Among the Barons

“May I be excused?” Smits asked in the silence that followed.

Mrs. Grant nodded.

Luke watched a servant swoop out of nowhere, grab up the spoon, and wipe away the ice cream in a flash. He gathered his nerve to speak.

“May I be excused, too?” he asked.

“I suppose,” Mrs. Grant said.

Heavyhearted, Luke found his way back to Lee’s room.

He threw himself across the bed, fighting waves of nausea. He’d hated Hendricks School at first, too, but the Grants’ house seemed much, much worse. And yet Smits had seemed to be trying to help him. And Oscar had appeared at just the right moment to help him with that tie.

Why? Why did either of them care what happened to Luke?

CHAPTER 20

Luke was sound asleep, and had been for hours, when someone began shaking his shoulder.

“Lee. Get up,” a voice whispered.

Luke opened his eyes to complete darkness. It was the middle of the night, he thought. He’d fallen asleep without changing his clothes, so the knot of the bow tie dug uncomfortably into his neck. He’d been dreaming, he realized, about nooses.

'Wha who are you?” he said, fighting a sense of total disorientation.

“Shh!” A hand clapped instantly over Luke’s mouth. He’d accidentally spoken out loud. “Don’t make another noise. So help me, I’ll…” A tiny penlight switched on in the darkness. “I’m your… father. See?”

Mr. Grant held the tiny light below his chin, illuminating his face. But the effect was ghoulish, creating eerie shadows around his eyes. Luke felt like he was looking into a Halloween mask.

“Now, come with me,” Mr. Grant whispered.

Timidly Luke slipped first one foot, then the other, out of bed. He had a flash of memory — this was like all those nights he’d been awakened by Oscar, summoned by Smits. And he’d always gone. What if he’d disobeyed? What if, just once, he’d stamped his foot and announced, “You know what? I’m not Lee, and I’m not going to pretend anymore. Leave me alone. Let me go back to sleep.”

But he couldn’t have done that any of the other times, and he couldn’t do it now.

Silently, fighting a rising sense of dread, Luke walked alongside Mr. Grant. They went out of his room, down the hall, down the stairs. Luke might have suspected Mr. Grant of purposely leading him in circles, trying to confuse him. But the house was so much like a maze, even in bright daylight, that Luke figured Mr. Grant was truly taking the most direct route to wherever he was going.

Finally Mr. Grant stood before a closed door on the first level. Luke wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought that he’d attempted to open this door earlier in the day, when he’d been exploring. The door had been locked then. But now Mr. Grant looked around cautiously, opened the door effortlessly, and motioned Luke inside. A few seconds later Mr. Grant stepped in behind him and shut the door.

“Have you activated the system?” a woman's voice asked in the darkness.

“Three, two, one… all set,” Mr. Grant said.

Lights came on then. They were standing in an office. A massive mahogany desk stood in the center of the room, and bookshelves lined the walls. Mrs. Grant was sitting in a stiff chair in front of the desk, but she quickly stood up and walked toward Luke and Mr. Grant.

“Finally,” she said.

Luke tensed, afraid that she was going to hug him again. But she only took him by the shoulders, held him at arm’s length, and squinted thoughtfully at him.

“Braces, of course,” she said. ‘And perhaps some hair dye…”

“Maybe contacts,” Mr. Grant said.

“Do you think anyone would really notice his eyes? They’re not that different,” Mrs. Grant said. “Having him fitted for contacts, that’d be another person we’d have to pay off—”

“Of course. You’re right,” Mr. Grant said.

Luke felt like he was an object they were considering buying. Neither of them had looked him square in the eye yet or addressed him directly. Didn’t they think he would have any say in the matters of braces, hair dye, or contacts?

No. Of course not.

Finally Mrs. Grant stepped back and said, ‘Well, I think it will work. I think we ought to try it.”

“Nothing to lose, eh?” Mr. Grant said.

Luke struggled to find his voice. “What do you want from me?” he demanded.

Mrs. Grant looked back at him, very solemnly, and announced, “We want you to die.”

CHAPTER 21

Luke jerked back and made a panicky grab for the door. But the doorknob had vanished somehow.

“Oh, very nice, Sarinia,” Mr. Grant said. “Now you’ve terrified him. She doesn’t mean for real,” he told Luke. “We just want to stage your death so — well, it’s a long story”

“Tell me,” Luke said through gritted teeth.

Mr. Grant frowned at Mrs. Grant.

“This isn’t the way to get started,” he said. “You’ll have to forgive us. We’re still a Little… grief stricken. It’s been very hard for us today, dealing with another boy pretending to be…..

Luke looked around frantically. It was the middle of the night, and for once there were no servants in sight Still, his heart began pounding with fear at the thought that someone might have heard Mr. Grant say that Luke wasn’t Lee.

“It’s all right,” Mr. Grant said soothingly “This is a soundproof, secure room. We can speak openly here.”

“Have a seat,” Mrs. Grant offered, turning a chair toward Luke. “We’ll explain.”

Luke was thinking that a soundproof, secure room would be a great place to kill someone. But what could he do? He sat down.

Mr. and Mrs. Grant sat down, too, in chairs opposite his. Mrs. Grant leaned forward.

“Our son Lee was a wonderful boy” she began in a sad voice. “Everything a parent could want. He was good at sports, musically gifted, a top student.. “ She paused to dab at her eyes. “But he was a bit, urn, idealistic.”

“He was a troublemaker,” Mr. Grant said harshly. “Stubborn as a rock. From the day he was born, he thought he could run the world.”

Luke tried to make those two descriptions fit together. So Lee had been a peffect, gifted, stubborn troublemaker.

“Like father, like son. Right, dear?” Mrs. Grant purred.

‘Aah.. “ Mr. Grant waved her question away “When he died, he was, urn, breaking the law ever so slightly” Mr. Grant continued. “He was — well, there’s no need for you to know the whole story. But suffice it to say that it would have been a bit difficult for us to explain the circumstances of his death.”

If Luke had only been a little braver, he might have asked, “Did the Government really kill him?” But Mrs. Grant had already taken over the conversation.

‘And when he died, as you can imagine, we were distraught,” Mrs. Grant added. “Simply overcome.”

She sniffed daintily and Let Mr. Grant continue the explanation.

“So when our friend George Talbot approached us with a possible solution, a way to make it Look as though Lee hadn’t died — and, by the way to help you — we surely couldn’t be faulted for taking advantage of that opportunity Could we?” Mr. Grant asked.