Page 7 of Baron in Check
Since her parents had died, her brother hadn’t been back to check on the estate. She’d left a lush orchard, a gleaming house, healthy forests surrounding the fields, happy tenants, and full accounts behind. Hermy had managed it while he was busy being the Earl, going in and out of the gentlemen’s clubs in London, Edinburgh, and other places. It was prudent for him to gain experience, sow his wild oats, and enjoy his youth before settling down to produce an heir and pass his legacy on. He had taken credit for her perfect stewardship of the Ellsworth nineteen-acres estate.
Now he was dead, she had been sent away. As if life could be put on hold, she was to remain frozen in time until what would occur? Marriage to Chanteroy would mean her possessions would become his. He’d dissolve the abeyance and become the Earl. Hermy tasted acid when she imagined Chanteroy sitting at her late father’s desk and signing off on accounts of her inheritance. She’d never seen Chenteroy but in her imagination, he was a lanky, scruffy man with narrow shoulders and an even narrower mind.
Hermy reached the end of the gravel driveway and turned back. The four-story building stood in the middle of the garden,surrounded by rose bushes and pruned boxwood as if nothing had happened. She wouldn’t be missed, the fallen girl.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she set Gambit down on the grass. She felt the curious stares of the staff and the opportunistic solicitor, and she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of letting herself crumble on the ground and cry.
No, she flexed a muscle, the not-let-anyone-see-you-cry muscle. She heaved and licked the tears rushing down her cheeks.
“I’ll figure this out, Gambit.” She patted the top of his head, and he shook his head, leaving his floppy ears hanging bent openly. “You and me, we’ll find a new home.”
CHAPTER 5
After the disaster at Westminster, Greg couldn’t muster the energy to see Fave or Arnold. They’d always welcomed him for meals, tea, and even the children’s birthday parties—for them, he was Uncle Greg. But he couldn’t face his friends’ warm eyes and sweet smiles after he’d failed to clear their names of the stench List had spread.
Greg had walked aimlessly at first, but soon, he found himself on the path to his father’s grave near St. Margaret’s Church. As in chess, his opponent—List—had put him on a collision course with an aggressive player.
Greg arrived at the cemetery, where he belonged as little as his father. Peers of the realm had the privilege of resting at Westminster Abbey with other peers, but his father had been put to rest at the nearest cemetery for the House of Commons, even though he’d died a Lord. Greg wondered if his father would find acceptance or peace in death, probably neither.
It was the anniversary of his passing, and Greg thought about the years since he’d been gone. The tombstone had been erected too soon. Jews usually waited a year for the ground to settle, but in the Anglican cemetery at St. Margaret’s, for extra money, his father had received a tall granite tomb with intricate masonrywork. If it weren’t so macabre, it would have been beautiful, but in just a few years, the marble had slumped, and a puddle of mud had formed on the back left corner. How thoroughly British, Greg thought. Everyone working here, from the morgue to the cemetery gardeners had jobs designed to honor the dead. But his father deserved none of that, nor the honest work and craftsmanship of the mason. After what he’d done, he didn’t even deserve the white splash of pigeon dropping on the tombstone lest it resemble a tear that had fallen for a misguided soul. And Greg had to pay for it while pretending to be grateful for the privilege bestowed upon his family name. Bollocks! He was suffering the consequences.
Greg caught a figure moving from the corner of his eye. An old man in a long black coat with a white beard stood in the shadow behind a linden tree. Greg shivered. The man looked at Greg, but as soon as Greg met his gaze, he ducked away.
Greg sprinted after him. He soon caught up, and the man stopped and watched Greg. His face was wrinkled, his beard felted, and his coat old and worn, but there was a sparkle of freshness in his eyes that nearly took Greg’s breath away. They were his eyes, as if he looked in a mirror that aged him forty years, fifty even…
“Hello Baron Stone,” the man said in an old, throaty voice.
“Who are you? How do you know…?” But Greg didn’t need to vocalize the question because the answer hit him. “Are you my grandfather?”
The man seemed overcome by tiredness and sadness. He nodded. The loving kindness about him made Greg’s heart ache. Had his father kept him from his family even though he’d been in the same city? Why had he missed out on grandfatherly love like Fave, Lizzie, and Arnold had experienced?
“What brought you here?” Greg asked. “Didn’t you know Father died?”
“I did, milord. But I satshivahfor my son over twenty-five years ago. Now I came to mourn him by his grave.” It was customary to sit shivvah and mourn the end of one’s bloodline if the son married a gentile or converted to the Anglican Church. It marked the death of the Jewish line.
Chains of sorrow squeezed Greg’s heart. Here was his grandfather, whose line his father had broken. His father had brought shame upon him and forsaken Greg the love of his grandparents—something he’d never forgive his father for—and he was supposed to be grateful for the privilege.
Yes, it was lonely on top, on a pedestal—a seat in parliament—something out of reach for Jews. The pedestal felt off-kilter, like his father’s crocked tomb.
“I’m just Greg, not your lordship. If you are my grandfather,Ibow toyou.” Greg went to his knees and put his head down. The knights bowed to a royal who barely deserved their respect, so he would most certainly pay his grandfather this respect.
Silence.
When Greg raised his head, the man was gone.
Tears pricked his eyes as Greg looked around, but his vision was blurred. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and called his name. “Yaakov! Yaakov Steinherr?”
Greg knew his name had been Steinherr before his father had anglicized it along with his reinvention upon his baptism as Christian B. Stone. What a dumb name, as if a stone had a faith and could be a Christian. No wonder the true Christians had so little respect for his father. Greg had been raised with the most basic knowledge of the Bible but what had been ingrained in him was success, honor, and prestige more than any other belief system. His father had said his conviction was set in a tilted marble carving of his name. Stupid, stupid man.
His father’s cowardice had caused Greg’s loneliness. Greg blamed his father for all of it. If he hadn’t had the aspirations tomingle among Royal Earls, Greg wouldn’t have spent so much time around Hermy. He wouldn’t have fallen in love with her and given his heart away so early in life. Perhaps he’d still have love left to give and he could have had a family by now, like Fave and Arnold. But no, all he had was a gaping void that screamed for Hermy at night and numbed his senses during the day. Now he was alone in his big house every night, he felt as though he was a king on a chessboard without a queen—the game was over. He knew the threat to the king was the checkmate, but the queen made the game. Most players resigned if they lost a queen. Life wasn’t worth living without Hermy just like a game wasn’t worth continuing without a queen.
Jews didn’t make wishes upon a grave, but perhaps Greg could get away with doing so as a Christian. If he dared, he’d wish for Hermy to come back to his life. A miracle wasn’t too much to hope for, was it?
CHAPTER 6
Later that evening at Kirby Place, London.
Oh please be here, please.
