“My father called me here.”
“What was the reason?” Charlie asked.
“It's time, he said. He found me a wife and he asked me to fly over here to meet her.”
Brenna laughed. “So, it’s a family thing, not just your mother,” she said to Charlie. “Don’t even think about doing that with our kids.”
“Wait, start from the beginning. How did this happen?” he asked me.
I told them. “It started with a letter. My father sent me a letter asking me to come home; said it was an emergency. We don’t talk so I treated it like it was important. He wouldn’t go out of his way to talk to me unless it was, or that was what I thought. I show up and he tells me that I have to get married. He had someone on the cards for me already, a woman named Lisbeth Lane. Apparently, she and I have been betrothed since childhood. Our parents promised us to each other all those years ago and now it’s time to walk down the aisle.”
“Is this the fucking 1500s? Who does that?” Brenna asked.
“Lisbeth Lane?” Charlie said, looking like he was trying to recall the name.
“That is insane. How is he even allowed to do that?” Brenna asked.
“He isn’t. I’m not letting him.”
“Why her? Who is she?”
“Lisbeth? He said that he is indebted to the Lane family.”
“What did they do for him?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“It sounds like your dad has a secret,” Brenna said. We all went silent as our food arrived and the waiter asked us whether we were alright.
“It has to be something big if he’s marrying you off,” she said. That was what I thought too but what could I do if the man wouldn’t tell me what it was? He just insisted that it was time for me to grow up and finally stop bringing shame to the family name, but that couldn’t be the full extent of it.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“It must be good then. I bet he’s like, a spy or something.”
I laughed. “A spy? No way.”
“We aren’t in a Bond film, babe,” Charlie said to his wife.
“Did he sound mad when he was telling you all this stuff?” she asked me.
“He’s always angry when he talks to me.”
“Your dad has friends in high places. I bet he’s friends with presidents and kings and stuff.”
“They’re all as insufferable as he is.”
“He’s involved in some kind of international smuggling ring. Drugs or like tigers and stuff.”
I laughed. “He’s not smuggling anything. That would actually be interesting. He hasn’t got anything quite so exciting going on in his life”
“Maybe…oh! Maybe he has a secret family and the Lanes are threatening to expose him.”
“Again, he couldn’t have anything that interesting going on in his life without me knowing about it. Even if he never loved mum, he doesn’t have it in him to have a secret life.”
“I bet he lost a dare,” she said. Both Charlie and I laughed.
“If I have to marry a woman because my father lost a dare, I’m going to riot.”
“Uncle Patrick is clearly serious about this, or else he wouldn’t summon you across the ocean. I reckon its politics or money, if not both.”
“Bribery, do you think?” I asked.
Charlie shrugged. “Perhaps. He has a seat in the House of Lords. Maybe it has something to do with that. Something that could risk his seat or title and in order to maintain them, you have to get married.”
“Whatever his corrupt dealings are, I don’t see why I have to be punished for them.” That didn’t sit right with me. It was possible but I didn’t like to think of my father being corrupt. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like I ever looked up to him. Whatever was in his past was starting to affect me now and I didn’t like it. Charlie’s logic tended to be good though.
“What’s the woman like?” Brenna asked.
“Who?”
“Lisbeth, did you say her name was? Oh, can I find her online?” she asked, taking her phone out.
“Probably. I don’t know what her family does.”
“What’s she like. You’re so opposed to being with her, I want to know what she’s like.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her, objectively. She’s pretty, a lot of people would think so but a few bulbs short of a sunbed if you know what I mean.”
Brenna laughed. “That’s so mean Niall. She’s really pretty,” she said, showing Charlie the pictures that she had turned up on her phone.
“I wouldn’t marry a woman simply because she was pretty. And besides, she isn’t even my type.”
“You might as well. How much luck have you had searching on your own?” Charlie asked.
“Says the man who turned down an entire army of women for arranged marriages.”
“I had a prospect. You don’t.”
Who said that I didn’t? Eddy didn’t count so he was right, but I didn’t want to think about it. She wanted nothing to do with me, but I wasn’t letting him know that.
“She seems eager to marry into the family. Maybe I’ll do her a favor and give in.”
“Do not marry that woman out of pity,” Brenna said.
“I won't. I don’t want to marry her at all. She, however, doesn’t know this yet so I have to meet with her to tell her.”
“Settling down will do you good regardless,” Charlie said. That was the happily
