by J. R. Ward
She had a point. Edward hated their father already. The idea the man had stolen funds?
Gin got to her feet and went over to the bar for a refresh. "Is tomorrow still going forward?"
"The brunch?" He shrugged. "I don't know how to stop it. Besides, it's mostly been paid for already. The food, the liquor, the rentals."
He was ashamed of the other reason to keep the event on track: The idea that the world might know even a hint of the problems his family was potentially facing was unacceptable to him.
The sound of someone coming down the carpeted stairs at an absolute tear made his sister cock an eyebrow. "Looks like you're about to have a marital moment."
"Only if she finds me--"
Chantal appeared in the parlor's doorway, her normally pale and placid face ruddy as a tar layer's at a BBQ.
"How dare you," his wife demanded.
"Guess you're packing your bags, darling," Gin said with a Christmas-morning smile. "Shall I call for the butler? I think we can grant you that last courtesy. Consider it your going-away gift."
"I am not leaving this house." Chantal ignored Gin. "Do you understand me, Lane."
He circled the ice in his glass with his forefinger. "Gin, will you give us a little privacy?"
With an obliging nod, his sister headed for the archway, and as she went by Chantal, she paused and glanced back at him. "Make sure the butler checks her suitcases for jewelry."
"You are such a bitch," Chantal hissed.
"Yes, I am." Gin shrugged as if the woman was barely worth the breath to speak. "And I also have a right to the Bradford name and legacy. You do not. Bye, now."
As Gin threw out a toodle-oo wave, Lane stepped up and moved his body between the two of them so they could avoid an Alexis/Krystle lily pond moment. Then he went over and slid the panels shut, even though he didn't want to be alone with his wife.
"I'm not leaving." Chantal wheeled around on him. "And this is not happening."
As she tossed the divorce petition to the floor at his feet, all he could think of was that he didn't have time for this. "Listen, Chantal, we can do this the easy way or the hard way--it's your choice. But know if you choose the latter, I will go after not only you, but your family. How do you suppose your Baptist parents would feel if they received a copy of your medical records on their front doorstep? I don't think they're pro-choice, are they?"
"You can't do that!"
"Don't be stupid, Chantal. There are all kinds of people I can call on, people who owe my family debts that they are eager to pay off." He walked back to the bar and poured more Family Reserve into his glass. "Or how about this one. How about those medical records fall into the hands of the press, or maybe an online site? People would understand why I'm divorcing you--and you'd have a hell of a time finding another husband. Unlike up north, we Southern men have standards for our wives, and they do not include abortion."
There was a long stretch of silence. And then the smile that came back at him was inexplicable, so confident and calm, he wondered if she'd gone daft in the last two years.
"You have more to keep quiet than I do," she said softly.
"Do I." He took a deep draw from the edge of his glass. "How do you figure that. All I did was the right thing by a woman I supposedly got pregnant. Who knows if it was mine, anyway."
She pointed to the paperwork. "You are going to make that go away. You are going to allow me to stay here for however long I want. And you are going to escort me to the Derby festivities tomorrow."
"In what parallel universe?"
Her hand went to her lower belly. "I'm pregnant."
Lane barked out a laugh. "You tried that once before, sweetheart. And we all know how it ended."
"Your sister was wrong."
"About you stealing jewelry? Maybe. We'll see about that."
"No, about the fact that I don't have every right to be here. And so does my child. As a matter of fact, my child has as much right to the Bradford legacy as you and Gin do."
Lane opened his mouth to say something--and then slowly closed it. "What are you talking about."
"I'm afraid your father is no better a husband than you are."
A tinkling rose up from his glass, and he looked down, noting from a vast distance that his hand was shaking and causing the ice to agitate.
"That's right," Chantal said in a slow, even voice. "And I think we're all aware of the delicate condition of your mother. How would she feel if she knew that her husband had not only been unfaithful, but that a child was going to be born? Do you think she'd take more of those pills she's already so reliant on? She probably would. Yes, I'm sure she would."
"You bitch," he breathed.
In his mind, he saw himself locking his hands around the woman's throat and squeezing, squeezing so hard that she started to struggle as her face turned purple and her mouth gaped.
"On the other hand," Chantal murmured, "wouldn't your mother enjoy knowing that she was going to be a grandmother for the second time? Wouldn't that be cause for celebration."
"No one would believe it's mine," he heard himself say.
"Oh, but they will. He's going to look just like you--and I've been going up to Manhattan on a regular basis to work on our relationship. Everyone here knows it."
"You lie. I've never seen you."
"New York City is a big place. And I've made sure that all are aware in this family are aware that I've seen you and enjoyed your company. I've also talked about it to the girls at the club, their husbands at parties, my family--everybody has been so supportive of you and me."
As he remained silent, she smiled sweetly. "So you can see how those divorce papers aren't going to be required. And how you aren't going to say a thing about what happened between us with our first baby. If you do, I'm going to blow the lid wide open on your family and embarrass you in front of this community, your city, your state. Then we'll see how long it takes you to have to put on your funeral suit. Your mother's out of it, but she's not totally isolated--and her nurse reads her the paper every morning right beside her bed."
With a self-satisfied expression, Chantal turned away and shoved the panels open, clipping her way out into the marble foyer, once again the lady of leisure with the Mona Lisa smile.
Lane's entire body shook, his muscles screaming for action, for vengeance, for blood--but the rage was not aimed at his wife any longer.
It was all directed toward his father.
Cuckold. He believed that was the old-fashioned word that was used to describe this kind of thing.
He'd been cuckolded by his own goddamn father.
When in the hell was this day going to be over, he thought.
TWENTY-FIVE
Lizzie told herself she was not checking her phone. Not when she took the thing out of her purse and transferred it into her back pocket as soon as she walked through the front door of her farmhouse. Not as, a mere fifteen minutes later, she made sure that the ringer was on. And not even when, ten minutes after that, she unlocked the screen and made sure she hadn't missed any texts or calls.
Nothing.
Lane hadn't pinged her to make sure she'd gotten home. Hadn't responded to her text. But come on, like he didn't have a wet cat on his hands?
Jeez.
And yet she was antsy as she paced around. Her kitchen was spotless, which was a shame because she could have used something to clean up. The same was true with her bedroom upstairs--heck, even her bed was made--and she'd done her laundry the night before. The only thing that she found out of place was the towel she'd used that morning to dry off with after her shower. She'd hung it loosely over the shower curtain, and since it was still inside the two-day rule for going into the hamper, all she could do was fold the thing the long way and thread it back through the rod that was on the wall.
Thanks to a mostly cloudless day, her house was warm up on the second floor and she went around and opened all the windows. A breeze that smelled like the meadow around the proper
ty blew in and cleaned out the stuffiness.
Would that it could pull the same trick with her head. Images from the day bombarded her: her and Lane laughing when she'd just come in to work; her and Lane staring at her laptop; the two of them . . .
All up in her head, Lizzie returned to the kitchen and opened the door to the refrigerator. Nothing much there. Certainly nothing she had any interest in eating.
As the urge to check her phone again hit, she told herself to cut it out. Chantal could be a problem on a good day. Slapped with divorce papers with the scene witnessed by one of the help--
The sound of footsteps out on the front porch brought her head up.
Frowning, she shut the fridge and walked ahead to her living room. She didn't bother to check to see who it was. There were two choices: her next-door neighbor on the left, who lived five miles down the road and had cows who frequently broke through his fence and wandered into Lizzie's fields; or the next-door neighbor on the right, who was a mere mile and a quarter away, and whose dogs frequently wandered over to check out the free-range cows.
She started her greeting as she opened things up. "Hi, there--"
It was not her neighbors with apologies for bovines or canines.
Lane was standing on her porch, and his hair looked worse than it had in the morning, the dark waves sticking straight up off his head like he'd been trying to pull the stuff out.
He was too tired to smile. "I thought I'd see if you made it home all right firsthand."
"Oh, God, come here."
They met in the middle, body to body, and she held him hard. He smelled like fresh air, and over his shoulder, she saw that his Porsche had its top down.
"Are you all right?" she said.
"Better now. By the way, I'm kind of drunk."
"And you drove here? That's stupid and dangerous."
"I know. That's why I'm confessing."
She stepped back to let him come in. "I was about to eat?"
"You have enough for two?"
"Especially if it will sober you up." She shook her head. "No more drinking and driving. You think you have problems now? Try adding a DUI to your list."
"You're right." He looked around, and then went over to her piano and rested his hand on the smooth key guard. "God, nothing's changed."
She cleared her throat. "Well, I've been busy at work--"
"That's a good thing. A great thing."
The nostalgia on his face as he continued to stare at her antique tools and her hanging quilt and her simple sofa was better than any words he could have spoken.
"Food?' she prompted.
"Yes. Please."
Down in the kitchen, he went right over and sat at her little table. And abruptly, it was as if he had never been gone.
Be careful with that, she told herself.
"So how would you like . . ." She rifled through the contents of her cupboards and her refrigerator. ". . . well, how'd you like some lasagna that I froze about six months ago, with a side order of nacho chips from a bag I opened last night, capped off with some old Graeter's Peppermint Stick ice cream."
Lane's eyes focused on her and darkened.
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Clearly, he was planning on having something else for dessert--and as her body warmed from the inside out, that was more than all right with her.
Shoot, she so wasn't listening to common sense here. Getting rid of his wife was only the tip of the iceberg for them, and she needed to keep that in mind.
"I think that sounds like the best meal in the world."
Lizzie crossed her arms and leaned back against the refrigerator. "Can I be honest?"
"Always."
"I know that Chantal got served with divorce papers. It was something I walked in on. I didn't mean to see the deputy do the deed."
"I told you that I was ending things."
She rubbed her forehead. "About two minutes before that, she came to me to plan an anniversary dinner for the pair of you."
There was a quiet curse. "I'm sorry. But I'm telling you right now, there is no future in the cards for her and me."
Lizzie stared at him long and hard--and in response, he didn't move, he didn't blink, he didn't say another word. He just sat there . . . and let his actions speak for him.
Damn it, she thought. She really, really didn't need to fall for him again.
*
As night settled over the stables, Edward found himself falling into his normal evening routine. Glass of ice? Check. Booze? Check--gin, tonight. Chair? Check.
Except when he sat down and faced all of those necessaries, he drummed his fingers on the armrest instead of putting them to use to crack the seal on the bottle.
"Come on," he said to himself. "Get with the program."
Alas . . . no. For some reason, the door out of the cottage was talking to him more than the Beefeater when it came to things he needed to open.
The day had been a long one, what with a trip to Steeplehill Downs to check on his two horses and make the call, with his vet and his trainer, that Bouncin' Baby Boy had to be scratched because of that tendon problem. Then he'd been back here, getting an assessment on five of his broodmares and their pregnancies, and reviewing the books and accounts with Moe. At least there had been good news on that front. For the second month in a row, the operation was not just self-sustaining, but pulling a profit. If this kept up, he was going to end those transfers from his mother's trust, the ones that had been providing a regular injection of cash into the business since back in the eighties.
He wanted to be totally independent of his family.
In fact, one of the first things he'd done when he'd gotten out of the rehab hospital was refuse his trust distributions. He didn't want to have anything to do with funds even remotely associated with the Bradford Bourbon Company--and the entire stock position of his first - and second-tier trusts was straight-up BBC. In fact, he hadn't found out about the transfers from his mother to the Red & Black until about six months in, and at that time, he'd been barely waking up to life at the stables. If he'd stopped them at that point? The operation would have gone under.
It had been a long time since someone with any kind of business acumen had been at the horse enterprise, and whatever his weaknesses were now, his knack for making money had remained unscathed.
One more month. Then he'd be free.
God, he was more exhausted than usual. More achy, too. Or maybe the two were inextricably intertwined?
And yet he still couldn't pick up the bottle.
Instead, he got to his feet with his cane and gimped his way to the drapes, which had been closed since the day he'd moved in. It was pitch-black outside now, only the big sodium lights at the heads of the barns throwing a peach glow against the darkness.
Cursing under his breath, he went to the front door and opened it. Paused for a moment. Limped out into the night.
Edward crossed the grass on a ragged gait and told himself he was going to look in on that mare who was having problems. Yes. That's what he was doing.
He was not checking in with Shelby Landis. Nope. He was not, for example, concerned that he hadn't seen her leave the farm all day and that meant that she probably had no food in that apartment of hers. He was also not, say, making certain that she had hot running water because, after the twelve hours she'd put in hauling wheelbarrows, sacks of grain that were the size of her truck, and itchy hay bales, she probably was going to be sore and in need of a good shower.
He was absolutely, positively--
"Damn it."
Without even being aware of it, he'd gone to the side door to Barn B . . . the one that opened up to the office, as well as the set of stairs that would take him to her place.
Well, considering he was here already . . . he might as well see how she was doing. Out of loyalty to her father, of course.
He did not run a hand through his hair before he turned the knob--
All right, maybe just a little, but only because he needed
a haircut and the stuff was in his eyes.
Motion-activated lights came on as he stepped into the office area, and all those steps to the old hayloft area loomed over his head like a mountain he was going to have to struggle to climb. And what do you know, his pessimism was well founded: He had to take a breather halfway up. And another as soon as he reached the top.
Which was how he heard the laughter.
A man's. A woman's. Coming from Moe's apartment.
Frowning, Edward glanced toward Shelby's door. Shuffling over, he put his ear to the panels. Nothing.
When he did the same to Moe's? He could hear them both, the strong Southern drawls going back and forth like the fiddle and the banjo of a Bluegrass Band.
Edward closed his eyes for a moment and sagged against the closed door.
Then he picked himself up and caned his way down those stairs, out onto that grass, and back to his cottage.
This time he had no problem opening his booze. Or pouring it into his glass.
It was during his second serving that he realized it was Friday. Friday night.
Wasn't that a lucky draw.
He had a date, too.
TWENTY-SIX
Sutton Smythe looked over the crowd that had filled the Charlemont Museum of Art's main gallery space to capacity. So many faces she recognized, both those she knew personally and those she had seen on newscasts, on television, and on the big screen. Many people waved at her as they caught her eye, and she was cordial enough, lifting her palm in return.
She hoped that none of them came up to her.
She wasn't interested in connecting over a kiss on the cheek and an inquiry about their spouse or an introduction to their escort of the night. She didn't want to be thanked, yet again, for her generous donation last month of ten million dollars to kick-start the capital campaign for the museum's expansion. She also didn't want to have to acknowledge her father's permanent loan of that Rembrandt or the Faberge egg that had been gifted outright in honor of her dearly departed mother.
Sutton wanted to be left alone to search the crowd for that one face she was looking for.
The one face she wanted . . . needed . . . to see.
But Edward Baldwine was, once again, not coming. And she knew this not because she'd been standing here in the shadows for the past hour and a half as the guests arrived to the party she was throwing on behalf of her family, but because she'd insisted on seeing a copy of the RSVP list once a week, and then daily, leading up to the event.
