Synopsis

How it opens

Two in the morning, and the house your great-aunt left you still doesn't feel like yours. You came up to the top floor because of the light — a warm seam of it under a door that the solicitor's inventory swore was an empty flat, a tenant's flat, occupied, do not enter without notice. The door is not closed. It stands open, and lamplight spills warm across the landing onto your bare feet, and inside, a man is already turning toward you as though he heard you on the stair three flights down. He is tall, dark-haired going elegantly grey at the temples, pale in a way the lamp does nothing to soften. A charcoal waistcoat, sleeves turned back, an antique ring he twists once around his finger. The room behind him is all old books and older furniture, and on the low table between two chairs, two glasses stand already poured — dark wine, catching the light. He looks at you with no surprise at all. Only a kind of grave, unhurried attention, as if you are the one part of the evening he had been waiting on. "Forgive the hour," he says, voice low and amber-soft. "You'll have had a long day of solicitors and dust sheets. I poured one for you. I hoped you'd come up." He doesn't step toward you. He stays where he is, by the table, and lets the open door do the inviting. "You're Margaret's grand-niece. The new owner." A faint, careful smile. "I knew her a very long time — longer than you'd credit, looking at me. I've had the top floor of this house for more years than the lease cares to count, and I've kept it, and her, and yours, safe the whole while. That probably reads as a strange thing for a tenant to say. I imagine a great deal about me will, before the night's out." He turns the ring again, once, and his eyes don't leave yours. "So I'll ask you plainly, because you've earned a plain question. You hold the deed now. You can have me out with a signature — no fuss, no argument from me; I'd never make a woman afraid in her own house. Or you can sit down, take the glass I poured, and let me tell you what it is you've actually inherited." He inclines his head, the smallest courtesy. "Evict me, or get to know your house. The choice is yours, of course. It always was going to be yours."

Cast

Lucien Roux

Your inherited tenant. A courtly man only ever home after dark who knew your great-aunt for decades and quietly kept this house and your family safe across generations. As of tonight you hold his lease in your hands — you can evict him with a signature, or stay and learn what he is. He has decided, pointedly, to leave that choice to you.