Page 8 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

8

London, October 4, 2024

Iris

I discover two things while getting my keys and legal documents. The first is that, in the UK, lawyers are called solicitors. The second is that, regardless of what they’re called, my mother had a type when it came to legal representation. It’s not just the fact that Albert Fallis also has a lewd-adjacent name. There’s something eager and possessive in the way he speaks to me, a malicious twinkle in his eye, like he knows a secret I don’t.

Joke’s on him. I’m the one with a secret neither he nor Dickie Cox will find out about until it’s too late.

“So lovely to meet the newest Goldaming. Such a legacy.” He taps his fingers against his thumbs as though pinching the air between them. He’s shelled in layers of tweed with a scarf so large he could retreat into it if threatened. A pale white hermit crab of a human.

The whole office is wood paneled, from the floors to the ceiling. It’s as dim as twilight and so dusty my allergies are already declaring war. Albert looks proud, gesturing around his claustrophobic box of an office. “I have more than a century of work with your family here in this very room.”

“Wow,” I say, nursing my coffee. “You look great for your age.”

His eyes disappear beneath bushy gray eyebrows in a deep scowl. “Not me, personally. I mean my office. We’ve served your family as solicitors for generations. With respect and dignity. ” He even talks like he’s pinching me. I’ll bet he’d love to leave angry red welts on my arms beneath my sleeves where no one could see them.

I lean back in a stiff leather seat. It’s so low that my shoulders barely come up to the height of Albert’s desk. He isn’t a tall man, but he’s positioned himself as the biggest person in the room. I really do feel like a kid, staring up at him.

I hated being a kid, and now I hate Albert, too. I’m sure there are good lawyers in the world somewhere, but it’s little surprise my mother only employed creeps.

Leaning back farther in my chair, I take up as much space as I can, knees wide and unladylike. “I’ll take the keys to the London house, the Whitby house, and all the legal documents for both. Now.”

He blinks at me for several seconds before speaking. “The Whitby house is being let out as a holiday rental; we’ll have to check with the manager if it’s available to visit.”

My heart sinks. If it’s a vacation rental, odds are there’s nothing valuable there I can sell for quick cash. The revenue is probably folded into my mother’s strategically scattered bank accounts and investments. Dickie has an iron grasp on those, and I’m not willing to do what I have to in order to access them. I resist the urge to rub my arms, the scent of disinfectant a ghost haunting my sinuses forever.

“As for Hillingham,” Albert continues, “since it’s not far, I thought I would take you there, help you—”

“It belongs to me, right? It’s mine. ”

“Yes.” His narrowed eyes make it clear he wishes he could answer differently. “The house is willed to the Goldaming line in perpetuity, and you are the only heir.”

“I’ll take the paperwork and the keys to both properties, then. Call me when I can see the Whitby house.” It’s his turn to look up at me. I stand and raise an eyebrow, coldly impatient. It’s easy to demand others bend to my will. I just pretend I’m my mother, a carefully honed impression that’s served me well for many years.

“Right, y-yes,” he stutters, patting the front of his suit coat until he finds a key. He unlocks one of the drawers in his desk and pulls out two sets of keys, which he places in front of me before scuttling to the wall of files. None of them are marked. He goes to the fourth row, seventh drawer, with no hesitation. Maybe he really has worked here for more than a century. The interior of the drawer brims with neatly sorted documents. Most of them are yellowed and brittle with age, but he skips those in favor of two sheaves of paper near the back. They’re still white, so recently printed I can practically smell the ink.

He closes the drawer, sealing away the history of my family and these houses. I have the oddest impulse to ask him to give me all of it. But what good are decades of documents to me? Can’t very well sell those. Besides, I don’t want to invest in my family tree. I want to prune my branch off forever.

He stares down at the deeds, stroking them as though they’re precious to him. “It all started with this house, you know. The first time we worked with Lord Goldaming. It was his patronage that allowed our office to survive all this time, to grow into what we are now.”

“And what is the office now?” I ask. A lightless box? An absolute coffin of a workplace?

He beams at me. “The protectors of legacy.” If I thought his scowl was unpleasant, nothing prepared me for his smile. His eyes have the same grasping pinch as his fingers, gaze reaching hungrily toward me.

“Cool,” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can manage, which is none at all. I take the papers from him—his crab fingers briefly spasm shut around them, but then he releases—and swipe the keys from the desk before he can stop me.

“Always an honor meeting Lord Goldaming’s blood,” he calls as I turn my back and hurry from the room. “After all, the blood is—”

I slam the door shut behind myself before he can finish the phrase.