Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman Page B

he held up a frail hand. “No, no, Tilly. I will be fine. This is Mr. Leadbetter, my solicitor.”
    Tilly turned to see the other man in the room, a rosy-cheeked fellow with a welcoming smile. “How do you do, Mrs. Dellafore?” he said.
    She took his hand momentarily, then released it and began to unbutton her gloves. “Forgive me for barging in. I had not thought to see my grandfather up and about.”
    “I will return to my room soon enough, dear,” Grandpa said. “But first I must finish my business with Mr. Leadbetter.” He gasped, and took a moment to catch his breath.
    “Can I get you water, Grandpa?” Tilly asked.
    Again he waved her away. “Business, my dear Matilda. Let the men finish their business.”
    She squeezed her gloves in her fists. “Of course,” she said. “You only need to call if you need me.” She gave Mr. Leadbetter a meaningful look, which he returned with a slow nod.
    “I will take good care of him,” he said.
    Tilly backed out of the room and went upstairs to her own bedroom, to hang up her light coat and fold her gloves away in her drawer. She presumed Grandpa’s conversation with Mr. Leadbetter was part of his getting his papers in order before he died. She sat heavily on the bed and lay back, fingers tracing lightly over the embroidered bedspread. She closed her eyes. What a special hell she was in. The man who had been the center of her world was dying. Without him, would she not be adrift in the world? The hard, aching sadness gripped her and she felt a tear roll over her cheek and into her hair. She longed to be able to lean on Jasper, for him to catch her tear in the crook of his finger, but now Jasper was a man made of mists and shadows. She couldn’t grasp him.
    At length she heard Leadbetter’s carriage leave and went downstairs to help Grandpa back to bed. She found him, however, shuffling about slowly, making a pile of objects on the tea table. A clock, two gilt picture frames, four silver candlesticks, a crystal vase.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, hurrying to him and putting her hand under his arm to steady him.
    He shrugged her off. “I’ve spoken to Leadbetter and there’s nothing for it. The wording of my own father’s will was clear, and Godfrey and Pamela will take all. Everything. So we need to get some of these things out of here before I die.”
    Tilly wondered briefly if Godfrey was right and Grandpa’s mind was addled. But he had been thinking and conversing lucidly until now. “Where are you going to send them?” she asked.
    “To your new home. To Lumière sur la Mer. We’ll pack them in a trunk and ship them over.”
    “We can’t do that. Pamela has counted everything with her eyes.”
    He huffed his way through the next sentence. “We can do it . . . and we will . . . I am making you a number of gifts . . . for your marriage. These things are mine until I die.”
    “You need to be in bed, Grandpa.”
    He caught his breath. “I understand you will not want to be complicit. Go now. Leave the house and take a walk about the village. I’ll get Granger to help. No, wait. I forgot something.”
    He dragged his feet to the mantel where his cigar box lay, untouched for many months now since he first started feeling ill and breathless.
    “I don’t want cigars, Grandpa,” Tilly said. “I don’t want anything. I don’t want trouble. Godfrey will give me trouble.”
    “Hush now and listen.” He thrust the cigar box into her hands. “What’s in here shouldn’t be shipped . . . you must take it with you. Carefully.”
    She unlatched the box, but he stilled her hand.
    “Look later. You will hand it directly back to me if you open it now. I had Leadbetter organize it for you.”
    Tilly moved the latch back into place with her thumb. She knew she should refuse it, all of it. But she thought of Pamela getting her hands on the silver candlesticks—Tilly had been with Grandpa the day he bought them for her fourteenth birthday