The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (best novels of all time txt) 📕

was as it should be, that Eamon was simply taking his place as earl and they must all adapt. If the servants were disturbed, well then, things were disturbing.

* * *

Eamon was writing. He motioned her to a straight-backed chair placed squarely before Grandfather’s desk. The desk was still cluttered with Grandfather’s favorite objects—stones, bits of sculpture, pots of various colored inks—and a few books remained splayed open to the place where Grandfather had stopped reading them when he took to his bed, his big, bold handwriting in the margins still black and fresh. Julia could read one word upside down, scrawled half across the print of a book of sermons: “Hogwash!” She allowed her lips to quirk upward: Grandfather had raged against the inanities of the world until the very end.

The parasite who now sat in Grandfather’s chair could not have been more different from that fiery old man. Eamon was big and bald like Grandfather, but he was tight. He even held his quill tightly, and his handwriting was choppy. He kept writing, line after line, making her wait. She sat and listened to the scratch of his quill. It needed trimming, and had it been Grandfather sitting there writing, she would have simply taken it from him, wiped it clean, and trimmed it. Grandfather would have snapped his fingers as she worked, trying to hurry her along, even as he talked to her about what he was reading, what he was writing. Now Julia rejoiced in the quill’s irritating noise and in the way it split the line of ink, making Eamon’s ugly writing even uglier.

Finally Eamon laid the quill down, sprinkled sand over his page, dusted it off, and set it aside. Only then did he look up at her. She met his eyes for a fraction of a second. “You must pretend,” Grandfather had said. Julia dropped her gaze.

“Julia, Julia, Julia.” Eamon steepled his fingers and leaned forward, propping his pointy elbows on the desktop. “How old are you now?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two, twenty-two. And not yet married.”

Disgust traced its way up her spine, like a cold finger. She would not answer a question that was no question at all.

“No offers?” Eamon’s voice was unctuous.

Julia snapped her eyes at him for a moment.

“You haven’t lost that temper, I see. You try to hide it, but . . .” He paused, and she saw the long white fingers descend to the desktop in fists. “Look at me, Julia.”

She fought to keep her expression bland.

“You try to hide it, but I see everything. Do you understand? I see everything. You can have no secrets from me.”

“I have no secrets.” Julia heard the quaver in her voice and hated herself for it.

Eamon leaned back in his chair. “Have you never been in love, Julia? At your advanced age?”

Julia said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“Oh, come now, Julia. Surely you know if you have been in love. Such a dusty, dried-up old maid you are becoming. Surely you must have longed to go to London to catch a handsome, rich husband. Surely you begged and pleaded.” He raised his voice into a sickly falsetto. “‘Please, Grandpapa. Please let me go.’”

Julia had to fight to keep her temper even. Eamon was so much nastier and more repellant than she remembered. Over the years she had met him five or six times. He would turn up at Castle Dar belligerent and in need of money. He would stay a night or two, and Julia remembered his needling her, teasing . . . she would get angrier and angrier until she was about to burst, and she would stare at Eamon until she seemed to see him at the end of a long dark tunnel, fixed in her gaze like an insect on a pin.

Always at that moment, just when she had Eamon in her sights, Grandfather would say her name, catch her angry glance, and wink. Then Grandfather would stop time. Eamon would be caught, frozen, and Grandfather would walk over to him and make him stand in ludicrous positions or stick a twist of paper up his nose. Julia and Grandfather would laugh at him, and then Grandfather would put everything to rights and make time speed up again. Eamon would awaken, entirely unaware that any time had passed.

Now Grandfather was dead and couldn’t use his time tricks to control Eamon anymore. Grandfather was dead, and Eamon had inherited his wealth, his land, and his title.

“Speechless, kitten? Do not think I’ll take you to London to find you a husband, because I will not. Your grandfather ruined you for marriage, anyway. You, Julia, are abrupt and rude. Half unpolished girl, half uncouth boy. Already twenty-two years old, with only a thousand a year upon marriage or when you turn twenty-five.” Eamon shook his head. “It’s a pity. You ain’t a very good prospect, Cousin. You will have to stay and be a comfort to me in my bachelorhood. And when I find a wife, I’m sure she won’t mind having a spinster cousin to help her tend the babes.”

Julia was losing the battle to stay calm. When she was twenty-five she would be free . . . but that was three years away. Grandfather should have thought about this. But he had considered himself invincible, a lion. “Time for that tomorrow!” She could almost hear him say it. He was a dead lion now. A tear coursed down her cheek, and she dashed it away angrily with her fist. She took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves, but her hands were shaking in her lap.

“Fascinating,” Eamon said. “Are you crying because you don’t want to give up your place in the household to another woman? Or because Grandpapa didn’t give you more money? Neither reason is very flattering, kitten. You are either selfish or greedy or both.”

Julia grew cold and then fiery hot. “You disgust me. If Grandfather were here he would—he would—”

Eamon raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “You stammer when you are angry. It is almost