"Dear Viscount Loftus,
I hereby summon you to my manor in hopes of establishing relations purely for business. Don't keep me waiting. Arrive at four sharp.
Signed,
Duke Birghington"
Luke shivered in excitement, "At long last! Here lies an opportunity to sow the bean sprout!"
Maria stopped chewing and looked at Luke with a confused stare. "Sow the… bean sprout? I'm afraid you won't find any giants up that beanstalk."
Luke handed over the letter to Maria. She read the letter aloud.
"Huh?" Maria uttered as she brought the document closer to her face, "Are we quite sure that we are the intended recipient? It feels… a bit ominous, doesn't it?"
Luke took the letter from her hands, folding it up. "I wouldn't want to get any closer to anything of that sort either, but imagine if we obtained the wealth to build a second factory."
"What's with your obsession with building a second factory?"
"You don't understand, Maria, the point is that we double our income. Money rules the world, and I intend to have more of it."
Maria shrugged, digging into breakfast again.
The next hour passed by filled with the sound of silverware clanking and silence. When Luke and Maria were both finished with their food, they cleaned up their area and headed to the living room.
Luke guided his gaze toward the standing clock. It was now one in the afternoon.
He then redirected his gaze toward Maria, "If we set aside an hour to walk and an hour and a half for tea time, that leaves us with half an hour to properly dress ourselves."
"You do realize thirty minutes is not enough time for a woman to prepare herself?" Maria scoffed.
"I don't think I've seen a woman with such a short stature." Luke said, smirking away. Then he added, "You only need that one fancy dress for occasions anyways."
"I hate how you always tease me mercilessly." Maria pouted, crossing her arms and stomping off toward the stairs. Before disappearing to the second floor, Maria halted, "Lilianna recommended that dress to me," she said with a cracked voice. "I spent over half my savings for it, so I don't want to hear your opinion."
I didn't say anything about the dress… Luke thought to himself in confusion as he walked to his bedroom.
Upon entering the familiar room, he headed toward the tall wooden cabinet opposite his bed.
When Luke opened the cabinet, one row was exclusively filled with white shirts, another row was filled with black ties, and the final row was exclusively beige trousers.
He took a set of clothes, setting it on his bed, and took off the clothes he currently wore.
He tossed the dirty clothes into laundry baskets beside his bed. One for shirts, one for ties, and one for trousers. Truly a revolutionary idea from Einstein.
Luke put the clothes he just took off into each basket respectively, and wore the fresh set of clothes he put on the bed.
Now I need a gift… Luke thought to himself.
It was common sense for nobles to provide a gift upon being invited to any event. Those who failed to bring a gift would be viewed as poor and not worthy of noble status. Furthermore, it was against customs to not prepare a gift.
Luke quietly paced across the living room, then up the same stairs Maria climbed.
Many rows of doors occupied both the left and right side of the hall. The first door on the left is Maria's current bedroom. Luke moved toward the end of the hallway, focusing on the last door to the right. Now silence enveloped the hallway past Maria's bedroom.
He stood before a door with a "do not disturb" sign hanging from the doorknob. Luke snickered a little, thinking how ironic the sign was since the room is vacant, and hasn't been visited for a long time.
Luke's heart tightened as he grabbed the knob, slowly turning it. The room previously belonged to his father, yet he'd never met him in the flesh. Luke held a lasting grudge against his father, since he believed that a normal happy family consisted of both parents, yet his expectations were betrayed.
The door creaked open. Luke tried to steady the chaotic pounding from his chest. He would be lying if he claimed he wasn't afraid.
He hated his father, and that's what makes Isaac so terrifying. Everyone is unpredictable, especially for those you have no connections with. Luke peeked through the growing gap in the doorway.
Inside the room was a king sized bed, with curtains hanging on each side, and two dressers also on each side. This room would have practically been barren, but Luke felt suffocated.
The room was covered from floor to ceiling in strange objects, which were probably previously studied upon by his missing father, Isaac, and stored here in his study. Not even the washroom was spared from being filled with mysterious artifacts.
Luke slowly walked around the room, looking for a suitable gift.
However, after circling once, he found no such thing. Almost all the items were related to rituals or religion, none had the artistic expression Luke was looking for.
Suppose I have the spare change to buy a gift…
Luke made his way back down the stairs into the living room, where Maria was dutifully waiting for him. She was wearing the aforementioned eloquent dress which she spent half her savings on. Ignoring her, he picked up an old satchel heavy with gold coins beside the fireplace.
When Maria spotted him, she complained, "I didn't have the time to even put on a simple layer of makeup!"
"No amount of makeup can salvage that face," Luke joked.
"Makeup isn't used to create a new face, it's used to highlight a woman's natural beauty!" Maria immediately rebutted.
"Only those without the natural beauty that you speak of use makeup."
"Am I really that hideous?"
"Try standing in front of a mirror and see if it cracks."
Maria rushed off to the washroom with no hesitation.
Luke reacted in time, and pulled Maria back into the main room.
"Alright, so we will have to delay tea time to evening today, — Yes I know, we were both looking forward to drinking tea — but we will have to stop at Port Plymouth in order to buy a gift for the Duke. Do you have any gift ideas?" Luke asked.
Maria's ears perked up. "We're going shopping?" Maria beamed, her previously sullen expression gone. Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
"No, we're not going shopping, we're picking a gift for the Duke."
"So we're going shopping?"
"Forget it, do you have any ideas for a gift?"
Maria raised her hand to her chin, and stood in that position for some time. She then spoke up, "I don't."
Luke sighed.
"You put me on the spot!" Maria protested. "How about… beauty products?"
Luke got lost in thought.
Does Duke Birghington fancy himself with makeup…?
This was a serious question that he needed an answer to.
He delved deeper into the rabbit hole, imagining an old man in a princess pink dress, sitting in front of a mirror, as he uses a brush to paint his eyelashes. As the man blinked, stars appeared out of thin air to emphasize the cute atmosphere. Luke shuddered at the thought.
Maria, who was becoming impatient, walked up behind Luke and poked both sides of his abdomen.
Luke flinched, "No please! Stay away from me!"
"What are you talking about?" Maria asked in genuine concern.
Luke recognized the voice, a wash of relief came over him. He slowly turned around to face Maria, "Let's wait and see what we find first." He then made the same hand motion as Maria, with a wicked smile. "Secondly, I think I'd like to get some revenge for what you just did"
Luke gave chase to Maria, going from the living room to the front yard where the smog filled sky loomed overhead. As he ran, a thought about the Duke kept taking over his mind. He cursed his good memory, and tried to take his mind off the Duke.
Despite being a proper noble as a viscount, it wasn't the highest title in the hierarchy. As such, the amount of territory given to viscounts was only in the thousands of hectares. For comparison, Dukes received up to a hundred thousand hectares of land, while Barons received only hundreds of hectares.
To be invited to a Duke's residence was certainly a privilege very few find themselves in.
However, the Loftus family was struggling to keep up its appearance as a viscount. The breadwinner for the family was Isaac Loftus, a man with no known history or family records, who married while attending the University of Cambridge.
Most of their income came from awards Isaac received from his many contributions to the scientific world, and from agriculture of many staple crops such as wheat, corn, and potatoes.
But when Isaac set off to research an island he called "Bomb Island" due to its "mysterious" nature before Luke and Maria were born, the family lost its breadwinner, and therefore most of its income.
As a result, the family began to struggle financially.
The Loftus family had to dismiss all of its maids and butlers, leading to the three left behind living independently using the remaining wealth they had. The serfs working for the family had no idea that the Loftus family was struggling financially because tribute requirements were never raised.
Luke wanted to use the remaining wealth he had to relocate to America, where he could establish factories to profit during the Vietnam war. His plan could not come to fruition unless he had more wealth, therefore he planned to sell everything that the Loftus family owned in the United Kingdom to Duke Birghington to increase their wealth.
Luke was just about to catch Maria, when the worn strap of the old satchel snapped. The bag filled with gold coins fell to the ground with a clink. Luke sighed as he kneeled down to pick up the gold coins that spilled out due to the impact. As he picked up coins left and right, he spotted a white cardstock among the fallen coins. Curiosity got the better of him. He picked it up and flipped it over.
Luke froze. His fists clenched, crumpling the edge of the cardstock. His light blue eyes fogged up, and his expression became unreadable. Then, a storm of indescribable rage burst forth.