Page 20 of The Stipulation
Not deference. Not obligation. Choice. Something inside me settles.
“Then you definitely have to stop calling me Miss Button,” I say softly.
A tiny smile breaks across her face. “Force of habit, but I’ll try.”
“Good.”
Inside, the music swells, some somber classical piece.
“Betty?” I call.
“Yes?”
“Did he suffer at the end?”
Her expression gentles in a way that feels almost protective. “No. He was lucid. Stubborn and irritated about the hospital lighting. He asked for the curtains to be adjusted three times.”
That sounds absurdly accurate from what I have learned about him, and a shaky laugh escapes me.
“He worried if the photographs had been packed,” Betty says. “I brought them to the hospital for him. Master Sheldon and Mr. Rhodes were both there, but we all knew he was waiting for you. He fretted like a child about your arrival time. ‘Has she arrived yet. How much longer? Where is the plane now?’”
The cold doesn’t feel so sharp anymore.
“He just wanted you with him before he died,” she says quietly.
The silence folds around us. I don’t cry, but I reach for Betty’s hand. We are not housekeeper and heir. Nor are we employer and staff. We are just two women sitting in the cold, trying to piece together a man who was never simple. And with Betty onmy side, for the first time since arriving here, I don’t feel entirely alone.
Something occurs to me, and I blurt out my question, horrified that I might have been attracted to someone who is related to me.
“Betty, is Axel Rhodes my half-brother?”
“What? No. Why would you think that?” Betty asks, frowning.
“He just seems to resent me. I wondered…”
Betty shakes her head decisively. “No, nothing like that. Mr. Rhodes is now the force behind the Manswell empire, but his beginnings are humble. His mom was one of the cooks here, and since there was never any father in the picture that I know of, he practically grew up here below stairs, but Joseph saw his potential. He nurtured and mentored him, made him brilliant.
“I suppose it was almost a father-son relationship, and as soon as he felt his protegee was ready, he installed him as the head of the whole organization. Your father didn’t trust easily, but he trusted Mr. Rhodes. In his own way, I believe, he was much closer to Mr. Rhodes than to Master Sheldon, though he would never admit it to anyone. Especially since Sheldon was a bit of a disappointment to him because he showed no interest in the business at all.”
So… Axel isn’t just an employee. He’s been shaped and molded by my father. There’s a history here that I wasn’t meant to know, but somehow, I’m in the middle of it now.
As I absorb the information, my mind rewinds to Axel’s presence at the funeral, how controlled, precise, and protective he was over the proceedings. It makes sense now, the intensity of his attention, the quiet thunder in his gaze. He wanted Joseph’s final goodbye to go without a hitch.
Betty looks up at me, her shy smile returning.
“Don’t let him intimidate you. He … has a forbidding presence, but he’s not unreachable. There’s a decent guy in there underneath the brooding stares and the cutting comments.”
I laugh softly, shaking my head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I feel oddly at home sitting here beside Betty, our quiet bubble of normalcy in the midst of grandeur and grief.
Chapter
Nine
Jo
I slip into the peaceful solitude of my suite after the wake is mostly over, shutting the door behind me. The soft click feels like a small rebellion. The low murmur of conversation from the hallway as the last few stragglers say their goodbyes fades into the distance and is replaced by the muted hum of the house settling down around me. I let out a long breath, and some of the tension I have been carrying with me all day dissipates.
