Aye, I am a Fairy Page 3

  “And back you go,” he said to the strip of paper with the altered safe combination. “How profound.” The combination had been written on the back of a Chinese fortune cookie insert. “‘You will reap what you sow.’ I can only hope.” He replaced the paper in the bathroom cabinet underneath the bellyache medicine. “And here, you might need this, too.”

  Yes, an extended trip to America sounded very appealing. James went to his desk and opened up the laptop. He signed into his email account and typed in Dani’s email address. Remember meeting me in that little café in Greensboro last Halloween? Did that strange little man, Simon was it, ever figure out his map? Hopefully, you were able to finish your little Revolutionary War sightsee and had a safe journey home to Alaska. I will be returning to North Carolina 5th August. After I take care of some business, I would like to visit your state. Is your offer for a three-hour tour still open? Please let me know so I can schedule flights on this end. Regards, Lord James Melbourne

  James looked over the short note, grinned, then erased the title ‘Lord,’ and pressed send. Email: I wonder how the war with the Colonies would have turned out if we had instant messaging and satellite imaging back then. Oh well, I’m sure it turned out like it was supposed to. It’s not as if we could go back in time and change history or anything.

  James looked around his den—his office—with an unbiased eye. What was the most valuable thing in here? Okay, rewind, most important and valuable to him. Right now, it was the laptop, or at least what was on it. She’d want his computer even though she had her own. She’d only want it because she wouldn’t want him to have anything. That would be easy enough. All files remotely backed up, so here little red PC, have a cup of cold coffee.

  James held the computer sideways over the rubbish bin and poured the cold java into the USB ports, turned it around 90 degrees and doused the power port, internal networking hub, and all those other rectangular holes with metal pins and tangs inside. A quick flip to wash all the coffee around and, oh yeah, the mini slots on the other side. “How about a little coffee syrup, Sweetie? You always liked the sugar-free almond flavor now, didn’t you? I’ll make sure I mix it up just right for you. Here,” he said as he grabbed a paper towel from the bottom desk drawer, “we don’t want to look messy or have any dribbles now, do we? Let me wipe you down, polish you up, turn you around, and voila! You look like a brand new portal to online shopping!

  “Online shopping. That reminds me…oh, here it is.” James scanned the phone numbers in his smartphone until he found RCCR—Royal Credit Card Registry—and pressed call. “Yes ma’am, I would like to report a theft. Yes, this is Lord James Melbourne, and my credit cards have been stolen. It seems that all my private financial information has been compromised. My authorization code is 1781. Please stop access to all accounts immediately.”

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?” replied the excited young lady on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, yes there is. If anyone should call about this, I would like to remind you of the confidentiality clause. No one is to discuss these accounts, or why they were closed, unless they have the authorization code. And that includes a court order. The House of Lords does have its privileges. Do I make myself clear?” James bluffed.

  “Yes, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?” asked the now squeaky-voiced agent on the other end of the line, her excitement rising with each mention of who he was.

  “Yes, please don’t ask me again if there will be anything else, sir,” James said with a smile in his voice.

  “Yes, sir, will…er…yes, sir. I hope the rest of your day, rest of your week and month, go better for you, sir. You seem to be having a rough day.”

  “That’s an understatement. Thank you for the good wishes. Good-bye.”

  And that was that. A cup of cold coffee and a phone call to start the road to freedom. “Come on, Uncle Julian, let’s go,” he said, and took the portrait of Lord Julian Hart off the wall. “Let’s see if you had the right idea about making a fresh start in America.”

  *3 Pre-flight Preparations

  August 4, 2013,

  England

  The Club had been a tradition for the Melbourne men for centuries. James patted the brown-paper-wrapped portrait of Lord Julian Hart. “How about if you stay at the Club until I find us a new home?” he asked the painting. He didn’t expect an audible answer, but did get an ethereal feeling of satisfaction from his many times over great-uncle. “Yeah, I think it’s a good idea, too,” he said.

  The Club had resisted change for decades. The addition of electricity in the mid-20th century was accepted begrudgingly by many of the older patrons, but the younger generation had won over the old coots when they promised brighter reading lights than fireplaces, candles, or oil lamps could provide. The latest change—and hopefully the last for a long time—was the addition of wireless internet access. Cell phones and laptops were still verboten in the main rooms, but the former coal room had been converted into a communications parlor. Old-fashioned phone booths had been brought in to insure both privacy for the info seeker and lack of intrusion on the other members. No one wanted to hear about hair appointments, football bets or ugh, a tête-à-tête with a mistress.

  James took his glass of Glenturret into a corner booth. He had altered the interior design of the phone booths to make them more marketable: padded the seat, and added a high intensity reading light and a pull-down shelf. The instant desk was a convenient place to set a glass and a mini laptop, or in his case, what he referred to as his cell phone on steroids: his smartphone. He could listen to Vivaldi in private while cruising the internet to check his email and book the flight for his overseas trip.

  He clicked and deleted his way through the junk email. No matter how many filters, encryptions, and restrictions he put on his account, he still got requests to buy male enhancement products and knock-off Rolex watches. He smiled and looked down at his genuine Rolex and saw that he had plenty of time to get to the airport.

  A few more clicks and deletions, and he was down to the legitimate correspondences. ‘We would be happy to have you visit. Come at your earliest convenience. Saturday, August 10th is the annual company picnic and celebration at the mill. We’d be honored to share our little carnival and fireworks show with you (and yours, if applicable). Regards, Bibb Stephens’

  There was still no clue as to whether Bibb was a man or a woman. It wasn’t important either way. Unless the mill and surrounding property were absolute disasters, he was going to buy the whole works. If all else failed, he could raze the buildings and breed horses. He still had the funds at the bank that weren’t under the family name. The Pomeroy-Hart fortune was a long-held family secret: ‘to be used only in extreme circumstances’ was the rule. The family had never had to use it before, and it would be nice if he didn’t have to either. Clotilde had no idea that the Pomeroy-Hart fortune even existed. It had always been a secret, only to be shared with the first-born male offspring. Well, that wasn’t going to happen since his marriage to Clotilde would soon be null and void.

  Null and void—that would be preferable to his present situation. Right now, the marriage was a power vacuum, a black hole trying to suck the life, money, and spirit out of him. ‘Nope. Ain’t gonna let it happen in this lifetime,’ as Grandpa would say. James sniggered and shook his head. If he didn’t find someone worthy to love, who would love him back and be happy to provide him with an heir, the fortune would be left to charity. He was the last in the long line of Melbournes. The Harts had died out years before—at least as far as the direct line went—and nobody knew what happened to the Pomeroys.

  ‘Click on Buy Now to proceed to check out,’ and ten seconds later, the ticket purchase to North Carolina via New York City was complete. “See you in a few days, Bibb,” James said to no one in particular as he closed out the screen on his smartphone.

  The time had come to put a padlock on his life in England. He still needed to make two stop
s before the airport: the post office and the garage. He could leave the Corniche in the Club’s parking garage. ‘No women allowed’ still had it merits. There was no way Clotilde could get in there and drive off in his car.

  He knew how much she loved the Bentley. He remembered the first day he had seen her. She sauntered into the restaurant and asked the maître d’ who owned the car. That should have been his first clue that she was a gold digger. She had coveted the car so much that she had come after it, willing to seduce whoever owned it in order to make it hers. He doubted that it would have made a difference to her whether it was a man or a woman. Yes, he was just the person attached to the name on the car’s title.

  He shook his head, hoping he didn’t look like a wet dog when he did it. Physically moving his skull side to side really was the only way to clear her out of his brain at times. Ugh, a shiver ran down the back of his legs. He had actually wanted to have children with that woman. It was probably the only good thing she had done for him, although he didn’t realize it at the time. She had said no to children.

  Ӂ

  Before he got too carried away, James needed to make arrangements for his snail mail. He pulled up to the little postal outlet. It was empty except for him and the middle-aged clerk. “Sir, I would like to forward all my mail to my club,” he said. “Here’s the form with the address and my signature. Is there anything else you require?”

  The clerk with the nostalgic green visor and gold-rimmed bifocals used his ink-stained index finger to scan over all the blanks on the change of address form. “I’ll just need to see some identification, sir.”

  James pulled his passport out of the baggie. “Safe and dry,” he said under his breath, and put it in the open hand of the stern-faced postal worker.

  The clerk looked at the picture, up at James, and then back down again. “Hmph,” he snorted. “If this is you, then you have an expert forger one step ahead of you.” He took a paper from the wire basket on the counter behind him. “Here, someone has beaten you to this.”

  James’s eyes widened, his cheeks reddened, his jaws clenched. Apparently Clotilde’s brother/boyfriend person—her accomplice in the theft and attempted destruction of the Melbourne family fortune—was now trying to, or was, intercepting his mail.

  “Don’t worry, sir. Sir?” The agent tapped James on the sleeve of his wool jacket. He repeated himself to make sure he had James’s attention. “Don’t worry, sir. I smelled a rat. I told the two of them that there was a 48-hour waiting period for all of this to take effect. The Lady Melbourne was right put off, she was. She looked a bit too eager to get her hands on the post. I told her she couldn’t get it even if it was addressed to you, er, her husband. That’s when she changed the address. Then she came back an hour later with a man she claimed was you: Lord James Melbourne. I told the two of them that I couldn’t release the letter because it had already been sent to the forwarding department. They would be able to get their mail at the new address in 48-hours. When they said they wanted to change it back to the original address, I told them then it would be an additional 48-hours. She just about blew her eyebrows off at that point. I just grinned and told her she could either wait 48-hours or 96-hours plus the weekend, her choice. That’s when she squealed, stomped her feet, and stormed out of here with the mister following right behind her. Yes, it was magnificent. Best case of customer irritation I’ve ever caused.”

  The clerk—his nametag read Richard Smith—had a dreamy look of recollection. He took off his readers to wipe away a tear. “It was truly beautiful.” He sniffed and wiped the corners of his eyes again.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, and came out of his reverie. He looked at Lord James Melbourne’s consternate frown and smiled. “Shall I just ‘lose’ the application that Lady Melbourne submitted?”

  James sighed deeply with relief and smiled. “Yes, I’d appreciate it very much.”

  “Consider it done. Oh, here’s your mail.” The clerk handed him a long, thin manila envelope.

  “Hmm.” James read the short, one-page handwritten note—it didn’t make any sense. ‘I need to talk to you about Leah. And watch out for the MacLeods! ~ Benji MacKay’ A USA phone number was listed beneath it.

  He checked inside the envelope again—nothing else inside. Then he noticed the postage and North Carolina return address, and felt inspired. “Richard, do you drive?” he asked, as he took out his pen. He scribbled a comment on the bottom of the note that read, Sorry—I don’t know a Leah or any MacLeods. JIM. James stuck the note back in the envelope. Yes, and he didn’t recall knowing a Benji MacKay in England, much less in the United States.

  “You can call me Ric. Oh, yes, sir. I have a 1976 Ford Fiesta. I drove it to work every day until the transmission failed last March. It’s still in the garage at home. I can’t afford the repairs right now. I was offered £300 for it, but I really don’t want to get rid of it. It doesn’t bother me to walk to work, and the wife and I can stay home instead of going on holiday this year. I’m sure something will turn up; maybe I’ll win the lottery!”

  James pulled the keys to the Bentley out of his pocket. “Here,” he said, and laid the keys on the counter. “I’ll make you a deal. If you take me to the airport this afternoon, you can keep that,” he nodded to the black sedan parked outside, “free and clear. Consider it compensation for a job well done.”

  Ric’s jaw dropped. He slowly pulled the green visor off his head with one hand, the glasses off his bulbous nose with the other. He walked over to the window and gazed at the car. “But that’s a Bentley Corniche,” he said softly. He took a quick breath and returned to chilly civic clerk mode. “It’s not nice to tease people like that, sir,” he said sharply.

  “No tease, it’s not a trick, and I have the title. I can, and will, sign it over to you once you get me to the airport. Can you get me there by four o’clock today?”

  “If you can be here by three o’clock, I’ll have you there by four. I’m supposed to stay until five, but I can manage to get a bit of a bellyache around three in order to get you to Heathrow by four. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”

  “Yes. Would you return this to the sender?” He handed the envelope back to Ric. “Is there anything due for postage?”

  The clerk shook his head and held up his hand, smiling—he’d been well compensated with the gift of the car. “I got this.”

  “And please make sure my mail gets to my club, and that those two…two,” James pursed his lips, trying to think of a civil noun to call the thieves, but drew a blank. “That those two,” he repeated with disgust, “don’t try to bamboozle anyone else.”

  “No worries, sir. I’m the only one who works this branch.” He accepted the envelope from James, taped it closed, put it in the out box, then grinned broadly and said, “And I know their faces.”

  Ӂ

  The airline agent was most accommodating. “Sir, since this flight is overbooked, and you paid full fare for your ticket, would you like to have a seat in first class? Sir? Sir?”

  “Uh, yes, thank you,” he replied sheepishly. If he had been looking for a sign that he was doing the right thing, this would definitely qualify. Life was right on track. First class track, he thought as he patted the cigarette pack in his right pocket, the bundle of letters tied with the blue ribbon, in his left.

  Going through security was no problem, although the tiny Indian woman with the red dot between her eyes did look at him strangely. “No bags or computers; just shoes, sir?”

  “Well, I can walk much further in shoes. Laptops give me blisters,” he said with a smile. She gave him a blank look, then grinned when she realized what he was inferring. “Have a nice trip, sir, and here are your shoes.”

  James sat down on the hard plastic bench and tied his Kenmoors. “Loosen up, James,” he mumbled. He sat up straight and frowned, pursed his lips, then sighed, frustrated at the noises he was making. Okay, mumbling is acceptable—nothing to worry about. Just keep the volume dow
n, the words short, and it’ll be okay. He slapped his knees with both hands, ready to start the tour of the airport shops.

  The longhaired, middle-aged woman at the bank reminded him of Dani Madigan. Dani. He hadn’t received an email reply from her yet, but the time zones were nine hours apart. Hopefully all was well with that perky, off-center older American lady. Now why couldn’t he meet someone like her, only younger? Maybe she had a daughter… Now that was an interesting thought. He’d save that one for later. Right now, he needed to—ugh—go shopping.

  James walked into a bathroom stall at the airport and removed the American dollars from the white bank envelope. He put half of the bills into the wallet and returned it to his breast pocket. He pulled out a few hundreds, folded them, put them in his front trousers pocket, and zipped the rest into his money belt.

  He came out to wash his hands, looked at himself in the mirror, and shook his head. He looked like an old man without the gray hair or wrinkles. It was time he treated himself to a new look and dressed his age. He had been attired like an older gentleman for too long. Three-piece suits, a tie, and Florsheim shoes were the mandatory uniform for members of the House of Lords.

  Oh, my God! Am I even considering losing the title? Am I letting that little bleached-blond harlot force me into ending the generations long heritage, even if I don’t have an heir? Change in plans—find the airport post office.

  The microscopic suite was not easy to find. Even the ‘you are here’ maps at the airport only had an asterisk for the postal outlet location. Airport security was actually helpful. They did have a function other than bumping up add-on charges to airfare ticket prices and patting down—or was that feeling up?—random passengers. James finally found the kiosk and the clerk who had the required forms.

  ‘The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled- Be it known that due to unforeseen circumstances, I, Lord James Ignatius Melbourne, request leave of absence until further notice. Please be advised that I have not deserted my position and am in full possession of my faculties. Any urgent correspondence can be forwarded to my club, Mrs. White’s House of Chocolates, but do not expect an immediate answer. I prefer to remain incommunicado at this time. Your humble servant, Lord James I. Melbourne’