Chapter 64 "FIANCE"
“Julian? Julian, where are you? Your fiancée has arrived.” Julian's mother continued, even though she knows Julian's not there.
Her hat sat at a practiced angle, her coat was the color of old money, and her nails were a sharp punctuation mark. She scanned the dining hall with thin contempt until her gaze landed on Anton again.
“Mrs. Thorne,” Anton said, polite and flat. “We weren’t expecting—”
“Don’t be cute, Anton.” Mrs. Thorne’s smile was crystal and brittle. “Where is Julian?”
“At work,” Anton answered. He set his tone low, even. “And he’s already married.”
Mrs. Thorne almost rolled her eyes. “Married? To whom?”
Mrs. Thorne stepped past him like he was a thin curtain. “Whom has my son decided to marry?” she asked, loud enough that anyone within earshot would know she meant the question to sting.
The woman Julian kissed, Lovia Devon, stood straight as a photograph and moved through the room with an elegance that didn’t bother to pretend at modesty. She's as confident as someone used to people watching her and being pleased by the view. Her smile was small, polite; her eyes were the kind that logged everything and offered nothing in return.
“How can you forget your son-in-law? Certainly that is not the case.” Anton answered, his tone giving away how unimpressed he is.
Mrs. Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “That nameless boy he pulled out of some back alley?” she said. The words were meant to hit a particular kind of shame. “That child he—married—does he know what he is?”
Eli didn’t feel the intended shame. Eli wasn’t even in the room, he left ‘cause he didn't want to get insulted. He had been, a minute ago, at the edge of the hallway. He heard everything, though. Every drop of ice in Mrs. Thorne’s voice. He heard the way the word “married” was spat as if the thing itself were a stain.
Lovia inclined her head. She answered with nothing like arrogance. “It is a surprising match, Mrs. Thorne. But circumstances—” She stopped, smiled a deliberate, disarming smile that meant the sentence would be finished later, in private.
“Yes, circumstances,” Mrs. Thorne said. “A man of my son’s standing does not marry on a whim.”
“It wasn’t on a whim,” Anton said. “He’s taken— not a whim.”
“Taken?” Mrs. Thorne’s laugh was a thin thing. “Taken— how poetic. So you have the gall to claim Julian was taken? Or did he decide to perform a charitable marriage for the press?”
Lovia’s eyes flicked to Anton, then slid over the room as if taking notes. “I owe Mrs. Thorne a favor,” she said lightly. “I came because she requested it.”
“That’s convenient,” Mrs. Thorne said. “Very convenient.” Her gaze landed on the doorway to the stairwell, and the contempt folded into something colder. “Who is watching this household when Julian is at work? Who lets strangers pass through the threshold unvetted? Who encourages this… spectacle?”
Anton inhaled as if to answer, then stopped. He was, as always, careful. “House staff manages visitation. We have protocol. But before you came in, there were no visitors.”
“Protocol?” Mrs. Thorne barked. “Dear boy, your protocols are weak if they allow my son to be paraded like charity. He is not a charity case. He is not—” She rounded on the empty chair with the force of a bad verdict—“—he is Julian Thorne. He will not be indulged in disgrace.”
Anton turned to Lovia, “why are you here?”
Lovia kept her hands folded. “I am only here because my future mother-in-law asked that of me, I don't need this drama to get close to Julian.”
“She's here to get more familiar with her soon to be husband, that's how courting works.” Mrs. Thorne added.
Eli was at the top of the stairs. One foot on a step, one hand on the banister. He watched Julian's mother spit all demeaning things about him. He felt sick to his stomach. He turned and stepped back into the hallway because looking at them felt like being seen in a microscope.
He almost made it to the landing before Anton’s voice called up to him. “Eli,” he said. “Stay where you are.”
Eli kept walking until he reached the small alcove behind the stairwell where the echo softened. He pressed his phone to his ear and dialed with hands that trembled.
“Julian,” he said when the line picked up. His voice came out small.
“Yes?” Julian’s voice was clipped; he sounded like a man in a suit with his hands still in his pockets.
“Your mother is here,” Eli said. “There’s a woman with her. She—she called her fiancée.”
Julian didn’t answer. Eli could hear the rustle of clothing, the low murmur of someone finishing a conversation on the other end. “Are you okay?” Julian asked finally, almost like he was asking about an errand.
“No,” Eli said, the word a tiny, honest sound.
“You should calm down,” Julian said then. His voice had gone tight and paper-thin. “Stay calm. I’ll come home.”
Before Eli could say another thing Julian hung up. The phone clicked and the connection went dead in Eli’s hand.
He waited, breath held, counting the seconds.
“If you’ll forgive the bluntness,” Mrs. Thorne said with a thin smile, “since we are already in the house, perhaps Miss Devon can have a proper introduction to the decorum of the place. After all, it would be useful for family to know family.”
“Of course,” Lovia said calmly. “If you’ll show me, Mrs. Thorne.”
Eli felt the last of his courage leak out. He wanted to run; he wanted to sink; he wanted to do anything besides wait for the machinery of disapproval to roll. He could feel his mouth shaping apologies he’d never mean to speak.
“Stay,” Mrs. Thorne added, as if anticipating protest. “You will not go back upstairs. Miss Devon will not be dismissed because the son you married decides to contradict his family’s good sense.”
Anton’s jaw tightened. “We’ll… we’ll make you comfortable. Miss Devon. Please, sit.”
Lovia sat in the chair closest to the fireplace, a polite observer opening a book that she did not need to read.
“Good,” Mrs. Thorne said. “Then we shall start with the drawing room.”
Eli held the phone like a talisman and watched the room rearrange itself around a stranger who, according to Julian’s mother, had every right to sit in his house and pass verdicts on him. He could hear them speaking in carried tones… how the furniture was placed, which portraits would be covered for the day, which guest rooms were preferable for visiting dignitaries.
He heard the words, but he only registered their edges: “optics,” “alignment,” “suitable match.”
Lovia’s mouth curved at the corners as if someone had told a joke and she’d decided not to laugh out of courtesy. “I’m flattered to be considered, Mrs. Thorne.” She said.
Eli closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the cool wood of the railing. He felt small and foolish and naked in a way that had nothing to do with clothing.
The conversation trailed on. Cruel in its courtesy.
Eli stayed where he was and listened. He listened until Anton’s soft voice reached him again;
“You okay up there?” Anton asked.
Eli swallowed. “No,” he said. The single syllable felt honest and raw. “I’m not okay. I'm feeling stupid enough before, I don't want them here.”
Anton’s footsteps came through the hall; quick, certain. He appeared at the stair landing below Eli, looking up with an expression that made Eli both grateful and more ashamed.
Mrs. Thorne’s voice floated up like a banner. “We’ll have tea, then a tour. For the record, Lovia, you should understand the difference between kindness and weakness.”
Lovia gave a soft chuckle. “Of course,” she said. “I am here to learn.”
Eli’s phone sat heavy in his hand. He watched Anton’s mouth say something to Mrs. Thorne… their voices swaying around his head. He suddenly felt small again, remembering when his father brought home another woman.
From his perch on the stairs Eli realized, with a kind of sharp, sinking clarity, that this would not be quick. This would not be neat. This would be a long, loud wedge driven slowly between him and whatever peace he’d clung to on the island. And maybe the little fantasy he had on the island has made him think the opposite of his situation.
He braced his hands on the railing and listened to the low hum of voices downstairs. He tried to tell himself it would be fine, that Julian would come home and shut it down. He tried to remember the steadiness in Julian’s voice over the phone.
The house answered with the measured clink of Mrs. Thorne’s teacup, the soft murmur of Lovia’s approval, and the rustle of a program being opened to an unsympathetic page.