The Bourbon Kings

by J. R. Ward

  Buggy cleared her throat. "I, ah, I heard what happened to you. I didn't realize, however--"

  "The plastic surgeons did a fine job with my face, don't you think."

  "Ah . . . yes. Yes, they did."

  "But enough of catching up. You are leaving."

  Buggy pinned a smile on her face. "Now, Edward, how long have our families gone back?"

  "Your husband's family and mine have known each other for over two hundred years. I don't know your kin and have no intention of making their acquaintance. What I am very sure of, however, is that you are not leaving here with rights to any foal. Now, g'on. Get going."

  As he turned away, she said, "There is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in that briefcase."

  "Is that supposed to impress me? My dear woman, I can find a quarter of a million in the cushions of my couch so I assure you, I am wholly unswayed by your show of liquidity. More to the point, I can't be bought. Not for one dollar. Not for a billion." He glanced over at the chauffeur. "Am I getting my shotgun. Or are you squeezing yourself back into that limo and having your driver hit the gas?"

  "I am going to tell your father about this! This is disgraceful--"

  "My father is dead to me. You're more than welcome to discuss my business with him, but it will get you no further than this wasted trip out into the country. Enjoy your Derby weekend--elsewhere."

  Pushing into the broom handle, he started to shamble his way back to the barn. In his wake, the chorus of multiple car doors opening and closing and the limo's tires squealing out on the asphalt suggested that the woman was on her cell phone, bitching to her twenty-years-older husband about the shameful way she'd just been treated.

  Although considering gossip had her having been an exotic dancer in her twenties, he could guess she'd been exposed to rather a lot worse in her previous life.

  Before he went back inside and resumed his sweeping, he looked over the vista of his farm: The hundreds of acres of rolling grassland that was cut into paddocks with dark brown five-rail fences. The three stables with their red and gray slate roofs and their black siding with red trim. The outbuildings for the equipment, and the state-of-the-art trailers, and the white farmhouse where he stayed, and the clinic and the exercise ring.

  His mother owned all of it. Her great-grandfather had bought the land and started the equine enterprise, and then her grandfather and father had continued to invest in the business. Things had coasted after her father died some twenty years ago--and Edward had certainly never considered getting involved.

  As the eldest son, he'd been destined to step into the leadership role at the Bradford Bourbon Company--and actually, more than what legacy or primogeniture dictated, that had been where his heart was. He had been a distiller in his blood, as scrupulous with his products as a priest.

  But then everything had changed.

  Red & Black Stables had been the best, post-everything solution, a diversion that occupied his days until he could drink himself to sleep. And even better, it was something his father wasn't involved in.

  What little future he had was here with the bluegrass and the horses.

  It was all he had.

  "You enjoyed that, didn't you," Moe said from behind him.

  "Not really." He shifted his weight and began to sweep the aisle again. "But no one is getting a part of this farm, not even God Himself."

  "You shouldn't talk like that."

  Edward glanced over his shoulder to remind the man what his face looked like. "You really think there's anything I'm afraid of now?"

  As Moe made the sign of the cross, Edward rolled his eyes . . . and went back to his work.

  NINE

  "--laying in bed and playing with my breasts." Virginia Elizabeth Baldwine, "Gin" to her family, leaned back in her padded chair. "And then I'm putting my hand between my legs. What do you want me to do with it now that it's there? Yes, I'm naked . . . what else would I be? Now, tell me what to do."

  She tapped her cigarette over the Baccarat crystal wineglass she'd emptied about ten minutes ago and crossed her legs under her silk robe. The tugging on her hair was beyond annoying, and she glared at her hairstylist in the mirror of her bathroom.

  "Oh, yes," she moaned into her cell phone. "I'm wet . . . so wet, only for you . . ."

  She had to roll her eyes at the good girl reference, but that was what Conrad Stetson liked because he was an old-fashioned kind of man--he needed the illusion that the woman he was being unfaithful to his wife with was monogamous to him.

  So silly.

  But Gin did rather miss the early days of their relationship. It had been heady stuff to draw him slowly, inexorably away from his marriage. She had reveled in how hard he'd fought the attraction to her, the shame he'd felt when they'd first kissed, the way he'd tried so valiantly not to call her, see her, seek her out. And for a week or two, she'd actually been interested in him, his attention a drug well worth bingeing on.

  Once she'd fucked him a few times, though? Well, it was too much missionary, for one thing.

  "Oh, yes, yes, yes . . . I'm coming, I'm coming . . ."

  As she "orgasmed," her stylist flushed from embarrassment but kept pinning her dark hair in place while a maid came in from the walk-in closet with a velvet tray in her hands. On it were two parures, one made of Burmese rubies by Cartier in the forties and the other a sapphire creation done in the late fifties by Van Cleef & Arpels. Both were her grandmother's, one having been given to Big Virginia Elizabeth by her husband on the birth of Gin's mother, and the other presented on her grandparents' twentieth wedding anniversary.

  She made a moaning noise; then hit mute and shook her head at the maid. "I want the Winston diamonds."

  "I believe Mrs. Baldwine is wearing them."

  As Gin pictured her sister-in-law, Chantal, with the hundred-plus carats of D flawless on, she smiled and spoke slowly, as if addressing a dolt. "Then take the diamonds my father bought my mother off that bitch's neck and ears and bring them here to me."

  The maid blanched. "My . . . pleasure."

  Just before the woman stepped out of the bedroom, Gin called over, "Make sure you clean them first. I can't stand that drugstore perfume she insists on wearing."

  "My pleasure."

  It was a bit of a stretch to refer to Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf as "drugstore," but it certainly wasn't Chanel. Honestly, though, what could you expect from a woman who hadn't even made it through Sweet Briar?

  Gin unmuted the phone. "Baby, I've got to go. I need to get ready. I'm so sorry you can't be here, but you understand."

  Cue that Peanuts' routine, where the adult's voice turned muffled.

  God, had he always had that thick of a Southern accent? Bradfords didn't have any kind of dreadful garbled twang--only enough of a drawl to prove what side of the Mason-Dixon Line they were born and lived on and that they knew the difference between bourbon and whiskey.

  The latter being beneath contempt.

  "Bye, now," she said, and hung up.

  As she ended the call, she decided to end the relationship. Conrad had started talking about leaving his wife, and she didn't want that. He had two children, for godsakes--what was he thinking. It was one thing to have some fun on the side, but children needed the illusion of two parents.

  Plus, she'd already proven she had no business being a mother to anything. Not even a goldfish.

  A half hour later, she was dressed in a Christian Dior gown made of U of C red and had that Harry Winston necklace laying heavy and cool on her collarbones. Her perfume was Coco by Chanel, a classic that she had decided she could carry off when she hit thirty. Her shoes were Loubou's.

  She was not wearing panties.

  Samuel Theodore Lodge was coming to the dinner.

  As she stepped out into the hall, she looked to the door opposite hers. Sixteen years ago to the day, she had given birth to the young girl who lived in there. And that had been about it for her involvement with Amelia. A baby nurse, followed by
two full-time nannies, coupled with a sufficient passage of time, and they were now in prep-school territory.

  So she didn't even catch a glimpse of her daughter anymore.

  Indeed, Amelia had not come home for spring break, and that had been good. But the summer was looming, and the girl's return from Hotchkiss was not something anyone, even Amelia most likely, looked forward to.

  Could you even send a sixteen-year-old off to summer camp?

  Maybe they could just ship her over to Europe for a two-month tour. Victorians had done that a hundred years ago, before even airplanes and cars with air bags.

  They could pay someone to be her chaperone.

  And actually, the urge to keep the girl away from Easterly wasn't because Gin didn't love her daughter. It was just that the girl's presence was too stark a condemnation of choices and actions and lies that were Gin's own and no one else's--and sometimes it was best not to look too closely at those things.

  Besides, Europe was grand. Especially if one did it right.

  Gin walked on, heading for the straight-out-of-Tara staircase that bifurcated on a middle landing before bottoming out on both sides of Easterly's tremendous marble foyer. The dress spoke up with each of her strides, the fall of silk rustling against the tulle underskirting in a way that made her imagine the hushed conversation of the Frenchwomen who had put the stitches in the gown.

  As she came to the landing and chose the right side, as it was closer to the parlor cocktails were always served in, she could hear the patter of voices. There would be thirty-two for dinner tonight, and she would be seated in the chair her mother should be in, opposite and down the long table from her father at the head.

  She had done this a million times and would do it a million times hence, this acting as the lady of the house--and usually it was a duty she carried out with pride.

  Tonight, however, there was a mourning behind her heart for some reason.

  Probably because it was Amelia's birthday.

  Best to get drinking.

  Especially given that when she had called her daughter, Amelia had refused to come down and get on her dorm's house phone.

  It was the kind of thing Gin would have done.

  See? She was a good parent. She understood her child.

  *

  Lane refused to dress in black tie for dinner. He just kept his slacks on, and traded his shirt for a button-down that he'd left behind when he'd gone to live with Jeff up north.

  He was willing to be on time and that was it.

  As soon as he hit the first floor, he started avoiding people's stares and looking for a drink--and he ran into an old friend before he got to the Family Reserve.

  "Well, well, well, the New Yorker has returned to his roots finally," Samuel Theodore Lodge III said as he came over.

  Lane had to smile. "How's my favorite southern-fried attorney?"

  While they embraced and clapped each other's backs, the blond woman who was with Samuel T. hung off to the side, her eyes missing nothing--which was more than you could say about her dress. Anything shorter up top or on the bottom and she'd be in her underwear.

  So she was right down Samuel T.'s alley.

  "Allow me to introduce Miss Savannah Locke." Samuel T. nodded to the woman as if giving her permission to come forward, and she was right on it, leaning in and offering her pale, slender hand. "Go get us a drink, darling, would you? He'll have the Family Reserve."

  As the woman hightailed it for the bar, Lane shook his head. "I can serve myself."

  "She's a stewardess. She likes to wait on people."

  "Aren't they called flight attendants now?"

  "So what made you decide to come back? It can't be the Derby. That's Edward's thing."

  Lane shrugged off the question, not about to go into the situation with Miss Aurora. Too raw. "I need your help with something. In a professional capacity, that is."

  Samuel T.'s eyes narrowed and then moved down to Lane's wedding ring-free hand. "Cleaning house, are you."

  "How fast can you make it happen? I want things kept quiet and over with quick."

  The man nodded once. "Call me tomorrow morning. I'll take care of everything."

  "Thank you--"

  Up on the grand staircase, his sister, Gin, made the corner at the landing and paused, as if she knew people were going to want to examine what she was wearing--and the red gown and all those jewels were in fact worth the check-out. With acres of crimson silk falling to the floor and that set of Princess Di diamonds, she was the Oscars, Town & Country, and the Court of St. James all at once.

  The hush that quieted through the foyer was both from awe and condemnation.

  Gin's reputation preceded her.

  Didn't that run in the family.

  When she caught sight of him and Samuel T., her eyebrows arched, and for a split second, she smiled honestly, that old light returning to her eyes, the years peeling away until the three of them were who they had been before so much had happened.

  "If you'll excuse me," Samuel T. said. "I'll go see about our drinks. I think my date got lost on the trip back."

  "The house isn't that big."

  "Maybe to you and me."

  As Samuel T. turned away, Gin lifted the skirting of her red gown and finished her descent. When she hit the black and white marble, she came right across to Lane, her stilettos clipping over the floor that had been laid a hundred years before. He expected to do a gentleman's hold on her as they embraced, in deference to her pinned-up hair and her jewels--but she was the one who squeezed until he felt her tremble.

  "I am so glad you're here," she said in a rough voice. "You should have let me know."

  And that was when he did the math and realized it was Amelia's birthday.

  He was about to say something when she pulled back and put her mask in place, her Katharine Hepburn features falling into a perfectly vacant arrangement that made his chest ache.

  "I need a drink," she announced. "And where did Samuel T. go?"

  "He's not alone tonight, Gin."

  "As if that matters?"

  When she walked off with her head high and her shoulders back, he felt sorry for that poor blond stewardess. Lane didn't know who Samuel T's escort was, but she had certainly gotten the right read on her date: Over at the bar, she'd set herself at his hip like a holstered revolver--as if she were fully aware that she was going to have to protect her turf.

  At least he'd have something to watch over dinner.

  "Your Family Reserve, sir? Mr. Lodge sends it with his highest regard."

  Lane turned and smiled. Reginald Tressel had been the bartender at Easterly forever, and the African-American gentleman in his black dress coat and shined shoes was more distinguished than many of the guests, as usual.

  "Thank you, Reg." Lane took a squat cut-crystal glass from the silver tray. "Hey, thanks for calling me about Miss Aurora. Did you get my voice mail?"

  "I did. And I knew you'd want to come down."

  "She looks better than I thought she would."

  "She puts up a front. You're not leaving anytime soon, are you?"

  "Hey, how's Hazel doing?" Lane deflected.

  "She's much better, thank you. And I know that you won't go back up north until things are finished here."

  Reginald gave him a smile that didn't change the grim light in those dark eyes, and then the man returned to his duties, walking through the crowd like a statesman, people greeting him as an equal.

  Lane could remember when he was young people saying that Mr. Tressel was the unofficial mayor of Charlemont, and that certainly hadn't changed.

  God, he wasn't ready to lose Miss Aurora. That would be like having to sell Easterly--something he couldn't fathom in a universe that was functioning properly--

  The scent of cigarette smoke made him stiffen.

  There was only one person allowed to smoke in the house.

  On that note, Lane went in the opposite direction.

  His father had alw
ays been a smoker in the Southern tradition, which was to say that even though the man had asthma, he viewed it as a patriotic right to give yourself lung cancer--not that he was sick, or would get sick. He believed that a real man never let a lady pull in her own chair at a table, never mistreated his hunting dogs, and never, ever got sick.

  Good code of conduct. The problem was, that was it. Nothing about your kids. The people who worked for you. Your role as a husband. And the Ten Commandments? Just an old list used to govern the lives of other people so that you weren't inconvenienced by them shooting one another up.

  It was funny. Courtesy of his father, Lane had never smoked--and not as some kind of rebellion. Growing up, he and his brothers and sister had known whenever the man was coming by the smell of tobacco, and it had never been good news. Consequently, he pulled a tensed-up Pavlov whenever anybody lit up.

  Probably the only thing his father had contributed to his life in a positive way. And even so, it was a backhanded benefit.

  The ice in his glass sounded like chimes as he walked through the house, and he didn't know where he was going . . . until he came up to the double doors that opened into the conservatory. Even though they were shut, he caught the scent of the flowers, and he stood for a time staring through the panes of glass into the verdant, now-colorful enclave on the other side.

  Lizzie was no doubt in there, arranging the bouquets as she did every year the Thursday before Derby.

  Moth to a flame and all that, he thought as he watched his hand reach out and turn the brass handle.

  The sound of Greta von Schlieber speaking in that German-tinted voice almost made him turn back around. Courtesy of everything that had gone down, the woman hated him--and she was not one to hide her opinions. She was also likely to have a set of garden shears in her hands.

  But the pull to Lizzie was stronger than any urge for self-preservation.

  And there she was.

  Even though it was past eight at night, she was sitting on a rolling stool in front of a table set with twenty-five silver bowls the size of basketballs. Half of them were filled with pale pink and white and cream flowers, and the others were ready to get their due, wet floral sponges waiting to anchor countless blooms.

  She glanced over her shoulder, took one look at him . . . and kept on speaking without missing a beat. "--tables and chairs under the tent. Also, can you get some more preservative spray?"