She served up her mouthy retorts like they were glassed sugars. It was all tinted in her verbal aroma. He'd seen the signs of it, in the little sprout he left, plucky-elegant, but this was fantastic. Like the world had held her up to the sun. He didn't hide the wolf's shadows on his his face when she offered him to name her, in her grown up blossom. I will, the darkness spelled, but since it was unhindered, the sinister was only revealed as titillation, not malice. Boys that grow up also have something to offer, and it tickles young stomachs in a different way. He gasped, impressed, and let the take of breath be larger for her amusement, almost appalled, when she laid down so beautifully. She had a little lifetime of compliments owed.<br/><br/>It wasn't usually like this. In the dens, he'd watched the unpettaling of twins. There was nothing in that stuttering show in his own reintroduction to beloved Tillie. She felt warm to his hand, and even more so when she lifted into his palm. I have neglected you, Matilda. If he'd been close, and obsessed about her because she became the very mirage of Ada, would she have grown this natural? Perhaps his worth was just his years away? It was a sin to apply that kind of heart to his sister, especially when she'd proven herself pure beyond that superficial disposition. There is still room for self-doubt, and doubt of self-worth in stronger, returning sons.<br/><br/>She was being haughty, a little, and he pretended it had an effect on him. She would know he was playing, because she'd been there at his first games. No, don't talk to your brother like that - on his face, but then her grin contaminated him, and he leaned closer to give it back. "I'll trade, then. But I learned to be a fierce barterer in my time away. I'll strip you of all your warm secrets, and leave your chest bare and exposed, Matilda." he warned.<br/><br/>What was he going to do, Ewan the man, with his lips parted slightly wide and his tongue in the middle, so close to Matilda's face, Abraham might have wondered if he'd seen. Perhaps either of them would have told him on the way. They were drunk on each other. He enjoyed the young lady, she was a force of her own always, but, he realized now her energy had been quiet compared how she was today. Tillie wasn't stark or raving, but her spirit curled, it was like adding a fire to her the one of her hair. Becoming, but like all burning things, Abraham worried for her.<br/><br/>Ewan was still lifted by the way his sister had petted her skirts when he saw Eugene. They had a bit of correspondence before today, something cloak and dagger about getting the parchments in order, but only this morning, when the night had still held the sky, had the lawyer been told all of it, when the Bradshaw at the other end of the ink had been revealed. He embraced the smaller man. Eugene hated the hint of sympathy he found in his old friend's arm. He'd liked Tillie's kiss much more.<br/><br/>"Yes, I try to be prompt. You know that." he said, boasting and apologetic about his vanity at the same time. Once, when they were flinging chestnuts, the infinitesimal Grant had insisted Ewan return the praise for his one victory to Ewan's many, just as Matilda had come with her own projectiles, in the makeshift basket of her skirt. Ewan, who's pride had been small and stale, had not. It had led to a the largest argument either of the siblings had ever seen Eugene involved in, and it had earned the slightly taller boy a blue mark over his right brow, indent of a chestnut.<br/><br/>Today, Ewan wished he'd given Grant that praise, and brought him more than perfumes and a cabinet, when he was reminded of the little boy's stares in the grown man's poor discrete. But Ewan, for his bleeding sympathy, also had an indulgent streak in him now, if a river is a streak, and wouldn't suddenly be cold to his new found sister to spare heartbreak behind a three piece suit, no matter how painstakingly tailored.<br/><br/>He took her hand, with a vengeance that suggested she'd gone too far from him, and spun her in. It was a savage elegance, like he was working with her natural energies as though they were ballistic. It ended with her back against his chest as they fell down, him sitting in one of the laid out chairs. He squeezed Matilda to his lap. He tilted his head to Eugene who looked like he was choking on his own tongue. One suitor identified.<br/><br/>"We should take this in the office!" The Grant Lawyer shouted. He was truly distressed. Matilda had always been too friendly, and he loved her to insanity for it, but he'd never seen something like this. Ewan stroked her ear and her cheek protectively, teasing that it had been too loud for the girl. "Please. Let's go to the office." Because maybe you two won't be so playful there. Still a bit of the bastard Eugene knew, Ewan kissed her temple while holding Grant's brown eyes with his birthright blues.<br/><br/>"Could you soften him up a little on the way?" the brother asked low, and it was entirely for Grant's sake. If Tillie didn't know why, at least she could recognize the fact that their old friend was distraught.<br/><br/>"Big news, Ewan coming back." Eugene would say. And then there'd be no more time.<br/><br/>Ewan took her hand as he looked around. Henley Bradshaw's legacy. The money room. He must have looked like him then, to either of the other two, when he stood at a man's height, in expensive clothes, on the oriental carpet among all the dark wood and books. He squeezed her fingers harder.<br/><br/>Eugene had to pull him out of it, once he'd laid out the papers on the well kept desk. "Ewan, Mr. Bradshaw." what an abomination of a mouthful that was. "I'll need your signatures. And..." he looked at a few of the deeds. "Your mother's."