Page 14 of The Mad Marchams

Colin ate three slices of bacon and some overcooked scrambled eggs before finishing up with some toast and marmalade. His grandmother still insisted on a full cooked breakfast every morning, which since he’d been away from home suddenly seemed like a great idea.

“Is Father in his study?” Colin asked.

There was a silence before Freddy cleared his throat and said, “He’s in his bedroom.”

Colin met Freddy’s level stare. Things must be worse than he’d realized if his father wasn’t making the effort to come down for breakfast. It had always been an unwritten rule of the house that you staggered down to eat, or you were ready to be declared dead.

“I’ll go up and see him.” He glanced over at Mabel. “Will you be okay here for a bit?”

“Sure.”

Freddy poured himself and Mabel another cup of tea and settled back into his seat as though he was happy to stay there all day.

“Off you trot, Viz. I’ll take care of her.”

“I bet you will,” Colin muttered.

He nodded to his sister and grandmother and went back into the hallway. It was hard to remember exactly when he and Freddy had stopped being best friends and became…

What had they become? They weren’t exactly enemies, but Colin constantly had the sense he had failed to live up to his brother’s expectations somehow. But he had failed. Up until five years ago or so, he’d been a complete idiot.

Turning into the main hall, he walked up the shallow steps to the first floor and the minstrel’s gallery landing and headed for the master suite. His feet sank into the Victorian patterned carpet, which had withstood hundreds of muddy Marcham feet and their dogs and was badly faded as a result. The more he looked about him, the bigger the task became. The house needed a lot of work, and that burden rightly or wrongly fell on him.

He tapped on the door of his father’s suite and waited to enter until he heard a faint response. The curtains were still drawn, and his gaze went to the huge four-poster bed in the centre of the room where his father sat up against a pile of pillows. He always thought of his father as a large, intimidating figure, but he appeared to have shrunk in the last six months. Masking his shock, Colin moved closer.

“Good morning, Father.”

“Colin?”

His father removed his spectacles and set aside his newspaper. On his knees was a tray bearing the remains of his breakfast.

Needing something to do with his hands, Colin removed the tray and set it on the table beside the bed. “How are you?”

“I wish you had told me you were coming. I would’ve made more of an effort to get out of this damned bed.”

Colin drew up a chair and sat down. “You look very comfortable. Please don’t bother to move on my account.”

“You look brown. Where have you been for the last few months? On holiday again?”

“No, I’ve been working. I had to go out to California to see one of my clients, so I spent a couple of days sightseeing.”

“Working.” His father grunted. “Is that what they call it these days?”

Colin kept his pleasant smile firmly in place. His father had every right to believe that Colin was a freeloading Hooray Henry who spent his entire life partying with the likes of Pippa Middleton. But Colin had changed, and it was frustrating his father refused to believe it.

“Anyway, you are back now. There are a few things we need to discuss about the estate.”

“I know,” Colin said gently. “That’s why Edward asked me to come down here.”

“You only turned up because our family solicitor invited you? Not because you wished to see your own father?”

“Not at all. I wanted to see you, but⁠—”

“But you thought you’d come down just to make sure.”

“To make sure of what?” Colin held his father’s gaze. “My inheritance? God knows, I’ve been avoiding that for years. What makes you think I would suddenly be interested in it now?”

“Because I’m dying?”