Chapter Text
He’s like a child she thinks.
A child denied a toy.
The Duke of Buckingham is back and after a dinner where she had been discussed as if she was a ribbon for sale and her father had said he had given his final offer he had stormed off in a huff. That she had thought was the end of it but then the Devil Worked Hard and as Larry said Bertha Russell worked harder. Getting him back into the fold was one thing, they had a walk planned and even though Martha was there, Marian was there, Carrie was there, she was primped and primed and prepped to be there to see him wave around a handgun showing her very amused brother and a rather irritated John Adams how best to shoot it.
She did not expect the idiot to fire it.
She did not expect the idiot to fire it and hit a dog.
Actually considering her mother’s reaction to pets she did not know why a dog was even near her house anyway. Her mother viewed dogs the way she viewed daughters apparently. Not worth the effort unless you could get something out of it that benefitted you.
Gladys can be cruel too.
In fact she wants to be, longs for it even.
Don’t get her started on her father.
Everyone disintegrates. Larry lets out a word that she is sure even her father would clap him round the back of the head for. The Duke lets out a string of them, Marian screams, John Adams leaps to his feet and Oscar jumps out of his skin and a footman drops the tray ducking as if he’s narrowly avoided death.
Gladys does not care about anything other than the dog. She takes off running after the thing that is panting on the floor blood coming from it’s side and Marian hitches up her skirts and follows her down the stairs as the door opens and her mother comes out.
It’s a good thing she is not in earshot of what is happening right now because in the mood she is in she is very capable of taking that damn gun and pointing it at her mother and taking a good shot. The Duke is speaking to her and the sneer on Larry’s face and the way his hands are flying in the air are enough to tell her that her brother is pulling no punches with an English Duke who shot a gun into the middle of the street surrounded by High Society ladies on a belly full of scotch.
Marian makes a soothing noise running her hands over the head of the dog who is making the most pitiful whimpering noises that you could ever see. Blue green eyes are fixed on her and she strokes back the ears gently as Marian looks at his side and then…
“It caught him, I can see the bullet and…I could push it out?”
Gladys has never thought of animals as capable of understanding them but the look the dog sends Marian is quite funny, it’s like he cannot believe what she has just said but then…
“Use my hair pin?”
The eyes now turn to hers and she pulls her hair out of the loose knot it’s in (she refuses to put any effort into meeting this toad) and her hair falls over her shoulders. The dog watches her as Marian with a smirk at the scandalised gasp behind her takes the pin and—
“Are you going to hold still?” she asks the dog. “Because If you squirm I am going to miss and it will hurt more”
The dog growls low in his throat. Gladys smooths back his hair and wraps her hands around his jaw.
“You think it understands you”
“Him” Marian says simply. “And yes, you put up with Pumpkin and you begin to understand animals and—” she twists a little and the dog yelps a high pitched cry that has tears come to her eyes with how unfair it is.
“Oh you poor boy” she says stroking behind his ears. “Oh you poor…you can look at me if you want”
The dog does just that, he snarls once as Marian does something that Gladys cannot see and then.
“Got it!” she says as—
“Gladys WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE STREET!” her mother hisses. “Your dress, your hair?! Do you want the Duke to think you have taken leave of your senses”
“Oh piss off” Gladys says employing the same language Larry uses.
“GLADYS—”
“He nearly killed me” she says turning to her mother. “Or Marian—” she points at Marian who has found bandaging the dog’s side up to be something very interesting and is most definitely smirking. “Whose idea was it to let him bring a gun?”
“Well not mine” her mother says sighing. “I didn’t think—”
“No you never do, do you” she says before she can stop herself.
“Gladys if this is the tone you are going to take you will be confined to your room”
“Oh I see so I’m old enough to marry the man you choose that I don’t love but young enough to be sent to my room like a naughty child”
Her mother gapes at her. Marian looks away though she is clearly hearing every word. But Marian is the only one who knows what took place the other night and Marian is fully on her side in this despite how good an impression she wants to make on a mother in law that both Larry and Gladys know will put up one hell of a fight in accepting.
If she hated her brother as much as she hated her mother Gladys would tell Marian to cut her losses now.
But then again. Larry has a backbone of steal. She used to think he got it from their father but now she knows that not to be true.
Anyhow…
“We should get him inside” she says to Marian.
“Inside where?”
“The house”
“MY HOUSE?!” Her mother shrikes “You want a dog in my house?”
“Your guest is the one who shot him” Gladys points out. “And he’s the one stood there on the porch still holding the gun with the safety unlocked. So yes our house—he can go in my room”
“IN YOUR ROOM!”
“It’s a dog mother not a gentleman” she deadpans. The dog makes an odd noise under her hand and she rubs her thumb down between his shoulder blades. He melts like she has hit the pleasure spot.
“Gladys I don’t think—”
“You might want to find a way to explain to Mrs Astor why the Duke nearly shot her daughter in the middle of the street” Gladys interrupts as sweet as sugar pie. “Considering she is getting in her carriage—”
And that distracts her mother long enough for Larry to help them bring the dog up to Gladys room all three of them ignoring the Duke on the way.
Serves him right.
It’s not a dog she realises later, it’s a wolf.
It’s bigger than an average dog and it sleeps on her bed. Marian’s bandages are wrapped around it’s side but it’s only when she leaves that she takes note of how large the animal is.
“I don’t understand” she says sitting on the floor and speaking to the quietly sleeping animal. “How did someone like you get to New York?”
She sighs.
Like a man she is not going to get anywhere with this.
She briefly debates tucking in a blanket around the poor thing but that is ridiculous. In the end she does wrap him up a little and sends for Adelheid to tell her that she wants the best meat brought up and some water in a bowl and that she will not be dining with her parents tonight but will in fact take a tray in her room.
Adelheid meets her gaze and then.
“I hate people who are cruel to animals” she mutters shockingly informal.
“Yes” Gladys says. “If you have any idea how to get out of this then please share it”
“I mean…it would be nice to be a Duchess Miss” Adelheid says parroting the line that all the servants have clearly been taught to say. “I mean…it would be nice to live in a castle right?”
Gladys wonders about it and then.
“Drafty” she says and Adelheid sniggers. Gladys grins back and there is a knock and the door and…
Oh God.
Father’s home.
Adelheid bobs a curtsey and leaves and—
“Is this our poor patient?”
“Yes” she says shortly.
Her father tilts his head to the side and—
“Bit big for a dog isn’t he?”
“I don’t know, Marian is helping by sending out flyers. Someone will surely claim him”
Her father sighs and gently pats the dog on the side.
“I did not know he was bringing guns into my house” he says quietly. “I told your mother I will not have a gun in my house, she knows that. Today could have ended a lot worse than a dog getting shot on the street”
“But he’s still coming back isn’t he?”
Her father makes that face he has been making for weeks.
“I take no pleasure in this”
“Really?” she says dryly.
“Really Gladys I don’t…I…I cannot help but feel that you are being a bit unfair on your mother, she did not deserve to be spoken to like that in front of Miss Brooke in the street—”
“Oh believe me that was just the warm up”
He sighs and then.
“I can see why she wants it for you” he says quietly. “I…she wants it for herself and—”
“That doesn’t bother you?” She asks and for once curiosity overrides the bitterness in her tone. “That doesn’t bother you that she makes comments about how if she was me she’d have done it all differently, that she would be Queen of the World. You built her an empire, no door is shut to the two of you and still for her it is not enough and that doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh it bothers me” he says quietly. “But I—” he shakes his head.
“I want her to be happy” he says simply.
“More than you want me to be happy?”
“No I…Gladys I am on your side”
She laughs then loud and cold and calculated and it lands on him like a slap in the face. The odd twang of guilt hits her, being like this with her father was so much harder than being like this with her mother. With her mother the anger and bitterness seem to come almost naturally.
“Really?” she says sardonically. “Could have fooled me”
He sighs again. That’s all her father seems to do now, sigh and look forlorn.
“Gladys, I just came up to see how you were doing.”
“I am fine”
“I was wondering if you would come to dinner, your mother…she wants to talk through plans—”
“No”
“He…I told her I wasn’t happy, the Duke has assured her it will not happen again he…I don’t think he knew the thing was loaded…and…”
He looks down at the dog and frowns.
“Alright, I will tell her you are too tired to come to dinner this evening.”
“I will not be leaving my room tomorrow either.” Gladys says flatly. “If she has plans with the Duke tomorrow then she better go in my place because I am not going”
“Gladys”
“You asked me to give him a chance, he nearly shot me. To say nothing of the fact that he is using me for money.”
“Billy Carlton would have done the same—”
But she will not entertain this conversation, she will not do it so instead she crossed the room and opens the door and looks at him pointedly.
He sighs.
“Your being childish about this” he tells her softly standing. “I don’t agree with how your mother has gone about this but you are being very childish”
He steps out the room and Gladys slams it shut in his face and then twists the lock.
Childish. Perhaps. Brought on by a terrible rage and a ruthless betrayal of the one man she is supposed to trust again and again and again.
Her father.
He’s the worst she thinks viciously.
She sighs and flops down on the bed. She cannot keep the door locked forever, she needs to get changed and eat and—
She reaches out and realises that the dog is looking at her, one eye is barely open but it is fixated on her and she reaches out and strokes down his back and watches as his eye falls shut again.
“Do me a favour” she says even though she knows it is utter insanity talking to dog. “Don’t ever make me a promise that you cannot keep. I mean it…I don’t think I could stand it if another man did that”
The dog gives a little huff and then bucks his nose into her hand and she smiles and then there is a gentle knock that is Adelheid with dinner, a steady stream of conversation and something that resembles friendship that makes up for the fact that she is the richest girl in the world (or certainly New York) and somehow the poorest all at once.