Chapter Fourteen
Arabelle sat in one of the lounges of the house, facing the back, and stared at the garden before her. The roses were growing like magic under Mickey’s care and there was something soothing about looking at them. Her mother’s favorite flower which was why her only tattoo was a single rose.
She couldn’t explain her sadness or her confusion. Silas had spent the whole morning driving her around. When she came back she had sought out Jurgen to give him his milkshake and was surprised there was nothing wrong with him. Silas had come in and told Jurgen he would drive Arabelle. She couldn’t understand the man one bit.
Why would he do that? And then in the same breath, turn back to his usual cold self when he had issued his instruction about her waiting in his bed for him. She knew he meant the bed in the room she was occupying. It was still his room after all.
She touched her belly and thoughts of being pregnant with Silas’s baby drifted through her mind. No. She wasn’t going to let him touch her. Not until he answered all her questions. She deserved that much. She deserved answers.
She wiped away a single tear from her cheek when Alice popped into the lounge.
“Mrs. K? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Arabelle smiled but Alice wasn’t completely convinced. “Did you need me?”
“Yes, there’s a woman outside claiming to be your grandmother. She says her name is Margaret Arabelle Davenport and she is demanding to see her granddaughter,” Alice said.
“I’ve vetted her,” Jurgen said following Alice. “She doesn’t seem lethal, but I do imagine she wouldn’t hesitate to use her cane on me. She called me a buffoon. Her driver goes by the name Eddie. He seems at least a hundred years old and half-blind. I wouldn’t worry about him.”
“Did you say Margaret Arabelle Davenport?” Arabelle asked excitedly! “Oh my god. It’s my gran,” she cried.
She skipped out of the lounge and raced to the entrance.
She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw her gran, as elegant as ever with a hat and cane, being helped by Eddie needing help himself come up the entrance of the house.
“Arabelle Faye Davenport,” she said when she reached the door. “Pack your things. I’m taking you with me back to England.”
“Gran,” Arabelle said ignoring her gran’s stern words and hugged her frail body to her with tender gentleness.
“Oh stop it, girl. I’m cranky and constipated and I flew all this way not for you to gush over me. Now go and pack your things.”
Arabelle couldn’t stop smiling. This was the gran she knew and loved.
She managed to steer them into the house and once seated her gran heaved a sigh of relief but she point blank refused the refreshments that Alice offered them both. Eddie took the glass but gran promptly told him to put it back.
“We do not drink in the houses of criminals, Eddie. How many times must I say this? Now, you girl. You listen to me very carefully. Your father sold you to a family of gangsters. Mafia is what they call themselves and I’m taking you out of here. This is not the life I want for the only Davenport who has any hope of seeing this family rise from the ashes.”
“Gran. I know.”
“And he won’t give them what he wants until you are with child. Your father has lost the plot and I swear I will end him. He is ruining our Davenport name, girl. I have tried to change his mind, to give them what they want so they would leave you alone. But your father is scared. Did you read this contract then? Eddie, show this silly girl the papers.”
Eddie fumbled in his pockets but eventually retrieved sheets of paper folded in half and handed them to Arabelle.
“Eddie. I thought I would never see you again,” Arabelle said and hugged the man.
“You’re in danger here, child. Your gran is right.”
Frowning, Arabelle unfolded the sheets of paper and read the document.
At some point, her gran, reiterating everything that she had just read, sounded as if she were a million miles away.
She had in her hand the real reason Silas Knight had married her and she couldn’t compute her feelings.
She was so numb, that every emotion deserted her until the plain facts and the players involved remained. She and Silas. Parker and Everleigh. And Elliot. She knew what she had to say long before she spoke the words out loud in her head.
It was Alice who finally took charge of the situation and brought her back to reality.
“I can’t go with you, gran.”