The River of No Return Bee Ridgway (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

unbearable after Grandfather died and Eamon acceded to the title. And it was—but differently than she had imagined. Before Grandfather’s death, when Eamon had visited from time to time, he had always taken a cruel delight in teasing her, pestering her relentlessly until she lost her temper. Now that he was living here, he barely spoke to her. Not only that, but he had shut her off from the outside world. Her days were silent, enclosed, stifling.

After breakfast that first morning following Grandfather’s death, Eamon had given orders to the servants that no one was to be admitted to the house until further notice. When Julia protested that the neighborhood would be coming by to offer their condolences, Eamon turned his pale eyes on her. “Pray do not speak unless spoken to, Julia,” he had said. Then he had talked over her head to Pringle. “Castle Dar is not accepting visitors. I will not receive them, and neither will Miss Percy. See that it is so.” He stood, brushed the crumbs from his jacket, and disappeared into the study.

This became the pattern of his days. A morning spent eating breakfast with—but not talking to—Julia, then a long day in the study, then a dinner as silent as breakfast had been. Mrs. Cooper, the housekeeper, told Julia that Eamon spent hour after hour going through every drawer, every paper, every book in the study, sometimes cursing out loud. When he emerged each evening his mood was worse than it had been the night before.

The silent meals were excruciating. And not silent enough. Julia could hear each noise Eamon made, clinking his silverware against the china, chewing, swallowing. As the days went by she grew attuned to more sounds. His sleeves shushing against his jacket as he reached for the salt. His stubble—he was a man who shaved only once a week—scratching against his badly tied cravat. The night after the funeral he managed to extract a truly swampy squelch from the blancmange as he dug his spoon into it. Julia had to stifle the urge to scream. For the two nights following, she claimed a headache and kept to her room.

Dinners with Grandfather had always been wonderfully loud. He had talked with his mouth full, exhorting her to argue with him about everything and nothing. He had waved his food around as he talked, and once he even inadvertently launched a duck leg down the table. It was Julia’s moment of greatest triumph. She reached up and caught the drumstick midflight, then she ate it with ladylike dignity. The servants cheered, and Grandfather leapt to his feet and made her a toast right then and there.

Well, those days were over, and Julia would have to learn to be deaf to Eamon’s vile table manners. But she suspected that his campaign of slobbering silence had some purpose. It wasn’t that she didn’t interest him. She interested him enormously. She could sense him watching her, and when she glanced up his eyes were always just sliding away from her. She felt sure that all of his energies were directed toward her, even as he affected boredom. When, after her two-night desertion of the dinner table, she received word through Mrs. Cooper that she was not to miss dinner ever again, she was certain.

Eamon was trying to drive her mad.

* * *

Finally, a full week after Grandfather’s death, Eamon looked up from his breakfast and spoke. “Julia.”

She froze, her cup half lifted to her lips. “Yes, Cousin?”

“When you have finished eating you will attend me in my study.”

“Very well.”

He stood, sketched her a mocking bow, then stalked past her and out of the room.

Julia set her teacup down, her hand shaking so badly that the cup clattered in the saucer.

“Miss?”

Julia looked up. It was Rob, the footman. “Yes?”

He came forward quickly. “Miss, I know it is not my place to speak to you, but I wish you to know—we all wish you to know—that we are in your corner, should you need us.”

Julia twisted her napkin in her lap. “Thank you. I am sure all will be well.”

“I don’t like him,” Rob said. “Neither does anyone else below stairs.”

“Change is difficult, I know, Rob.”

“It’s more than that, miss. He’s searching for something, and he isn’t finding it. Last night I heard him as he was going to bed, and he was muttering your name, over and over again. It gave me a chill, and I said to myself, ‘There’s no harm that will come to Miss Percy while I’m here,’ and I said so to everyone at our morning gathering, and Mr. Pringle and Mrs. Cooper agreed with me. We consider you our mistress, miss, despite him being the man who holds the purse strings. We want you to know that.”

Julia had known Rob for years, and liked him, but she had never really thought about who he might be, besides a perfectly amenable footman. Now she saw that he was the earnest sort, the kind of man whose heart shone out of his eyes. “Thank you, Rob,” she said. “I’m sure there will be no need for you to act on your feelings, and you really must keep them to yourselves. Eamon—Lord Percy—is not someone to cross.”

Rob was short and very thin, but he straightened his shoulders and managed to convey a sense of strength. “I know that, miss, and you may be sure we will all be as subtle as snakes, but I thought you should know how we feel. When the time comes that you need our help, you need do nothing more than ask.”

“Thank you, Rob.”

“It is my pleasure, miss.” He bowed. “May I serve you some more coffee?”

“No, thank you. I shall go and beard the lion in his den now.”

“That’s the way, miss.”

Julia stood and smoothed her skirts. She wasn’t sure whether to be comforted by Rob’s promise of support or troubled that the servants had noticed that Eamon’s behavior was strange. Now she couldn’t pretend that everything