Old Money

He came out after finishing his homework, then waited half an hour under the streetlamp by the school gate, reading?

He didn't call him out on it.

"Isn't your home in the South District? It's out of your way."

"A little detour doesn't matter. We have a car, anyway." Gray turned and opened the car door. "Get in. It's too late to walk home safely."

A middle-aged man in uniform sat in the driver's seat. His temples had turned completely white, and his hands rested steadily on the steering wheel.

"This is Macleod, my family's driver," Gray introduced him.

The man glanced at Richard in the rearview mirror and said nothing.

He had worked as Gray's full-time driver for twenty years, ever since she was a baby who could be held in someone's arms. He'd been driving her to and from places ever since.

Miss had never waited for anyone outside the school gates before. Today was a first.

But seeing something and pretending not to see it was a basic virtue of an old servant.

Richard got into the car.

Once the door closed, the wind and noise of the street were shut out at once.

The interior had leather seats, walnut trim, and a brass ashtray set into the armrest.

The leather was almost absurdly soft. The moment he sat down, he sank half an inch into it.

The interior of this car probably cost more than all the furniture in his family's living room combined.

Gray sat beside him, with no more than an arm's length between them.

The girl closed her book and turned her gaze to Richard.

Over the past few days, Richard Williams had been changing.

She remembered perfectly what Williams had been like a month ago.

That sickly boy's eyes always turned downward. He'd been as meek as a weed by the roadside.

But now he was almost dazzling.

Gray knew Richard's mother came from the Ashford Family.

Few members of the old families in the Imperial Capital were ugly. Margaret had especially fine features, and that had clearly been passed on to her son.

The line of his nose, the curve of his brow, the slight narrowing of his jaw... he'd always had good bone structure, but his illness and thinness had hidden it.

Now that his health had improved a little, those good features were starting to show.

And when someone was confident and composed, their whole face changed along with them.

Standing among a crowd now, Richard could already be called a handsome young man.

"What were you reading in the library?" the girl asked, deliberately looking for a topic.

"Miscellaneous books. I'm preparing for the Cicero Cup."

"Until seven?"

"I got absorbed and lost track of time."

Gray gave him a thoughtful look.

"Williams, do you believe in that sort of thing?"

She abruptly asked something unrelated.

"What sort of thing?"

"The God-Descending Disk. That day, you told us about the Ideomotor Effect and the oxygen levels in an enclosed space... Science, reason. It all explained everything."

The girl looked straight at him with her blue eyes.

"But you held that cloth bag for too long."

Richard kept his expression neutral, waiting for her to continue.

"Someone who purely believed in the scientific explanation wouldn't hold an unknown object in their hands for that long."

Rows of rooftops passed outside the window, their chimneys standing like black lines against the night.

"I don't know what you were doing."

Gray realized she was being too confrontational, and softened her tone.

"But the candle only went out after you were done. I remember that very clearly."

After a few seconds of silence, Richard spoke. "Gray, are you interested in this sort of thing?"

"I've been interested in it since I was little." She said it as casually as someone might say they'd always liked strawberries.

"There's a whole wall of old books in my family's study. Most of them were left by my grandfather.

"When I was little, I'd flip through them and think the illustrations were beautiful. It wasn't until later that I understood what they depicted."

She stopped there.

Richard didn't press her.

They both sensed something familiar in each other, but neither said it outright.

The car turned down two streets. Gray had the driver stop at a corner not far from Richard's home.

"We're here."

"Thanks for today, Gray." Richard opened the car door, and cold air rushed in.

"You're welcome."

The girl hesitated, then took a paper parcel from her pocket and held it out.

"These are scones I made for my mother. Try one and tell me how they taste."

Richard took it.

The parcel was still a little warm. She must have kept it in her pocket the whole time.

"They smell delicious. I'll make sure to savor them." He didn't refuse.

"All right, see you tomorrow." Gray visibly relaxed.

The car door closed, and the car drove off beneath the streetlights. Its red taillights disappeared around the corner.

Richard stood beneath the streetlamp with his schoolbag in hand and looked down at the parcel.

The sweet smell of scones seeped through the paper.

After sitting in the back seat of that car for ten minutes, he'd confirmed one thing: the Gray family's finances were at least as good as Warren's.

Warren was rich, but his money had the air of someone who'd just struck it rich: ordering the most expensive steak, speaking the loudest, making sure everyone saw him spend money.

Gray was different.

The car, the driver, the wool coat without a stitch visible... everything was of excellent quality, but none of it was showy.

Old money.

The phrase popped into his head, fitting perfectly with the class structure of the industrial age.

Warren's family had made its fortune in coal mines and had only been rich for three generations. The Gray family had accumulated wealth for at least five generations. They were steady, understated, and had deep roots.

In their group of three, Warren was the front man, Mason was the tagalong, and Gray was the real center.

Richard put away the parcel and headed for home.

A few steps from the house, he saw light spilling from the living-room window.

Before he'd even reached the steps, the front door opened from inside.

Evelyn stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

Her gaze passed over Richard's shoulder and landed on the road behind him.

Clearly, someone by the window had just witnessed the whole thing.

"Bro."

"Mm."

"You got out of a car."

"Mm."

"A really expensive car."

"A classmate gave me a ride home."

Evelyn's brows drew together. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.

"What classmate? A boy or a girl?"

"A girl."

Richard answered so readily that Evelyn's composure fell apart at once.

"A... a girl classmate? One who drives a car like that?"

"Her family's driver brought me home."

"You... you know a girl whose family has a car like that?"

Inside the living room, their father's head appeared over the edge of his newspaper.

Their mother leaned halfway out from the kitchen doorway, still holding a dishcloth.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing." Richard walked inside. "I stayed late at the library today, and a classmate gave me a ride since she was going my way."

"That car that brought you home..." Evelyn followed after him, still muttering. "That was an Alvis, bro! You could count the families in Briston who own one on your fingers!"

"You recognize car makes now?"

"My classmate's dad works at a car dealership!"