Book One of The Master Collection
In desperate need of a way to support his family, Eli goes for a position as a Noble's servant, a bratty 17 year old whose attitude is difficult for even his family to handle. When Eli is picked, he soon finds out t...
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When Eli was done taking care of the dishes in the kitchen and put them all away, he went to join his Master in the library upstairs. A small sum of guilt hung over him after thinking so long about what had been said between him and the Young Master. Being spurned in the manner he had made Eli wonder if something was wrong with him. Sure, he was a deprived servant, but was it a crime to want a cordial connection with the person he worked under? He wanted his Master to trust him, to talk to him, build something other than being the person he orders around...
Instead of having to climb the stairs to the library, Eli found Master Jasper at the front doors of the manor. He was standing in the large threshold with his arms crossed, watching whatever was on the other side.
Eli joined him, "You look troubled."
"I am," the Young Master announced with gloom in his tone, "They are here."
Looking out onto the crescent pathway before the manor, Eli watched along with his Master as an entire family, by the looks of it, emerged from two separate stagecoaches. An elderly couple and two middle aged men with wives on their arms, exited the first, and from the second came a younger batch of teenagers. There were four of them along with a pair of children.
From the luggage rooted to the tops of the coaches, Eli got the quick impression that these people were moving into the numerous other guestrooms the manor had to offer.
Master Jasper went on. "They are here for my stepmother's thirty-eighth birthday. Her side of what you can call a family."
A little girl who looked around eight years old, alongside a boy her age ran up the steps to the door. She looked up at the Young Master, and said, "Hello, Jasper, you remember me, don't you?"
"Yes, Lily," the Master said, frostily, "I remember you from every year you come to see your Aunt Scarlett."
"You remember me, too, right, Jasper?" came the little dark haired boy.
The Young Master rolled his eyes, "Yes, William."
With smiles of merriment, the children scurried into the manor, and ran upstairs to explore the endless corridors and rooms.
Two brunette teenagers, brother and sister, came up the stairs now. The brother was the eldest of the two in black fall front trousers, and a white wingtip shirt with a maroon vest over it. His hair was parted to the side and laid flat. He wasn't too attractive in the face, though, with a jaw that was too square and a nose too pointy. His sister, on the other, was stunning as a rose with straight sleek hair to the bottom of her ears, and she wore a long sleeved cherry blossom gown that showed off her nice shoulders. Their names were Bolton and Audrey.
"Hello, yet again, cousin," Bolton said, his smile made Eli want to look away.
Master Jasper said, "You are not my cousin, neither of you."
"By marriage."
"That does not count in my book. I already have Jacob and Maxwell, unfortunately. I do not need the rest of you."
