“Of course,” Bran broke in before Eleanor could respond. “Ella and I have corresponded over the years.” It was a lie, but one which would aid his transition.
“Brantley and I thought it best others did not know,” Ella added.
Bran leaned back into the chair, trying to appear nonchalant. “I argued with my father, not my sister.”
“But not ten minutes ago,” Leighton accused, “you asked if we had word of your brother. You let me go on and on, knowing he would come to claim his title today!” His words rose in volume.
“I thank you, Sir,” Bran snapped, “to keep your voice down. I will not subject my sister or my child to fits of anger.” Bran glanced quickly at his daughter. “Mrs. Carruthers,” he spoke gently to the woman, “the formal gardens are through those doors. Why do you not take Sonali for a brief walk? It would do you both well after the long journey.”
“Yes, Mr. Fowler...I mean, Your Grace.”
When the pair was safely from earshot, Bran continued, “Eleanor did not know of my arrival. She has tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to convince me to return to Thorn Hall, but unlike others, I have no need of the fortune or the title. I was not inclined to subject myself to this world again, but I cannot deny my child a birthright. It was her mother’s dying wish.”
Eleanor eyes met Bran’s suspiciously. No doubt she was remembering him as a master of bending the truth to fit his own agenda and of making everything seem so logical. However, although he spoke half-truths, his sister willingly agreed to what he said. Despite his aversion to Thorn Hall’s memories, he had come home because Ella needed him, and she was obviously quite pleased.
Looking more than a bit irritated and still stammering, Leighton pushed to his feet. “If you will excuse me, I believe I will retire to my room. Obviously, I have correspondence to which to attend.” He offered a thick-waisted bow as Bran rose to his own feet. “Welcome home, Your Grace,” Horton mumbled.
“Thank you, Cousin.” Bran walked the man to the door. Closing it behind Leighton, he turned to his sister. “Well, Ella, did I surprise you?”
Within two heartbeats, sobbing uncontrollably, she was in his arms. “Thank God,” she repeated.
“Shush, Ella.” He stroked the back of her head and kissed her cheek. “I am sorry, infinitely sorry, I left you to deal with this alone,” he whispered. “We will do what is right for you.”
She stepped back and swiped the tears away. With a couple of unladylike sniffs, she recovered her composure just as the tea service arrived. “I shall find Mrs. Carruthers and Sonali.” She looked away so the maid would not see her face.
“I am famished as I suspect Sonali will be. Surely, they have not gone far.” He allowed his sister to handle her emotions, as she needed to. “I may not be able to wait.”
“Please, it is your house now, Bran; you do not have to wait on anyone.” She gestured to the service.
He corrected, “It is our house, Ella.”
Eleanor gave him a quick bow. “Thank you for coming home, Bran.” Then she slipped through the open door.
Bran took one of the plates and placed several small sandwiches and cakes upon it. He strolled around the room, observing objects he had fought so hard to forget. The draperies were new and two of the chairs, but everything else were much as he remembered it. Stately and elegant and speaking very much of his mother, Bran always liked this room. When he had entered Thorn Hall, he had purposely chosen it as the first room he would enter as the new Duke of Thornhill. He had needed to step into a memory before facing his future. Deep in thought of the past, he lifted one of the sandwiches to his mouth as he turned, and simultaneously she swept into the room and back into his life.
Flinging the door open, Velvet Aldridge rushed through the portal but halted abruptly when she saw him again after all these years. Hand raised half way to his mouth, momentarily, the lanky young man of her childhood emerged from the watery memories. Smiling and laughing, Brantley Fowler had always fascinated her, but this was not that boy-man; the image before her was all male, a man she had never known, and, impulsively, her breath caught, and a shiver rushed down her spine. Wide, muscular shoulders filled out the close cut of his well-tailored black coat. A dark green waistcoat accentuated his tapered waist, and doeskin breeches clung to his well-formed thighs. His light brown hair, a bit too long, was streaked with blond and tied back with a leather strip. He reminded her of some Greek warrior come to conquer her heart. Shaking her head to clear it, Velvet tried not to stutter. “Mr. Jordan told me you were back. Welcome home, Your Grace.”
The miniature had prepared him for this moment, but not well enough. As if suspended in time, he knew he lowered the sandwich to the plate, but it was not a conscious effort on his part. Velvet Aldridge, clothed in a dark plum riding habit, stood before him in all her glory, and Bran forgot to breathe. Dust peppered her clothing, but nothing could dim her brilliance–she was the sun and the moon and the stars all rolled into one. She was utterly magnificent. “Velvet,” Bran’s lips formed the word, but no sound came out. Swallowing hard, he tried again. “You have changed, Velvet.”
“I might be permitted to say, so have you, Your Grace.” Her voice came out a bit raspy, and she diverted her eyes from his. “Ella must be beside herself with joy. You have answered her prayers.”
Bran glanced towards the door leading to the garden. “Eleanor does seem satisfied with the outcome. I hope I do not disappoint her.”
Velvet shot a fleeting look about the room. “I thought Mr. Leighton might be here.”
“I fear my cousin retired to his room. I pray that does not disappoint you, Miss Aldridge.” Bran’s eyes searched every inch of her, resting for elongated seconds on her breasts and the curve of her hips. God, she is beautiful!
His voice sounded very seductive, and Velvet smiled with a new understanding. “Not in the least, Your Grace.”
“The title feels foreign,” he admitted.
“It will come easier with time.” She appeared to want to say more, but a noise from the garden brought Bran from his revelry.
“Papa!” Sonali burst through the door only steps ahead of Eleanor and Mrs. Carruthers. Bran observed Velvet’s eyes. He knew the exact moment that she saw him for who he was: a father. “There are roses and fountains and even a maze,” the child informed him as she scrambled into his arms.
“We will explore it all,” he assured her. “This is our new home.” He kept watch to see Velvet’s true reaction. How would she take the news of his marriage?
“Really, Papa?” Sonali’s eyes grew by the moment. “You and I and Aunt Ella and Mrs. Carruthers and Lux and....”
Bran thought, and all the ghosts, but he said, “Enough, Love. It is time for tea, and Cook sent up some of the chocolate tarts I so loved as a child.”
“I would like two of them, Papa.” She kissed his cheek.
“Well, you little gobbler,” he teased. Setting Sonali on her feet beside him, he directed her attention to Velvet. “Hellion, please make your curtsy to Miss Aldridge, my cousin.”
“How do you do, Miss Aldridge?” The child dropped into a greeting.
Instinctively, Velvet acknowledged his child before returning her attention to him. “I did not know, Bran, that you had chosen a wife,” she spoke haltingly. He watched as Velvet shot a quick glance at Mrs. Carruthers to assess the possibility of the woman being his wife. “Did Her Grace not travel with you or has she retired to her rooms to freshen her clothing?”
Despite the tension flaring between them, Bran thought the color creeping up Velvet’s cheeks made her take on the look of a woman in passion, and his body reacted before he knew what happened. “My wife passed over five years ago,” he spoke softly, at odds with the instant desire he felt for the woman standing before him and having to speak about Ashmita.
“I see,” Velvet whispered, but she flinched visibly.
“Let us have our tea,” Ella interrupted. “We have plenty of time to learn of
the years of separation. Mrs. Carruthers, would you pour?”
“Certainly, Lady Eleanor.” The woman moved to the service. She prepared each a cup of tea as Ella handed around the cakes. Mrs. Carruthers retired to the corner once more and the three adults, with the child settled between them, continued their conversation. Sonali sat on the floor before a small table set close to Bran’s feet where she could reach her plate.
Noticing her cousin’s tension, Eleanor said quietly, “I suppose, Velvet, I should have told you about finding Bran in Cornwall.”
“Cornwall?” she said incredulously. “But that is only a few days’ ride. I had no idea that you were that close.”
“I have a small manor house.”
A moment prior, an unfulfilled promise loomed with new possibilities; now, Velvet attempted to put aside her hurt–the realization that Bran had lived a life of a country gentleman, while she and Ella had kept Thorn Hall and fought off the attentions of Horton Leighton and half of Kent, brought pure irritation and disbelief. In her fantasies, Bran would arrive in England at the last minute to save her from Leighton; he would rush across the countryside because he loved her. Now, the knowledge that if Ella had not located him, Bran would never have returned shook Velvet to her core. He had deserted her; he had married someone else and had left her to the wolves. “Quite the life, I imagine.” She gritted her teeth to control her composure. “How long were you in Cornwall, Your Grace?”
Bran heard the strain in her voice and recognized the anger simmering under the surface. It was what he had feared upon his return. Velvet would not forgive him for marrying another. Attempting to read her expression, he mumbled, “Two years.”
A nervous giggle escaped. “Two years?” The words bitterly poured from her before Velvet could stop them. “Two years in the country? Imagine that, Ella. Bran was so close, but we had no idea. All those nights of wrestling with the duke, and Bran knew nothing of it–those nights of trying to determine which bills to pay until your father had another lucid moment. Irony, thy name is Brantley Fowler,” she accused.
“Why are you angry with my Papa?” Sonali was on her feet ready to defend Bran.
As if someone slapped her face, Velvet’s head snapped to the left–his child’s words forcing her to control her emotions. Lowering her voice, she spoke directly to Sonali. “I am not angry with your father; I am just having difficulty in understanding where His Grace was for the past two years. Families sometimes disagree, but that does not mean they do not care for one another.” Bran noted that she did not say love one another.
Bran brought Sonali up on his knee and stroked her hair. “Aunt Ella and Cousin Velvet,” he explained, but his eyes never left Velvet’s face, “were alone, Sweetling, and just like you are in a storm, they were afraid. I should have come to see them before now. As a gentleman, I owed them that much.” He offered an apology for what he could not change. He had permitted his own fears and inadequacies to place those he most cherished in danger.
“Are you afraid of storms, Aunt Ella?”
“I was as a child.”
The girl shifted on Bran’s knee to lean closer to her aunt. “Did Papa protect you?”
Ella reached out for Bran’s hand, and he intertwined his fingers with hers. “Your Papa was the best brother for which a girl could ask.”
Velvet stood suddenly. “I believe I will rid myself of the remnants of my ride. If you will excuse me, Your Grace?”
Bran set Sonali on Ella’s lap and stood to take Velvet’s hand. He brought her knuckles to his lips. “You grew into a beautiful woman, my Dear.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Bran,” he corrected. “I am still Bran to you.”
*
Within two days, Horton Leighton made his excuses and took his leave of Thorn Hall. Bran had spent much of his first week buried in ledgers and expense records for each of the holdings associated with his new title. Daily, he had met with Ella, and occasionally with Velvet, attempting to understand the choices they had made when overseeing the estate. Obviously, they had maintained the status quo, but had done little to further the soundness of their holdings. Luckily, the former duke’s illness struck him before the man ran the estate into bankruptcy; however, Bran had contacted his solicitors to add a portion of his own fortune to cover operating expenses until the next harvest. In the old account books, he had found several major withdrawals with only the coding of 3L. He needed to find out for what those letters stood and where that money had gone. Was it a new property of which he was unaware? Ella had no explanation; the expenses had come before their father’s confinement and before her involvement in estate business.
“Will we be able to keep everything in tact?” Ella asked as she leaned over the desk to see what Bran recorded.
Bran’s frown lines grew deeper as he concentrated on the information from several sources scattered across the desk. “I may sell some of the smaller pieces if I can find an appropriate buyer. That will loosen our cash outlays. In a few other instances, I want to expand what we already own. For example, the ironworks cut back after the war because of dwindling profits, but there are other factories changing from war-related to industry-related products. We could make a tidy profit with a few shifting priorities, as well as offering jobs to the surrounding neighborhood. I have some well-placed connections with the canal system, but most true developers believe the rail system will soon put the canals out of business. If we play our cards correctly, we might get in from the beginning and make an exorbitant profit. I will send my man to the North to examine the place. We should have a report by the beginning of next week.”
“It is as if you were born to this,” Ella remarked without thinking.
Bran chuckled lightly. “I suppose in some ways I was. I assume, however, Sister Dear, you meant I have a grasp of what it takes to run the estate.”
Eleanor blushed at her verbal faux pas. “I meant...you understand how all these pieces tie together–how they connect–how changing one thing affects so many others. Without having our father as a mentor, you have managed to somehow become familiar with the inner working of Thornhill.”
“I am simply an excellent pretender, my Dear.” Bran shuffled the papers from one stack to another. “At the university, one professor said I learned through what he called synthesis–I take many unrelated facts and combine then in a new way. When I traveled across the Continent, I found it to be a useful skill.”
“What about Thorn Hall itself?” Ella sat in a nearby chair. The fact Bran did not relegate her to a mere woman’s status made her happy that she had gone looking for him.
“I want to speak to Velvet. From what I have deduced, you assumed the duties of the household while Velvet made connections to the cottagers. She and I should approach our tenants together; her knowing each family is valuable. We must teach the tenants to farm smarter. Right now, they burn up the land by overworking the soil. We need a crop rotation.” During this recitation, Bran never once raised his eyes from the paper on which he wrote, attempting to hide his concern for his relationship with his cousin.
“Velvet avoids your company, Bran,” Ella pointed out the obvious.
He responded only with a grunted “Humph.” Continuing not to look up, Bran used the hot wax to seal the letter addressed to his solicitor. “How do I fix it, Ella?” he asked cautiously.
“I am not certain you do.” Ella looked off towards the late winter sun pouring through the window. “I love Velvet as a sister, but she is too naïve. It is our fault–you and I–we protected her as if she was a princess, but we live in the real world where we make choices and pay the consequences. I had hoped that she would mature, but she reads too many Minerva Press books. Velvet cannot accept that you knew other women because a knight loves only one woman. You promised a young girl you would come return to marry her, and Velvet has spent the past seven years reading her stories of knights, romances, and Camelot.”
Regret danced through his veins; he
had chosen to give up his dream of returning to Velvet the day he found Ashmita restrained in Shaheed Mir’s tent. “I fear I am more the dragon than a knight,” Bran mused. “Besides, Velvet and I do not even know each other. We cannot base a relationship on childhood dreams.”
“Exactly,” Ella warned. “The thing is, Bran, Velvet resembles the princess we all knew she should be, but she is still an innocent, immature school girl, believing in a Cinder Maid fairy tale where the man and woman live happily ever after. Unfortunately, she is not a cinder girl, I am not the wicked step sister, and you, certainly, are not Prince Charming.”
Bran watched his sister carefully; he realized that she had suffered in ways other young ladies her age had never experienced. “In my defense, I never asked Velvet to marry me. My, God, she was but twelve when I left Thornhill! We simply dreamed of a life unlike what we experienced in these halls. We said things such as, ‘When I marry, I will love only one woman’ or ‘I will refuse to argue with my wife.’ I am not my father, but I am not a saint.”
“Velvet dealt with this household’s madness by cherishing that dream, Bran. As illogical as it appears for a woman to believe in happily ever after, our cousin does. She has convinced herself that you would be her ideal husband. Little does she know, no man comes close to perfection.”
Bran smirked, “That tastes of sour grapes, my Dear. Do you not hold your own delusions?”
Ella’s bitterness became obvious. “I do not put men on a pedestal. Their natures are too base to live up to a code of chivalry.” Eleanor looked away again, obviously, needing to voice her opinion without his censure. “I have no intention of marrying and subjugating myself to any man.”
“In Cornwall and during this past week, I have observed you with Sonali. Your not having children of your own would be an aberration in nature.” Bran meant it as a compliment, but Eleanor flinched, while tears misted her eyes. “I offer no insult, Ella. Few men could do what you did with Thorn Hall, but you deserve happiness. Should you not see if there is a man who would accept you as the strong, but caring, woman you are?”
Realm 02 - A Touch of Velvet Page 5
