Chapter 4: Funeral Games
The hush inside the historic Savannah church was a living thing, thick and palpable, swaddled in the dusty scent of old hymnals and wilting lilies. Stained glass windows, rich as jewels in the morning light, cast pools of ruby and sapphire across the worn pews, illuminating faces polished to a veneer of solemn respect. Jasper stood at the entrance, his hand a steady anchor on the small of Ellie’s back, but the pressure was different today—formal, guiding, not protective. He was the picture of high society politeness, his dark suit impeccably tailored, his posture regal, his nods to arriving mourners exact and measured. The raw, defiant man from the foyer was sealed away beneath a layer of impeccable composure.
Inside, he was wrecked.
The coffin at the front, draped with a spray of white magnolias, seemed an impossible object. It couldn’t contain him. Not the man who smelled of pipe tobacco and salt air, whose laugh could shake the leaves off the live oaks. His grandfather hadn’t been like everyone else in their family. A successful businessman and a pillar of their society, of course. But he’d taught Jasper something more valuable than keeping up the family business and appearances. He’d taught Jasper how to be a good person.
A memory pierced him, sharp and sweet: his small hands struggling with a fishing rod on a weathered dock, the old man’s patient voice cutting through the buzz of cicadas. “Son, a real man isn’t measured by what he takes from the river, but by what he leaves in it. Leave it cleaner. Leave it better.” Another summer, in the book-lined den of the vacation house on Tybee, fireflies blinking outside the screens: “These people, Jace… all this show. It’s furniture. Don’t let it become your spine.” The lessons were a quiet rebellion against the very world now mourning him, a world that valued the furniture far more than the spine. Jasper’s throat tightened. He smiled a small, tearful smile into the dust-moted air, a private salute to the only man who’d ever made this gilded cage feel like it had an open door.
“We should take our seats,” he murmured to Ellie, his voice low and rough with emotion.
They began the long walk down the central aisle, every eye upon them. Ellie, in a simple, knee-length black dress she’d thought was respectful, now felt exposed. The whispers started as they passed, a sibilant rustle like dry leaves skittering across marble.
“…the one from the plane, I heard…”
“…Patricia said her lips were practically bruised when they arrived…”
“…such a vulgar display, and now, of all days…”
“…a Yankee, of course. No sense of propriety…”
The words were barely audible, intended to be heard only by their intended targets, sharp little barbs wrapped in genteel Southern inflection. Jasper, walking with the solemn, heavy tread of grief, seemed encased in glass. He heard the murmur, but not the meaning; the noise washed over him, indistinguishable from the pounding of his own heart.
Ellie heard every syllable.
Her cheeks flushed a scorching, mortified red. She held Jasper’s hand tighter, her fingers lacing through his, seeking a lifeline. He misinterpreted the gesture. He patted her hand gently and gave a soft, grateful nod, believing she was offering him strength, reassurance in his moment of loss. The misunderstanding was a fresh knife twist. Not wanting to make a scene or further hurt him, Ellie didn’t correct him. She just smiled back at him, a brittle, close-lipped curve of her lips, hoping the heat in her face and the sting in her eyes wasn’t showing.
They reached the front pew reserved for family. Patricia was already seated, a sculpture in black crepe and pearls, her gaze fixed ahead on the minister. She did not look at them. To Jasper’s left, the space was empty. To Ellie’s right, Patricia shifted infinitesimally, making room.
“Jasper, darling,” Patricia said, her voice a low, cool thread meant only for the first row. She gestured to the empty seat beside her. “Here.”
As Jasper moved to obey, a figure glided from the side aisle—a young woman with sleek, champagne-blonde hair and a black sheath dress that whispered of money and personal trainers. Charlotte Pembroke, Ellie’s mind supplied, the name surfacing from Jasper’s reluctant briefings on Savannah’s eligible daughters. Her smile at Jasper was one of practiced, sympathetic perfection.
“Jace, I’m so terribly sorry,” she said, her voice like honeyed bourbon. Without waiting, she slipped into the pew, settling herself in the empty space directly beside him. The movement was smooth, natural, seemingly orchestrated by the invisible hand of protocol.
As she arranged her skirt, her hand, weighted with a delicate pearl ring, drifted down and ‘accidentally’ brushed against Jasper’s thigh. It was a fleeting contact, masked by the rustle of fabric, but Ellie saw it from her position on his other side. Saw the slight, possessive tilt of Charlotte’s head, the way her shoulder angled towards Jasper, closing him off.
Ellie felt the wood of the pew hard and unyielding beneath her. The widow’s pew, shared with the ghost of a man she’d never met, vibrated with the silent, judgmental energy of the woman who now shared it. The whispers from the congregation seemed to solidify, to press down on the back of her neck. Jasper, lost in his private sea of grief, seemed oblivious to the territorial maneuver. He gave Charlotte a vague, polite nod of acknowledgement, his eyes already returning to the coffin, to the memories of a better man.
Ellie sat perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap, the ghost of Patricia’s son’s teeth on her shoulder now replaced by the chilling brand of a hundred disdainful eyes. She was an outsider in a church of whispers, clinging to the hand of a man who was mourning one world while she drowned in the subtle, cruel currents of another.
The service was a slow, polished blade of scripture and eulogy. Each resonant word from the minister seemed to layer another sheet of glass between Ellie and the rest of the congregants. She sat imprisoned in the front pew, hyper-aware of the space where Jasper’s thigh almost touched Charlotte’s, of Patricia’s serene, satisfied profile etched against the stained glass. When the final hymn swelled, a somber, Georgian dirge, the collective rising to leave felt like a reprieve from a silent execution.
The reception back at Thornton Hall was a meticulously orchestrated echo of the church. Black-clad figures drifted through the grand parlors, their murmured condolences woven with the clink of fine china and the scent of strong coffee and delicate, crustless sandwiches. Ellie lost Jasper almost immediately. He was swept into a current of older men with similar jawlines and firm handshakes, their words low and weighted with shared loss and unspoken business. She watched his broad back recede, a lonely island in the sea of his inheritance.
She found a temporary anchor near a large bay window overlooking the rain-softened garden. A few kind souls, friends of the grandfather from the club or the university, offered gentle smiles and stories about the man’s secret love for bad puns. These small acts of grace were lifelines. Yet, for every genuine moment, there were two more of crystalline judgment. A cluster of women Patricia’s age, their eyes like polished flint, surveyed her from across the room. Their whispers were just loud enough to carry. “Such a bold color for a funeral,” one remarked, though Ellie wore simple black. Another sipped her tea, her gaze dismissive. “I heard they were quite… affectionate in the arrivals hall. Poor Patricia.”
Alma, the housekeeper, moved through the crowd with a silver tray. Her eyes briefly met Ellie’s, and in them, Ellie saw not malice, but a faint, weary recognition. It was the look of someone who understood the intricate machinery of this house and the sharp teeth of its gears. She offered Ellie a crystal glass of water without a word, a small, silent pact of solidarity before moving on. Ellie took the glass, the chill seeping into her palm.
She searched the room again for Jasper. Her eyes scanned the clusters of mourners, the somber suits and dresses blending into a monochrome tapestry of grief and social ritual. She finally saw him, standing alone for a moment near the grand fireplace, his gaze distant and hollowed. Then, he turned and moved with purpose towards the library, where the closed casket had been placed for a final, private family viewing before the procession to the cemetery. Her heart ached to follow, to offer some tangible comfort, but the invisible barrier of protocol held her in place. This was family time. She was not yet family.
Jasper stood before the casket, the rich scent of polished mahogany and funeral roses thick in the quiet library. The echoed platitudes from the parlor faded here, leaving only the sound of his own breath and the oppressive weight of finality. He looked down at his grandfather’s face, rendered unfamiliar by the undertaker’s art, a waxen imitation of the vibrant, skeptical man he’d loved. The old tie, a hideous thing covered in tiny painted fish, was slightly askew. A final, secret joke between them.
He reached into the casket, his large fingers surprisingly gentle. He adjusted the silk, smoothing it flat against the stark white shirt. A single tear, hot and unbidden, escaped the corner of his eye, tracing a path down his cheek. It was for the fishing trips, for the bad puns, for the quiet lessons that were his only true compass.
He felt a warm presence press close against him from behind, and arms encircled his waist, holding him. A hug. Assuming it was Ellie, sensing his need, a surge of profound gratitude washed over him. He turned within the embrace, a tearful smile ready on his lips, his own arms beginning to rise to pull her close, to bury his face in her fiery, auburn hair.
The perfume that hit him was all wrong—cloying and floral, not Ellie’s clean scent of linseed oil and sunshine. His eyes landed on sleek, champagne-blonde hair. Greedy eyes, moist with false sympathy, set in a perfectly composed face. Charlotte. His smile died. His rising arms froze, then stiffly pushed her encircling arms away from his torso.
He stepped back, putting a foot of cold, formal space between them. His gaze darted towards the library doorway, hoping against hope the encounter had been hidden by the door frame. He knew it wasn’t. In this house, everything was seen. “No problem,” he said, his voice flat and loud, carrying beyond the room. He brushed at his suit jacket, a deliberate gesture as if removing invisible dust, her touch a contaminant. “Have you seen my fiancé, Eleanor, anywhere?”
As the words left his mouth, the whole room began to quiet down. A flicker of jealousy and a bit of anger flashed in Charlotte’s eye but she suppressed it with a tight smile. “Oh, the girl you came with. I thought she was your assistant or something. I think I saw-“ Charlotte was silenced by a Jasper’s sudden hand. Not to strike but in a dismissive wave. “That will do. I’ll go find her myself.” Jasper said, walking away, his eyes scanning the room to find Ellie. Charlotte stood there in shock as whispers began to arise.
The silence that pooled around them was absolute, a vacuum sucking the ambient murmur from the air. Every eye in the library’s doorway was on them, a silent, staring audience of black silk and somber ties. Jasper didn’t care. He had carved a space of raw truth in the perfumed fiction of the room, and the clarity was brutal. He strode past Charlotte, her stunned immobility a statue in his peripheral vision.
The parlor was a gallery of averted gazes and raised teacups when he entered. Conversations stuttered back to life, layered over with a new, electric curiosity. He ignored them all, his focus singular. Where was she? The kind faces by the window were gone. The space by the grand piano held only a wilting fern. A cold dread, separate from his grief, began to knot in his stomach.
He moved through the clusters of mourners, a ship cutting through a frozen sea. “Excuse me,” he muttered, not waiting for a path to clear. His height usually commanded space; now it just made him a easier target for their scrutiny. He caught fragments of the revived whispers, sharp and clear without the church’s echo. “…public scene…” “…disrespectful, with the casket right there…” “…that Charlotte Pembroke, humiliated…”
His grandfather’s voice, memory-soft but iron-strong, sounded in his head. Don’t let the furniture become your spine. The furniture was all around him—the heirloom silver, the portraits of dead Thorntons, the expectations hanging as heavy as the draperies. Ellie was his spine. He had to find her.
He checked the sunroom, the formal dining room where the buffet was laid. Nothing. Alma passed him with an empty tray, her eyes meeting his for a fraction of a second before flicking meaningfully towards the French doors leading to the side veranda. He gave her the slightest nod, a thread of gratitude in the turmoil.
The veranda was wrapped in the damp, green breath of the garden after rain. And there she was. Ellie stood at the stone railing, her back to the house, shoulders curved inwards as if against a physical weight. She was staring at a bed of rain-battered white roses, their petals littering the dark earth like discarded lace. The sight of her solitude, the defensive slope of her back, hit him harder than Charlotte’s ambush.
“Ellie.”
She didn’t turn, but her posture stiffened. He walked up behind her, close enough to feel the heat from her skin, to see the fine, damp hairs on her neck where her updo had come slightly undone. He didn’t touch her. Not yet.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, his voice quieter now, stripped of the force he’d used in the library.
“I needed air,” she said. Her tone was flat, carefully emptied of feeling. “It’s… stifling in there.”
“I know.” He paused, the words sticking in his throat. “What happened in the library…”
“I saw.” She finally turned to face him. Her green eyes were bright, but not with tears. With a fury that shocked him, a deep, banked fire. “I saw her follow you in. I saw her… comfort you.” She spat the last word like a sour taste. “It looked very supportive from the doorway.”
“It wasn’t.” The denial was immediate, blunt. “She grabbed me. I pushed her off. I asked where you were.”
“And announced our engagement to a room full of vultures.” She shook her head, a short, sharp movement. “Jasper, your grandfather is in a box in there. This isn’t the time for your mother’s drama, or your… declarations.”
“It was exactly the time.” He stepped closer, his body blocking her from the view of anyone inside. “He was the only one in that damn house who would have approved. Who would have liked you for you. So yeah, I declared it. In front of his casket and her fake pearls.”
Ellie’s defiant expression faltered. She searched his face, seeing the genuine anguish, the frustration that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the gilded cage of traditions closing in. The anger in her eyes softened into a pained understanding. She reached out, her fingers lightly brushing the label of his suit jacket, a small, grounding touch.
“I just stood there, Jace,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I heard them calling me a Yankee slut. I saw her touch you. And I just… froze. I was so afraid of making it worse for you.”
He finally closed the distance, his large hands coming up to cradle her face. His thumbs swept over her cheekbones. “You could never make it worse. You’re the only thing in this whole godforsaken day that’s real.” He leaned his forehead against hers, their breath mingling in the humid air. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I brought you into this.”
“You didn’t bring me. I came.” She said it with a finality that brooked no argument. “For you.”
From the doorway behind them, a voice, crisp and cold as shattered crystal, cut through the intimate space. “Jasper. The cars are here for the procession to the cemetery.” Patricia stood framed in the French doors, her expression unreadable. “It’s time to say your final goodbyes.” Her gaze swept over their close stance, her lip curling faintly before she turned away, leaving the implication hanging in the air: And do try to compose yourself.