Page 42 of The Haunted Hotel

“What you huffing for over there, lad?” Mr Ashton-Drake slurps his chocolate loudly and proceeds to dunk a cookie, which then disintegrates into a soggy lump and drops back into the mug with a plop.

“Nothing.” I give him a pleasant smile. It’s not like he isn’t aware of the financial state of the hotel—it is his property, after all—but I don’t like to heap more worry on him if I can help it.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” He continues to stare into his mug with a small frown, as if trying to figure out if he’s better off using his fingers to retrieve the cookie or letting it dissolve completely and just drinking it. “You sound like an asthmatic chipmunk.”

I chuckle lightly. “There are worse things, I suppose.”

“What’s on your mind, boy? You may as well spit it out. Some of us aren’t getting any younger, you know.”

“You’ll live to be a hundred. I’m certain of it.”

“Which is not as far off as you might think.” He gives up on trying to look for the remains of his cookie and takes a gulp of the now lukewarm drink. “Stop stalling. Either tell me what’s on your mind or go to bed. It’s getting late.”

“I just want to say sorry.”

“What for?” Mr Ashton-Drake looks over at me, confused.

“Earlier, with Morgan. I feel like I just sprung his visit on you and then steamrollered right over you without considering how you might feel.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re a very sweet-natured steamroller.” He sets his mug down on the table, now empty but for a sugary sludge in the bottom.

“Still, I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I was so excited you had family coming to visit you. I didn’t really stop to think you might not be happy about seeing him. After all, you haven’t seen him since he was a child.”

This time he sighs loudly. “It’s complicated.”

“I would never presume to invade your privacy and ask for details, but whatever happened between you and him?—”

“He didn’t do anything,” Mr Ashton-Drake mutters quietly. “Go in that drawer.” He points to an old 1950s sideboard.

I do as he says, rising from my chair and opening the large curved middle drawer. Inside are several old photo albums.

“Bring me the red one.”

Again, I do as instructed and pick up a small album with a dark red leather cover. Handing it to him, I take a seat on the footstool beside him. He leafs through several pages until he finds what he wants and then hands it back to me.

Glancing down at the open page, I see Mr Ashton-Drake sitting on a blanket on the grass by the largest oak tree on the grounds. He’s wearing a tweed suit and his hair is darker, shot through with grey. He also has fewer wrinkles, but what’s really startling is that his head is tilted back and he’s laughing. Really laughing. It’s like the joy is seeped into the page.

Next to him is a man whose appearance gives me a jolt. He could be Morgan’s double, albeit a few years younger and slightly less serious than Morgan appears to be. The man in the photo is looking at Mr Ashton-Drake and smiling, and on his lap is an adorable dark-haired boy clutching a toy train.

“Is this?—”

“Morgan? Yes.” He nods. “He was three, I think, when that was taken. Right here on the grounds, not far from the pond where we taught him to swim.”

“We?”

Mr Ashton-Drake reaches out with his own twisted, trembling finger and taps the man in the picture.

“My son, Elliott,” he whispers, and the pain in his voice hits me somewhere deep inside, making me hurt for him. “My wife, Edith, took that picture. She adored our grandson from the moment he was born, loved him as fiercely as she loved our son. I’m not sure where Elliott’s wife, Lillian, was when that was taken, lying down most probably. She seemed to suffer from an inordinate amount of headaches, but the truth is, I don’t think she ever quite warmed up to life here at the estate, or even to England in general. She was American.”

He taps the book again and I turn the page to reveal a close-up of a stunning blonde woman.

“That’s Morgan’s mother.”

“She’s very beautiful,” I mutter, studying the picture.

I can see hints of Morgan in her striking features. A little around the eyes, the shape of her nose—but other than that whisper of shared genetics, Morgan is a carbon copy of his father. It must have been so painful for Mr Ashton-Drake to see Morgan looking the way he does.

“For a moment, I thought he was Elliott,” he confesses so quietly I almost miss it, confirming my suspicions. “Morgan was only six the last time I saw him… when Lillian took him to…” He breaks off and clears his throat. “I suppose somehow he’s always remained a child in my mind. Of course he’s not. He’s already lived ten years beyond the time Elliott had.”