by J. R. Ward
On that note, because the bastard knew precisely when to pull out, Lane left, closing the door silently.
"Fuck. Me," Jeff muttered to himself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Lizzie shucked her khaki shorts and put them on the counter in Lane's bathroom next to her work shirt. As she straightened, the mirror showed her a reflection that was familiar, but also strange: Her hair was fuzzed up from her ponytail, the sunscreen she'd put on earlier in the afternoon made her skin too shiny, and her eyes had bags under them.
All that was normal, though.
Picking up the black dress in front of her, she slipped it over her head and thought, okay, here was the weirdness.
At Easterly's last big party, less than a week ago, she had been firmly in the staff camp. Now, she was this odd hybrid, part family by virtue of being engaged to Lane, but still on the payroll and very much involved in the preparations and staging for the visitation.
Yanking the tie out, she brushed her hair, but it had a kink in it from the rubber band and looked bad down.
Maybe there was time for a--
Nope. As she looked at her phone, the numbers read 3:43. Not enough for even one of her in-and-out showers.
In seventeen minutes, people were going to start arriving, the buses carrying them up from the parking area down on River Road to the top of the hill and Easterly's grand front door.
"You look perfect."
Glancing over to the doorway, she smiled at Lane. "You're biased."
Lane was dressed in a navy blue suit with a pale blue shirt and a coral-colored tie. His hair was still wet from his shower, and he smelled like the cologne he always wore.
Lizzie refocused on herself, smoothing the simple cotton sheath down. God, she felt like she was wearing someone else's clothes, and jeez, she guessed she was. Hadn't she borrowed this dress from her cousin a decade ago--also for a funeral? The thing had been laundered enough to fade out around the seams, but she'd had nothing else in her closet.
"I'd rather just be working this event," she said.
"I know."
"Do you think Chantal will come?"
"She wouldn't dare."
Lizzie wasn't too sure about that. Lane's soon-to-be-ex-wife was an attention grabber, and this was a prime opportunity for the woman to assert her retained relevance even though their marriage was no longer happening.
Lizzie fluffed her hair up and brought it around front. Which did nothing to help the kink.
Screw it, she thought. She was leaving it down.
"Are you ready?" she said as she went over to him. "You look worried. How can I help?"
"No, I'm fine." He offered her his elbow. "Come on. Let's do this."
He led her out of his bedroom and into the corridor. As they came up to his mother's suite of rooms, he slowed. Then stopped.
"Do you want to go in?" she asked. "I'll wait for you downstairs."
"No, I'll leave her be."
As they continued on to the grand staircase and began their descent, she felt like an imposter--until she sensed the tension in his arm and realized he was leaning on her.
"I couldn't do this without you," he whispered when they got to the bottom.
"You won't have to," she said quietly as they stepped off onto the marble floor. "I'm not going to leave your side."
All around, waiters in black ties and jackets stood at the ready with silver trays, prepared to take drink orders. There were two bars set up, one in the dining room to the left, another in the front parlor to the right, with only Bradford Family Reserve, white wine, and soda available. Flowers that she had ordered and arranged were displayed prominently in each room, and there was an antique circular table centered in the entryway with a condolences book and a silver plate for receiving cards.
Gin and Richard were the next of the family to arrive, the pair of them coming down the stairs with the distance of a football field between them.
"Sister," Lane said as he kissed her cheek. "Richard."
The pair of them sauntered off without acknowledging Lizzie, but in her mind, it was a case of sometimes you lucked out. Anything they would say or do was likely to come across as condescending anyway.
"That is not okay," Lane muttered at the slight. "I'm going to have to--"
"Do nothing." Lizzie squeezed his hand to get his attention. "Listen to me when I say this. It doesn't bother me. At all. I know where I stand, and whether your sister approves or disapproves of me? Doesn't change my zip code in the slightest."
"It's disrespectful."
"It's high school mean girls. And I got over that fifteen years ago. Besides, she's like that because she's miserable. You could be standing next to Jesus Christ, son of God, and she'd hate the fact that he was in a robe and sandals."
Lane laughed and kissed her on the temple. "And once again, you remind me of exactly why I'm with you."
*
"Wait. Your tie is crooked."
Mack twisted around. His office came with a shower, sink, and loo set-up, and he hadn't bothered to shut the door when he'd gone in to . . . well, screw up getting this silk noose around his throat.
Beth put some papers on his desk and came over.
The cramped space got even tighter as she stepped in with him, and God, her perfume as she reached up and slid the knot off.
"I don't think this even matches," he said as he tried not to focus on her lips. "The shirt, I mean."
Man, they looked soft.
"It doesn't." She smiled. "But it's okay. You're not judged on your fashion sense."
For a split second, he imagined putting his hands on her waist and pulling her against the front of his hips. Then he would dip his head and find out what she tasted like. Maybe get her up on the lip of the sink and--
"Well?" she prompted as she threw one end of the length over the other at his heart.
"What?"
"Where are you going all dressed up?"
"William Baldwine's visitation at Easterly. I'm late. It starts at four."
The tugging at his throat was erotic, even though it was taking him in the wrong direction: If Beth was messing with his clothes, he wanted her to be taking them off of him.
"Oh. Wow." More tugging. Then she stepped back. "Better."
He leaned to one side and checked himself in the mirror. The damn thing lay straight as a line on a highway, and the knot was right at the collar--and not all wonked one way or the other, either. "Very impressive."
Beth stepped out, and he watched her walk away before he kicked his own ass. By the time he was ready to refocus, she was over at his desk, motioning at things, talking.
She was in red again, and the dress was over the knee, but not too far, and down at the neck, but not too much. Sleeves were short. Stockings? No, he didn't think so--and damn, those were good legs. Flat shoes.
"Well?" she said again.
Okay, he needed to cut the crap before she picked up on this hostile-work-environment vibe he was throwing around.
"I'm sorry?" he asked as he came out of the loo.
"Do you think I could join you? I mean, I didn't work for the man, but I am with the company now."
This was not a date, he told himself as he nodded. Absolutely not.
"Sure." He cleared his throat. "It's an open event. I imagine there'll be a lot of people from the BBC. We should probably go in your car, though. My pick-up truck is not a place for a lady."
Beth smiled. "I'll get my purse. Happy to drive."
Mack stayed behind for a second as she went out to her desk. Forcing himself to look at all the labels on the walls, he reminded his partial erection that she was his executive assistant. And yes, she was beautiful, but there were more important things to worry about than his currently non-existent love life.
Time to go get laid somewhere, he thought. He'd been too damn busy with work lately, and this was what happened: You got a desperate guy around a so much more than halfway decent woman and their dumb handle took over.
/>
"Mack?" she called out.
"Coming--" Stop. It. "No, I mean . . . I'm, ah . . ."
Oh, for godsakes.
TWENTY-NINE
No one showed.
About an hour and twenty minutes into the visitation, when there should have been a line out the front door and a carousel of buses going up and down the mountain, there had been only a few stragglers, all of whom had taken one look at the dearth of a crowd and beaten a hasty exit out Easterly's door.
As if they had worn Halloween costumes to a ball. Or white after Labor Day.
Or been seated at the children's table during some big event.
Guess he'd been wrong about people wanting to see the mighty fallen up close and in person.
Lane passed a lot of the time wandering from room to room, hands in his pockets because he was feeling like drinking and knew that it was a bad idea. Gin and Richard had disappeared somewhere. Amelia had never come down. Edward was MIA.
Lizzie was sticking right with him.
"Excuse me, sir."
Lane pivoted around to the uniformed butler. "Yes?"
"Is there anything I can do?"
Maybe it was the English accent, but Lane could have sworn Mr. Harris was subtly pleased by the ignominy. And didn't that make Lane want to reach over and rub all that Brylcreem'ed hair into a frosting-on-the-cake mess.
"Yes, tell the waiters to pack up the bars and then they can go home." No reason to pay them to stand around. "And let the parkers and the buses go. If anyone wants to come, they can just leave their cars out front."
"Of course, sir."
As Mr. Harris dematerialized, Lane went over to the base of the stairs and sat down. Staring out through the front door to the fading sunshine, he thought back to the meeting with the board chair. The scenes with Jeff. The meeting with John Lenghe.
Who was supposed to show in an hour, but who knew.
Jeff was right. He was using strong-arm tactics, and muscling people and money around. And yes, it was under the guise of helping the family--shit, saving the family. But the idea that he might be turning into his father made his stomach churn.
Funny, when he had gone to that bridge and leaned over that edge, he had wanted some kind of connection with or understanding of the man. But now he was filing that under be-careful-what-you-wish-for. Too many parallels were mounting, thanks to the way he was behaving.
What if he turned into the sonofabitch--
"Hey." Lizzie sat down next to him, tucking her skirt under her thighs. "How're you doing? Or wait, that's a stupid question, isn't it."
He leaned in and kissed her. "I'm all right--"
"Have I missed it?"
At the sound of a familiar voice that he hadn't heard in a very long time, Lane stiffened and twisted around slowly. ". . . Mother?"
Up at the top of the landing, for the first time in years, his mother stood with the support of her nurse. Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine, or Little V.E. as she was known in the family, was dressed in a long white chiffon gown, and there were diamonds at her ears and pearls around her throat. Her hair was coiffed perfectly on her head and her coloring was lovely, although definitely the result of a good make-up job as opposed to health.
"Mother," he repeated as he got to his feet and took the stairs two at a time.
"Edward, darling, how are you?"
Lane blinked a couple of times. And then took the nurse's place, offering an arm that was readily taken. "Do you want to come downstairs?"
"I think it's appropriate. But oh, I am late. I have missed everyone."
"Yes, they have come and gone. But it is all right, Mother. Let us proceed."
His mother's arm was like that of a bird, so thin under her sleeve, and as she leaned on him, her weight barely registered. They took the descent slowly, and the whole time, he wanted to swing her up and carry her because it seemed as if that might be a safer option.
She took a tumble? He was afraid she was liable to shatter at the bottom of the stairs.
"Your grandfather was a great man," she said as they came down to the foyer's black-and-white marble flooring. "Oh, look, they are removing the drinks."
"It is late."
"I love the sunlight hours in the summer, don't you? They last ever so long."
"Would you like to sit in the parlor?"
"Please, darling, thank you."
His mother didn't so much walk as shuffle across to the archway, and when they finally got to the silk sofas in front of the fireplace, Lane sat her in the one that faced away from the front door.
"Oh, the gardens." She smiled as she looked out of the French doors across the way. "They look so wonderful. You know, Lizzie works so very hard at it all."
Lane hid his surprise by going over and helping himself to a bourbon at the family's cart. It was beyond time that he gave in to his craving. "You know Lizzie?"
"She brings me my flowers--oh, there you are. Lizzie, do you know my son Edward? You must."
Lane looked up in time to see Lizzie do a double take and then cover the reaction well. "Mrs. Bradford, how are you? It's wonderful to see you up and around."
Even though his mother's last name was legally Baldwine, she had always been Mrs. Bradford around the estate. That's just the way things were, and one of the first things his father had learned to hate, no doubt.
"Well, thank you, dear. Now, do you know Edward?"
"Why, yes," Lizzie said gently. "I've met him."
"Tell me, are you helping out with the party, dear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I gather I have missed it. They always told me I would be late for my own funeral. It appears as if I've misjudged my father's as well."
When a couple of the waiters came in to start shutting down the bar in the corner, Lane shook his head in their direction and they ducked back out. Off in the distance, he could hear the clanking of glassware and bottles and a patter of talk from the staff as things were dealt with in the dining room--and he hoped her brain interpreted that as the party winding down.
"Your choice of color is always perfect," his mother said to Lizzie. "I love my bouquets. I look forward to the days you change them. Always a new combination of blooms, and never a one out of place."
"Thank you, Mrs. Bradford. Now, if you will excuse me?"
"Of course, dear. There is much to do. I imagine we had a terrible crush of people." His mother waved a hand as gracefully as a feather floating through thin air, her huge pear-shaped diamond flashing like a Christmas light. "Now, tell me, Edward. How are things at the Old Site? I fear I have been out of circulation for a bit of time."
Lizzie gave his arm a squeeze before she left the two of them alone, and God, what he wouldn't have traded to follow her out of the room. Instead, he sat down on the far side of the sofa, that picture of Elijah Bradford seeming to glare down at him from over the fireplace.
"Everything is fine, Mother. Just fine."
"You were always such a wonderful businessman. You take after my father, you know."
"That is quite a compliment."
"It is meant to be."
Her blue eyes were paler than he remembered, although perhaps that was because they didn't really focus. And her Queen Elizabeth-coiffed hair wasn't as thick. And her skin seemed as thin as a sheet of paper and as translucent as fine silk.
She looked eighty-five, not sixty-five.
"Mother?" he said.
"Yes, darling?"
"My father is dead. You know that, right? I told you."
Her brows drew together, but no lines appeared and not because she'd had Botox. On the contrary, she'd been raised in an era when young ladies had been urged not to go in the sun--not because the dangers of skin cancer had been fully known back then, and not because of any worry about the ozone layer being depleted. But rather because both parasols and liesure had been stylish accessories for the daughters of the rich.
The sixties in the wealthy South had been more analogous to the for
ties everywhere else.
"My husband . . ."
"Yes, Father has died, not Grandfather."
"It is hard for me to . . . time is hard for me now." She smiled in a way that gave him no clue whether she was feeling anything or whether what he was saying was sinking in at all. "But I shall adjust. Bradfords always adjust. Oh, Maxwell, darling, you came."
As she extended her hand and looked up, he wondered who in the hell she thought had arrived.
When he turned around, he nearly spilled his drink. "Maxwell?"
*
"Yes, through there, please. And out to the mudroom."
Lizzie pointed a waiter holding a flat of unused, rented club glasses toward the kitchen. Then she went back to shifting the last of the unopened bottles of white wine into the sleeves of a liquor box on the floor. Thank God there was something to clean up. If she had to stand around all those empty rooms for any longer, she was going to lose her mind.
Lane hadn't seemed to care one way or the other that essentially nobody came, but God . . .
Bending down, she hefted the box up and walked from behind the linen-strewn table. Proceeding out of the dining room through the flap door, she put the box with the other three in the staff hall. Maybe they could return them because the bottles were unopened?
"Every little bit helps," she said to herself.
Figuring that she'd start on the bar out on the terrace, she hesitated at one of the approved staff doors, even though if she used it, she would have to walk all the way around to the other side of the house.
At Easterly, family were allowed to come and go in any fashion at any time. Staff, on the other hand, were regimented.
Then again . . .
"Screw that."
She was not making this effort because she was an employee, but because the man she loved was having a really shitty day and it was killing her to watch it happen and she needed to improve some kind of situation, even if it was just the set-up for an event that had never happened.
Heading through the back rooms, she went out the library's French doors and paused. This was the terrace that faced the river and the big drop down to River Road, and all of the old-fashioned wrought-iron furniture and glass-topped tables had been moved to the periphery to accommodate all the people who had not come.
