he was having difficulty doing so. He hardly knew where the girl was. He only knew that someone new was there because of the racket that Fausto had made when the two of them had entered.
“I’m Lucrecia,” she said. “I’m going to be Fausto’s wife. I’m not certain where he ran off to, but I’m very pleased to meet you.”
A smile creaked onto Mr. Redman’s wizened, wrinkled face and a laugh pushed forward past his lip: “What a very polite young lady,” he said, making Lucrecia blush. He laughed a little more, turning his head in Nolan’s general direction. “A man like Fausto doesn’t quite deserve a woman like her, does he?” he asked.
Nolan blushed just as much as Lucrecia was. He didn’t have the heart to reply to the old man’s question. “Father, she came here from New York on a train. Isn’t that amazing?” he asked.
The old man nodded. “I remember when there weren’t any trains,” he said, a hum in his voice. “When I was your age…” a
horrible coughing fit wracked his body for a good two minutes. “When I was younger, and not so sickly, we took horses and caravans all the way out here.”
“We know, Father,” Nolan said.
Lucrecia could imagine the same phrase from Fausto’s lips. He would be short with the old man, treating him as though he were lower and not worthy of his attention. It made Lucrecia’s skin crawl, but Nolan was exactly the opposite. He was smiling as he spoke, and it gave way to the true lightheartedness of his words.
“Don’t you interrupt me,” Mr. Redman scolded.
“I would like to hear the story,” Lucrecia said, beaming from ear to ear. “I’ve grown up in New York my entire life reading adventure stories. It would be nice to hear one that was actually true for once.”
A smile broke out onto Mr. Redman’s lips, showing his lack of strong teeth. He turned his head between Nolan and Lucrecia, a little laugh creeping up on him once more. “Nolan,” he said, catching his son’s attention, “I like this girl very, very much more than any other girl.”
* * *
Chapter Seven
Together with Nolan, Lucrecia stayed at the hospital for a long time. Mr. Redman had many stories to tell her, and she soaked them up like a sponge. Fausto was nothing like his father, and Lucrecia wondered if perhaps he had inherited the bad traits from his mother. Mr. Redman never once spoke of his wife, and Nolan never offered to fill her in, so she assumed that her suspicions were true. There was no other explanation for how such a sweet man like Mr. Redman had reared a child as horrible as Fausto. Clearly it wasn’t his parenting skills, as Nolan had turned out perfectly well.
At a quarter to five, a doctor rapped on the door three times with his knuckles and then entered the room. He was a kindly looking young man, with sweeping blond hair and golden, sun kissed skin. He looked perfectly at home in his white doctor’s robes.
“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask the two of you to leave,” he said. His voice was gentle, and Lucrecia appreciated the way he kept his tone soft for his patients and their visitors. “Mr. Redman needs his sleep. I know that it has been a very long day for him.”
It was true, and Mr. Redman was already half asleep by the time the doctor had entered the room. He had tried to stay awake as best as he could, but he soon found himself unable to keep his eyes open for much longer.
“I’ll come back and visit you another time,” Lucrecia promised. She leaned over the bed and placed a tender kiss to the crown of Mr. Redman’s head. He smiled at the gesture, and closed his blind eyes.
“That’s right, Father, we’ll be back tomorrow,” Nolan agreed. He patted his father’s hand, and then stood.
He and Lucrecia took their leave, glancing back as the doctor flicked off the lights in Mr. Redman’s room and walked behind them. He was shepherding them in a way, but Lucrecia didn’t mind. She knew that she had no doubt overstayed her welcome.
“Where do you think Fausto has gone to?” she asked Nolan, glancing at him as they left the hospital.
The air was still broiling hot, an incredibly uncomfortable temperature. Lucrecia hadn’t noticed it inside of the hospital, but now she could feel her clothes sticking to her body. A sheen of sweat had formed on Nolan’s forehead that was a touch too large for his face, and his thin hair was clinging to it.
“He’s probably gone back home,” he said. “Or maybe to a bar. He likes to drink when he gets angry.” As if realizing what he had said, Nolan turned to Lucrecia with wide eyes. “Not that he gets violent! Sure, he’s angry and drunk, but I’ve never seen him raise a hand to anybody when he’s like that. It doesn’t matter who they are. He’s too much of a gentleman for that kind of thing, or so he says.”
“You don’t have to defend him to me,” Lucrecia said with a little sigh. “I know that he must be a horrible person. If anything, I’ve learned that more and more over the past few hours.”
She didn’t know where they were heading, but Nolan had begun to walk in one direction and she decided to follow him.
“I can’t believe that he was awful like that even when the two of you were children,” she said with another sigh, a larger, longer one that time. “I wonder why he turned out like that.” She didn’t dare to bring up Nolan’s mother. The last thing she wanted was to disrespect him. She didn’t sense it in him, but she didn’t want to test his anger and see if he was the same type of man that Fausto was.
“No one knows for sure,” Nolan replied. He took his hat off of the top of his head and began to fan himself with it as they walked together. The sun was behind them and steadily setting, but it didn’t do anything to cut the heat that had permeated through the air all day long. “He’s just the way that he is. Maybe God made him to be an awful person.”
Lucrecia had no arguments. She could believe that he had just been made horrible, even if God was meant to never make anyone horrible. A silence fell between the two of them, but it wasn’t like the silence that she had been forced into with Fausto. With Nolan, it was comfortable and she knew that at any moment, she could say whatever it was that she wanted to say. She had no doubts that Nolan would love to engage in a conversation of stocks and the economy with her, whereas Fausto would have called her a stupid woman.
“Where is it that you live exactly?” she asked after thirty minutes of walking with Nolan. The scenery had yet to change, since they were heading away from town. There were no buildings in sight, and the lights from the buildings behind them were growing dimmer by the minutes.
“We live a few miles out this way,” Nolan said. “I should have thought about it sooner before making a lady walk all this way. It wasn’t very polite of me.”
Lucrecia laughed and shook her head at Nolan, offering him a broad grin. “I appreciate the exercise,” she said. “You don’t have to treat me like a porcelain doll. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I can’t handle walking a few miles. Actually, I think it’s really pretty out here and I like it a lot.”
“I hope that Fausto doesn’t scare you away from liking it so much,” Nolan mused. He set his hat on top of his head once more, using the brim of it to shield Lucrecia from his wandering eyes.
She had said that she didn’t want to be treated like a doll, but Nolan couldn’t help but think of her as the most beautiful treasure that he had ever seen in his life. He wanted nothing more than to hold her close and to keep her safe for the rest of time.
* * *
Chapter Eight
“Fausto?” Nolan called, opening the door and stepping into the house. It was more properly a mansion, but he had lived in it for so long that it had become his one and only home. He tried to ignore the way that Lucrecia seemed to have become completely star struck by the place. “Fausto, are you home?” he nearly yelled.
Lucrecia didn’t care if the man was home or not. What she cared about was getting a formal tour of the place. She had dreamed of the day that she would get to live in a place like this since she had been a child. After meeting Morgan, she had decided that that idea was more than a little ridiculous. There was no way that someone like her would ever get the chance to live in a place like this.
As she stepped past Nolan and traipsed in gentle circles in the front room, she allowed the idea to truly sink into her head. What had once been a fantasy, something that was so far away and unrealistic, was finally becoming true. She was going to be married to one of the wealthiest men in America, and she was going to live in his mansion. She would never want for anything. Fausto would always be there for her, in his strange sort of way that left her feeling empty and unimportant.
“I guess he’s not here,” Nolan finally said, a little frown on his face. He furrowed his eyebrows and glanced around, looking for any sign of his brother. “I’m not surprised.”
“He said that he would be here to give me a tour,” Lucrecia mumbled, a little pout creeping onto her features. “Would you do me the honors?” she asked, turning towards Nolan and offering him a smile.
/> Nolan couldn’t have agreed faster. He was tripping over his tongue, and Lucrecia was laughing at him, and it was making him blush even more than usual. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t the best with words. After growing up with somebody like Fausto, he had learned to keep his mouth shut from day one. It wasn’t as though Fausto really noticed. He appreciated having a brother that was totally and completely silent. It made his life easier.
“I would love to give you a tour,” Nolan agreed.
He held out his hand, and Lucrecia took it in her own delicate fingers. Together, hand in hand, they toured the house. Nolan showed her the upstairs first, and all of the rooms that it had to offer. Next he took her downstairs, and in the kitchen, where several maids and butlers were hard at work making dinner, they discovered the answer to their questions.
“He’s already gone to New York?” Lucrecia asked, taking the note from Nolan and looking it over.
Fausto had a delicate scripted handwriting, and it allowed for beautiful, sweeping lines. He had clearly stated that after the little spat with Nolan, he had hopped on the soonest train back to New York. He felt horribly dismayed that he had to leave Lucrecia behind, but he had left the servants with specific instructions to take care of each and every one of her needs. If her would-be husband weren’t already on his way to New York, having abandoned her in Montana with his only kin, she might have appreciated the sentiment for just a moment longer.
“Too bad,” Nolan mused, although he did not mind at all. He took the note back from Lucrecia, and crumpled it in his hand. There was no time for any sort of lollygagging. His opportunity had arisen, and he was going to take it. “Shall we continue on our tour?” he asked.
Lucrecia nodded, and followed Nolan out into the main parlor. Down a hallway that they had yet to explore, he pointed out several different rooms to her. Most were unimpressive, but still lavishly furnished and well taken care of. Lucrecia could see that the hired help was very proficient at their jobs. She would have to remind herself to thank them for all of the hard work that they put into what they did.
