Chapter Text
It was just a fact of boarding schools that students would have to learn to deal with homesickness. Every September, the newest school kids would be driven up through the gates of Eden Academy, and once they had been divided into their respective Halls, they would be introduced to their matron, who would be acting as their surrogate mother figure for the rest of their school careers.
Damian knew this. He went through the heartless ritual himself. Only, it wasn’t his parents that had dropped him off at the school gates, in stark contrast to every other child in the school. And even if they did, Damian knew that they wouldn’t have bothered to reassure him with promises to call or visit every weekend, or at the earliest opportunity of school leave. There were no kisses or hugs goodbye, even in the Desmond family home.
Instead, his father looked stoically on, while his mother was nowhere to be found.
“You must do your best to uphold the Desmond name,” his father had said gruffly, while six-year-old Damian nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes, Father!”
If his mother had even noticed that he was leaving for school, Damian would never know.
While other students learned to cope with homesickness, Damian wondered if he would ever know what homesickness was. What did it mean to miss the place that you grew up in? He didn’t know. He only knew that he missed Max, his beloved dog, and he missed Jeeves’ calm demeanour, and he missed his room.
He did miss his parents. But it was immature to miss your parents, so he put it to the back of his mind, and did his very best to keep it there.
Twelve years later, and though Damian had returned home plenty of times, Damian could never quite forget the conversation that had taken place on the exact stone steps he was now climbing up. Every step forward felt like another needle driving through him. Even though he called it ‘home’, the reality was far from it.
Thankfully, Damian did not have to walk the whole way, as he had allowed Hugh to drive him to the front entrance. Behind him, a gravelled road circumvented the vast expanse of grounds in front of the mansion, intermittent neatly-trimmed lawns paved with gleaming marble, and adorned with majestic fountains and a fleet of neatly-trimmed topiaries.
Only a few steps for the front entrance, and Damian did not wait to be announced.
“Lord Desmond,” Jeeves inhaled a startled gasp when Damian let himself through the elaborate front doors of the Desmond mansion. “I apologise, we have not been expecting you. I’m afraid both Master Demetrius and Lady Desmond are -”
“Good,” Damian breathed a sigh of relief, making a beeline towards the mahogany staircase. He couldn’t be bothered to have to put a ‘face’ on for any of his family, and he hadn’t forgotten his reasons for avoiding his brother - to try to protect Anya’s secrets, in whatever way he could.
“And I won’t be staying long, so there’s no need to prepare dinner for me. I’ll be in the study.”
It took him until when he reached the top of the staircase to realise that Jeeves had defaulted to calling him ‘Lord Desmond’ again. Damian clicked his teeth in annoyance, but he didn’t break his stride to get to his father’s study. The quicker he could get this over with, the quicker he could leave.
It wasn’t like he hated being home. There was still something to be said for the childlike pull to want to keep returning to the only thing that he had in common with his mother and father - which was, where they lived. Plus, if Eden College was closing, then where else could he realistically go? What he’d said to Dr Forger was the truth; that the paparazzi knowing the exact address of his city residence was a huge problem, big enough for him to just sell the place altogether. If he wanted another refuge in the city, Damian would just have to find somewhere else. Somewhere where he could be safe.
Safe…
If only he could continue to stay at the school, but Professor Henderson had already made it clear that it was not an option for Damian, or anyone else for that matter.
As Damian walked further into the colossal mansion that was the Desmond residence, he couldn’t help but wish that it was smaller. Wide, marble corridors gleamed and shone, with every wall adorned with artwork that, he had no doubt, was wildly expensive or valuable, but lacking were any family photographs or personal touches in any corner.
Not only that, but the Desmond mansion was also too still. Though a huge community of straight-backed staff roamed the wide open spaces, from security guards and maids, to cleaners and cooks, it was still all too possible to go for long periods of time without seeing a single soul.
Unlike the Forger’s house, Damian couldn’t help but think, but thinking about the Forger home made his heart ache and his chest feel tight, so he put aside the feeling for now, and instead concentrated on finding his father’s office.
The key that Arnold Handel had passed over fit through the keyhole, thank goodness, and Damian slipped inside.
Heavy curtains choked the bright sunlight, and only a few slivers barely escaped, illuminating the disturbed dust that danced in the air as Damian stepped inside. Even breathing was difficult, given that the place clearly hadn’t been entered into, or aired out, in months, and Damian resisted coughing from the stale air. He left the door open behind him, if just to get some ventilation.
For a terrifying, brief moment, Damian swore he could see the ghost of his father sitting at the desk, writing, as he had done for so many decades of his life. It was eerie, in a way, but it was also somewhat comforting. It was a familiar sight, something that he had become used to for as long as he remembered, and Damian was almost tempted to let it linger there.
But he couldn’t. There was too much to do, and so very little time - he had no idea when Anya would be discharged from the hospital, after which he didn’t want to have to wait for her for even a second longer. At least he had been able to sort out the extra security for Anya’s room before he could go, and Loid and Yor could rest a little easier keeping watch over her.
In the meantime, at least he could keep himself busy with… this. Even though he would rather be anywhere else. (Or, if he was really being honest with himself, he would rather be somewhere in particular… if only they'd have a space to just talk. )
Grateful that the open door brought in some fresh air, Damian threw open the curtains. Donovan’s ghost vanished as light flooded the office.
It was almost startling, to see how the light changed the landscape of his father’s office; the way that it caressed the stacked bookshelves, reflecting briefly off the rows of gleaming leather tomes. Even the singular gold-edged pen that Donovan Desmond used for his signatures lay untouched on the bare surface of the desk, and Damian ran his finger along the edge, noting the thick dust that had gathered.
Well, it couldn’t be helped. Damian used the inside of his elbow to shield his face as he brought down one tome after another, and carelessly stacked them on the desk, billowing clouds of dust.
Damian grabbed the edge of his father’s chair and tugged it backwards, surprised by the weight of it as it scraped against the floor.
And suddenly, Damian stared at the scene before him; the towers of leather tomes, the gilded fountain pen case and sealed ink jar at the edge of the desk, and the imposing desk itself, the only barrier between the chair and the door. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to Damian before just how large it all was, not just physically, but the responsibility of being head of the Desmond family itself.
For decades, his own father had sat in this very chair. Donovan Desmond, the figure that imposed and intimidated and schemed, carried out those very schemes in this very chair, behind this very desk, with the door closed, isolating himself from the rest of the world. For decades, Donovan Desmond’s entire world was limited to the view of only this room.
This was where he dictated Damian’s entire life, made decisions on behalf of the family, held endless business meetings and negotiations, private discussions and more.
Damian had never imagined that he would end up taking his father’s place.
If anything, Damian had always thought that Demetrius would be the one to carry on their father’s work. As the first born son, everyone knew that Demetrius was supposed to follow in his father’s footsteps, so even Damian was shocked to find that he had been named as the heir instead, following Donovan’s arrest. The transition was more challenging than Damian would have ever thought, and a part of him wondered if the reasons why it was so difficult was that Damian had spent the entire time resenting the process and resisting it every step of the way.
The studded leather clung to the wooden frame of the chair, cool to the touch, and more worn than Damian had initially noticed. His father had probably sat in this chair thousands of times. And today, Damian would take his place.
He lowered himself into it, and in the back of his mind, he noticed that he had half-expected it to be too big for him. Part of Damian had always seen this room from the perspective of a child - too big, too intimidating, and too strange. Not somewhere that he could ever hope to belong.
And yet, as Damian ran his hand along the armrest, he couldn’t help but notice how much he had grown, that he could now sit in his father’s chair without any difficulty.
Damian wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that.
He waved the dust out of his face, opened the first tome, and started reading. It was about time that he became familiar with the finer details of his father’s businesses, starting with the finances.
Mr Handel had already instructed Damian in the different branches of the Desmond Group, after which Damian had spent weeks agonisingly reading through all the policies and guidelines that made up the political skeleton of each company. But, none of that would matter unless Damian ground himself in what it was that made a company tick.
He used his index finger to keep track of the columns and entries, as he made notes on a separate pad, mentally calculating all of the numbers as he went. Clearly, his father was meticulous in his accounting.
But as Damian continued, noting the different categories and expenses, there was a puzzle niggling at the back of his mind.
Something was… missing. He was sure of it.
Damian flipped to the start of the ledger, and started again. There were columns indicating salaries, payroll, expenses, various streams of income, even Donovan’s own remuneration allowance was included in the numbers, as well as the payroll funneled to the mysteriously-named recipients that were obviously the lab in disguise, as well as dividends to Melinda and Damian, and Damian’s allowance, and his mother’s (hefty) allowance, but…
There was no mistake. Everything added up perfectly.
So where was Demetrius?
Damian had thought that he was employed directly by his father, but if that was the case, wouldn’t he have given Demetrius a salary? Dividends? Some kind of allowance?
It was ironic that Donovan’s records were inscrutable. Obviously, if he kept everything in order, he was more likely to have his accounts approved by any external auditors - but Damian found that he was more surprised that Donovan did not rely on simple bribery to get his business past the taxman.
Surprisingly, Donovan was adhering to tax law. And yet. Damian couldn’t erase the puzzle from his mind.
Why would his father omit his firstborn son from all the records?
A knock on the door, and Damian jolted out of his skin.
“Pardon the intrusion, sir,” said Jeeves. “I retrieved some of the more recent correspondence for your attention.”
He held up a silver tray, heaving with so many envelopes that they had to be tied together in bundles.
Damian briefly turned his face skyward, and prayed for patience. If those were only the ‘recent’ letters, he hated to imagine which ones Jeeves had chosen to hold back for a later date. He also couldn’t ignore the possibility that Mr Handel had handled those while Damian was… otherwise absent.
He made a mental note to thank Mr Handel when he could.
“Over here,” he indicated to the other end of the imposing desk. “Let’s get this over with.”
Riiiiip.
The letter opener sliced cleanly through, and Damian scanned the words contained within the letter.
“Tell Clara that I will not be attending the races, and so they don’t need to reserve a seat for me.” He scanned the letter again, and tossed it onto the pile. “Or any other Desmond.”
Pen scritched across paper as Jeeves took precise notes.
Riiiiip.
Another letter, another task.
“Draft a reply to the Glooman’s. We are not looking for another merger at this time, and they should be prioritising their pharmaceutical sales over the products that they had developed under the Desmond Group. They’ll sell better, until things die down.”
Riiiiip.
“The renovation of the East Wing can be delayed for another year, while I recalibrate the estate budget. The invoices for the construction should be put on pause for the time being.”
Riiiiip.
“The Desmond's presence is not needed at the upcoming business meeting. Forward me the minutes to review, and I’ll sign off any major changes at that time.”
Riiiiip.
This time, as Damian scanned the words on the letter, he froze, and he suddenly found that he was unable to swallow.
With a shaking hand, Damian placed the letter delicately on the pile, but when he remained speechless, Jeeves looked up from his notebook with an enquiring stare.
“Sir?”
Damian tried to swallow, to gather any sort of moisture in his parched mouth, but he just couldn’t. He reached over and took a heaving gulp of water from the glass in front of him, half-wishing that he had a whisky instead.
“I…” he started, trying to gather his courage, trying to understand how he could ever respond to such a heinous request. “I won’t go.”
Jeeves remained silent, only eyeing Damian warily.
“I won’t,” Damian repeated, and hand still shaking, he reached for the next envelope, only to find that the enormous pile had mysteriously vanished.
“That was the last one,” said Jeeves quietly.
“Right. Of course,” said Damian, and he didn’t know why it was suddenly hard to breathe. “You may go, Jeeves. Thank you for your assistance.”
He spoke mechanically. Words that had been spoken so many times before were easier to utter, but even Damian could hear the absence of feeling behind it.
“Sir.”
Jeeves’ hesitance was clear, but after a moment, he gave a short bow, and exited swiftly from the office.
Damian waited until he heard the footsteps quieten to nothing, and he leaned back in his father’s chair with a loud sigh , holding his hands to his eyes to block out the sunset.
How was it already sunset? Damian felt as though his eyeballs were going to fall out of his face from all the reading throughout the day. Not to mention that he actually didn’t get to finish going through the ledgers…
… which brought him back to his original puzzle. Where did Demetrius fit into all of this?
Orange light cascaded over the office, and Damian half-wondered if he needed to turn on the light to get back to reading, but before he could get up from his chair again, there was a shadowed figure at the door.
“Jeeves, I assure you I don’t need dinner,” he said sharply, his attention still focused on the ledgers before him.
But it wasn’t Jeeves that spoke back.
“A pity. I had so hoped that we could have a little chat, just mother and son.”
“Mother,” he greeted her respectfully, though with a touch of surprise. “I thought that you were…?”
He quickly realised that he had no idea where she was, only that she was ‘busy’.
Melinda smiled, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes, and Damian hoped that he hadn’t offended her.
“Well the moment that I heard my son was home, I decided to clear my schedule. It’s not every day that we get to catch up!”
“Er,” said Damian, not knowing how to react. Clearly, his mother had expected him to perform with her, and lean into the image of being a family together, but if he was being completely honest, Damian had no clue how.
All through his school years, Damian had only reached towards one goal; to make his father proud of him. Every Stella earned was only awarded because of Damian’s grit and determination in the mission of getting his father’s attention, and when he phoned home, he only asked after his father. In all that time, Damian rarely paid attention to his mother. Or rather, he paid her the same level of attention that she gave him.
All this to say, that Damian was no better than a stranger to his mother, and vice versa.
Even so, he couldn’t help but feel the intrinsic urge to hope - an urge that was so deeply ingrained in Damian, that it overrode his desire to ask his mother why she was so insistent on keeping up this familial facade. Because, even though there was an element of estrangement between them, Damian still couldn’t bring himself to be anything less than the perfect son.
“I still have a lot of work to do,” said Damian, indicating to the piles of heavy tomes on the desk.
“Damian, please,” said his mother, and something in her tone made him pause.
Please, she had said. Melinda Desmond never said ‘please’ - not even to his father, if Damian remembered correctly. Every time he had seen her, she was always so measured, so restrained in both her actions and her words. And yet, she had said ‘please’. Did she really want to spend time with him that badly?
“All right then,” he conceded, and rose from his father’s chair. “I can stay for dinner. It has been a while…”
Melinda sagged with visible relief, her eyes crinkled in a warm smile. She gently placed her elegantly manicured hand at the edge of her pearl necklace, just hidden beneath the collar of her cream chiffon blouse, as if in some gesture of deference.
“After you, then.”
Outside his father’s office, Damian locked the door behind him, before heading towards the dining room, with his mother following closely in step behind him.
Words and possible conversation starters bubbled up in his throat, before dissipating at the edge of his tongue. Every urge to say something fizzled just as fast as it appeared, and it occurred to Damian that he genuinely couldn’t remember the last time that they both had a proper conversation. Just as quickly as he had been convinced to dine with his mother for the evening, Damian found himself wondering if this was really such a good idea.
He cast a quick glance back at his mother, trying to gauge whether she too was affected by the silence between them, growing only more awkward by the second. Her eyes were unreadable, in the sense that she had them downcast, and her hands folded primly in front of her, as though she was on her way to a funeral.
Damian had only seen that look on her a handful of times before; every time that she was with his father.
He didn’t let his steps falter, or betray the sudden uneasiness that he felt, because now he couldn’t help but wonder if his mother really wanted to see him, or because she felt obliged to keep up appearances as his mother.
“Damian, wait! Don’t go that way!” his mother panicked, and Damian halted.
“It’s quicker to go through the East Wing, isn’t it?” he asked, slightly aware that he had been following a mental map from his childhood, and he wondered if he had got the directions completely wrong.
“It’s not safe down that way,” she explained in a breathy voice, like she was trying to get the words out in a rush. “The renovations are far from finished, and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt…”
Damian glanced down the corridor that he had been about to pass through. At first glance, he would never have been able to tell that the wing was closed for renovations - but after a moment, he noticed the canvas paint covers draped over every artwork, the stray ladder and open tool kit, as well as the distinct lack of ornamental adornments or carefully-placed flowers on each side table.
“I see,” said Damian simply, but he didn’t look away from the long corridor, instead feeling as though something was keeping his gaze there. Perhaps it was just curiosity, but Damian couldn’t shake the feeling of being pulled towards it, somehow…
“Damian,” his mother tugged him on his elbow, breaking him out of his trance. “We can go this way.”
“Right. Of course…”
Again, Damian started walking, and again, Melinda fell into step just slightly behind him.
Almost ten minutes later, they arrived at the smaller dining room, the one that was reserved for family get-togethers and slightly more private gatherings. Damian wondered how old he was the last time that he had eaten dinner with his family in this room.
He could picture it: his father and mother sitting stoically at opposite ends of the table, while Damian and Demetrius would sit somewhere in the middle, on opposite sides, but not quite facing each other. They were torturous events, only because Donovan seemed to prefer dining in silence, while Damian desperately scrambled for anything to say so that he could break that awful, endless, oppressive silence, and every time, the words just got stuck in his throat. He could almost see the ghosts of all of their past selves, as they were when he was just six years old.
His mother walked through them all, and their ethereal forms dissipated into the air.
“As soon as I heard that you were here, I asked Sebastian to cook your favourite,” she said with a fleeting smile, and hovered anxiously next to her usual seat at the end.
“Oh,” said Damian, again with some measure of surprise. “Thank you. That was… thoughtful.”
Initially he reached for the seat at the other end of the table opposite to hers - the logical choice, if their dinner was as formal as he suspected.
Damian lowered himself into the chair, noticing that his mother waited until he was seated first, before she sat herself. Something twisted in his gut - and when the first course arrived, his suspicions were only confirmed.
Scallops, lightly seared and drizzled in a buttery aromatic sauce - and Melinda only started to eat it after Damian himself had taken the first bite.
Damian reached first for the wine - a smooth white, no doubt specifically paired to go with the scallops - and gulped down a large mouthful, hoping that it would give him just the piece of courage that he needed.
Damian put his knife and fork down together on his plate, gathered it up along with his wine, and stood from his seat.
“What are you doing, Damian?” panicked Melinda, leaning so far back from him that it could have been insulting.
“Coming to sit next to you,” Damian replied like it was obvious, and he put his plate down at the table setting next to hers, while his mother recoiled, and the staff hurried to pull his chair out to seat him, and in mere seconds, the entire table had been rearranged to make it look like he was meant to have sat there the entire time.
“Why?” she said, appearing completely bewildered. “That’s not - but you’re the head of the - it isn’t your place -”
“My place,” Damian emphasised the word with bitterness, “is wherever I want it to be, not wherever tradition dictates.”
“But -”
“I’ve already taken my father’s seat once today. I think once is enough,” he gave her an awkward grin. “Plus, it’s easier to talk like this.”
Once again, Melinda stared at Damian in utter bemusement, though she still had the presence of mind not to drop her jaw.
“Talk?”
Though his body tensed at the feeling of being in such an unfamiliar situation, and his mouth was too dry from the nerves of speaking to his mother like this, Damian pressed on, trying not to let his discomfort show.
“You did say that ‘there were matters to attend to at the estate’,” he quoted her, halfway through spearing another slice of scallop. He popped it into his mouth, noticing at the same time that his mother looked a little embarrassed.
“Well,” she said, her eyes downcast, and reached for her own glass of wine, which was already much emptier than Damian’s by comparison. “It’s hard to do… all of this… on my own…” Her voice steadily grew quieter, until she silenced herself with a long sip.
If Damian hadn’t been raised to be a gentleman, his jaw would have dropped right there. It was the first time that he had ever heard his mother admit anything like that. Melinda Desmond had a reputation of her own to uphold as the wife of Chairman Donovan Desmond - and though no-one expected her to find it easy, it was no secret that the wives’ of the political elite were expected to bear their duties with little more than a graceful smile.
The fact that she had admitted to Damian (without much prodding) that she found her position anything less than easy, was akin to admitting that one found horse races tedious, and flights to tropical destinations distasteful.
“I was looking over the ledgers,” Damian admitted, thinking back to the enormous leather tomes that lay open on his father’s desk upstairs. “I remember that you and Jeeves’ were both intent for me to come back here. Was one of the ‘matters at the estate’ that Demetrius is likely owed a huge sum of money?”
Melinda nearly choked on her wine.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It just doesn’t add up,” Damian continued, and frowned at his plate. “Father’s calculations were meticulous. He accounted for everything. He didn’t - he doesn’t make mistakes like that.”
But when he raised his gaze once again to meet his mother’s, it was clear that she was taken aback.
“Really, Damian, do you think I would know what your father was thinking? I’m sure he had his reasons.”
She laid her silverware flat together on the unfinished plate, and in less than three seconds it was whisked away by a nearby waiting staff, and replaced by a new plate of food for the next course: lobster thermidor, with a grilled courgette and lemon salad.
With the new silverware, Melinda cut a delicate slice of lemon, so thin that Damian could see through it, and ate it whole.
She must have noticed him staring at her strange eating habits, but Melinda said nothing on the topic, and instead continued to eat the lemon with the practiced elegance of a First Lady.
“Er,” Damian cleared his throat, and for the life of him tried to think of something to say.
“Speaking of your father,” said Melinda, just as delicately as she sliced the lemon (Stop looking at the lemon!) , “are you planning to go to the trial?”
Damian recalled the envelope that he had callously tossed onto the top of the pile of letters. “No,” he said curtly.
“He’s your father,” said his mother, though she did not raise her voice, sounding as though her words were rehearsed. It made Damian think of Demetrius. “You should show support. That’s what family is supposed to do.”
Damian swallowed his anger, along with another large gulpful of wine.
Family?
His gaze raked over the mostly-empty table, the generous attendance of waiting staff, and the lone presence of his mother, ironically drowned out by the staff numbers.
The first thought that came to his mind was one of rebellion, because why should he go? What would he even say? Would he tell the court that his father was a monster? That he allowed children to be experimented on and tortured?
Damian didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he raised his gaze back to his mother, and asked her a simple question:
“Are you going?”
Melinda’s posture stiffened, ever so slightly. “Of course,” she said tightly.
“Why?”
It was a genuine question on Damian’s part, but he still expected his mother to take offense, and yet it was a surprise when she looked so thoughtful.
“I have no choice,” she said eventually, and her gaze hardened over. “I must comply with the authorities. You have no idea how… humiliating it was for them to take Donovan away like that, like he was just some - some criminal!”
Damian paused his movement, fork in midair, staying as still as he dared, eyeing the side of his mother that he never knew existed.
“They ransacked my belongings, my home, they took Demetrius and questioned him, they questioned me - and I had no choice but to cooperate, to stay in my place,” she said the word just as bitterly as Damian did, and her grip tightened on the glass stem. “So of course I have to go and watch him give up in front of the entire world.”
There was a pause, as Damian softened, seeing the telltale sheen in his mother’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and Melinda startled at his words, almost as if she had forgotten that he was there. “That sounds… hard.”
“There’s no need to apologise,” Melinda looked away, her jaw tense. “This family had been through worse. And we’ve always survived.”
“Yes,” Damian agreed, thinking of his father’s arrest, of Demetrius’ past as a test subject, of Anya’s distraught reaction to finding out what Damian’s own father had done to her, of the video that he had seen of her past.
“But, I - I could’ve been here with you,” Damian swallowed. “I could have made sure you weren’t alone. I didn’t know…”
And he didn’t know what had possessed him in that moment - he only knew that when he was sad, it was touch that helped to ground him - but he reached for his mother’s hand, covering it with his own, and his thumb brushed over the diamonds of her bracelet.
Melinda smiled tightly at him, and her posture stiffened, but she did not pull away.
“I suppose… I need to know the truth,” Melinda continued, her eyes misted over with some mix of remembrance and sorrow.
With her other hand, she swilled the wine in its glass, and Damian wondered if she too was watching the swirls of light that passed through it.
“Is the man I married the same man who promised to support me? The same man who agreed to provide for me and my family?” She lifted the glass to her eye and continued: “We made an agreement when we married. I just wanted…”
She extricated her hand from Damian’s, placing it on her lap, out of Damian’s view.
“But he abandoned us,” she said bitterly, putting the wine glass down on the table with restrained movements. “He chose to leave us, and he left us all behind, cleaning up his mess.”
“What do you mean, he ‘chose’ to leave us?”said Damian carefully, and as the words left his mouth, he remembered a crucial detail that he hadn’t thought about for a long time:
He was wearing his best suit.
“I really thought that he would have stopped the articles from being published, or he would have put his best lawyers into discrediting the whole thing. I never imagined that he would just… give up.”
Damian couldn’t wrap his head around it. That didn’t sound like the father that he knew.
Melinda blinked, and dabbed at the corner of her eye, before giving Damian an apologetic smile.
“That was terribly uncouth of me. I hope you’ll forgive your dear mother.”
“It’s all right,” said Damian automatically, at the same time that a couple of attending staff members refilled their glasses of wine, while a few others whisked the empty plates away.
Distract with the bottles, decrease the clutter on the table, all without speaking, all in a matter of seconds. It was a system that had been in place for Damian’s entire life, and yet he had never noticed it until now. Clearly, the staff had been instructed to attend to the Desmonds in very specific ways, likely according to his father’s tastes, and anything less than perfect was a terrible insult.
It occurred to Damian, again, that his father’s methods were too systematic to be a fluke. If his actions were as tightly controlled as his accounts, then it was no mistake that control extended to every part of Donovan’s life: even controlling his son’s allowance, his staff’s training, his wife’s hobbies and projects, and his entire estate.
“How…” Damian almost hesitated to say it. “How much did Father leave you with?”
Melinda shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and in her discomfort, Damian sensed her answer.
“Really? Nothing?”
“Well, I have… Oh, my, this is so embarrassing,” she chuckled lightly, though she turned a flustered shade of red. “Asking my own son for money. It hardly seems elegant, does it?”
Damian considered her. Given their situation, it wasn’t exactly an odd request for someone to make of the family head - and for reasons beyond his understanding, that mantle had somehow fallen to Damian. No wonder his own mother was so awkward around him, so stiff and yet clearly trying to make an effort - because she had been indoctrinated into the facades of high society, and that included recognising a single member as ‘head’ of the family. For years, that role had been his father’s, and now Melinda had to walk the delicate balancing act of acknowledging the family head, while also reconciling with the fact that it was her son. Damian wondered if his mother was awkward around Donovan, too, and if she had ever been embarrassed to ask him for anything.
“I had planned to review the estate budget today, but I didn’t have time to recalculate it,” said Damian quietly, slowly, imbuing his words with the promise. “I’ll review your allowance as well.”
Melinda smiled, self-conscious but demure. “That would be very much appreciated.”
There was a pause, as the two Desmonds wondered how next to fill the silence.
“It suits you,” she murmured.
Damian started. “What?”
“The Desmond mantle,” Melinda traced her fingers delicately around the rim of her wine glass, avoiding eye contact. “You’ve grown into it well.”
“Oh,” said Damian, a sudden tide of emotion welling up in him, and he blinked hard.
Damian nodded wordlessly, and reached for his glass of wine again, mostly as a distraction from his internal experience, but just as he let the pale liquid touch his lips, there was a sharp rap at the door, milliseconds before Jeeves burst into the room.
“Lord Desmond,” Jeeves bowed quickly, urgently. “We received a phone call from Dr Forger-”
Damian leapt to his feet, wine spilling into the tablecloth.
“I have to go,” he gasped out, glancing apologetically at his mother, before returning his attention to Jeeves. “Is she-?”
“Out of hospital,” Jeeves finished for him, and moved out of the way for Damian to pass him. “Hugh is waiting in the car to take you.”
But just as Damian crossed the threshold of the doorway, he turned back, to give his mother a quick goodbye, but he didn’t get the chance to get the words out before his mother spoke first.
“Give dear Anya my regards,” said Melinda, rising from her seat, clearly done with her meal now that Damian was leaving . “I must thank her at some point for saving your life.”
“I-” Damian stammered, momentarily stunned. “You knew?”
He hoped that just that one phrase would cover all of the questions he had: You knew about Anya? About who she is to me? About what she did for me?
Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised, given that his father had also known exactly who Anya was - though he had tried to use that information against Damian, to destabilise him.
“I like to think that I can keep up,” she shrugged, and gestured for him to leave. “Go on, I wouldn’t want to keep you.”
Damian nodded, dazed, and turned away, but paused as one last thought came to his mind.
“Thanks for dinner,” he said, casting her one last glance. “It was… nice.”
And then he was gone, with his heart in his throat, the taste of wine on his lips, and his mind reeling with thoughts of her.