Fairchild's 7 Daughters-The 12: Book One

17. An Answer

            The very next day Jessop walked into the kitchen and nearly right back out again when he saw his aunt and uncle sitting at the table. He had just come from working his horse and though he wanted to get out of his riding clothes he would rather be in the stables than deal with them at the moment.

"You can't keep dancing around the problem," Harold St. Cloud said stopping Jessop in the doorway. "These girls need an answer."

"Uncle, won't any of you give me rest?"

"Not when a life is in the balance," Harold said.

Jessop leaned against the doorjamb and lit a cigarette. "You know, he could be guilty."

Harold struck the table. "Dare you slander a good man!" He billowed. "I swear, Jessop you don't have a soul. Your personal affairs are none of my business, but you need to put them aside and help a fellow human being!"

Jessop let the smoke roll out his mouth and nostrils. He had never seen his uncle explode that way before. "Fine." He shrugged and flicked the ash off his cigarette. "Send them to my office.

Kitty jumped up from the table and applauded. "Oh, thank you!" she said and hugged him. "This makes me so very glad. You see, Harold. I told you he'd come around."

Jessop met eyes with his uncle over his aunt's back. Harold wasn't too convinced he was willing to help. Jessop broke the embrace and smiled at his aunt.

"I'll be in my office," he said over his shoulder as he walked out the room.

Selene and Taitiann were coming in from the garden when Mr. St. Cloud approached them and told them that Jessop wanted to see them. Knowing this could be the deciding moment the sisters joined hands and let him lead them to his nephew's office.

Jessop was presiding over the room like a great eagle when they entered. He sat beneath the buck head at his desk surrounded by various trophies and certificates. Mr. St. Cloud closed the door behind them. He wouldn't leave them alone with his narcissistic nephew to be devoured.

"So," Jessop began, "you girls want to hire me to free you father is that right?" Both sisters nodded. "And he has been imprisoned for murder?"

"But falsely accused," Taitiann managed to get out before Jessop held up his hand to silence her.

"I have been well informed on your case." He glanced at his uncle. "I have never seen anything like it before. It would appear to me that someone holds a grudge against your family. These family feuds, they can be generations old."

"This is not about a feud," Selene said approaching the desk. "My father has been blamed for something he did not do and he will hang if someone doesn't help."

"I know," Jessop said averting his eyes to one of his trophies so he couldn't see the desperation in her dark slender face. "Which is why I regret to say I cannot help you."

Selene felt like a shackle had been closed around her neck. She gapped at the wall just beyond his head as she replayed what he had said in her mind. Mr. St Cloud was shouting something but Selene couldn't hear it. Jessop was contradicting him but Selene couldn't hear it. Silent tears rolled down her face as she pushed off the desk. She fumbled her way to the door and pushed it open. She felt her heart would burst out of her chest.

Crossing the hall she hurried down the stairs and out the French doors that lead to the north garden at the front of the house. The garden was the largest, its hedge wall running on either said of the driveway. There she found a bench where she sat beneath a statue of a woman with two fingers to her head in mourning.