The Butler's Master

Punishment - Part 2

[Punishment – Part 2]

"The Princeton Tender."

"Louise, I know it failed but-" Louise silenced her husband's quick jump to defend their son with a single raise of palm.

"Let the young man speak for himself." Louise said firmly. "Kyren?"

"It wasn't entirely my fault we missed the tender." Kyren jumped at the chance that his mother was providing for him to defend himself. He had known that he would be receiving a grilling when the announcement for the winner of the Princeton tender had been announced, but Kyren was beginning to realize that his mother had taken this tender a lot more seriously than he initially thought she would. "It wasn't my fault that Mr. Summers pulled out of the project last minute. It was really too late, and I really did try to win the tender back! But it was Kylar; Kylar went ahead on his own and contacted Mr. Kingly, the Director of that other company that I didn't want to work with. Kylar arranged for a meeting without my approval, Mum. Of course, I was too angry to turn up. How was I supposed to know that that guy had relations with the tender manager in Princeton?"

As far as defenses went, Keyron had never heard a lousier one filled with so many holes. Keyron, as a butler who had been taking care and watching over the boy ever since he was born, really wanted to go easy on Kyren. Like how his master and mistress had treated his sons like their own, Keyron had come to treat Kyren to something akin to his son too.

Even so, Keyron could not believe the words of oblivious arrogance that were coming out of the young master's mouth. If Keyron could not believe them, he knew without a doubt that Louise's anger had only been further incensed by those same words.

"So it was Kylar's and Mr. Summers's fault." Louise concluded softly, allowing a pause in which Kyren nodded quickly in eagerness to absolve himself from all sort of guilt.

"Louise, you heard him. Kyren tried his best this time, it just wasn't his luck-" Brandon once more tried to jump at their son's defenses, but Keyron could see very clearly that this time, the Master of the Greaves-Crawford Household was letting things slide a bit too much.

"Keyron." The call of his name made the Head Butler step forward from behind his master's seat to receive the order.

"Bring me the folder that was delivered to my office yesterday. The one that came after the tender application was closed."

The instruction was well-received, and Keyron excused himself to make quick footsteps to and from his mistress's office. It seemed as if nothing had been said and no progress had been made in the conversation through his absence when Keyron returned to his master's side, passing his mistress her folder respectfully and stepping back. He had seen a few documents within the folder when it had first been delivered since he had to check for poison, as well as for the nature of the documents. Keyron knew that on those documents were the evidences of Kyren's failure.

"A few things I shall have you and Brandon note about the Princeton tender." Louise announced in a tone that Keyron knew was a businesswoman's tone of voice. The kind and gentle mother who had held back for the sake of her son was gone now, and Keyron prayed for his young master's resilience. "Firstly, I commissioned this tender. During the dinner that the prime minister and I shared last month, he mentioned that he was planning to build a second facility for social services. I volunteered the services of the Greaves-Crawford Household, and he gladly assigned the task to me."

"You volunteered our services because you wanted to post a tender?" Brandon asked, confused. He had been there at the dinner as well and had been confused as to why his wife had quickly volunteered to do the rather thankless and low-profit job. He had assumed that it was because the building in question was supposed to be a social service centre, and Louise wanted to do some good to the society.