After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(3)

Chapter Two





It had started seven days ago, when Adrian Hunter received a telegram from his uncle.

The runner arrived just as Adrian sat down to breakfast with his brother. Adrian read the telegram once over coffee. He had a number of more pressing concerns—eight of them, to be precise. He had just approved the advertisement that announced that the world-famous Harvil Industries would have a booth at the autumn exhibition to reveal their newest line of fine china. They would have new vases, new bowls, new everything. The pride and centerpiece of the collection, the advertisement boasted, would be a set of eight enameled plates in gold leaf.

This would have been exciting, except Harvil did not yet have a design for eight plates. It did not have a design for one. Adrian and his team had not yet agreed upon on an artistic course. In point of fact, the Harvil artists had managed to accomplish precisely one thing with regards to those plates: Argue.

He didn’t have time for his uncle’s problem. But uncles were family, even if the uncle in question had yet to publicly acknowledge Adrian’s existence.

Adrian set the telegram to the side of his plate. This plate was one of the misadventures from a prior season—a review piece produced on too little sleep and too much artistic license. It featured a peacock with two heads and no tail.

Adrian spread butter on his toast, and considered. He read the words again as he ate a poached egg, sunlight spilling on the mahogany table. He read it a third time as he sifted through the remainder of his correspondence.

Mr. Alabi wanted him back in Harvil. Mr. Singh had finished the roof repairs there. He set aside a letter about sourcing copper carbonate, and looked up.

His older brother was watching him with an impatience that he didn’t bother to conceal.

Grayson broke the fourth time Adrian picked up the telegram. “For God’s sake. What precisely does uncle dearest want now?”

“He requests my presence, as soon as I can be spared.”

Grayson’s nose twitched.

Adrian could remember what Grayson had been like before they’d been separated by bloodshed and the many leagues of the Atlantic Ocean. Grayson was eight years his elder, but people had used to remark upon how similarly they looked—same broad nose, same sparkling brown eyes alight with curiosity, same lips, same rich brown skin.

Then war had come. Adrian’s older brothers—Henry, Noah, Grayson, and John—had left to fight in a cause they all believed in.

Grayson had been the only one to return. The change in him was nothing Adrian could easily put his finger on. His features were all still the same; it was just the way he used them that had changed for good.

Right now, his elder brother scowled at him. “Did uncle dearest use the word ‘please,’ by any chance?”

Adrian fought the urge to inspect the paper once again. Alas. He didn’t need to. “It’s a telegram, Grayson. Every word is an expense, and frugality is a virtue.”

“Ah. I had not heard of our uncle’s horrible reversal of fortune. It must be significant, that he can no longer afford a half pence for manners.”

Adrian took another bite of his egg in lieu of answering.

Grayson sighed. “You’re going, then? You know Denmore only wants something from you.”

His brother wasn’t wrong. Adrian wasn’t an idiot, and he knew their uncle better than Grayson.

Their mother’s brother was the Bishop of Gainshire. He was busy to a fault, dedicated to his work. Yes, he did use people—and yes, he had used Adrian in the past—but he used himself hardest, working long hours.

It stung a little, the memory of the last time Denmore had seen Adrian. But it only stung a little, and Denmore was family.

“I visited him regularly for five years,” Adrian said mildly. “I do know him. Better than you do.”

Grayson snorted. “That’s your gentle artist’s soul speaking, there. You’re too trusting.”

“You’re too suspicious.” Adrian smiled. “And I’m not an artist. Have you seen my attempts at sketching?”

Grayson was not to be diverted. “He’ll string you along with vague promises, and you’ll let him do it, because he’s—” Grayson caught himself on these words and looked away, his hand curling into a fist.

Grayson had never provided details of what had happened during the Great Rebellion back in the United States. Adrian had scoured the newspapers and the occasional letter avidly for news, but he only knew what anyone who hadn’t participated knew—that after the Southern states seceded, brother had fought brother, that blood had flowed and bodies had piled up. He knew from letters that his brothers had sent that even among Northerners who didn’t condone slavery, the black soldiers who joined their ranks had been ill-treated.

Three of his brothers had perished. Grayson had left looking like Adrian, and he’d come back like this—hard and untrusting, with a haunted look in his eye when he thought Adrian wasn’t looking.

Now Grayson reached across the table and took hold of the telegram without asking. He read it with a curl in his lip before tossing it aside. “Denmore would ask you for your heart without paying a half-penny to say please. Whatever it is he wants of you? You don’t need to give it.”

“I’m a grown man. I don’t need to do anything.”