Page 137 of Unwilling Wolf

Berta became serious again. “She wants to see you, you know? Been asking for you.”

“But why would she want to see me? I’m only here for the reading of the will. I don’t care if I get a penny. Truly I don’t. I just want to tie up all loose ends here and return home.”

Berta shrugged. “Who knows why that woman does anything? I’d better get back to work. I’ll send for you when she is ready enough to receive you.”

“Oh, could you be a dear and give this letter to Jacques?” Eliza quickly sealed her message to Garret and handed it over. “I need it sent out with the post.”

“Of course, mum.” Berta took the letter and curtsied, gave her a wink, and bustled out the door with the same fervor with which she had arrived.

The small luggage case stood in the corner. She really should unpack it, but refused to on principle. Ambling around her old room, she touched pictures and trinkets. At the exquisite full-length mirror framed in polished dark wood, she paused. In a simple dress with her hair pulled neatly back, she looked gaunt from her recent recovery, and her freckles stood out in contrast against her blanched skin. She pushed the shoulder of her puff sleeve to the side to expose the bright red healing scar on her shoulder. She turned in the mirror and looked at her back, where the bullet had exited in a much more gruesome scar than her front. With a frown, she pulled her sleeve back into place. She would likely never get used to that scar. Every time she saw it, she remembered Wyatt’s face as he pulled that trigger, and Garret ripping into his throat. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to think of fonder memories. When she opened them again, she took stock of her hair color, which so offended Aunt Elizabeth, and hadn’t changed. It looked shiner though. Healthier even, despite her injury.

She’d always wished her mother had stood up for her, even if only one time. Aunt Elizabeth’s sharp tongue had whipped her, made her uncomfortably aware she never did anything right. Not after having the audacity of her first unforgivable mistake, which was to be born a bastard child, naturally.

This place had crossed her mind so blissfully little since she’d started her new life. Never in a hundred years would she have imagined being back in her prison after so short a time. She felt as if it was torture being back here. As if she was a canary at last released from her cage, and now she was forced back into it. She hated it here. She had planned to never again return. She hadn’t planned, however, on the death of Uncle Frederick. How could one ever fathom losing the one light in life? He and Roy had been the only people in all those years to give her kind words without apology. A sweet word from Mother had always come with a disclaimer that Eliza was never allowed to tell Aunt Elizabeth of it. Compliments to Eliza were their little secrets.

Her silver brush set lay where she’d left it on a small table. Uncle Frederick had given it to her when she was young. He even had her initials engraved on the handles, but she’d never thought to bring them to Rockdale with the rest of her belongings. Her mother had tainted the gift by sighing in misery every time she brushed Eliza’s fiery-colored hair with it. Not that her mother might have hated her hair color. Mother had likely been upset about the color simply because Aunt Elizabeth was. It matched the hue of her real father, who had been a blight on the family.

Oh, if only once, her mother had one day had enough and told her aunt how beautiful she really thought it to be. One day of courage to change a life. Maybe that failure had been the reason for the wafting sadness or disappointment on her mother’s face whenever she’d brushed her hair.

A slight knock on the door announced the arrival of refreshments, and once she’d nibbled on enough to calm her small appetite, Berta brought her to Aunt Elizabeth’s room. Deep sympathy in her expression, Berta left her there in the sprawling bedroom and closed the door softly behind herself.

Waiting to be invited closer, Eliza stood stock-still near the door. Aunt Elizabeth was lying in her massive bed, breathing deeply, and had likely fallen asleep. She’d never thought her aunt pretty because of her ugly temperament, but she looked even rougher these days. Now, her skin sagged as though she’d lost a lot of weight too quickly. Her hair was much grayer now too, and her wrinkles had deepened. She smelled of sickness.

“Are you just going to stand there gawking at me like a common woman, or are you going to come sit beside me like a proper lady?” Aunt Elizabeth’s raspy voice made her cringe. Illness hadn’t done anything to curb the woman’s wicked tongue. Unfortunately.

“Yes, my lady.” She sat in the chair near the bed, hands clasped, which had started to sweat with her nervousness.

“It won’t be the fever that kills me. It’ll be your lack of manners, girl. Something I haven’t missed in the least.”

“Then why have you called me back here to you, Aunt? Surely they could’ve read the will without me. I’m not interested in whatever it has to say. I only came to close this chapter on my life, nothing more.”

The woman seemed to think for a while, then at last, she said, “As you know, I was never able to bear children. Though it wasn’t for lack of trying. But when you came to stay here, I thought, thank goodness I didn’t have a child, for what if it had been like you? No thank you. I would not risk being responsible for unleashing something like you into society.”

Eliza let off a soft exhalation of anger, and dropped her gaze to the gold thread that adorned her covers. Her trip to the Hall’s estate had been a mistake. She rose to leave.

“Frederick, however, wanted a child badly,” Aunt Elizabeth continued, which stopped her in her tracks. “And when you came along, I guess I should have let him dote on you as he wished. Not for you, you undeserving little trollop, but for him.”

Though she waited for more, that was the apology. Eliza turned and lifted her chin higher into the air. She didn’t need anything from this woman. She’d learned to have pride in herself in the weeks since she’d been gone. “My uncle was a good man,” she said. “The best, and the world is darker for having lost him. My life is sadder for having lost him, to be sure.”

Aunt Elizabeth sniffed primly. “Yes, well, what Frederick thought he lacked giving you in life, he has now bestowed upon you in death.” When would the damn woman stop talking in riddles? She waited tiredly until her aunt decided to continue. “That stubborn and clearly bewitched man has left you a large sum and piece of his estate, due to you upon your marriage. Which apparently is now, since you hooked the first beggar you could find and latched onto him for life. Like a parasite.”

Neither she, nor her mother were supposed to receive money upon the unfortunate circumstance of her uncle’s death. It had been discussed and thrown at her constantly in her years growing up at the Hall’s estate. The fact that Eliza would be forever impoverished had likely helped Aunt Elizabeth sleep at night.

“Garret Shaw isn’t a beggar,” she said, regaining her composure. “He is a rancher, and a great man. Uncle Frederick would have approved and given his blessing if he’d ever had the chance to meet my husband in person. What do you want from me, Aunt Elizabeth?”

Her aunt wheezed and gave a great coughing fit. Once recovered enough to go on, she said, “He has left you the house. Money also, but he has provided new living arrangements for myself so this place would be in your name.” She smiled slyly. “Now, obviously I won’t live long enough to enjoy the luxury of this place much longer, but I can’t die knowing you are lady here. I intend to buy it from you.”

“Why on earth would he leave this place to me? I don’t want any part of it. Not one day spent here was a happy one for me. Take it and be done with this.”

“Oh, but you see, your uncle was a clever man. He thought you would say something similar, so he put a clause in his will that will keep you from giving the house to me. I have to buy it, and at the atrociously-high rate he has given. Our lawyer has drawn up the paperwork. Frederick made extensive changes to his will in his final days, though I cannot fathom the reasoning, and our lawyer is well-acquainted with the fine print already.”

“That, and you undoubtedly had him try to find loopholes in the fine print.”

“Undoubtedly,” Elizabeth conceded with a grim set to her mouth. “There is another condition to my parting with more of my money.”

“I don’t want your money. I never did.”

“Be that as it may, if you want to get rid of this place, you’ll have to give me what I want in return.”

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