The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) (41 page)

Jake was surprised to see his girl cousin, considering how difficult it was for her to bear the London crowds. But Dani was certainly going to be happy to see her dog. Isabelle was carrying Teddy.

Archie grabbed Jake by the shoulders. “We were so worried about you! Are you all right?”

He nodded. “I just met the Queen.”

“Good heavens, Jacob!” Aunt Ramona exclaimed, striding over to him. “You gave us such a fright!”

“I didn’t run off on purpose, I swear, I was under a spell—” Jake quickly told the others as they gathered around.

Then Gladwin suddenly zoomed back into the reception room. “I can’t find Miss O’Dell!”

“That’s odd,” Derek said.

“I will pay my respects to the Queen while you look for her,” Her Ladyship said in distraction, turning to the white-gloved chamberlain who then showed her in to see her royal friend.

Isabelle glanced around while Teddy wriggled in her arms, his nose twitching at top speed, his stump tail wagging. “Where is she, Teddy?” Isabelle asked the dog. “He says he can smell her.”

Jake shrugged, glancing around, at a loss. “I dunno. She was here a minute ago.”

“Why don’t you put him down and let him track her?” Archie suggested, but his sister’s eyes widened.

“I don’t dare!” she whispered. “If he pees on the Queen’s furniture, we’ll all be thrown in the Tower.”

Jake grinned at her unladylike jest. “We’re a bad influence on you, Izz.”

Meanwhile, Derek went over to the chamberlain, who had just shut the Queen’s office door behind Lady Bradford.

“Excuse me, have you seen the little girl who was sitting out here?”

“Yes, sir.” The lord chamberlain presented a silver tray on which lay a folded letter. “The young lady left a note for Lord Griffon. Miss O’Dell sends her apologies and asked me to tell you all that she has gone home.”

“What?”
Jake snatched her letter off the tray, unfolding it. As he read, his heart sank.

“What did she write?” Isabelle cried.

Jake blindly handed her the letter. “She said you should keep Teddy,” he murmured, so stunned that he felt numb. “She thinks he’ll be better off with you at Bradford Park.”

Speechless, Isabelle looked at him in pain; she took the short letter and quickly read it.

“Let me see that!” Derek growled, snatching it out of her hand as soon as she was through.

Archie read it over his arm. “Well, that’s just daft!” the boy-genius said, folding his arms across his chest.

The twins exchanged a worried glance.

At that moment, Great-Great Aunt Ramona stepped out of the Queen’s office. “Well, it seems I have my work cut out for me tonight, making those party guests forget the things they saw…” She stopped abruptly, looking around at all of them in surprise. “Goodness, what’s happened? Why all the long faces?”

Isabelle glanced at her with tears in her eyes. The dog whined in concern.

“Isabelle? What is it?”

Derek handed Lady Bradford the letter with a stricken look. “Poor little mite. She says she’s got to go home and take care of her father and brothers.”

Aunt Ramona looked at him in confusion, then she read the letter while Jake stood there reeling.

Blimey, he hadn’t realized how much he had simply assumed the carrot-head would always be there. Always following him, bothering him. But maybe he was wrong.

‘I’ll never forget you, Jake,
’ she had written.
‘I know you will go on to do great things, but I don’t belong in your world anymore. So I guess this is goodbye…’

Jake looked at his great-great aunt, at a loss. He saw the prim pursing of her thin lips as the old dragon-lady read the note.

She went very still for a moment.

Jake hoped the dowager baroness was remembering how coldly she had treated Dani. If she had been a little nicer to her, he thought in reproach, maybe she would’ve stayed.

Without warning, Lady Bradford lifted her chin and was suddenly all business as she refolded the letter. “Foolishness! What utter nonsense! I’ve never heard of anything so preposterous. A child taking care of a grown man! This will not do at all. Come, children!” She pivoted on her heel. “Twins. Guardian Stone, if you please, we could use your protection, as well, where we’re going.”

“
Where
are we going, my lady?” Miss Helena asked, hurrying after her.

Lady Bradford held her chin high, marching down the gilded corridor. “To the rookery, of course.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Home Again

Goodbyes had been hard for Dani ever since she’d lost her mother. There was no use wallowing in it. She saw, as they say, the writing on the wall. It was easier just to get it over with. So she had written her letter and had given it to that white-gloved fellow at the Queen’s house.

Walking out quickly, she had hopped on a passing omnibus to Covent Garden. Then she trudged the rest of the way home through the dodgy streets of the rookery.

She had cried a little, walking home through the dark, but at least she would always have the memory of their ride through the sky on the Gryphon tonight.

Then, drying her eyes, she put Jake and all the rest of them out of her mind as she grasped the doorknob of the O’Dell family apartment inside the tenement house.

Time to go back to reality.

She braced herself and opened it, then let out a sigh as she realized…nothing had changed.

The front room stank of dirty socks. Dirt covered every surface. A narrow footpath led through piles of clutter. Her heart sank into the abyss.

There were a few grunted questions from Da and her brothers about where she’d been, but they soon lost interest.

She had held a fairy in her hands tonight, had ridden a Gryphon, and had sat in the next room away from the Queen. But she wasn’t telling them anything. They’d never believe her. They’d only make fun of her. So she didn’t waste her breath, and just like that, life went back to dismal normality.

“’Hoy, Danio! Why don’t you fix us somethin’ to eat?” Luke called, lounging with the others, sprawled out in the squalor.

“Aye, hop to it. I’m starved!” Mark agreed.

“Why don’t you fix it yourself?” she said under her breath. She did not even look at them.

All she could think of was the sunny, spacious halls of Bradford Park and the smiling face of Isabelle, who had been so kind to her and treated her like a little sister ought to be treated, even though Lady Bradford disapproved of her. She could not understand why that old bird disliked her so much. It wasn’t fair! Her chin began to tremble, but she dared not cry. Her brothers’ teasing was always most savage when they spotted tears.

Now she didn’t even have Teddy anymore to make her life here bearable. But he was better off out in the country where he could run and play without fear of getting hit by a carriage or running out of food.

“Hoy! Dani! Wake up, lass! Don’t you hear that?”

“What?”
she snarled back in rookery fashion.

He didn’t even notice she was being rude. This was normal talk. “Get the door!” Matthew ordered, pointing at it and glaring at her.

Only then did she notice the firm knock rapping on the front door.

She didn’t bother refusing her brother’s command. With any luck, maybe it was the bailiffs coming to take the lazy louts away to debtor’s prison.

But when she picked her way through the mounds of junk and opened the door, her eyes widened to find Lady Bradford towering over her.

The tall, proud aristocratic old witch looked down her pointy nose at her.

“Your Ladyship!” Dani breathed. She was instantly flooded with shame and no small amount of confusion to find Jake’s terrifying great-great aunt standing at her door of her family hovel.

“Miss O’Dell.” Her Ladyship looked past Dani, scanning the apartment with a frosty stare that stunned the rowdy O’Dell boys into silence. “I am here to see your father.”

Dani gulped.
Am I in trouble? What did I do now?

Obediently, however, she opened the door wider—and saw the others standing in the hallway. “Isabelle
! Teddy!”

While Lady Bradford stepped gingerly into the cramped, filthy apartment to have a word with Mr. O’Dell, Dani hugged Isabelle and Teddy at the same time in the open doorway.

A moment later, Jake grasped Dani’s shoulder. He turned her to face him and gave her a scowl. “What do you mean by runnin’ off like that, you carrot-head?” His Lordship demanded.

As soon as she saw him, she felt stupid about the letter, but her brothers’ rudeness saved her from having to answer. They burst out laughing, pointing at Jake’s tuxedo.

“Look, lads! It’s a penguin!”

“Where’d you steal them threads, Jakey?”

“Who do you think you are, boy, all dressed up like some high-falutin’ twig?” Matthew said in a withering tone, trying, as always, to put him in his place.

But when Derek Stone stepped into view behind Jake, her brothers suddenly stopped laughing.

The warrior’s cold stare shut them up.

Dani turned with a gloating smile from ear to ear.

Meanwhile, Isabelle and Archie exchanged a baffled look at her brothers’ incomprehensibly bad manners.

“Mr. O’Dell,” Lady Bradford was saying meanwhile, on the other side of the room, “I am here because I wish to hire your daughter as a lady’s companion for my niece.”

Dani gasped and turned to Isabelle in amazement.

She nodded at her, smiling.

“Wot, like a servant?” Da asked skeptically, folding his arms across his chest.

“A lady’s companion is different from a servant, Mr. O’Dell. It is a respectable position among households of the Quality. This is a very rare opportunity for your daughter.”

He stared blankly at her.

“The position is more of a hired friend, who lives with the employer’s family and assists a genteel young lady in various ways,” she explained. “The two girls have already become friends, and I have come to see,” the dowager said slowly, glancing at Dani in grudging respect, “that your Daniela is a very good influence on my Isabelle.” Lady Bradford looked away.

Dani was in shock.
I thought she hated me.

“She sees herself in you, Dani,” Isabelle whispered, sensing her shock. “You know, when she was ten.”

“The girl is very brave and very loyal. A sensible child,” Her Ladyship clipped out in a businesslike tone. “The two are just a few years apart, and each seems to have strengths where the other has weaknesses; they balance each other well. My granddaughter is a shy, delicate girl, you see. Your Daniela is tenacious, loyal, and quite without fear.”

“It’s true, sir,” Isabelle spoke up softly. “I’m usually too timid to leave our country house for Town, but when I thought of Dani’s strength, it helped me find my own.”

Dani hugged her.

Lady Bradford nodded. “You see? They are very well suited. Where your daughter lacks opportunity, Isabelle and her governess will help her to become a proper young lady. Provided, of course, that Miss O’Dell herself agrees to this arrangement?”

“Oh, yes! Thank you, ma’am! Thank you!” Dani said breathlessly, nodding so hard her head could have fallen off.

The dowager turned to him again, pleased. “In her new position, your daughter will receive an excellent education, and a chance to better herself and improve her station in life. And, er, we’ll also take the dog. What say you, sir?”

Da’s expression had changed from one of awe and suspicion—to cunning. “Hire the lass, eh?” A gleam of greed sparked in his eyes. “Well, maybe. If you send the money to me. How much?”

“Oh—” Lady Bradford looked taken aback by the blunt question.

“As you can see, we ain’t wealthy. If you take her, I’ll need the money to ‘ire another maid.”

Dani winced.

Isabelle glared at him, and Jake rolled his eyes.

Gentlemanly Archie stared as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “I say!”

Lady Bradford’s nostrils flared. She looked beyond disgusted, but lowered herself to haggle with him for Dani’s freedom.

Isabelle put her arm around her shoulders protectively. At last, they came to terms.

“Double it,” Da grunted. “Eight bob a month and she’s yours! And one extra, for the dog.”

“Mr. O’Dell—honestly. Fine. Anything else?” the dowager asked in crisp sarcasm, but Da chose to take her question at face value.

“I could use a few quid to fill my pantry with food for my boys—”

“Da!” Dani cried, aghast.

“Wot, she can afford it!” he retorted. “They eat like hound dogs, ma’am. Can’t have ‘em starve, considerin’ the lass is the one that cooks for us.”

The O’Dell boys sensed their opportunity, as well.

They all began clamoring for their various “needs” and expenses to be paid before Dani would be allowed to go.

“I need new boots! These ones got holes in ‘em.”

“What about my gambling’ debts?”

“The pub won’t serve me until my tab is settled!”

Jake couldn’t take it anymore. He had learned to tolerate the O’Dells, but what they were doing to Dani right now was beyond the pale.

He noticed Derek tensing like he wanted to start throwing people through walls. But before the warrior gave in to this impulse, Jake gave him a look that said,
Wait.

Then he took matters into his own hands—literally. He knew their clan’s greatest weakness. With a discreet flick of his fingers, he made the picture of their Ma, the late Mrs. O’Dell, levitate off the mantel and float over to her husband. Hiding the wave of his fingers, Jake made the small oval portrait hover before Mr. O’Dell’s eyes.

Frozen in shock, Dani’s father stared at the picture of his dead wife and turned as white as a sheet.

“Gor!”

“Jaysus, Da!” Matthew breathed, while Mark and Luke blessed themselves.

Only Dani sent Jake a skeptical glance.

“It’s Ma!” John whispered, not looking so cocky anymore.

Mr. O’Dell glanced all around him like a haunted man. “Rosemary! Are ye there, lass?”

The room was perfectly silent.

Stifling laughter, Jake let Mr. O’Dell stare a moment longer at his wife’s grainy black and white photograph before making it float over to Dani, who plucked it gently out of the air.