“I know,” Violet muttered. “Applying to the program costs money and takes time, if you get all the studies, tests, and certifications done, and Elias has neither time nor money. If I had any spare cash at all, I’d give it to him just so he had some breathing room.”
Jane stopped chewing. “My husband will be feeding that cat for the next month.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dunstan just lost another bet. I think he does it on purpose, to spoil me without me noticing. Let’s crash the meeting on the porch. If we come bearing brownies, the guys will act pleased at the interruption. Don’t tell anybody, but Dunstan has been known to dunk a brownie in his whisky.”
Jane was smiling a marital smile, speaking a marital dialect, and Violet was hopelessly jealous. To enjoy both office and home with the person you loved most in the world, sharing the work, the dreams, the challenges and the triumphs—how sweet was that, and how few couples had it?
Violet put two more brownies on a plate, and followed Jane out of the kitchen. They hadn’t started down the hallway before Violet heard the unmistakable—if nearly unintelligible—sound of two Scotsmen in the midst of a roaring difference of opinion.
Chapter Eleven
* * *
“Glaziers, Dunstan! A team of glaziers?” Elias spat. “Do you know how many windows that castle has, and how variable the window measurements?”
Elias knew. The family seat boasted thirty-seven different window sizes—everything from arrow slits to Palladian fancies inflicted by improving Victorians, and no two were the same size.
“You should be happy that Zebedee reserved the services of historically astute professionals. Jeannie says their work is backlogged for two years.”
“Which means,” Elias retorted, “their prices will amount to daylight robbery.”
This discussion took place on a porch painted white and decorated with potted ferns, wicker chairs, and hanging baskets of red, white, and purple petunias. Hostility crackled across this pretty magazine cover of a porch, not simply a difference of opinion.
“Did you plan to undertake renovations without installing windows?” Dunstan asked. “Is that what passes for Scottish air conditioning these days, your lordship?”
Elias stepped closer to Dunstan, though he knew he was being distracted from the real issue. “Do not call me that, Dunstan Cromarty.”
“Why not? You’re a bloody earl. Will you banish me from your windowless castle?”
“You wanted them to talk like cousins,” somebody—Violet—muttered.
Dunstan clearly hadn’t noticed the ladies standing in the doorway any more than Elias had. Violet looked amused, and Jane was holding a brownie an inch from her mouth.
While Elias was holding at least one answer. “I don’t have to banish you, Dunstan. You banished yourself when you turned nineteen and upped stakes for the New World. You’ve no idea how envious I was, or how proud we all are of you.”
Dunstan absorbed that blow while he took a sip of a fine Speyside single-malt. “If you’re so proud of me, why does nobody ever come visit? Am I the only Cromarty capable of booking a flight?”
He’d made a try for casual grousing, but bewilderment had crept into the question. Bewilderment—and hurt?
Elias loved his cousins, though he hadn’t found a way to express that sentiment, other than by handing out advice, ceremonial whisky, and funds in equal measure. Watching the look that passed between Jane and Dunstan—one consuming a brownie, the other Scots whisky—insight struck Elias, like the sun cresting a hill.
Dunstan was soon to be a father. That’s what this grousing and snorting was about. Whether the conclusion was the result of instinct, prescience, or keen observation, Elias didn’t care. He knew only that Dunstan was asking for support, the only way a proud man could.
“You’re the only Cromarty who doesn’t expect me to pay for your flights,” Elias said. “Or one of the few, and now that I know your marriage can bear the strain of houseguests, I’ll send you all the company you like. Helga and Heidi will likely lead the charge.”
“They aren’t houseguests,” Dunstan said. “They’re a plague of locusts on a man’s liquor cabinet. They’ll get along with Jane famously, and be teaching her sword dances in the living room.”
“That’s the best place to learn the sword dances,” Elias said. “I am not happy about your deception, Dunstan.”
“Dunstan is honest,” Jane interjected, her defense marred by a spot of chocolate on her upper lip.
“Dunstan withheld information from me,” Elias said. “I was prepared to be bankrupted by a team of masons I’d never hired. In addition to masons, I now learn—only because the liquor is in the study, and Dunstan had printed out Jeannie’s last email—that glaziers, carpenters, landscapers, a veritable army of first-rate artisans, are descending on my castle with signed contracts in hand. When did you plan to tell me, Dunstan?”
Jane stuffed another bite of brownie in her mouth. Violet took up a lean against the doorjamb.
“Sooner begun is sooner done,” Violet said. “I thought this whole business of selling the farm was to finance renovations, and now it’s a problem that the renovations are under way. What exactly is going on?”
“It’s a bad news/bad news situation,” Elias began.
“Must you be so Scottish?” Dunstan muttered.
“I am Scottish. So, as it happens, are you, and if we’re to compete for most stubbornly, pessimistically Scottish, I will concede rather than bloody my knuckles knocking aside your plaid crown.”
“This is like watching a pair of lawyers go at it in court,” Jane said, passing Violet a brownie. “Though the sniping sounds a lot more impressive with those accents.”
“Elias doesn’t snipe,” Violet said, saluting with her brownie. “Tell us what’s going on, guys, and you can get back to playing Robert the Bruce later.”
“Braveheart, please,” Dunstan said, taking one of the wicker chairs.
“Then you have to be William Wallace,” Elias retorted, propping a hip against the porch railing. “Executed by the enemy, but fondly remembered by those whose opinions matter.”
Jane took the chair next to Dunstan’s. “We were bringing you seconds on the brownies. Guess you might have to get your own.”
“I’ll get them,” Violet said, disappearing back into the house.
So Dunstan missed his family? Elias knew all too well what that was like. He’d been missing his family since he’d turned eleven.
“You know Dunstan, when that plane went down, I lost more than my mother and father.” Elias hadn’t planned to say that, but then he hadn’t planned to fall in love with Violet Hughes either.
“Damned rotten business, losing a parent, much less two,” Dunstan said. “If I never said it before, I’m saying it now. You have my condolences.”
The sun had set, and the Maryland version of the gloaming was fading. In the woods bordering Dunstan’s back yard, darkness had taken hold, though a tiny light glowed momentarily in mid-air.
“Was that a firefly?” Elias asked.
“Or a lightning bug,” Jane said. “Same thing. First I’ve seen this year.”
Another little flicker glowed closer to the house then winked out. What a curious creature, the firefly must be.
“None of the cousins expressed condolences,” Elias said, getting back to the topic at hand. “What child knows enough to offer sympathy when the greatest imaginable cataclysm has befallen one of their number? Most children can contemplate their own death more calmly than that of a parent.”
“Were your cousins cruel to you?” Jane asked.
Violet set a plate of brownies on the wicker coffee table and took the chair closest to Elias. He shifted to sit at her feet, his back resting against her legs.
“Nobody was cruel to me, not on purpose,” Elias said. “But whenever I attended family gatherings, awkwardness followed me like a stray dog. If Zeb came along, he deposited me among the child
ren, then wandered off to drink with the men and flirt with the ladies.”
“While the rest of us had parents,” Dunstan said, “and siblings, which probably broke your stubborn little heart every time you had to watch us take that for granted. I’m fetching a wee dram for the ladies.”
Or maybe Dunstan needed a moment to compose himself. Elias should have—but he’d worked these sentiments out for himself years ago.
“So nobody knew what to say to you,” Violet said, “and you didn’t know how to ask for what you wanted?”
“I wanted my parents back, of course, and nobody could give me that, so then I wanted the awkwardness to stop.” And Elias wanted this gloomy conversation to be over, so he could get back to verbally thrashing Dunstan.
“Which, I’m guessing,” Jane said around a yawn, “is when your darling little cousins started calling you ‘your lordship.’”
“Among other things.” School had eventually become a refuge, at least for Elias’s intellect.
“I’m sorry for that too,” Dunstan said, setting the whisky bottle next to the brownies. “Consider yourself invited to visit here any time, Elias, and I will buy your plane ticket happily.”
The offer was sincere, and heartwarming. Violet’s silence behind Elias was… not heartwarming.
The talk drifted from there to various topics—the meeting with the bank, the success of Jeannie’s holiday cottage, the difference between practicing law in Scotland and in Maryland. When Jane yawned for the second time, Violet patted Elias’s shoulder.
“I hear my chickens calling me,” Violet said. “Elias, will you take me home?”
Goodnights followed, with Jane hugging Violet hard, and Dunstan bussing her cheek. They liked her, and if the sale to Maitland went through, Elias’s family would try to look after Violet when he’d gone back to Scotland.
Not that Violet would allow them to.
They drove back to her house in Dunstan’s truck, a smoother ride than the hybrid.
“James said something I wanted to pass along to you,” Violet said as they left the lights of the town behind.
James? Ah, the attorney fellow. “Is it bad news or awful news?”
“It’s paperwork, which is never good news,” Violet said. “File a police report on the stolen livestock. Dunstan can help you do it, and insurance might reimburse you.”
Well, likely not. The same caretaker who’d failed to pay the electric bill had also failed to tend to much of anything since the first of the year. The insurance policy was doubtless a casualty of bad management.
“I’ll take care of filing a police report after the meeting tomorrow,” Elias said. “May I say goodnight to the chickens with you?”
“I’d like that.”
While Violet counted her hens, and Elias retrieved Brunhilda from beneath the trough, stars came out. The lightning bugs apparently hadn’t hatched this far out in the valley yet, and the peace of the evening was profound.
“How bad is the situation with the castle?” Violet asked, as she walked Elias back to the truck.
He understood why Dunstan had dissembled. The situation had been challenging before, but now…
“It’s bloody awful,” Elias said. “Zebedee hired the best, and promised them premium wages for putting his project ahead of others. They all have signed contracts, and are eager to commence work on such a large job. Zeb was often foolish like that, or maybe he knew his time was growing short.”
“Another reason to be unhappy with your family,” Violet said. “Will you be able to sleep tonight, Elias?”
“I’ll dream of you.”
Dunstan had given Elias a look that promised the door to the house would remain unlocked, and Elias had passed at least one late-night pharmacy on the trip from town, but he hadn’t stopped for more condoms.
The afternoon’s lovemaking had been lovely, and devastating, and he couldn’t ask that of Violet again.
“Are you angry with your uncle, Elias?”
Elias couldn’t see her expression, but he could hear the concern in her voice. “Anger is a part of grief. Try not to be too angry with me if the meeting with the banker doesn’t go well tomorrow, Violet.”
“Let me know how it goes.” She kissed him goodnight, then walked through the darkness to her house. Elias waited until the lights went on, then climbed back into the truck.
An honest self-appraisal of Elias’ s emotional state revealed surprisingly little ire directed toward his uncle. Zebedee had probably sensed his heart trouble growing worse, and known his time to set the castle to rights had been limited.
A bad feeling, when a man’s time grew short, and his heart was increasingly troubled.
* * *
“Let me remind you about how this is supposed to work, Derek,” Bonnie said, her words dripping with ire. “When you take the last cup of coffee, and it’s all of 9 a.m., you’re supposed to make a fresh pot.”
The reception area was free of clients, so Max remained at his desk, letting the altercation in the kitchen run its course.
“Don’t get your panties in an uproar, Bonbon,” Derek Hendershot retorted. “So I drank the last of the coffee. You can make more.”
“You can make more,” Bonnie shot back. “You are of age, and thanks to blind chance and your daddy’s money, you survived college and law school, both of which require a passing grade in Java 101. You know how to make a pot of coffee, and if you’ve forgotten, you are literate, and can read all three lines of instructions some underappreciated, overworked admin kindly posted on the wall.”
“Maybe you should read up on perimenopause,” Derek suggested. “Makes women irritable and too hard deal with. There are drugs for it, though, hormones and shit that—what are you doing with the coffee pot, Bonnie? We only have the one, and if you—”
“It’s my coffeemaker,” Bonnie said, “because neither of my bigshot attorney bosses could be troubled to replace the cheap-tastic one that died at Christmas. Possession being nine-tenths of the office policy around here, I’m revoking your caffeine privileges.”
In the ominous beat of silence that followed Bonnie’s decree, Max pushed away from his desk. He picked up the vase of flowers—happy somethings—and marched down the hall to the kitchen.
“Derek, if you have a minute, I’d like to bounce something off of you.” A few quick lefts to the solar plexus, a boot to the rear, and a rabbit punch, for starters.
“I’ll be across the street grabbing a cup of coffee,” Derek said, shooting Bonnie the women-are-crazy look that had been getting men in trouble for eons. “Better company and better coffee.”
He slouched out of the kitchen, hands jammed in his pockets in what was doubtless intended as a blond, blue-eyed, Great Gatsby exit. When the front door had slammed in his wake, Bonnie took the flowers from Max.
“He’s spawn, Max. You are a hardass, entirely lacking in clues, and you’ll be the ruin of this valley, but somebody ought to put Derek in the witness protection program and lose his file.”
She poured the water from the vase, got a knife from a drawer, and cut the flower stems an inch shorter, then refilled the vase, and handed it back to Max, all in the space of a minute.
“Any time you want to file a sexual harassment claim against him, don’t let me stop you,” Max said. “But he does pay half the rent and half of your salary.”
“No, he does not pay half the rent. When I took the checks over to the realty office at the first of the month, the check for Derek’s half was written by Ms. Lila Fortunato. I think our Derek is entering into that phase of masculine stupidity known as the post-divorce light sword display. Throw an aspirin in with these, and they’ll last longer.”
Unease joined the general tension of the day, which was tense enough. “Isn’t Lila the admin at old man Hendershot’s office who was—?”
“Named in Derek’s divorce, much to her boss’s dismay,” Bonnie said. “Gotta love the gossip vine in a small town bar association.”
&n
bsp; Actually, Max did appreciate the gossip vine in a small town bar association, though he preferred to call it a network.
“I’m expecting a call from Valley bank,” he said, peeling the coffee-making instructions from the bulletin board. “A very, extremely, sensitive call. It ought to come through on my cell, but if my line rings while I’m across the street, please pick up.”
“I usually do,” Bonnie said, unplugging the coffee maker. “Do I take a message or have the party call you back?”
“The call will be from Ned Hirschman, and you will give him my cell number and tell him I’m waiting to hear from him.” Max had made sure to give Hirschman his cell the last time they’d teed off in the same foursome, but that had been in the fall.
“Are we in trouble, Max?”
We? When it came to business, Max didn’t deal in “we,” and it took him a moment to realize Bonnie wasn’t prying, exactly, she was concerned for him.
“I’m not applying for a line of credit, if that’s what you’re asking. Elias Brodie is meeting with the bank today. Could be he’s opening a business office in the States, and simply wants the bank accounts under his cousin’s watchful eye, or it could be something else altogether. Ned mentioned the meeting to me at the gym last night, and I asked for details.”
Bonnie took the flowers from him and set them on the counter. “I thought a banker was supposed to be the soul of discretion.”
Ned Hirschman’s second wife was twenty years his junior, wanted another kid, and relished the pleasure of being Mrs. Big Fish in a Small Pond. Ned could not afford to be discreet when the largest construction project in the valley might be financed through his institution.
Or not.
“Ned is simply taking care of business, which I will also do, over a cup of coffee with Derek.”
“Slip him some saltpeter, would you?”
Max did not slip Derek saltpeter. He instead took the chair opposite him in the coffee shop favored by most of the businesses centered around the courthouse. The bondsmen, private investigators, transcription services, and lawyers all ran on caffeine and carbs, and the Chat and Chew had thrived for decades as a result.
Elias In Love Page 18
