The Ruby in the Storm

Chapter 18: Domestic Vanities

        

Chapter 18: Domestic Vanities

Dinnertime in the Donaldson estate was always a grueling affair. But Sebastian wasn't so naïve as to think that the Magistrate would warm up to him simply because he was now married to his daughter. But Sebastian knew that he had a plan that he needed to follow, so he had to play nice with his in laws. Elizabeth kept conversation going as much as she could, but she kept tossing Sebastian suggestive looks that, in any other situation, he would have construed them quite differently.

"Anything interesting from the streets of the market today, sir?" Sebastian asked the Magistrate while Elizabeth and her mother spoke. "Anything of note?"

"Not of note, no," the Magistrate replied. "It seems my announcement has taken to the populous in different ways, which is to be expected. Most folk don't even remember who the Quincys are and those that do are divided in opinion."

Sebastian doubted that most of Lanfore didn't know the Quincys, but he played along. "In what way?"

"In the way that you would expect. Some don't believe it, others are ready to believe it, and so it goes," the Magistrate glanced at Sebastian. "Why do you care?"

Sebastian cleared his throat nervously. "Well, I live here, yes?"

"That you do, Mr. Lucas, but I would assume that you'd care more for the family of your deceased friend," the Magistrate's eyes bore into Sebastian's flesh like twin pools of hellfire. "Pray, how is Mrs. Boatwright?"

Sebastian frowned. "I could not say, sir."

"A shame," the Magistrate muttered. "Husband dead, son murdered... It seems poor Mary Boatwright has not a soul in the world to comfort her."

"That is not true, father," Elizabeth said. "Mary's widowed sister, Cecily Kerrigan, came not two weeks ago to be by her sister's side. She herself has a daughter who is already married an living in Brighton."

"I did not know James had a cousin."

"They don't speak much," Elizabeth replied. "When James and I were still talking he told me that," she glanced at Sebastian and smiled. "I am sure he told you too, darling."

Sebastian shook his head. "No, James hardly spoke of his family. I daresay the Boatwright clan is not as extensive as we presume."

"George Boatwright had no siblings, by my reckoning," Mrs. Donaldson said. "Sad, really, to only have one child, but at least it was a son."

Elizabeth visibly shrunk back upon hearing that and was now forcing the smile out. Sebastian quickly seized this moment to intervene.

"If I were to only have one child I would not care if it was a son or a daughter," he said. "In this day and age, a child is a blessing regardless, and we should be lucky to have one born in the conditions we live in. Others are far worse, I imagine."

Silence followed that declaration, only to be filled by Mrs. Donaldson mere moments later.

"What is Mary Boatwright's maiden name?" She asked. "I've always wondered and had no answer," she looked to her daughter. "Elizabeth, surely you know."

And she did. "It is Hale, I believe, the Hales from Derbyshire."

"Derbyshire..." The Magistrate mused. "I know few people there, but is there not a young man in Lanfore from Derbyshire?" He looked to Sebastian. "I cannot recall is name but he is in cahoots with that fiend, Robert Quincy."

Before Sebastian could reply to that, the door to the dining room opened and Bertha Denning strolled in, a triumphant smile on her face, one that she always sported. The Magistrate's wife and daughter went silent and Sebastian watched with his usual feeling of horror as the woman leaned down to the Magistrate's ear and whispered something. Sebastian tried to hear it out, but to no avail. After a few heartbeats, Bertha stepped back, curtsied to the women and then left the room, shutting the door behind her.