MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 31 - Thirty-One: Noose

//CLARA//

In the twenty-first century, I could have blocked a toxic relative with a thumb-swipe. In 1870, I had to sit in the drawing room and watch Aunt Cornelia’s glare sharpen until it was a wonder the upholstery wasn’t bleeding.

Two weeks had passed and Oliver’s visits were becoming a permanent fixture in the Guggenheim estate.

Today, he was explaining the latest adjustments to the Linotype prototype, his hands sketching diagrams in the air. I listened, nodded, interjected with marketing strategies that made his eyebrows climb.

"Slow down," he said, laughing. "You want to offer the first fifty newspapers a discount if they sign a five-year exclusivity contract? That’s—that’s genius, but also slightly terrifying."

"I’m going to pretend you didn’t say slightly." I grinned. "I’m aiming for absolutely terrifying."

The sound of the door opening cut through our laughter. Higgins appeared in the doorway.

"Mr. Vanderbilt to call upon Miss Thorne."

Bartholomew swept in, all polished charm. His eyes flicking to Oliver with a disdain so thick you could have carved it.

"Oh, I didn’t know you had a caller today, Eleanor." His voice dripped with disdain. "Mr. Whitfield seems to be monopolizing your social calendar. How... devoted of him."

Oliver started to stand, but I caught his sleeve and tugged him back down. He looked at me, surprised, but I kept my eyes fixed on Bartholomew as I spoke.

"Mr. Whitfield is a man of many talents, Mr. Vanderbilt. Being devoted is just the one you seem to struggle to recognize."

Bartholomew’s lip curled. He turned his back on us, addressing Aunt Cornelia, who sat in her armchair like a vulture in silk.

"May I have a word with you, Cornelia? In private?"

"Of course, Bartholomew," Aunt Cornelia said, her voice carrying all the warmth of a tomb. "Let us go to the library."

Before she left, she turned and fixed me with a look that could have curdled milk. Her eyes traveled from my face to where my hand still rested on Oliver’s sleeve, and something ugly flickered across her features.

The door clicked shut behind them.

"I think she just murdered me with her gaze," Oliver joked quietly, letting out a breath he had been holding. He touched his chest as if checking for wounds. "Am I still breathing?"

"You’re fine, Oliver. She just hates that I’m enjoying myself without her permission."

The door opened again. This time, Casimir walked in like he owned the room and everyone in it, which I suppose was technically true. His hair was slightly disheveled, his cravat loosened as if he had been pulling at it. He stopped when he saw Oliver.

"Mr. Whitfield." He said it the way one might acknowledge a stain on a favorite rug. "You’re here again."

"Mr. Guggenheim." Oliver rose with that easy politeness that seemed to come naturally to him. "Just going over some business with Miss Thorne."

Casimir’s eyes moved to the papers scattered across the table before settling on me. I watched him take in the scene. Something moved behind his eyes, there and gone before I could name it.

I smiled at him, all innocence. "We were just discussing exclusivity contracts and market penetration."

His expression did not change, but I caught the almost invisible clench of his back teeth and the way his shoulders pulled back a fraction tighter beneath his coat.

"I’m sure you were." He kept his voice even, controlled. "And how is that progressing?"

"Oliver has wonderfully skilled hands." I leaned back in my chair and crossed one leg over the other, letting my skirt ride up just enough to be noticed. "Very precise with his demonstrations."

Oliver shrugged, completely oblivious to the undercurrent running through the room.

"I tend to ramble when I get excited about something. Eleanor’s been patient with me."

"Ramble away." I waved a hand. "I find enthusiasm terribly attractive in a business partner."

Oliver laughed, missing entirely the way Casimir’s posture went rigid and his fingers pressed white against his palms before he caught himself. I pretended not to notice either.

The door opened again, and this time the air in the room changed before anyone even spoke.

Aunt Cornelia swept back in like a general returning from a victorious campaign. Bartholomew trailed behind her with that smug expression he wore like cologne, and I could see exactly what had transpired in that library.

She had come to his rescue.

Casimir straightened beside me, the mask sliding into place so fast I almost admired it. One moment he was a man barely containing himself. The next he was marble.

"I am afraid that Mr. Whitfield will have to leave."

She looked at me sharply. Her tone was the one she used to tell a servant they had missed a spot. It was dismissive, condescending, and brooking no argument.

"We aren’t finished." I did not dare give her an inch.

Her eyes narrowed. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." I held her gaze. "We aren’t finished."

"Eleanor." Her voice rose, cracking through the room’s forced civility. "You are being stubborn and incredibly improper. A lady does not entertain a man of questionable prospects in her drawing room for hours on end. It is unseemly."

Oliver stood, his face flushing. He glanced at me, then at Aunt Cornelia, then at Bartholomew.

"I—I apologize, Ms. Guggenheim." He gathered his papers with quiet dignity. "Eleanor, I should go. I wouldn’t want to sow discord."

"Oliver—"

"Good day, Mr. Whitfield." Aunt Cornelia’s eyes had already dismissed him.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Aunt Cornelia rounded on me. "You will stop this. Immediately."

I crossed my arms. "No."

Her face went red, mottled patches rising on her neck.

"No? You presume to tell me no? I am the mistress of this house. You will do as I say."

"I’ll do as I please."

"You’ll do as you’re told!" Her voice cracked with fury. "You will spend your time with Bartholomew and you will remember your place."

Bartholomew shifted behind her, adjusting his cuffs with practiced nonchalance. But I caught the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. He had whined and complained until the old bat marched in to fix the problem for him.

I looked past Aunt Cornelia and fixed my eyes on him.

"Tell me, Mr. Vanderbilt." My voice was silk over steel. "Did it chafe, having to run to my aunt because a woman wouldn’t give you her undivided attention?"

His smile faltered. "I don’t know what you mean."

"Don’t you?" I tilted my head. "You arrived, saw me occupied, and within minutes you had dragged her off to the library to whisper about how terribly neglected you feel. It must be exhausting, being a grown man who needs a chaperone to fight his battles."

"Eleanor!" Aunt Cornelia stepped forward. "You will not speak to Bartholomew that way. He has only ever shown you courtesy and—"

"Courtesy." I laughed incredulously. "Is that what we’re calling it when a man runs to tattle because a woman dared to have a conversation that wasn’t about him?"

Bartholomew’s jaw tightened. "I have only ever acted in your best interest, Eleanor."

"My best interest."

I rose slowly, calmly smoothing my skirts, letting him see that he mattered less to me than the dust on the windowsill.

"How convenient that my best interest always seems to involve giving you exactly what you want. And when I don’t, you bring her." I nodded toward Aunt Cornelia. "Like a boy fetching his mother."

"That’s enough." Casimir’s voice cut through the room like a blade.

I turned to him. He stood rigid, caught between the women in his life, between duty and something else.

"She cannot speak to guests this way," Aunt Cornelia said to him, as if I weren’t standing right there. "She needs to be controlled. Reined in. If you won’t do it, someone else will have to."

Casimir’s jaw tightened and his eyes met mine for the briefest moment. I searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking, whether he meant it as an apology or a warning, but I could not tell.

"Eleanor."

Something cold and sharp lodged itself in my chest at the name he called me. Eleanor, the ward. The responsibility. Not the woman he’d had against a bookshelf.

"Apologize to Mr. Vanderbilt. Now."

I stared at him, baffled. What the hell?

"For what? Telling the truth?"

"Eleanor." The edge of his patience showing thin.

I laughed bitterly. "Why, of course."

I turned to Bartholomew and offered him my most polished, insincere smile.

"Forgive me, Mr. Vanderbilt. I forgot myself entirely. Please, do continue running to my aunt whenever I fail to give you the attention you deserve. It’s terribly becoming on a man of your standing."

Bartholomew’s face went red. Aunt Cornelia drew a sharp breath. I turned to her before she could speak.

"And you, Auntie, are absolutely right. I’ve been terribly improper. Entertaining a gentleman who does not meet your approval? Discussing matters that don’t concern me? The scandal."

I pressed a hand to my chest in mock horror. "I’ll endeavor to remember my place from now on."

The silence that followed was deafening.

I looked at Casimir last. Let him see exactly how little his intervention had moved me. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Was that satisfactory, Uncle? Or shall I grovel further?"

He looked at me with something flickering behind his eyes, but whatever it was died before it reached his lips.

I turned and walked out without looking back.

Fuck them all!