NOVEL WEB Chapter 14: Letter
Rayne wasn’t used to feeling nervous so she was rather upset she was feeling it now. Things had gone well today so far but what she was about to attempt might not go well. She needed to talk to Kaden and she didn’t want this to turn into a fight. She needed to be the bigger person. No, thinking like that would just bring them back to square one. She needed to be a proper big sister to him. She needed to be family.
The lady took a deep breath before she peered around the door and into one of the sitting rooms of her home. She had already looked in three other rooms and couldn’t find him, but here he was. He was sitting in a chair by the window, reading from a book. He hadn’t seen her yet and Rayne pulled back and took a deep breath. Why did business negotiations feel more approachable than this?
“Kaden,” Rayne said gently as she stepped into the room. Her brother looked up from his book and as soon as he saw her a scowl crossed his face. The book in his hands was slammed shut as he stood up and started for the door. “No, Kaden, please.” The lady started walking up to him. “I’m not here to fight, I just want to talk.”
The young man did actually stop, though the scowl didn’t leave his face. “What do you want, Rayne?”
Taking a deep breath, Rayne thought of how best to say this. “I know in the past few days we have shared animosity towards each other, but I don’t want that to continue. I understand currently we don’t see eye to eye when it comes to our beliefs on beastkin, and probably won’t for some time, if at all.” She didn’t like admitting that to both him and herself. She didn’t want to believe that Kaden could always feel this way about people like Hannah. She wanted to push and say that he could change, but this wasn’t what she was here for. “Even so, I want us to move past this squabbling. I’m sorry if what I have said in the past few days has hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you, Kaden.”
Kaden looked a little shocked by Rayne’s words and clearly started mulling over them in his head. When he didn’t reply after a few seconds Rayne continued to speak. “We’re family, brother. It’s just us and Hamish now, and with him away most of the time at university it’s mainly just you and I. I don’t want to be upset with the family I spend most of my time with. I don’t want us to hate each other.” That was very true. Yes she was still deeply angry with Kaden but he was her brother. She didn’t want to hate her own family even if they disagreed on something this major. “Mother and Father wouldn’t want us to fight.”
The little understanding that was starting to overcome Kaden left with the mention of their parents. “They wouldn’t want me to be upset with the favorite child. They wouldn’t care if you were upset with me.”
That took the lady aback. That was in no way what she was expecting to hear at the mention of their parents. Rayne’s mouth opened and closed at least twice before she managed to speak. “Favorite child? I was never the favorite child. They had no favorites.” She didn’t know what Kaden was talking about.
He rolled his eyes at her and crossed his arms. “Mother and Father always favored you over Hamish or me. They gave you whatever you wanted and treated you as if you could do no wrong. They did whatever they could to try and make it up to you for what they did, and it left Hamish and I behind.”
“That’s not—” Rayne cut herself off. This wasn’t the time to fight. Trying to understand, she put herself in Kaden’s shoes. He was only thirteen when their parents died so all his memories from them would have been with a child’s perspective. She had to admit her parents were always so loving towards her and he wasn’t wrong that they did try to make up for the years they thought of her as a boy. From Kaden’s perspective they probably did seem to favor her. “I… I can not apologize for our parents, but I am so dearly sorry if the way I have acted in the past ever made you feel like you weren’t as loved as I was. You deserved better than that from your sister, Kaden.” She realized she had never outright told Kaden about the whole being raised as a boy for the first seven years of her life. She didn’t hide it but never brought it up. “I take it Hamish was the one that told you about what they did?”
Kaden nodded. “I heard about some big scandal but no one told me until I asked Hamish a few years ago.” The young man studied his sister as his face lost the scowl it had been wearing. Rayne hoped that was a good sign. “How can you not hate them for that?” The question sounded so honest.
Rayne fought back the urge to be defensive of her parents. Kaden didn’t know the truth and he wouldn’t be the first person to ask why she still loved her parents after all that. “I do not want to live in the feelings of anger and hurt. I will not let those years of my life rule how I act now. How I love now. Mother and Father did right by me in the end and that’s all I care about. And I am sorry that their continued focus on doing right by me took away from you. You deserved better.”
Kaden looked a little hurt but Rayne had the feeling it wasn’t her who made him feel that way. “Thank you.”
“I wish they could have lived longer to do right by you and Hamish.” Pain filled Rayne’s chest and she tried not to let it get the best of her. She loved her parents so dearly. “I also want to say that since their death I know I have not always been the best of sisters. I’ve not always been what you needed me to be and I haven’t always been there for you.” His views on beastkin were a perfect example of her lack of care towards him. She gave a sad smile. “I know I’m not the most—” her throat closed up before the next word could come out of her mouth. Why did that happen and why did the pain in her chest grow? “The most mot—” Again her throat closed up and Rayne felt angry towards herself for it. There were other stronger and older emotions coming up though. Ones she had long thought locked away. “Moth—” Rayne felt her lip quiver and her eyes water but she willed those things to stop. “Motherly of people.” It hurt so much that she didn’t think of herself as motherly. Hurt that she felt she couldn’t be, and hurt knowing that she could never be a mother.
Rayne did her best to squash all those feelings back down into the locked room in her heart she kept them in. Her eyes still misted and she looked away from Kaden to wipe at them. She hated crying in front of others. Why had she said that? That was one of the worst things she could have said towards herself. “I wish I could have been more of that for you.”
“T-thank you,” Kaden said with a mix of mild shock and embarrassment. “I’m sorry too.” That took Rayne by surprise but it was a good surprise. The lady patiently waited as Kaden clearly thought on what to say. “I… I could have handled myself better. It wasn’t very lord-like of me to respond to my beliefs being challenged with anger. I’m sorry and I will do my best to handle myself better from here on in.”
“Thank you.” This felt like a step in the right direction to Rayne. Even if Kaden still believed what he did about beastkin, it wasn’t good to get angry with one another. She would still challenge his beliefs and she knew he would try and challenge hers but if they could actually talk about it as adults and not have spats like children things would hopefully turn out for the better. She hoped Kaden would come around eventually, but right now wasn’t the time to focus on that. It was time to focus on the fact that both of them were going to try and be better.
There was an awkward pause between them, both still clearly feeling more but neither knowing exactly what to say. Eventually Rayne opened her mouth to speak but a new voice cut in.
“There you two are,” Hamish said walking into the room. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Rayne quickly turned and prayed to the goddess her eyes didn’t look red and puffy from the very minimal tears she held back. “Sorry if the search was long. It is a large house.”
“Didn’t take me that long. I needed to talk to you because I just got a letter from Uncle Allan.” Hamish held up said letter.
“I did not send ours to him through magic, nor paid to have him send one in return,” the lady said defensively. As far as she was aware the letter she wrote early today hadn’t even left this house.
“Oh, no, that’s not what this is about. And I hope you wouldn’t waste money on a letter that will arrive in a two days.” Hamish paused for a second and appeared to think to himself. While doing that his eyes glanced at Kaden then back to Rayne. “The letter was addressed to me and I already read it.” Rayne was only slightly annoyed Uncle Allan would write to Hamish when she was technically in charge of this house. “Apparently there is a little bit of discourse in the Keating household in regards to Margret coming to stay with us. Margret is refusing to come unless we meet one request. Uncle Allan asks that we considering it even though we haven’t allowed such a thing in the past”
That was strange. Rayne had never known Margret to be the kind of person to make a demand. That being said, in the past Margret had let people walk all over her so standing up for something she wanted was a turn in the right direction. It just depended on what that request was. “What is that request?”
Hamish took a deep breath and clearly tried not to look at Kaden. “She wants to bring a beastkin she was gifted last year.”
“Oh so we’re goi—” Kaden cut himself off and glanced at his sister and found no anger on her face. “I’m sorry. Continue.”
Hamish looked the slightest bit surprised but did continue. “That’s really it. She just wants this beastkin to come and still serve her here.”
In the past the Hayward family never let those who owned slaves bring them onto their property to stay. It had been a very hard and clear rule that people respected with very minimal fuss, and Rayne didn’t wish to break that. However… “While I would have normally denied such a request,” her thoughts drifted to Hannah, “I have to say that would be hypocritical of me now.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “I do not want to make this a free pass for those that stay with us, but in this case I am inclined to accept under threat of my own hypocrisy. What do you think?” Rayne did act as the head of this house but that didn’t mean she wanted to ignore what her brothers’ thought.
“I think it would have been a little hypocritical for you to say no,” Hamish said honestly. Kaden nodded his agreement. “If Margret is actually agreeing to be part of this season because she would be with us, I think it would be the right thing to do.”
Rayne nodded with Kaden at Hamish’s words. “Alright. There might be one or two members of staff upset with having another beastkin maid, but I think we can—”
“It’s not a maid,” Hamish said quickly. “He’s a footman and serves as her personal attendant.”
“O-oh. Well…” The lady had experienced a number of surprises today and she was getting just the tiniest bit tired of it. She just wanted a normal calm day again. “I think even the beastkin being a man will achieve the same results sadly. Then I suppose there is really only one more question to ask.” Both of her siblings looked at her. “Who wants to tell Mr. Williams?” And just like that both of them looked away from Rayne. “Right, it seems the choice has been made for me.”
~~~
All the staff patiently waited for Mr. Williams to take his seat at the dinner table before they all sat down. However tonight was different than most, instead of the butler taking his seat and all joining him, he waved them down and spoke. “I have some announcements to make, but I am sure all of you are capable of both eating and listening at the same time.” Eda gave him an approving nod from the other end of the table.
“First, starting the day after tomorrow,” Mr. Williams said, turning to Hannah. The fox knew where this was going and though she felt happy by it, she still didn’t like being the focus of everyone’s attention. “Hannah will be taking over any and all library duties and acting as our librarian. If any of you have neglected to sign out books you took or forgotten to return some, I suggest that you take care of that tomorrow as the first order of business will be to do a full inventory.”
Hannah couldn’t help but smile and blush. She was going to be the librarian. How life had changed for the better so fast. There were a few nods of acknowledgement from around the table, and even a few smiles pointed at Hannah’s way. Two of those came from Neila and Derek and that made Hannah happier than she would have expected. Of course there was one scoff of disapproval from one member of staff.
“If you are upset to hear that, Anna, I fear you are going to continue to be upset by the rest of the news,” Mr. Williams said with a glance towards Anna. Being called out made the blonde maid flush lightly and Hannah found she also enjoyed that. Mr. Williams addressed the table again. “With Hannah’s background as a teacher, Lady Hayward has kindly offered for any and all of us to continue to seek an education with her during the day. If any of you do wish to take Lady Hayward and Hannah up on this offer please come see me and her so we can arrange times.”
Anna opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Eda. “I would recommend brushing up on your Treysian for those of you who might interact with guests during the season. I think it would really impress some of the other houses to have a staff well versed in Treysian.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” The butler said with a nod.
Hannah started mentally preparing teaching plans for Treysian. She really hoped some of the staff would take up the offer.
“Does this mean you’ll be teaching me during the day?” Derek asked Hannah. “Even when we're meant to be working?”
Hannah nodded. “It’ll be part of your work day to have lessons, and we’ll do it in the library too.” That made the boy’s eyes go a little wide.
“Continuing on,” Mr .Williams started, not intending to cut off conversation but to just get through the announcements. “As of now, during the season we will have two guests staying with us. Mr. Vestar will be coming to us all the way from Casiden and is set to arrive in five to six weeks. We will also be hosting Lady Keating for the entire duration of the season.”
Eda quietly spoke to Hannah next to her. “Mr. Vestar is a business partner of Lady Haywards, and Lady Keating is their second cousin.” Hannah gave a brief and quiet thanks for explaining who their visitors were. No doubt most if not all of the staff already knew this.
“I also need to mention that though the Haywards have never allowed this before, Lady Keating will be bringing a beastkin with her for this stay.” Now that took nearly everyone by surprise, including Eda.
“There’s going to be another one?!” Anna asked, clearly upset. “We’re going to have to share our bathroom with another animal?”
Mr. Williams took a deep breath. “Yes, there will be another beastkin in our midst, but fear not, you will not be sharing a bathroom with him because he will be sharing the male staff’s. I expect everyone to treat him with the same respect you would any other staff, just like we do with Hannah. They will be arriving in a week or two and I will have a more exact date in a few days. Regardless of how long we have before either of our guests arrive, we will start preparing for them now.” Mr. Williams finished off with a curt nod before sitting down to start his dinner, signaling there were no more announcements.
Hannah felt a strange mix of excitement and apprehension with the arrival of another kin. She was excited that she would no longer be the lone non-human and would have someone to talk to about non-human things. She was apprehensive because she hadn’t had much interaction with other kin in a good while. The most interaction she had had since being bought by the Strawfords was picking up groceries from a kin who worked for wherever they got groceries. She hadn’t had a proper conversation with another kin in years and that was a little nerve wracking. However it would feel wonderful to talk in her native tongue again. Also meant she could have conversations with him that no one else understood. She could complain about the humans and they would never know. The fox decided that she was going to make the most of this, regardless of the nerves she felt.
