Ada was aghast at her son. How could she not be, when he was the very caricature of his father. She had married into the Bradshaw name for love, rather than title. It was for this reason, in part, that she’d given no pressure to Matilda when it came to matters of matrimony. As such, Ada had seen Henley in an altogether different light than Ewan had. She had known this about her boy, and it had made her sad for father and son alike. Now, staring at him with all the incredulity she had right to, she saw him wearing a self-drawn portrait of his father. Had he meant to put on that mask, or had it been natural that’d he’d grow into his personal illusions of his father’s shoes?<br/><br/>She sighed, like he’d said something childish. “Well,<i>Mr. Bradshaw</i>, you’re quite right that I haven’t a say in your father’s company. Mr. Maynard has been kindly caring for it in the absence of its owner. You’d do well to thank him for his efforts.” Ada said. She was growing furious in a way Matilda had not seen in many years. Tillie’s lips parted to say something—anything—to calm her mother’s rising temper. If Tillie was a wild spark, quick and keen to catch fire, her mother was a slow burn with the longevity to devour a forest. “However, this<i>home</i>, as you say, is<i>mine</i>and always has been<i>mine</i>. You insolent child, neither I nor these walls have forgotten what was given to you and what you so carelessly left behind.” Ada was seething. It was a deeply maternal kind of anger, pent up and now billowing at the corners of her lips. Years of fretting over her son, enduring the weighty disappointment Henley had carried when Ewan disappeared, the spiteful talk of the town, the terrible rumors that drifted home. What mother should have to find hope in rumors of her son turned sea dragon. Awful stories, but they suggested Ewan was alive. And Tillie, who had loved and idolized both her father and her brother, had been left without either. Was Ada to forgive him for that sin as well?<br/><br/>When he went to take their hands, Tillie flushed and looked away but laced her fingers through his anyhow. Mrs. Bradshaw, however, had not been impressed by his little display. Henley had been a brusque man, at times, and he had never intimidated his wife. There was no reason her son’s manhood should make her shrink away. She did not take his hand when he reached for it and thought to pull away when he took her arm instead. She did not want his gifts.<br/><br/>It was an odd trio that made their way into the house. Tillie, walking close and neatly beside her brother, which gave Abraham pause. Matilda was such a willful girl. It was curious to see her tame and blushing. Ewan, leading them along like he’d always dominated this space, perhaps seeming larger because it was necessary to fill the tangible voids his father had left. Josephina seemed star-struck by the changed boy. And Ada, lagging behind her son with her head held high but her feet dragging. She’d make it known she did not want this, but she was too much of a lady to cause a greater scene. She had too much dignity to thrash or fight against his apparent advantage in strength.<br/><br/>Up the stairs and into Ada’s room, it was Tillie’s turn to look displeased. Why had her things been brought from her room? The estate was already such a large and empty place. There was no reason to be forced into her mother’s quarters. Her firelight eyes widened when she understood. “Absolutely not.” Ada said. It was entirely matter-of-fact. “You may take your old room, Ewan, or you may have this one if you insist upon playing the man of this house.” She wrenched her arm away from him then. “Matilda may return to her room as she pleases. You are not the only one who has, ostensibly, grown up.” It was frigidly patronizing.<br/><br/>Ada was a loving mother, but she’d always been quietly ferocious. Both Bradshaw children had understood that thoroughly when they’d been young. Mother’s punishments had always been smartly carried out, and it had been a little frightening how cold she could turn until she’d felt they were repentant. It seemed, now, that the woman was caught in such a mindset over her grown son. “I will not sleep beside my grown children.” Ada said. She spun on her heel without comment on the lovely wardrobe. Ada had wanted him to apologize, to return to her as her sweet boy, and she’d been given this entitled stranger of a man instead. It infuriated her that he wore his father’s jawline and confident shoulders. “I don’t know what you were doing half-way across the world, but you will have some decency here.” Ada said stiffly, before she left the room in a flurry of skirts and a thick vacuum of energy in her wake.<br/><br/>Matilda had remained quiet, still holding her brother’s hand. She untangled their fingers now, moving to stroke a long fall of her auburn hair. While her mother kept her copper coils pinned into submission, Tillie had never taken to the habit. “Ah, well, now you’ve done it, haven’t you?” she hummed with a little laugh. She was something of a slinking fox, slipping away from him to sit on the edge of their mother’s bed. “You’ve been gone for so long, and Mother has worked so very hard to defend you.“ She inclined her head, and there was something decidedly less innocent in the keen focus of her stare than the soft startle of her lips had been. “Don’t you know how to treat a lady, Brother?” she smiled at him. If he did not disturb her, she was confident of her own agency. She shrugged then. “I’m just happy to have you home. I always knew you’d come back. I’ll sleep in whatever bed you want, so long as you’re going to stay with us.” Tillie smoothed her skirt with her palms, looking down at her hands as if she’d abruptly reverted into that breathless girl he’d kissed outside. “Mother won’t say it, because you came in the way you did, but I’m certain she’ll want you to stay too.”