by Bella Bryce
Bennett sat in his usual confident posture; his tall frame was clothed in a flawlessly pressed, three-piece grey pinstriped suit and his topcoat with a tartan scarf. He felt confident, too, because he knew Elisabeth liked him as much as he liked her and it gave him a rather unfamiliar feeling of joy, which he masked and suppressed with expertise. He dreaded the idea of anyone seeing him giddy.
Wellesley noticed the attraction between them as soon as he held open the doors of Waldorf. Bennett didn’t seem to even hear his greeting. Elisabeth stood waiting for him in the foyer in her pleated grey pea coat, matching beret, ivory tights peeking out from beneath the pleats and brown oxford shoes. Bennett walked straight in and stopped before her. Brayden usually got the first greeting when anyone arrived in his foyer, but he watched them look at each other quietly with obvious adoration, Bennett’s more concealed than Elisabeth’s.
“Hi,” she said, looking up at him with unmistakable tenderness.
“Hello,” he replied, his cologne closely following the kiss he left on her cheek.
Elisabeth looked down and smiled. She would have reciprocated with one on his lips, but Brayden stood close by and it made her feel a little uneasy kissing Bennett in front of him. It shouldn’t, but it did. Brayden was like a father figure and no girl wanted to kiss a man in front of their father. At least, it wasn’t easy to do in the early stages of a relationship.
“Good morning,” Brayden said, stepping forward to shake Bennett’s hand.
“Morning,” Bennett said, before turning his attention back to Elisabeth. “Shall we go?”
Elisabeth nodded, her eyes looking at Bennett softly. He offered his arm to her and they quietly walked out of Waldorf’s grand foyer, down the stairs and into the back of his limo.
Brayden joined Wellesley at the double doors as the limo drove around the circular path surrounding the fountain and down the gravel drive toward the gates. Brayden looked at his butler and raised an amused eyebrow before vacating the path of the wintery breeze entering the otherwise cosy mansion. Wellesley closed the doors and turned to his employer.
“I know,” Brayden said, with a small smile. Brayden had his arms behind his back and nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll be in the library until breakfast,” he added, then quietly ascended the grand staircase.
Brayden James wasn’t a jealous man in any regard, which might seem easy for a wealthy man to avoid; but money couldn’t buy love, it couldn’t buy happiness, nor could it encourage matters of the heart. It certainly couldn’t buy him a wife. And he wasn’t hoping for it to. But when most men would look at a close friend and wish to have the affection and closeness of a girl whom they knew was the right match, Brayden didn’t. He was deeply moved by the affections made very obvious by the way his best friend looked at Elisabeth.
Breakfast at Barton-Court House that morning was very different from the way it felt when Elisabeth was Bennett’s charge during the two weeks prior. Bennett quietly led her to the top end of the table in his grand dining room and let Sullivan pull out her chair as he sat at the head of the table. The atmosphere was calm and sweet as Bennett watched her every move. Elisabeth’s favourite breakfast was served; an egg-white omelette, strawberries and whole wheat toast with peanut butter. It was a breakfast made a lot more special since moving out of her childhood home because it was presented on china and in a way that made it seem a lot fancier than it really was. She also had a crystal goblet of orange juice.
Elisabeth was entirely satisfied to sit beside Bennett Fowler in a grey A-line pinafore, looking schoolgirl smart with an obliging ribbon at her collar, whilst they shared delicate conversation. Elisabeth’s heart had managed to work its way back into place from the previous day, but by the time they’d finished breakfast and went for a morning walk hand in hand, it slid back down a few inches. She was completely and utterly taken with Bennett every moment she spent with him.
When they returned from their morning walk, Bennett and Elisabeth sat beside each other in front of the fire with a high, mahogany table in front of them where Sullivan served tea to warm them.
“Sullivan, there seems to be a little something extra on the tea tray. I don’t recall asking for any presents,” Bennett said in his usual tone.
He wasn’t someone who joked, and Elisabeth caught on straightaway when he handed her a small rectangular package in beautiful foiled wrapping paper with a perfectly tied satin ribbon. She smiled as she received the package in her hand.
“One moment,” Bennett said, then removed his iPhone from his blazer and dialled a number.
Elisabeth assumed that he needed to make a phone call, and so rested the gift in her lap. He held the phone to his ear and waited until the box began to vibrate and play a tune. Elisabeth looked up at Bennett as he held his phone against his ear.
“Oh dear, I think you’d best open it,” Bennett said, maintaining his straight tone with only a hint of playfulness.
Elisabeth laughed and quickly unwrapped the present to reveal a smart, navy blue box. She opened the clamshell-like lid and switched between a gasp and a laugh as she touched the answer button on the screen. She held it up to her ear and giggled as she looked at Bennett, although she didn’t say anything.
“Hello?” Bennett said into the phone. “I was quite sure a little girl named Elisabeth was the occupier of this number.”
Elisabeth giggled and shook her head whilst looking at Bennett.
“Yes?” she asked, feeling completely silly.
“My, my,” Bennett replied, raising his eyebrows and giving her a smile. “We are quite abrupt to perfect strangers on the telephone, aren’t we?”
Elisabeth giggled again. “How do you know my name?”
Bennett stopped smiling and became more serious and he shifted the phone away from his mouth and downward as he leant over toward her.
“How could I not?” he asked quietly.
Elisabeth’s smile lightened from how broad it had been and she pulled the phone away from her face, then leant forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you,” she told him.
Bennett watched Elisabeth pull away from him as he put his phone away. “You’re welcome,” he replied, giving her a small smile.
After luncheon, Bennett and Elisabeth played chess, although most of it was spent giving each other looks in between moving the pieces. Elisabeth’s looks were rather coy as she watched Bennett in his element, sitting in his wing chair with his perfect posture, concentrating intensely as he looked at the board. She loved watching him during chess.
They went for another stroll in the formal gardens after luncheon and as they walked hand in hand, Bennett inquired about her schooling – where she attended from reception to Sixth Form; what all of her uniforms looked like; how her marks were; did she have any favourite teachers? If so, who were they and why? Was she still friends with anyone from school?
“The only three friends I’m close with from school are the girls you met at Starbucks the morning I came here. Emma, Aggie and Lucy are my best friends. They’ve known me longer than anyone, really.”
“What year did you meet them?” Bennett asked, when they stopped walking and sat near the tiered fountain on the bench as they had that morning and the day before.
“I met Emma in reception. She was the cheekiest girl, but I liked her straightaway. Aggie and Lucy have always been best friends, but Emma and I got close to them in Year 5 when Aggie’s parents got a divorce. Then, Emma’s parents got a divorce and I started doing more caretaking at home with my parents. We were all going through a lot at home and tried to spend as many weekends together as possible to get away from it, I guess. Lucy’s family was the only one that seemed normal and stable; her Mum used to collect us all on a Friday night and rent us films so we could have a sleepover. For 24 hours, I got to be a child who didn’t have to worry about looking after anybody else. Of course, my parents can’t help the way they are. Emma and Aggie’s parents walked away from their marriages.”
Bennett watched as Elisabeth’s gaze stayed on the fountain for a moment longer than her response to his question. It was all so intriguing and somewhat shocking to hear about Elisabeth’s childhood, which was vastly different from his own.
“Is it my turn to ask questions, now?” Elisabeth inquired as she turned to face him.
Bennett raised his eyebrows. Elisabeth thought he was easily the most handsome man she had ever seen, but Bennett was even more so when he gave her one of his looks paired with his tie peeking out from the top of the parted neckline of his woollen topcoat.
“I want to hear your Sirs, young lady,” he said, in a gentle warning tone whilst straightening a piece of hair that blew across her cheek.
Elisabeth felt a hot flush run up and down her insides.
“Yes, Sir. Sorry,” she shyly replied.
“Yes, you may ask me a few questions now, if you like.”
Elisabeth was a very shy and quiet girl, especially on the inside, but if her private thoughts on how irresistible she found Bennett Fowler’s wardrobe and authority over her should ever come out on a continuous Twitter feed for everyone to see, she would have been utterly mortified.
“When was it that you went away to boarding school, Sir?” she asked.
“I was eight years old and Damian was six. Our parents were going to wait until Damian was older, but my father had an unusually busy year, so at the last minute Damian was enrolled with me, which I assure you, is not typical of schools such as the one I attended.”
“How long before you met Uncle Brayden?”
“I met Brayden on the day us juniors moved into our dormitories. We were assigned beds opposite each other and it stayed that way for several years. We also discovered that we lived only half an hour away from each other and still do, obviously. Our mothers became very close, especially in the first few years we were away from home. Our families began socialising, spending holidays together and our fathers regularly compared investment opportunities in their respective fields of business. Our parents were having dinner together several times a week either at Greystone Hall or Waldorf Manor whilst Brayden and I were in the salt mines of prep school.”
“And you were a Prefect,” Elisabeth said, producing a small smile.
“Prefect? I was Head Boy, darling,” Bennett said.
“Were you quite strict, Sir?” Elisabeth asked, obvious giddiness at the idea showing on her face.
Bennett couldn’t help but smile and was somewhat surprised by her question. “Yes, I was,” he replied. “Do you like the sound of that?”
Elisabeth looked down, but didn’t avoid smiling. “Yes.” She looked up quickly and added, “I mean, yes, Sir.”
“I should think so,” Bennett said, enjoying her enjoyment of the reminiscing.
Elisabeth could tell she was surprising Bennett with her reactions to such things as his level of sternness as a Head Boy in his teenage years. He couldn’t complain because he knew full well their relationship wouldn’t last unless she found it attractive. Bennett just hadn’t expected her to show attraction to such things so quickly. He thought he would have to build up quite a lot of trust with her first. Clearly, the two weeks prior, when she was his charge, had been foundational enough.
“I assure you, if you’d have been a junior girl and I caught you messing about, I wouldn’t have hesitated to put you over my knee. That school pinafore would have been pulled up so fast.”
Elisabeth’s eyes widened and her mouth gaped. “Bennett!” she exclaimed.
“Just like I’ll do later this evening, before I take you home, for forgetting your Sirs.”
“Yes, Sir,” Elisabeth replied, coyly.
“Stop giving me that look, young lady. You’re not calling me Sir to add excitement to this relationship, you’re doing so because that is my title.”
Elisabeth couldn’t help but laugh and shook her head. Everything he said was making her squirm! “Oh, Bennett.”
“Bennett nothing,” he said, taking her hand from the button on his coat she was playing with and giving it a gentle kiss. “I shall have to straighten you out later.”
“You do that. May I ask you some more questions? I wasn’t finished.”
Bennett raised his eyebrows and a rather amused grin crossed his face.
“Well I wasn’t.” She flirted with her adorable smile.
Bennett turned his wrist over and stretched it from beneath his starched cuff and topcoat to see his watch. “You may ask as we walk back. It’ll be dark soon,” Bennett replied, as Elisabeth stood up and accepted his arm. He led the way through the hedgerows toward Barton-Court House.
“Are you and Damian quite good friends?”
Bennett thought for a moment before responding. “Not really, no. Uncle Brayden and I are closer than Damian and I.”
“Do you really think he’ll stay away for an entire year?” Elisabeth asked, looking up at him.
“If I had my way, no. But, we shall see,” Bennett replied.
Elisabeth was satisfied with his response and she had to be, because it was the only one he offered on the subject.
When they returned to the foyer, Sullivan collected their coats and outdoor accessories before announcing that dinner would be served shortly.
During dinner at Waldorf Manor, Wellesley always left two maids in the dining room for part of the meal so he could stoke the ground floor fireplaces, light the candelabras and plop the pillows across the many zones of furniture in the formal rooms jetting off the foyer. The first and second floor staff tended to the rest of the fires, candelabras and other various decorative lighted features through the estate to make it come alive at night. Especially in winter, when the wind blew bitterly cold and the evenings drew in quite early, it was Alice’s favourite part of the year to live at Waldorf.
Once Wellesley finished, he returned to the dining room and the female maids discretely dispersed for him to serve dessert, after which he returned to the kitchen to prepare the tea tray, which he knew would be expected in the sitting room after.
“Christmas is only five weeks away,” Brayden said, as Wellesley placed Tiramisu in front of Alice and then at his place setting.
“Already?” she asked, as she picked up her dessert fork.
“I’m surprised you weren’t counting down the days,” Brayden replied.
“I’m a little too old to get excited about Christmas, Father,” Alice replied with a sceptical look.
“Joy knows no age limits, darling,” he said.
“That’s very wise,” Alice concluded as her fork lingered in her mouth.
“Elbows off the table, young lady,” Brayden said, with a frown and a gentle edge to his voice.
“Sorry. Will we have Christmas here, then?” Alice asked, forgetting she’d just been told off.
“I imagine so. Last year, the Fowlers came to Waldorf. Perhaps I’ll have a word with Uncle Bennett and see what he thinks.”
“Isn’t your birthday just before Christmas?” Alice frowned, her attention suddenly perking up.
“It is,” Brayden replied, although he’d hoped to avoid the subject. Anyone who knew Brayden, knew that his birthday coincided with the run-up to Christmas. “I don’t celebrate my birthday anymore,” he added.
“But Uncle Bennett told me you always used to have a birthday ball here.”
Brayden looked over at Alice. “When did he say so?”
Alice shrugged. “Ages go, probably over a game of chess,” she replied. “Why?”
“We’ll talk about it later, darling,” Brayden said, trying to change the subject.
Alice looked down at her dessert and stabbed it with her fork. The table went quiet and she felt as though she knew why. “Does it have something to do with your parents?” she asked abruptly.
Brayden placed his fork at an angle on his plate and put his napkin on the table. “This is not appropriate conversation,” he replied.
“You said on my first day here that you would tell
me about them. In February, I’ll have been here one year and you still haven’t kept your word,” Alice said, pushing her chair away from the table. “I thought you always kept your word.”
“You’re not excused,” he told her.
Alice folded her arms and plopped back against the upholstered dining chair.
“Finish your dessert, please,” Brayden told her quietly.
“Not hungry,” she mumbled.
“Don’t sulk, darling, it isn’t becoming.”
“Neither is breaking your word.”
Brayden looked directly at her. “One more word, Alice Kathryn and you’re going to the study.”
She gritted her teeth and stared at her plate.
Brayden stared at his desk later that evening as he sat in his wing back chair behind it. After a moment, he rested one elbow on the arm of his chair and his fingers on the bridge of his nose. Brayden closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath with the crackling of the fire across his study to accompany his sigh. He didn’t know how to keep his word to Alice; to tell her about his deceased parents without allowing her to feel the emotion he wanted to protect her from. It was without a doubt that Alice would find much of what he wanted to tell her very upsetting. Their memory was nothing less than pleasant, but the day they left the earth and suffered for their wealth, the circumstance in which they died and on what day, were things Brayden hadn’t completely dealt with. He would have rather liked to tell Alice how his mother’s Chanel perfume was still in the last bottle she purchased on her dressing table in their old room. He wanted Alice to know that his father had a raised eyebrow that was even more impressionable than his, had never been ashamed to hug his son and had also been unfailingly strict. Brayden also wanted to tell Alice that if they were still alive, they would absolutely adore her. He was sure of it. The thought upset him terribly and he couldn’t even go there.
Brayden opened his eyes and looked at the decorative, polished wooden box on his desk. He opened it and retrieved a brass key, then reached down to the deepest drawer on the left side of his desk. When the drawer was open, he stared down at the only thing in the drawer and then promptly closed it. He wasn’t ready.
