The Bargain Revealed Part 1

Catherine -

Father returned just as the sun was setting, but he might as well have been a different man entirely. Gone was the defeated figure who'd ridden out that morning, shoulders bowed under the weight of our family's shame. In his place sat someone who looked almost... triumphant.

The saddlebags bulging with packages should have been my first warning. The second should have been the way he whistled—actually whistled—as he dismounted Chester in the courtyard. Father hadn't whistled in months, not since the creditors had started circling like vultures.

"Catherine! Jamie! Eleanor!" His voice boomed through the house with an energy I hadn't heard since before everything fell apart. "Come see what fortune has brought us!"

Jamie bounded into the entrance hall like a puppy, his eight-year-old enthusiasm undimmed by the caution that had settled over the rest of us. Mother followed more slowly, her expression carefully neutral in the way that meant she was preparing for disappointment.

I hung back in the doorway, studying Father's face. The rain had stopped, but his clothes were still damp, and there was mud caked on his boots that suggested he'd been somewhere other than the respectable merchants of Millbrook. Something about his eyes bothered me—they were too bright, too eager, like a man who'd found salvation but wasn't entirely sure of the price.

"Look at this," he said, pulling packages from the saddlebags with the dramatic flair of a stage magician. "Fine wool for new dresses. Real tea, not the bitter leaves we've been making do with. And enough coin to see us through the winter comfortably."

The packages hit the scarred hall table with satisfying thuds, each one representing luxuries we'd thought permanently beyond our reach. Jamie's eyes went wide at the sight of wrapped sweets, while Mother's face showed the careful hope of someone who'd learned not to trust sudden good fortune.

"Charles," she said quietly, "where did all this come from?"

It was the right question, the one I'd been forming myself. Father's business in town had been to sell Mother's jewelry—a transaction that might have yielded enough for basic necessities, but nothing approaching this abundance.

"A stroke of luck," Father said, but something in his voice rang false. "An unexpected benefactor. Someone who understood our situation and chose to be generous."

Generous. The word sat strangely in the air, carrying implications I didn't like. In my experience, truly generous people didn't require down-on-their-luck families to travel to remote Welsh estates to receive their largesse.

"What kind of benefactor?" I asked, stepping into the hall properly. "Someone you met in Millbrook?"

Father's hands stilled on the packages, just for a moment, but long enough for me to notice. "Not... exactly in Millbrook, no. I got turned around in the storm, you see. Found shelter at a grand estate, and the lord there took pity on our circumstances."

Got turned around. Another careful phrase that danced around the edges of truth without quite landing on it. I'd seen Father drunk enough times to recognize the particular way he chose his words when he was hiding something.

"How generous of him," Mother said, but her tone suggested she was having similar doubts. "And he expected nothing in return?"

That was when I saw it—the tremor in Father's hands as he reached for another package. Not the shaking of a man who'd been cold and wet, but the fine tremor of someone whose nerves had been stretched past their breaking point.

"Nothing immediate," he said, and there was the truth at last, wrapped in carefully neutral words.

"Charles." Mother's voice carried the particular authority she reserved for moments when she wouldn't accept evasion. "What aren't you telling us?"

Father looked up then, and I saw something in his eyes that made my stomach clench with dread. Fear, yes, but also guilt. The look of a man who'd made a choice he couldn't unmake.

"It's nothing for you to worry about," he said, but his voice lacked conviction. "A gentleman's agreement. Nothing that need concern the family."

Nothing that need concern the family. The phrase was so obviously false that even Jamie looked skeptical. Everything concerned the family these days. Every decision, every transaction, every hope and fear was shared among the four of us because we had nothing left but each other.

"Father," I said, my voice sharper than I'd intended. "What kind of agreement?"

He flinched at my tone, and for a moment the triumphant mask slipped entirely. Underneath, I saw exhaustion, terror, and something that might have been regret.

"It's handled," he said finally. "All of it. We'll be comfortable in Ravenwood, we'll have everything we need, and none of you will have to worry about anything ever again."

None of you. Not none of us. The distinction felt important, though I couldn't yet say why.

"And in exchange?" Mother pressed.

Father's jaw worked for a moment, as if he were chewing words he couldn't bring himself to swallow. "In exchange," he said at last, "I've promised that we'll be... available. If our benefactor ever has need of our services."

Services. Another careful word that meant everything and nothing at once.