Page 5 of One Perfect Dance
The butler began a tirade as soon as he saw Elijah on the doorstep. “Where have you been? The house is at sixes and sevens! The major is beside himself. And what are you thinking coming to the front door? Have you gone mad? You had better come inside. The major said you were to present yourself to him as soon as you turned up.” His rant had not prevented him from looking Elijah up and down, taking in Elijah’s much-improved appearance. The crease between his eyebrows deepened, and he said, “About time you spent something on your appearance. It has been a disgrace to this house. But you know better than to do that sort of thing on the master’s time. Save it for your day off.”
Elijah, who had not had a day off in years, made no comment, but just led the vicar in the direction of the major’s study. The butler opened his mouth, perhaps to object to the vicar’s appearance, but caught the man’s glare and closed his mouth again.
All three Deffew men were in the study.
“You are in trouble, Ash Boy,” gloated Dilly, from the chair across which he was elegantly draped.
Mouth had propped himself by the elbows against another chair. He said nothing, but grinned, as if he was looking forward to the show.
Major Defect surged out of the seat behind the desk, his voice at a roar. “Where the hell have you been? How dare you disappear for more than half a day?”
He glanced behind Elijah to where the butler stood smirking in the doorway. “The butler tells me this is the third time in the last month you have disappeared for hours.” Which was true. Elijah had met the duke’s secretary for an interview, and then last week spent half an hour with Lord Arthur, his new employer.
“Yes,” he replied provocatively. “I had things to do.”
Major Defect’s brows beetled together in a ferocious frown as he took in Elijah’s appearance. “New clothes? Where did you get the money for new clothes? Have you been stealing from me?”
He rounded the desk, catching up a riding crop from its surface.
The vicar said, “That’s enough!”
The major ignored him, slashing at Elijah’s shoulders with the crop.
Elijah moved smoothly out of the way, grabbed his stepfather’s hand, and squeezed it. He took the crop with his other hand and broke it over his knee, tossing the pieces into the fire.
The two brothers started forward but stopped uncertainly when the vicar stepped between them and Elijah.
The major, however, continued to ignore the extra person in the room. “How dare you! I’ll have you arrested for assault, as well as theft.”
“Actually,” Elijah commented, “the vicar will bear witness that you assaulted me, and I defended myself.”
Major Defect, who was already red in the face, turned a brighter scarlet. “I have a right to discipline my ward,” he said to the vicar, his first acknowledgment of the man’s existence.
“It is questionable whether that right extends to beating your ward with a riding crop,” the vicar replied, calmly. “But since Mr. Ashby is no longer your ward, the point is moot.”
Elijah had been right. His enemies had no idea today was his twenty-first birthday. The look of astonishment on all three faces was a delight to behold.
“It is my birthday,” Elijah explained. “Since I am no longer under your guardianship, I am leaving your household. In fact, I have already left it. I returned only because I thought it courteous to let you know my intentions.” A shading of the truth that made his motives sound more virtuous than they were.
The brothers both spoke at the same time.
“But what will I do for a valet?” Dilly asked.
“You will have to serve out the period of your notice,” claimed Mouth.
Elijah laughed. This was even more amusing than he had expected. “You have never paid me,” he pointed out. “Therefore, you do not employ me. So, no notice is required.”
Major Defect seized on one of Elijah’s points. “You admitted it then. You stole the money to buy those clothes.”
“I earned a few pennies here and there doing chores for less-miserly households,” Elijah told him, calmly. “I have taken nothing from this house I did not have from my parents. Even the clothes your sons handed down to me, which I outgrew more than a year ago, are still in the room where I slept when I lived here. Apart from the ones I wore out of the house, which are now in a flour sack in your front hall.”
Major Defect glared at him with his mouth open, then turned to the vicar. “You can’t let him leave us like this. Tell him. Tell him he has obligations to me for all I’ve done for him since I married his mother.”
“On the contrary,” said the vicar. “It is you who have failed in your obligations—to educate this fine young man, to clothe him respectably, to give him opportunities commensurate with his abilities. I was already of the opinion that you and your sons have behaved disgracefully, and what I have witnessed today has only solidified that point of view.”
The major made some blustery noises, and both brothers burst out with entirely false claims about the favorable treatment that an ungrateful Elijah had received.
The vicar ignored them, turning to Elijah and saying, “I think we are done here.”
