Chapter 6 - The Uninvited Morning Guests
The temperature had not risen.
By 9:45 AM, the sky over Blackwood Valley was the color of lead, heavy with the promise of more snow.
At the end of the long, winding drive, Blackwood Manor looked less like an aristocratic estate and more like a massive, gray stone tomb. Without the power humming through its veins, there were no golden lights glowing behind the multi-paned leaded windows. No smoke rose from seven of the eight chimneys; only a feeble, pathetic wisp of gray soot drifted from the library flue, suggesting someone had attempted to burn damp firewood.
Three vehicles sat parked in the turnaround: two marked county sheriff cruisers, their emergency lights flashing silent red and blue against the frosted boxwoods, and the black Escalade carrying my family and Arthur Vance.
As we stepped out onto the frozen gravel, the front door of the manor flew open.
Cordelia marched out onto the portico. She was wearing a full-length mink coat over flannel pajama bottoms, her feet shoved into designer shearling boots. Her hair was a tangled nest of bleached blonde, and her face was blotchy and pale.
"What is the meaning of this?!" she shrieked, her voice echoing across the courtyard as she pointed a trembling, manicured finger at the two uniformed deputies climbing the granite steps. "Get off our property! Sheriff Miller, I know your cousin! I will have your badge for this! We are freezing to death inside this house!"
Deputy Miller—no relation to my father, though he touched the brim of his hat with polite, rural coolness—didn't flinch. "Good morning, Miss Sterling. We’re here to serve an emergency court order issued by the Superior Court."
Behind Cordelia, Thaddius emerged from the dark foyer. He looked completely shattered. He wore an old cashmere overcoat buttoned up to his throat, gloves on his hands, and a thick woolen scarf wrapped around his head. His eyes were wide, wild, and ringed with dark purple circles.
Then he saw the Escalade.
He saw me step out of the passenger side.
And then he saw my father step out behind me, wearing his warm, heavy canvas barn coat, his boots crunching steadily into the gravel.
"Sara!" Thaddius cried, stumbling down the icy granite steps, nearly slipping on the frost. "Sara, please! Call them off! It’s freezing in here! The pipes burst in the east wing half an hour ago! There’s water pouring through the ceiling into the morning room!"
"Then you should turn off the main shutoff valve, Thaddius," I said, walking toward the steps, flanked by Arthur Vance. "It’s in the cellar. Behind the coal bin. You do know where your own cellar is, don't you?"
Thaddius stopped at the base of the stairs, shivering violently. "I don't know how to work the valves! That’s what the estate manager does! But he won't answer his phone!"
"The estate manager was an employee of my logistics firm," I told him, stopping five feet away. "I suspended his contract at midnight. Along with the housekeeping staff, the groundskeepers, and the catering service. You’re on your own, Thaddius."
Eleanor appeared in the doorway.
Even in the bitter cold, wrapped in three vintage wool shawls, the matriarch attempted to maintain her poise. She held a silver walking stick, her chin tilted high, her nostrils flaring as she looked down at us.
"Sara," Eleanor said, her voice shaking slightly with the chill, but still laden with ice-cold disdain. "This theatrical display is profoundly vulgar. If you wish to renegotiate your domestic allowance with Thaddius, do so through counsel. But bringing law enforcement to Blackwood is an outrage that will be discussed at every club in Boston."
"There won't be any discussions at the clubs, Eleanor," Arthur Vance spoke up, stepping forward and presenting a thick blue-backed legal document. "Because by the end of the week, the Sterling name will be entirely removed from the registry of those clubs. I am Arthur Vance, lead counsel for Thomas Arthur Miller, Chairman of the Blackwood Agricultural Land Trust."
Eleanor sneered. "I care nothing for your little local trusts, Mr. Vance. My son holds the recorded deed."
"Your son holds a void document," Vance replied smoothly. "And as of 8:15 this morning, Judge Holbrook has issued an immediate writ of summary ejectment. You have two hours to gather your personal clothing and vacate the premises."
The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of the winter wind howling through the naked oak branches overhead.
"Two... hours?" Cordelia whispered, her voice dropping into pure, uncomprehending horror. "Two hours? Everything I own is in this house! My jewelry! My art! My wardrobe!"
"Your personal clothing is yours to take," Vance said. "Any asset, artwork, antique, or furnishing purchased using accounts associated with Miller Enterprise Solutions or funds originating from the unauthorized Delaware LLC is currently under court-ordered sequestration. If you attempt to remove a single painting, silver fork, or piece of jewelry purchased after June 2019, you will be arrested on the spot for grand larceny."
"No!" Cordelia screamed, turning toward Thaddius and violently shoving him in the back. "Do something, you coward! You told me she couldn't touch the house! You told me we were protected! You promised me my allowance was safe forever!"
Thaddius didn't retaliate. He stumbled forward, collapsing onto his knees on the frozen gravel right at my feet, mirroring his pathetic posture from the night before.
"Sara," he wept, the tears freezing on his gray cheeks. "Don't do this to us. Where are we supposed to go? We don't have anywhere to go! The banks... the credit cards... we have nothing!"
"You have your breeding, Thaddius," I said, looking down at him with an indifference that was far more brutal than hatred. "You have your seven-generation family tree. You have your Mayflower blood. Surely that can keep you warm."
"Please," he choked out, reaching for the hem of my charcoal trousers. "I’ll divorce them! I’ll cut my mother off! I’ll never speak to Cordelia again! I swear to God, Sara, I’ll testify against Cordelia for the Delaware company! Just let me stay! Let me be your husband!"
Cordelia let out a shriek of pure, betrayed rage. "You disgust me, Thad! You filthy, spineless worm!"
Eleanor stood on the portico, her face pale, her knuckles white against her silver walking cane. She looked at her son groveling in the dirt, begging to betray his own sister to save himself.
The illusion was dead. The grand Sterling legacy—centuries of pride, honor, and aristocratic superiority—had been reduced to this: three parasites freezing in the driveway, baring their teeth at one another over the crumbs of a table they hadn't set.
My father walked past Thaddius. He didn't look down at the kneeling man.
He climbed the granite steps, his heavy boots echoing with steady, absolute authority. He stopped on the portico, two feet from Eleanor Sterling.
The matriarch tried to hold his gaze, tried to muster the ancient contempt that had sustained her family for generations.
She couldn't.
Under the calm, clear, unblinking eyes of the farmer whose wife she had mocked, Eleanor’s gaze faltered. Her shoulders slumped. Her chin dropped.
May you like
"Two hours, Mrs. Sterling," my father said softly. "Make sure you pack your coat. The wind off the mountain gets bitter when you don't own the trees."
***
