Unfinished (Historical Fiction) (3 page)

Reed cleared his throat and stepped in the room, clearing the way for the giant to step into the light. His suit was of a professional cut but at least ten years out of date. The seams strained against his build, and based on the stretch of wrist and his neck that were naked, the strain came from sinew and muscle. Not fat.

“This is my clerk. James Hillman.” John Stone had stepped forward to shake James' hand but stopped cold.

“A clerk? I see.” He pulled back abruptly and sat behind his desk, leaving James in mid-pose, leaning forward with his arm at a right angle, shaking hands with the air.

Lilith marched to fill her father's empty space. “I am Lilith Stone. Pleased to meet you.”

James' hand swallowed hers, the skin warm and hardened by calluses. He clasped as if shaking a man's hand. Lilith's shoulder shook before she could steady the muscles. She attempted to return the pressure and strength. One corner of his mouth turned up and Lilith could not determine whether the grin was conspiratorial or mocking. She decided it was likely a blend of both. As his flesh receded from hers a deep curiosity replaced it, her interest in Mr. James Hillman piqued.

The men remained standing until Lilith sat on a small settee, her back as straight as a steel beam. She scanned the room with eyes like a bird of prey, finally settling on Reed. The lawyer squirmed and shuffled aimlessly through a thick file in his hands, murmuring nonsense to himself.

James searched the room for the largest chair and found a Morris covered in thick, black leather. His hips fit neatly in the straight-backed, low-slung piece of furniture, his back reclined fully. When Lilith sat in it, she needed only the first half-foot of seat to sit up properly, feet flat on the floor.

She watched him pull a fountain pen and scribe notebook out of a tattered leather business bag. Ignoring her stare, James focused on Reed and Stone as they attempted to disinherit Lilith.

“Mr. Stone, unfortunately I've found no holes in the legal construction of this trust.”

“Unfortunately!” Lilith chided. “Unfortunately, the law is sound? A lawyer, one charged with the careful and neutral application of the law, is saddened that the law cannot be circumvented to disinherit me? What a fine, moral specimen you are.” She winked and Reed turned the same shade of red as the Japanese maple leaves outside Stone's library window.

“Blast. Well, then, what of McLean?”

Lilith shot her father an incredulous look. “The mental ward? Are you serious? You tried that a few years ago, father. It didn't work then and it won't work now. This is precisely why women need the vote, and need equal treatment under the law. If I were a man I'd be hailed as a powerful, virile icon in a wealthy family. Instead, you treat me like a hysterical female afflicted with nothing more than – ” she gestured at her breasts and torso “-- this!”

“Stop!” barreled the elder Stone. James tried, unsuccessfully, to turn a laugh into a cough, spilling ink all over his notes and his lapel in the process of covering his mouth.

Blooming anger that began in her pelvis boiled up into her mouth and spilled over. “Besides, Father, you were able to keep what happened at McLean quiet once. Even a billionaire cannot hide what they did to me twice. Your money and connections aren't that strong. Even God himself cannot hide from the muckrakers.”

Stone acted as if he'd heard nothing, though a simple nostril flare told her he'd caught the implicit threat. He motioned for Reed to talk. Reed shuffled through a thick packet of notes and said, “Committing Miss Stone to McLean will not dissolve the trust. She will simply inherit it at the age of twenty-five, as usual. Even if she were your legal ward at that time, you have no right to the money. Your wife's father, Mr. Weston, was clear. In the event of Miss Stone's mental incapacitation, the money goes to the Canadian government.”

Stone leaped to his feet, a crimson fury seeping from every pore. “What?”

Lilith's laugh captured the room, filling it with a mirth and delight she hadn't felt in years. Looking up toward a heaven she didn't believe in, she melodramatically gestured and said, “Oh, Grandfather, thank you for having the presence of mind to know how to outwit him.” She caught James suppressing a grin behind one beefy fist and he winked.

Jack Reed seemed to wish a sinkhole would open up and swallow him entire. His attention returned to his thumb's cuticle as Stone inhaled a through his nose, nostrils flaring as a warning sign for the bellow to come.

He did not disappoint.

“You!” he shouted and pointed at Reed. “You imbecile! Surely you can find a way to control her? Her mental state is addled. Surely you know that! I have proof. What normal woman reaches the age of twenty-four and chooses not to marry! And,” his voice lowered as he glanced around the room, as if gossips hid between the books, “last night she let a partygoer take her...innocence. Right beneath my balcony, in my own garden! The wanton promiscuity and lack of reason is enough to have her placed in a convalescent home to calm her nerves, yes?”

Reed's face paled to a shade of white that contained more green than Lilith thought possible in nature. Her lips twitched and she saw James' right eyebrow arch as he scribbled notes.

“My innocence? You want to send me to McLean again and you have the gall to discuss my 'innocence'?”

Stone ignored her again, stood slowly, and sighed. “Mr. Reed? Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

Lilith began to feel sorry for Jack. She'd picked him out of a motley group of professionals who fed off the Boston blue bloods. They'd known each other since they were children, and his father was every bit the ambitious sycophant Jack was.. It wasn't his fault that she'd compromised him. Then again, he had been an eager party in the moment, hot and bothered and all fingers and mouth, ready to take as much as she gave.

It also wasn't his fault that, as a lover, he was far worse than her friends had led her to believe could be found. A breeze swept through the room and sent a faint whiff of shaving soap her way, mixed with a musky scent of pomade and skin, a scent that stirred a small whirlpool of arousal. With great effort he held herself back from looking at James, sure her eyes would betray her body's response.

“I...I...sir, the law is quite clear on the matter.” Reed straightened his spine and licked his lips. “My associates looked through the trust with me. It has been reviewed by no fewer than six lawyers. Miss Stone's grandfather was extremely careful to make the provisions clear. Her...behavior notwithstanding, you can do nothing at this point to control her money. She will inherit at twenty-five as long as she does not marry. If she dies or becomes mentally incapacitated before reaching twenty-five years of age, the money reverts to the government. It is final.”

Reed bowed slightly and Stone slammed a palm against his desk, tipping an ink pot. In three large strides he was across the room, opening the door and slamming it. His secretary shrieked from behind the closed door.

Lilith, Jack and James sat in silence. She expected something, anything, from Jack, a flicker of recognition or empathy or camaraderie. Tears threatened to fill her eyes as she realized he would give nothing. This meeting, for him, was about pure social and professional survival. Lilith was nothing more than a pawn in a vicious game.

Jack finally stammered, “Good day, Miss Stone,” and nodded to James, who began to gather his leather cases and papers.

But pawns can take any piece – rook, bishop, knight or more – if the chessboard is set up just so.

“So now it's Miss Stone? Last night it was,” she changed her voice to a husky growl, “
Lilith
.”

James burst into a booming laughter and tipped his head back, showing gleaming white teeth the size of Lilith's thumbs. Reed turned the color of a purple tomato.

“Perhaps your father is right! Something is wrong with you.” Reed shook his head and seemed to measure his words, then thought the better of it.

“If something is wrong with me, what is it? I always endeavor to improve myself, and the worthy advice of my betters is crucial in making progress toward self development,” she replied, turning her face into a neutral mask, working to suppress the hysteria that rose from her belly up between her breasts and into her heart.

Reed faltered, then took her at her word. “You wish for me to speak freely?” James cracked his knuckles and leaned back in the Morris chair, eating up every inch of leather and making the wooden joints groan under his weight. His amused expression showed Lilith that he knew full well the undertone of her words, even if his employer did not.

“Of course. You have my rapt attention. As you did last night. Though in that instance, my attention did not appear to be enough to maintain your...” Lilith glanced at Reed's crotch with a skeptical look. Now she was all bluster, the anger a cover for the hot tears that buzzed around a pool of misery within, like mosquitoes in August on the duck pond in Boston Common.

Rather than laughing again, as Lilith expected, James peered at her with the curiosity most men reserved for fossils and mutant animals.

Jack Reed's mouth dropped open in full shock, then closed in a gritted fury. “You...if you weren't my client's daughter, I...” His voice dropped off and he stormed out of the room.

“I'd hate to see what he does to the daughters of men who aren't his clients,” Lilith remarked to James, turning to look at him.

Instead of his face, she found herself staring at his back as he strode out of the room without a word.

And now the tears came. She let them. Everyone she feared might see them had stormed out, driven away by whatever was wrong with her.

Chapter Three

“
Y
OU HEARD NONE OF THAT
! You understand? If you want to keep the clerk's job, you will also keep your mouth shut!” Reed practically screamed in James' ear.

Nodding, James replied, “Of course. What in the hell was that, though? Not many women out there made of whatever Miss Stone has in her.”

“And thank God for that, right?” Reed added, reaching inside his breast pocket for a small flask. Greedily, he sucked down four large gulps, washed the top with a handkerchief, then tucked the ensemble back into his coat.

“That damn family,” he continued. “I can't say I don't feel sorry for the lot of them. The only one with any sense was her grandfather. John Stone has spent the past decade trying to put Lilith in a madhouse so he can keep her under his thumb and get the fortune she stands to receive. Her mother spends all her time trying different cures for their idiot twelve year old and falling prey to the snake oil salesmen who call themselves 'doctors.' She also claims to have some sort of ague that won't go away, but she always has headaches and pains and random blindness. Maybe I would, too, if I were married to that,” Reed snorted, yanking his thumb back toward the Stone mansion.

“What about Miss Stone? She's one hard woman.”

Reed shook his head and reached again for his flask, hands still shaking. “Ayuh, she is. I've known her for a few years now, just from parties.” A sideways glance at James. “She's a cold one. If she were a man, she'd be her father. That's the part she doesn't seem to understand. Or maybe the problem is that
he
does. He's done everything you can imagine to get her in McLean or some other mental ward. She's one of those free love people, believing in equality for women and that no one should ever marry. Makes Stone so angry.” Reed's voice tapered off, as if he realized he'd said too much. But he reconsidered and continued:

“He succeeded. Once. When Lilith was sixteen or so. Had her committed to McLean. They...did things to her. No one really knows. Something about using electricity on body parts. Others say they filled her with pills all day to make her dull. Some say she was bound hand and foot to a wall. The gossips claim that they did things to her, you know –” Reed gestured to his groin. “Things that made her hard. She was always a big mouth then.”

“Who isn't? Aren't we all when we're sixteen? We think we know everything,” James laughed.

Reed's skeptical look shut James up. The two walked in silence for a few blocks, dodging stagnant water in ditches and fresh horse dung. Construction teams pulled wood and piping toward the river for some never-ending project that seemed to go on in some sector of the city. The fresh dung appeared in piles everywhere, making foot traffic a child's game of hopscotch.

Finally, Reed resumed, his face pensive. “Yeah, somewhat. But we don't all have daddies who can put us in the nuthouse for a few months to calm us down and make us obey. What Stone didn't understand was that all he did was make her more angry. You don't work a hornet into a frenzy and then let it go.”

James took it all in. The walk was helping his body to regulate. That woman had set his senses on full buzz, like a firehouse on a kerosene factory fire alert. Every bell and whistle in his mind and lower extremities went flush and hardened. Again. He'd felt like a schoolboy in that office, watching Lilith engage and defend herself.

What he'd expected to feel, the moment he walked into that office, was some sort of sympathy or chivalry for the woman. Years of living in South Boston meant he knew exactly who the Stones were, and Lilith had a reputation for being a modern woman who was a bit mentally brittle. When Reed asked him to scribe for the session he'd groaned inside, thinking the morning would be wasted with a preening heiress and her daddy. Instead, he got more.